Kelly's Question of the Day - carbs

Looking through my literature from TWH I didn't notice how many carbs a day we should have. I remember talk about net carbs, but I'm a little list about carbs in general. It says to get in between 60-80 grams of protein, but nothing on carbs.

So confused! (really, what else is new?)

 Because basically, if yo are getting in ALL that protein, you should have very little room for carbs.  At Barix we weren't told to monitor carbs/calories.  They basically gave us a guideline about fat limits, sugars, and proteins and if we stayed within those guidelines we never ate too many calories or carbs.

Ignore the carbs for now - get in what you can with protein and go from there.

The "magic formula" that some people use (and they also recognize at TWH) is 40% of calories from protein, 30% from fat and 30% from carbs.  Based on that formula, it breaks down as follows:

800 calories a day (just a guesstimate of what you might be eating once you are on "full foods")
320 calories from protein = 80 gr (4 gr of protein per calorie)
240 calories from fat = 27 gr (9 gr fat per calorie)
240 calories from carbs = 60 gr (4 gr carbs per calorie)

Now that being said...I NEVER ate 60 gr of carbs per day.  My percentages were more like 50% protein (100 gr), 38% fat (34 gr), 12% carbs (24 gr).  This is what worked for me...I like to keep my carbs between 20 and 30 gr per day (and still do most days).  I recognize that this is very low for most people, but it has worked for me.  See what works for you and keeps you losing...and if you have questions or concerns, the team at TWH is always more than willing to answer questions!

Mostly I was looking at what I ate today andwas shocked at the 79 grams of carbs I had versus the 64 grams of protein (which was over my daily minimum). There were more carbs in the chili I had today than protein, and I also had a sf latte with protein, which had 17 grams. However, I'm only on my third week out and still losing, so I'm not overly concerned I was just surprised. Makes me think back to what I would have had in a day before surgery!!

Where I had surgery they emphasized "protein first"...but I do wish they'd also given me a number as well.  I just felt that having a number down the line would be a good thing. Initially, what you want to do is to definitely eat protein first (most meals I had a protein and veggies and that was all I could fit). You should never start a meal by eating carbs first - remember that. ALWAYS protein first.  My friend who went to Henry Ford got the guidelines of no more than 30 per meal.  but again it shouldn't be an issues as you shouldn't have any room much else.

Dawn

Carbs should be NET carbs...so you take the total carbs and take off the fiber and any sugar alcohol...so your chili was prob not as high as you thought...

But 79 carbs...even when you take off the fiber etc...is still prob really high...probably not a great habit to get into...

Good question Kelly, I've been confused as well.  Thanks for the info Honorth.