Carbs - fiber divided by 5

My trainer gave me the following formula:
Total Carbs
Minus Fiber
Divided by 5
=tsps sugar
I put the formula in and ended up reading about it on MFP.
In 3 weeks I lost 10# without even trying by keeping to 12 teaspoons.
I know it works but can someone give me where the research came from for this formula.

Replies

  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    5 grams sugar is 1 teaspoon. You trainer is telling you to divide your net carbs by 5 to see how many teaspoons of sugar you have in your diet. This is not a helpful way of managing sugar, as your 60 grams net carbs could very easily be naturally occurring in your food.

  • Kennedcx
    Kennedcx Posts: 2 Member
    Here is some interesting information based on that Hidden Sugar formula. 4r3xvjhm4aoa.jpg
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,207 Member
    edited April 2023
    Kennedcx wrote: »
    Here is some interesting information based on that Hidden Sugar formula. 4r3xvjhm4aoa.jpg

    A little information is dangerous, applies here.

    The body will maintain a certain amount of blood sugar whether you eat sugar or not and a far as monitoring the dreaded excess of 1.5 tsp in the blood at any given time or we get diabetes is controlled by the pancreases Beta cells producing insulin, amazing I know but true. Sugar is stored in adipose, our body fat, only if we exceed our TDEE and only then. None of this has anything to do with weight loss per se and only when we're in a caloric deficit will weight loss happen and not magically when we've implemented this application. Cheers.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,168 Member
    Kennedcx wrote: »
    Here is some interesting information based on that Hidden Sugar formula. 4r3xvjhm4aoa.jpg

    Echoing what Neanderthin said: In a context where we don't consume excess calories - fat is not not going to be stored. (The guy who did the Twinkie Diet lost weight, and ate plenty of sugar. Improved his health markers, such as blood test results, too.)

    On top of that, if we do consume excess calories, a normal body will tend to prefer storing fat we consume as body fat, because it's more efficient (requires less complicated, inefficient biochemistry to convert/store). De novo lipogenesis (creation of body fat from carb intake, for example) is rare, non-preferred, because inefficient.

    Personal experience: I exceeded MFP's default total-sugars goal every day while losing weight, and lost weight from obese to a healthy weight just fine - faster than ideal for a while, in fact.

    And guess what else happened? My high blood pressure became normal, my high cholesterol became normal, my cardiovascular risk score went way, way down . . . and all of that has stayed solidly normal for 7+ years now at a healthy weight, while still going over the default total-sugars goal daily.

    I wish people would post the source of infographics they decide to share here. I don't know, maybe the PP is the source him/herself. But it's not nice to steal sites' intellectual property without crediting them . . . or blaming them, as appropriate.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,207 Member
    edited April 2023
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    I am trying to read the above and see if it actually says anything and I can't actually figure out that it says anything that is actionable. I'm supposed to get something out of it, right?... great. I mean it has a formula (math is important and all that) but nothing is said about ACTUAL time frames or timelines... so like... the thing says nothing!

    I mean I can conclude that maybe I'm supposed to imagine that it actually says that I'm not supposed to eat more than 1g of sugar per the formula "at any one time" but I am not sure what the time is. And it doesn't say anything about what happens when I sleep. Because when I sleep I am sleeping and not eating sugar. Could magic happen when I sleep or will my sugar be sugaring while I'm dreaming?!?!

    But I can prove it wrong! Yes I can! Yes yes yes! I have 365 days of data!

    I have -72.5lbs in the 365 days. The magic formula says (282-35) / 5 = 49.4 which I'm fairly sure is more than 1 or 1.5 or even two! So I must have lost weight because I was in a diabetic coma! BUT I averaged over 18,000 steps a day! In a KITTEN COMA! WOW!

    Well, either that or I am a really really sweat person!

    The quantity of fig bars I ate today argues I'm really sweat.... but based on what the Dr Said... fig bars must cause hernias cause I need surgery for one... oh wait.. this made as much sense as the above formula.

    Bye bye trainer.

    Hahaha, I missed this post, made me laugh. cheers.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,930 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    I am trying to read the above and see if it actually says anything and I can't actually figure out that it says anything that is actionable. I'm supposed to get something out of it, right?... great. I mean it has a formula (math is important and all that) but nothing is said about ACTUAL time frames or timelines... so like... the thing says nothing!

    I mean I can conclude that maybe I'm supposed to imagine that it actually says that I'm not supposed to eat more than 1g of sugar per the formula "at any one time" but I am not sure what the time is. And it doesn't say anything about what happens when I sleep. Because when I sleep I am sleeping and not eating sugar. Could magic happen when I sleep or will my sugar be sugaring while I'm dreaming?!?!

    But I can prove it wrong! Yes I can! Yes yes yes! I have 365 days of data!

    I have -72.5lbs in the 365 days. The magic formula says (282-35) / 5 = 49.4 which I'm fairly sure is more than 1 or 1.5 or even two! So I must have lost weight because I was in a diabetic coma! BUT I averaged over 18,000 steps a day! In a KITTEN COMA! WOW!

    Well, either that or I am a really really sweat person!

    The quantity of fig bars I ate today argues I'm really sweat.... but based on what the Dr Said... fig bars must cause hernias cause I need surgery for one... oh wait.. this made as much sense as the above formula.

    Bye bye trainer.

    Can I please eat/drink/smoke what you had? 🤣🤣🤣 Brilliant
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,275 Member
    did people notice that the OP asked this question 3 years ago?

    Maybe you all did and it is a discussion still worth having without OP, I dont know.

    If so, ignore me and carry on

    I'm not a person who tracks things in such a mathematical or detailed way myself
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,237 Member
    Nope. And neither did I see my 2019 post. Which makes me wonder whether we only had partial visibility at some point?