I'm confused about carbs
hartk001
Posts: 51 Member
I've been using MyFitnessPal (MFP) from mid May to keep track of my diet on a HFLC diet.
One of my worries is my Fiber intake, it never seems to hit target, or get anywhere near it for that matter! This morning I was nibbling at some almond nuts and scanned the info in when it suddenly occurred to me I've been confused about carbs along. I'll ask a very specific question
According to scanned information 30 grams of almond nuts produce the following:
193 Calories
7 Carbs
4 Fiber
17 Fat and
7 Protein
To those HFLC people out there does the above mean that I count 7 Carbs as my intake OR does it mean that I count 3 Carbs (7 Carbs - 4 Fiber) ?
Would that mean when I'm looking at my stats at the end of the day to get the effective amount of carb intake it would be Carbs - Fiber?
Thanks guys for your help.
Kevin
One of my worries is my Fiber intake, it never seems to hit target, or get anywhere near it for that matter! This morning I was nibbling at some almond nuts and scanned the info in when it suddenly occurred to me I've been confused about carbs along. I'll ask a very specific question
According to scanned information 30 grams of almond nuts produce the following:
193 Calories
7 Carbs
4 Fiber
17 Fat and
7 Protein
To those HFLC people out there does the above mean that I count 7 Carbs as my intake OR does it mean that I count 3 Carbs (7 Carbs - 4 Fiber) ?
Would that mean when I'm looking at my stats at the end of the day to get the effective amount of carb intake it would be Carbs - Fiber?
Thanks guys for your help.
Kevin
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Replies
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Most low carb people do carbs - fiber to get net carbs.
There is a LCHF group... http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/394-low-carber-daily-forum-the-lcd-group0 -
Eat ALL the carbs!!!5
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thanks for the linkMost low carb people do carbs - fiber to get net carbs.
There is a LCHF group... http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/394-low-carber-daily-forum-the-lcd-group
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skitttlesrock wrote: »Eat ALL the carbs!!!
Me too, depriving does not work in the long run. At all. Been there and done that a million times. It won't work.0 -
I always subtract fiber from carbs, since fiber isn't absorbed into the bloodstream and just pass through the system.0
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skitttlesrock wrote: »Eat ALL the carbs!!!
Yeah.... That's what made me fat in the first place.
No thanks, you can have em.
OP - most LCHF dieters subtract out fiber counting only net carbs. Otherwise they make their total carb limit a bit higher. I happen to not pay attention to net, only total. But my carb goal is 50-80 g per day. If I was doing net carbs, I'd have a lower carb limit, if that makes any sense. And don't worry about arbitrary fiber goals - if you are not constipated, are getting enough fat and fluid (which helps prevent constipation, btw), and are getting a good amount of fibrous veggies every day, you should be fine. The whole 28 g of fiber a day thing is based on weak observational data and unreliable food frequency questionnaires and there are no good RCTs to back it up.
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tlflag1620 wrote: »skitttlesrock wrote: »Eat ALL the carbs!!!
Yeah.... That's what made me fat in the first place.
No thanks, you can have em.
OP - most LCHF dieters subtract out fiber counting only net carbs. Otherwise they make their total carb limit a bit higher. I happen to not pay attention to net, only total. But my carb goal is 50-80 g per day. If I was doing net carbs, I'd have a lower carb limit, if that makes any sense. And don't worry about arbitrary fiber goals - if you are not constipated, are getting enough fat and fluid (which helps prevent constipation, btw), and are getting a good amount of fibrous veggies every day, you should be fine. The whole 28 g of fiber a day thing is based on weak observational data and unreliable food frequency questionnaires and there are no good RCTs to back it up.
But carbs didn't make you fat. CALORIES made you fat. Eat too many calories: carbs, fat, or protein....bam! Weight gain.
Low carb is an elimination diet. That's fine as for losing weight, some people have medical issues necessitating low carb .....but losing weight is just the first step.
OP - please have an exist strategy for low carb unless you intend to continue to eliminate them when you get to goal.4 -
tlflag1620 wrote: »skitttlesrock wrote: »Eat ALL the carbs!!!
Yeah.... That's what made me fat in the first place.
No thanks, you can have em.
OP - most LCHF dieters subtract out fiber counting only net carbs. Otherwise they make their total carb limit a bit higher. I happen to not pay attention to net, only total. But my carb goal is 50-80 g per day. If I was doing net carbs, I'd have a lower carb limit, if that makes any sense. And don't worry about arbitrary fiber goals - if you are not constipated, are getting enough fat and fluid (which helps prevent constipation, btw), and are getting a good amount of fibrous veggies every day, you should be fine. The whole 28 g of fiber a day thing is based on weak observational data and unreliable food frequency questionnaires and there are no good RCTs to back it up.
But carbs didn't make you fat. CALORIES made you fat. Eat too many calories: carbs, fat, or protein....bam! Weight gain.
Low carb is an elimination diet. That's fine as for losing weight, some people have medical issues necessitating low carb .....but losing weight is just the first step.
OP - please have an exist strategy for low carb unless you intend to continue to eliminate them when you get to goal.
