Carbs vs. Net Carbs
stillonamission
Posts: 140 Member
I have a question for those veteran low carbers. Did you start counting your carbs as total or net, and have you switched from net carbs to total and seen/felt a difference?
A little history... I have been doing low carb on and offish for 2 years now, I started on the Atkins principle of taking the fiber number out of my carb number. I personally don't worry about sugar alcohol, since nothing I eat has them in there anyway. I also hadn't heard of a keto diet until I joined this group -- and I am so glad that I did!
I have been keeping my carbs under 20 grams net (usually much lower, but there may have been a day or two above) since January 1st. One day last week I went out for Thai with a friend and chose what I thought would be the best (affordable) low carb option. Well, the next day I felt horrible. I had a headache for a day and a half and felt bloated in my whole body. It is possible that the headache came from an ingredient and not the carbs themselves, but I am generally not sensitive to things like that.
I felt so horrible that I decided to go on an egg fast (something I had previously considered a bit extreme) to get back to feeling like myself. I am currently on day 5, so tomorrow I will be starting to add back some normal low carb foods. I have been eating 5-8 total carbs a day, (no fiber) and feel absolutely fantastic -- better than I did before. I was actually bouncing in church yesterday and had to stop myself.
I generally eat as many veggies as my carb count would allow -- a salad everyday for lunch.. broccoli or cauli with my dinner, I thought that would be the hardest part - craving those. Not at all. I don't have any cravings for veggies or anything sweet in the slightest -- I do have a hankering for a big juicy hamburger though!
So my question is did you feel a difference when you went from counting Net to Total carbs? As I transition back to normal, I am wondering if I need a new 'normal' and should stay under 20 total, and not net?
A little history... I have been doing low carb on and offish for 2 years now, I started on the Atkins principle of taking the fiber number out of my carb number. I personally don't worry about sugar alcohol, since nothing I eat has them in there anyway. I also hadn't heard of a keto diet until I joined this group -- and I am so glad that I did!
I have been keeping my carbs under 20 grams net (usually much lower, but there may have been a day or two above) since January 1st. One day last week I went out for Thai with a friend and chose what I thought would be the best (affordable) low carb option. Well, the next day I felt horrible. I had a headache for a day and a half and felt bloated in my whole body. It is possible that the headache came from an ingredient and not the carbs themselves, but I am generally not sensitive to things like that.
I felt so horrible that I decided to go on an egg fast (something I had previously considered a bit extreme) to get back to feeling like myself. I am currently on day 5, so tomorrow I will be starting to add back some normal low carb foods. I have been eating 5-8 total carbs a day, (no fiber) and feel absolutely fantastic -- better than I did before. I was actually bouncing in church yesterday and had to stop myself.
I generally eat as many veggies as my carb count would allow -- a salad everyday for lunch.. broccoli or cauli with my dinner, I thought that would be the hardest part - craving those. Not at all. I don't have any cravings for veggies or anything sweet in the slightest -- I do have a hankering for a big juicy hamburger though!
So my question is did you feel a difference when you went from counting Net to Total carbs? As I transition back to normal, I am wondering if I need a new 'normal' and should stay under 20 total, and not net?
0
Replies
-
There are no minimum number of carbs any human being needs to eat, so go with what feels good to you. When tracking, I have pretty much a hard limit of 50 g total carbs/day. That number keeps me (and should keep most people) in ketosis. I do mentally subtract fiber to get net carbs, so I look at both Now, I hardly ever get up to 50 g total carbs/day, usually it is much less than that. 20 g net carbs/day should work very well for most people, and it sounds like that has been working well for you. Don't let one bad restaurant meal throw off your whole plan, it's not really necessary. You just bounce back and it sounds like you have done that.0
-
I've always used net, and since the standard for basically the rest of the world besides the US is the same, I consider that in my decision to ignore total. It's a self-created question that only comes up here, while everyone else calls fiber a separate category completely.0
-
I look at both, but don't get much fiber so it's typically not very different. I think that's the case with quitr a few folks here.0
-
I started with net carbs, but eventually switched to total carbs.stillonamission wrote: »I have a question for those veteran low carbers. Did you start counting your carbs as total or net, and have you switched from net carbs to total and seen/felt a difference?
If super-low carbs and no fiber makes you feel great, why are you thinking of going back to something you've found to be less optimal? You're not craving veggies, you're craving a burger. So, go and eat that burger. Screw the veggies. Fiber makes me feel bloated and yucky. I feel best when I include none.[. . .] tomorrow I will be starting to add back some normal low carb foods. I have been eating 5-8 total carbs a day, (no fiber) and feel absolutely fantastic -- better than I did before. [. . .] I don't have any cravings for veggies or anything sweet in the slightest -- I do have a hankering for a big juicy hamburger though!
So my question is did you feel a difference when you went from counting Net to Total carbs? As I transition back to normal, I am wondering if I need a new 'normal' and should stay under 20 total, and not net?
Which brings me to my main point. I don't count net carbs, but it doesn't matter. I consume 0g of fiber, so there's really no net carbs to count. I did have 4g of carbs the other day (apparently from the dry rib rub at Sonny's). That's the most fiber I've had in ages. My typical menu includes absolutely none.
