Do you count carbs or net carbs?
auvan0876
Posts: 7 Member
My husband and I recently started trying to eat low carb. Originally we started with trying to stay under 100, but found it a little easier to go low carb than we anticipated and now are at about 40-60 per day. Everything I have read online says to count net carbs. Is that pretty much what everyone here does? Or do you just count the carbs? We both have maybe about 10 lbs we would like to lose but mainly are doing this for health reasons. We are having a mental block trying to convince ourselves to eat higher fat. And I am concerned about cholesterol on this diet.
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Personally I use net carbs as my main goal/ceiling. 20g is my maximum. However, I do also keep an eye on total carbs, and I don't like to see that go over about 35.
Check out the launchpad post: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10103966/start-here-the-lcd-launch-pad#latest and read all the info you can. There's lots of info dispelling myths about dietary cholesterol and dietary fat.
I think ultimately you need to do what works and feels best for you. But keep yourself informed and listen to your body.
Good luck!3 -
I count net carbs and it works for me. Everyone is so different, you will just need to play around and see what works for your body2
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I don't do net carbs. For me its much easier to count total carbs.0
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Total carbs, net carbs. I personally don't think it really matters for a healthy individual with a few pounds to lose. 40-60 TOTAL is a reasonable number. 40-60 NET is a reasonable number. Personally, I keep my TOTAL carbs low enough that ultimate NET carbs is maybe just a bonus for my carb counting purposes.
I had that "mental block" increasing fat though I have done it. I've read current studies supporting both low fat and high fat. As with everything else, my belief is fat is good, somewhere in the middle of extremes. Fat IS essential, thus the term essential fat. My personal choice, since I eat high fat is to "balance" saturated and unsaturated. I eat mostly saturated (meat and some dairy) but also get unsaturated via avocados, fatty fish, nuts, seeds and oils such as olive, avocado and walnut. I do see an overall trend indicating that fat intake should higher than the "low fat" philosophy we have been bombarded with for decades. The Big Fat Surprise is an interesting book to read.
We have many cholesterol threads in this forum. I'll get a lipid panel sometime this year after having eaten at least a year, high fat. My results are the only results that really matter to me. I've not been a part of any of the studies I have read.
I find great value in reading about 200,000 people that were studied for 3 years, yada, yada but I wasn't one of them. 4 -
I just went with total out of laziness. I know my net carbs would be lower because my carbs are vegges and nuts, but I don't bother counting fibre. I don't believe in fibre.
I would say count whatever way works for you, and then adjust carbs to whatever level works best for you.2 -
I do net carbs.
Something you have to be careful about, though... not all sugar alcohols should be excluded from net carbs. Some companies label products (Quest, for example) with Xg Net Carbs in big, noticeable print on the face of the package. Truly, the net carbs in some of those product is higher than advertise. You have to look at the standard nutrition labeling to determine the true number... and you have to decide how you are going to manage sugar alcohols for yourself. In my case, I need a pretty close amount of what converts to glucose.0 -
I look at the whole picture... total carbs, fiber, sugar. If my total carbs are a bit higher than normal one day, but my fiber is higher too, then I don't sweat it, but if I saw that my sugar was creeping up and that's why my total carbs were up a bit, I'd take a lot more notice.1
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According to the standard cholesterol advice, I do everything wrong. In fact, it could be argued that I do the opposite of what they say to do.
I only eat animal fats, preferring the most saturated fats. I don't worry about dietary cholesterol. Today, for lunch, I had six eggs with pepperoni, and some heavy cream in my espresso. My lunch alone has 32g of saturated fat (over the 23-ish grams MFP recommends for me by default). It had 1,405mg of cholesterol. That's almost FIVE TIMES the 300mg that MFP recommends.
I don't eat any plants (no vegetables or fruits), and get 0 grams of fiber each day. So, it isn't that I have a high-fiber diet that helps my cholesterol out. No Cheerios for this guy!
And, the examples just go on and on. My doctor practically had a conniption fit when we went over the details of how I eat. I left with a thick packet of information on how to eat a healthy diet. That packet was useful, only because it proved to my wife that I hadn't lied to my doctor about how I ate.
My actual cholesterol test results? You would think they would be insane. But, I average in the 180s. I can't even break 200 except on a few one-off tests. I routinely give blood, so I get non-fasted total cholesterol every 8 weeks or so. I have a lot of numbers, and none of them are high.
