Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Dietary Life

Just thought I might make a post about what I do/was told to do by my nutritionist as far as what I look for in my foods (nutrition facts). Holly over at 300pd also does this but I actually had this instructed to me by my NUT, I just was not entirely following it. For me, it is hard to know what is really right when you have so many conflicting diet plans from others who have had the same surgery as you. It was nice to find someone who has had success and does the same thing you were told to do.

So basically I am on a low-carb diet. I obviously don't want to entirely disregard calories and fat, but they sort of go hand in hand most of the time when you have a low carb food you don't have a lot of calories or fat. Now this is not always true, just like something might have low carbs but have loads of sugar. If there are loads of sugar it may as well say high carb on it.

But there is also another thing we consider into the carb counting. If an item has 5g+ of fiber in it, you subtract that from the overall carb amount and this new number that you get is the "net carb". So say something has 10g of carbs, but there is 7g of fiber. Technically that item only has 3g of carbs. For whatever reason that I don't fully understand, the fiber sort of "counteracts" that carbohydrate or.. whatever. You can read more information here.

So the ROT (rule of thumb) that I am told to go by is no more than 40g of carbs PER DAY. This is very difficult. Utilizing a program or app for your phone (such as MyFitnessPal) really helps to keep track of this. A lot of items you input into there already has NET carbs programmed for you as you search for something (but not always). But if not, it does calculate everything if you input every food and drink item you had that day. So at the end of the day you can look on that day's chart and see easily all the calories, fat, carbs, sugar, fiber and protein and various others. So you can just take the total amount of carbs that day and subtract any fiber from that.

But in all, this is really the #1 main goal I aim for is 40g of carbs a day or less. I use MFP (MyFitnessPa) when I remember to calculate my daily intake and make sure I'm doing okay. My name on there is Discordya if you'd like to find me :)

5 comments:

  1. I can imagine how important it is so keep track of your carb intake and I know that tracking it will really help you see your levels and see whether you need to eat more or less.

    I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

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    1. Thanks Diane! It's hard to remember sometimes but I try my best to track it. I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving! :)

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  2. Thanks for explaining the "net carbs" thing. I always wondered about that. I have never counted carbs, but a general reduction in carbs I undertook earlier this year has done wonders for me. Will never go back to being over-carby again...

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    1. Yep, it's weird that over so many years I have done all these diets and blah and you always hear oh just cut out bread and you never take it seriously because of all the different diets saying yes bread or no pasta etc. But now that I am strictly on low carb I realize it's miraculous. It really does work the best, at least for me. If I go a few days being 40g or less the pounds start coming off again. If I get over a few days in a row it stops! It's so obvious. But I also have to have high protein also.

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  3. That's awesome Sara and a great explanation of how fiber can factor in. I follow basically the same plan by trying to never go over 40 carbs a day. When I follow this plus nothing over 4 grams of sugar per serving the weight comes off with far less effort on my part. You are kicking butt!!!! I am so happy for you!

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