1000% True Dat!!!1 -
tlflag1620 wrote: »skitttlesrock wrote: »Eat ALL the carbs!!!
Yeah.... That's what made me fat in the first place.
No thanks, you can have em.
OP - most LCHF dieters subtract out fiber counting only net carbs. Otherwise they make their total carb limit a bit higher. I happen to not pay attention to net, only total. But my carb goal is 50-80 g per day. If I was doing net carbs, I'd have a lower carb limit, if that makes any sense. And don't worry about arbitrary fiber goals - if you are not constipated, are getting enough fat and fluid (which helps prevent constipation, btw), and are getting a good amount of fibrous veggies every day, you should be fine. The whole 28 g of fiber a day thing is based on weak observational data and unreliable food frequency questionnaires and there are no good RCTs to back it up.
But carbs didn't make you fat. CALORIES made you fat. Eat too many calories: carbs, fat, or protein....bam! Weight gain.
Low carb is an elimination diet. That's fine as for losing weight.....but losing weight is just the first step.
OP - please have an exist strategy for low carb unless you intend to continue to eliminate them when you get to goal.
Carbs drive my hunger. They also cause me hypoglycemia, so I had to eat every two to three hours on a high carb diet. That made calories extremely difficult to control (either go hungry all the time and risk hypos, or try to create a deficit eating 6-7 times a day, basically never feeling satisfied). On low carb my appetite is under control, my blood glucose is regulated (no more hypos), and I can go much longer between meals. This makes it easier for me to stick to a calorie goal.
I lost 50 lbs in seven months. Three years ago. Yeah, you can keep your carbs. Not for me! I'll happily continue eating low carb for life
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I've been using MyFitnessPal (MFP) from mid May to keep track of my diet on a HFLC diet.
One of my worries is my Fiber intake, it never seems to hit target, or get anywhere near it for that matter! This morning I was nibbling at some almond nuts and scanned the info in when it suddenly occurred to me I've been confused about carbs along. I'll ask a very specific question
According to scanned information 30 grams of almond nuts produce the following:
193 Calories
7 Carbs
4 Fiber
17 Fat and
7 Protein
To those HFLC people out there does the above mean that I count 7 Carbs as my intake OR does it mean that I count 3 Carbs (7 Carbs - 4 Fiber) ?
Would that mean when I'm looking at my stats at the end of the day to get the effective amount of carb intake it would be Carbs - Fiber?
Thanks guys for your help.
Kevin
I've always gone with total crabs rather than net. I set my goal for total carbs (around 20g). I watch the fibre and sugar too but my carb choices are high fibre and low sugar anyways.
In the Low Carber Daily group mentioned above, I think they put a way to set up net carbs rather than total into their launch pad. If you want to use net, they can probably help you with that.0 -
tlflag1620 wrote: »
Did carbs actually make you fat or too many calories? Most high carb food has a lot of fat too, especially processed food which makes it calorie dense. I'm sure no one in history ever got fat from eating too much brown rice.
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tlflag1620 wrote: »
Did carbs actually make you fat or too many calories? Most high carb food has a lot of fat too, especially processed food which makes it calorie dense. I'm sure no one in history ever got fat from eating too much brown rice.
Too many calories, as the bottom line. That said, I was eating a very USDA style diet - lots of whole grains, veggies and fruit, modest amounts of lean meat, low fat or fat free dairy, very little added sugar or fat, and very, very little saturated fat. I'd given up soda years ago, seldom ate "junk" food, wasn't dining out terribly often (maybe once a month) and fast food was even less often (a few times a year). I had switched to brown rice, whole wheat pasta, 100% whole wheat bread, ate a high fiber cereal with skim milk for breakfast (shredded wheat, and not the sugary mini wheats either, the old school shredded wheat). You get the idea. Based on conventional standards my diet was superb. But I was hungry all the time and simply couldn't reduce calories further without having adherence issues. The lowest I ever got on the USDA style diet was 165 lbs (I'm a 5'7" female, so while 165 isn't too bad, it is still overweight for my height).
After my third child turned 1, and I turned 33, I realized I still had about 25 lbs of baby weight that hadn't shifted, despite doing much of the same things I had done with my first two go-around a with baby weight. I wasn't ready, at age 33, to just throw up my hands and tell myself that being a fat, middle aged housewife was just my "new normal", so I decided to try something completely different. I looked into vegetarian and vegan diets, but honestly it didn't seem too far removed from how I was already eating. I couldn't imagine it would help. I'd been told all my life that low carb diets were "dangerous" and "restrictive" and "unsustainable", but I was pretty desperate. I read up on various plans and came up with my own strategy. Committed to trying it for six weeks, giving myself permission to stop after that six weeks was up if I wasn't happy with the diet and/or my results. I lost 12 lbs that first six weeks, without counting calories and without going hungry (for the first time in many, many years I was eating my fill!). My eczema cleared by 90% without meds. I had only set out to lose 25 lbs, but that happened so fast, I just kept on going. In seven months I lost 50 lbs and have never looked back.