I would be happy with higher cholesterol than I have. The statistically lowest [all-cause] mortality is associated with total cholesterol from 200-250. Mine's lower than that. I won't attempt to artificially control/raise my cholesterol. I think of it more as a symptom of how well things are running overall. If the numbers get too far out of whack, there's an underlying issue going on. I consider my normal levels to be healthy for me. If my cholesterol drops down, significantly, I would be very concerned. My mom's cholesterol dropped to the low 120s around the same time we found out she had cancer. If it suddenly went super-high (300+) and stayed there, I would also be concerned. That's too far out of the norm.4 -
Net carbs works for me.0
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Net carbs, but if the carbs you wouldn't count are alcohol sugars, I keep those in the total. Too many of those does me no favors at all. So net carbs, from subtracting fiber grams. Everyone is different some prefer to just have a higher total carb goal and not subtract fiber grams. Whatever works for your body is the way to go.1
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According to the standard cholesterol advice, I do everything wrong. In fact, it could be argued that I do the opposite of what they say to do.
I only eat animal fats, preferring the most saturated fats. I don't worry about dietary cholesterol. Today, for lunch, I had six eggs with pepperoni, and some heavy cream in my espresso. My lunch alone has 32g of saturated fat (over the 23-ish grams MFP recommends for me by default). It had 1,405mg of cholesterol. That's almost FIVE TIMES the 300mg that MFP recommends.
I don't eat any plants (no vegetables or fruits), and get 0 grams of fiber each day. So, it isn't that I have a high-fiber diet that helps my cholesterol out. No Cheerios for this guy!
And, the examples just go on and on. My doctor practically had a conniption fit when we went over the details of how I eat. I left with a thick packet of information on how to eat a healthy diet. That packet was useful, only because it proved to my wife that I hadn't lied to my doctor about how I ate.
My actual cholesterol test results? You would think they would be insane. But, I average in the 180s. I can't even break 200 except on a few one-off tests. I routinely give blood, so I get non-fasted total cholesterol every 8 weeks or so. I have a lot of numbers, and none of them are high.
I would be happy with higher cholesterol than I have. The statistically lowest [all-cause] mortality is associated with total cholesterol from 200-250. Mine's lower than that. I won't attempt to artificially control/raise my cholesterol. I think of it more as a symptom of how well things are running overall. If the numbers get too far out of whack, there's an underlying issue going on. I consider my normal levels to be healthy for me. If my cholesterol drops down, significantly, I would be very concerned. My mom's cholesterol dropped to the low 120s around the same time we found out she had cancer. If it suddenly went super-high (300+) and stayed there, I would also be concerned. That's too far out of the norm.
Love this, thanks for posting.1 -
I have to just do carbs, I stall if I do net0
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Thanks, everyone. Your opinions basically echoed what I have read online and that is to just find something that works for you. As for sugar alcohols, I don't really understand what they are. I am assuming they have something to do with artificial sweeteners. I really hate the taste of sweeteners so don't really use them. If I do eat something with sugar alcohols, which has been once that I know of, I just ignore that. I am not really overweight (but wouldn't mind losing 10 lbs), and while we didn't go out of our way to eat healthy, we did not have a significantly unhealthy diet either. We are a lot of lean meats and vegetables and not many snacks. We did; however, eat higher in carbs. I was recently hospitalized where I found that my glucose was pretty high. While not in the diabetic range, it was concerning as I had not even eaten recently and they said it was on the high side. My blood pressure has also been running in the hypertension range for the last few months. It was about 128/94. High BP, diabetes, and high cholesterol, as well as heart problems run in my family so it was concerning to me. I have read recently that a lower carb diet works well for controlling all of these, but the high fat and high sodium seems to be so contradictory to that. Also, in the last several decades it has been beaten into me that we should all be eating low fat and low sodium. At any rate, I am willing to give it a try. I am interested to dig into the group more to read the stories of others and see what worked for them and if anyone has had success with lowering BP and glucose with a low carb diet.1
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Net carbs works for me, too, but I'm at keto levels. If I were closer to 100 gm, I'd probably count total instead, but it just depends on your body and your goals.0
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Net carbs just complicates it more than I'd like. I only want one set of numbers to worry about. I do total carbs. If some were exempt from fiber then great, that's a bonus1
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Auvan0876, lots of protein bars and other foods contain sugar alcohols, including the Atkins line of foods. They are not really an artificial sweetener, they can give flavor boasts to a wide range of foods. Artificial sweeteners have their own problems.
Some people can eat them with no issue, but my stomach doesn't like them that much, it wants wine if it gets alcohol
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I started counting total carbs and it worked but then I discovered that my total carbs usually equaled twice the net carbs, so I went to net carbs. Not at first. At first total carbs were 3 sometimes 4 times higher than my net carbs. As I learned to eat LCHF better, my net carb and total carb counts got closer and closer. Strange huh? Now I count net and just double it for total.1
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I count Net, mainly as the net is already calculated on the packages in the UK.1
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