0 -
I do net carbs, but that is because to me, veggies with some butter are ambrosia, food fit for the gods. But Ive never been a huge meat eater, even when I was a kid, so the LCHF has been a transition for me. So net lets me eat the veggies I love and keep within my carb goal. Seeing as it is 20 net carbs, I still dont get a lot of veggies in and no fruits.
But if i was like Goat and didnt like veggies and loved meat, i would count total.0 -
Was there perhaps MSG in the Thai meal? Hard to prove, I know. I'm sorry that you went through feeling so bad, but once we're out the other side, sometimes these things happen for a reason. Reason being so we can learn that we feel so much better on... eggs in your case. Not saying you should eat nothing else for the rest of your life, but maybe keep them high on your priorities for the near future?0
-
I count total. I feel like counting net is a negotiation with myself, and I end up losing.0
-
My husband and I try and stay at no more than 20 net carbs.0
-
I count total. There's an interesting article on a forum for diabetics where a group of them ate a bunch of low carb protein bars and saw an insulin spike. They started questioning if we really knew everything about fiber that we think. I also don't trust food labels so I feel like total gives me a nice buffer of safety. Plus, it is easier to track.0
-
I count net. My goal is under 20.0
-
-
I count total. There's an interesting article on a forum for diabetics where a group of them ate a bunch of low carb protein bars and saw an insulin spike. They started questioning if we really knew everything about fiber that we think. I also don't trust food labels so I feel like total gives me a nice buffer of safety. Plus, it is easier to track.
It might not necessarily be the fiber at play. There's a guy on reddit who has been doing a set of tests, basically just for his own curiosity, to see what kind of spikes he gets on different foods, especially ones that are considered keto friendly. He gets flack for them any time he gets a result that doesn't confirm what people want to hear, and he says right up front, it's statistically meaningless and just a one person experiment. He uses 2 different brands of meters, and checks regularly over a period of hours before and after he has whatever he's testing. The tests he did saw a similar spike on both meters from both Coke Zero and Quest bars (people were especially ticked about the Quest bars). His hypothesis is that it's a sweetener or combination of sweeteners being used in some of the keto-friendly stuff that's causing it, because there is no fiber in Coke Zero. There's a labeling loophole when you get down to the natural/artificial flavors entry on ingredient lists, it really could be anything.0 -
It might not necessarily be the fiber at play. There's a guy on reddit who has been doing a set of tests, basically just for his own curiosity, to see what kind of spikes he gets on different foods, especially ones that are considered keto friendly. He gets flack for them any time he gets a result that doesn't confirm what people want to hear, and he says right up front, it's statistically meaningless and just a one person experiment. He uses 2 different brands of meters, and checks regularly over a period of hours before and after he has whatever he's testing. The tests he did saw a similar spike on both meters from both Coke Zero and Quest bars (people were especially ticked about the Quest bars). His hypothesis is that it's a sweetener or combination of sweeteners being used in some of the keto-friendly stuff that's causing it, because there is no fiber in Coke Zero. There's a labeling loophole when you get down to the natural/artificial flavors entry on ingredient lists, it really could be anything.
Very interesting! It was Quest bars that got the group of diabetics, if I remember correctly. They even had a person from the company do a q&a with them, but I don't think they learned too much more from that.0 -
GrannyMayOz wrote: »Was there perhaps MSG in the Thai meal?
OMG I have become so sensitive to MSG since quitting carbs! Headaches, blurry vision, cloudy thinking, muscle aches--I hardly ever eat out anymore bc of the risk.
0 -
GrannyMayOz wrote: »Was there perhaps MSG in the Thai meal?
OMG I have become so sensitive to MSG since quitting carbs! Headaches, blurry vision, cloudy thinking, muscle aches--I hardly ever eat out anymore bc of the risk.
I truly wish they would all quit putting that stuff in our food.
0 -
I've come a long way when a coke zero and a quest bar sound scandalously luxurious. i would eat that once in a while-guilt free! LOL!
sounds like he has an interesting experiment going there.0 -
There are Quest bars that use sugar alcohols instead of the artificial sweeteners (though the flavors aren't as good for sweet teeth). I've burned out on quest bars, though, whether room temp or baked or whatever, and I'm happier not trying to meet some fiber goal each day anyway.
It's tempting to count net carbs, but I feel like I'd use it as an 'out' to eat more carbs or avoid adjusting what I'm doing. And I think it was @FIT_Goat (maybe?) who mentioned the hidden carbs that don't make it onto the label, which sounds like another good reason not to try to pack as many carbs as I can.0 -
Thank you so much for each of you comments! It is great to hear what ways work for different people and where everyone is in their journey.
Today is the first day for me to incorporate 'real' foods back in to my diet so I am going to start slow- with meat and go from there. Since I do feel so much better I am going to hold off on the veggies for a few days and see what happens. I also think I am going to switch to counting total carbs unless I just can't deal with being that restrictive. It probably isn't a huge deal in the long run, but I tend to over-plan.
-GrannyMayOz wrote: »Was there perhaps MSG in the Thai meal?
It is possible it had MSG. I thought about that later, but it has never noticeable affected me before. My grandmother had tons of allergies and food reactions, so I guess I could be developing them as well. Or I am, if that headache was the result!
0