Was low carb (a bit higher than normal, but still under 120g per day) for my 4th pregnancy. I gained the same amount of weight I always do, but it came off so much faster this time (7 months, rather than 12-18 mos). And I don't know if one has anything to do with the other, but with my 3 other kids, I went 2 weeks past my due date each time. This last pregnancy (the LCHF one), my baby was born on her due date, exactly. With my other kids it took 3-5 days for my milk to come in. This time it took 36 hours. I strongly suspect that my lower fat, higher fiber USDA diet was messing with my hormones. And not just insulin, leptin, and grehlin.
Anywho, tldr. Carbs drive my hunger and make it next to impossible for me to create a calorie deficit long enough, and consistantly enough, for me to lose weight. I know it's not lack of commitment or discipline, unless LCHF somehow magically gives people more of those things. I know I wasn't eating a crap diet before I made the switch (my husband was baffled that I started eating all kinds of "bad" food and was rapidly shrinking). I think my body just does better (much, much better) without all the carbs. So, no thanks. Pass the butter, you can keep the bread
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I had no idea some low carb diets count fibre as carbs and try to restrict it. What's the logic there? I know dietary fibre is technically a carbohydrate, but it doesn't act as one for humans, as we can't break it down at all. It has none of the biological effects digestible carbs do.
If you're a cow, you should log fibre as carbs. If you're a human, that seems... not logical. Especially if you're trying to restrict carbs but want to eat plenty of fibre, which, unless you have a rare digestive complaint, you probably do want to do.
I'm just interested in this question, I have no experience with low carb.0 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »I had no idea some low carb diets count fibre as carbs and try to restrict it. What's the logic there? I know dietary fibre is technically a carbohydrate, but it doesn't act as one for humans, as we can't break it down at all. It has none of the biological effects digestible carbs do.
If you're a cow, you should log fibre as carbs. If you're a human, that seems... not logical. Especially if you're trying to restrict carbs but want to eat plenty of fibre, which, unless you have a rare digestive complaint, you probably do want to do.
I'm just interested in this question, I have no experience with low carb.
I don't think any low carb diets actively restrict fiber, it's just some find it easier to track total carbs rather than net carbs. At this point I don't track at all - after three years I have a pretty solid grasp on what foods are low in carbs (total and/or net) and stick to those primarily. There's really no need to eat a crap ton of fiber, especially on a high fat diet. Fiber provides bulk to move things along on a lower fat diet. On a high fat diet, fat lubricates the way, so to speak, so after an initial adjustment period, many people find themselves more "regular" than ever, even if they are getting considerably less fiber. I used to get well over 30 g of fiber per day (quite often over 40g per day), on a high carb diet. Now I average around 20 g of fiber and am more regular than I was when I was eating all that fiber. I tend to think fiber is overrated, but it's just my opinion.
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I eat super high fiber so I like to subtract and use net carbs. I don't think it's a huge deal unless you're trying to get into ketosis.0
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Just seems odd to even include fibre under "total carbs" when it doesn't behave as a carb in the body. I would classify it as a completely different thing.0
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CattOfTheGarage wrote: »Just seems odd to even include fibre under "total carbs" when it doesn't behave as a carb in the body. I would classify it as a completely different thing.
It may have to do with the way the labels are in the US. I believe in some other countries they don't include fiber in the total carb count, but rather list it as a separate item altogether. In the US we have total carbs, then under that it tells you the amount of fiber and sugar (so the rest would be starch and/or sugar alcohols). With modern tracking tools, it's simple as the programs do all the math for you, but back in the day when everything had to be tallied by hand, it was simpler to just go by total carbs... One less calculation means one less place for human error. But you are correct - fiber doesn't spike blood sugar, in fact it can slow the metabolisation of sugar. So it does make sense to treat it differently than other carbs. But also beware that often foods marketed as "low net carbs" have sugar alcohols, and for some people these do have an impact. So make sure the only thing subtracted is fiber.
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I have never met a carb I didn't like, personally.
All in moderation.1 -
Ah, I see. Here, fibre is not included under carbs on labels - only sugars and starch.
I'm not actually sure how sugar alcohols are listed, I haven't come across them in any products I've looked at.
ETA doesn't this mess up the mfp database, though? Because US entries will show higher total carbs than entries from e.g. the UK (I think the whole EU in fact) for exactly the same item?
Gosh, I'm glad I don't track macros, this could drive you mental.1 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »Ah, I see. Here, fibre is not included under carbs on labels - only sugars and starch
I'm not actually sure how sugar alcohols are listed, I haven't come across them in any products I've looked at.
ETA doesn't this mess up the mfp database, though? Because US entries will show higher total carbs than entries from e.g. the UK (I think the whole EU in fact) for exactly the same item?
Gosh, I'm glad I don't track macros, this could drive you mental.
I'm not sure how it works with the database... I would think the US entires would reflect the US labels and fiber would be counted in total carbs (and also in fiber, if you are tracking that), and if the entry originated in, say, UK (where I believe they don't include fiber in total carbs), then total carbs would not reflect the fiber. Just another reason to double check entries, lol, especially if you are tracking macros!
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