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Percentage of carbs help please

B

B17_Fan

Well-Known Member
Messages
83
Type of diabetes
Reactive hypoglycemia
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Can someone explain how you work out the percentage of carbs a food has and how to calculate total percent of carbs eaten in a day?
I guess there's probably apps which do all this, but I don't want to have to pay a lot for an app.
Can anyone advise maybe a good app which will do all this or just how to calculate it myself?

Many thanks
 
The most common app seems to be Carbs and Cals.
I will be honest though, it drove me crazy: I was famished and my food was cold before i’d Worked out the carbs in every part of my meal but I guess you can get used to it.
I just use Google to ask “carbs in ...” and put it in a spreadsheet.
 
Yes, Carbs and Cals, though I got the book rather than the app.

Once you have a good broad knowledge of what's high, low, and middlish, you can muddle them all up in a meal and work out what actually affects your BGs and what doesn't.

Although officially LCHF, if I find I've gained a bit of weight, then low carb MEDIUM fat will get it off again.

There's no hard n fast rule that does us all; it's about learning how your body responds to food (and exercise). Don't try and do too much at once, or you'll find life too restrictive and that's when folk loose faith in a lifestyle change.

It'll help if you do a diary showing what you ate and the effect on your BGs before the meal and 2 hours after.
 

You weigh the food item, then look up the number of carbs per 100 grams on the packet or online, and use the two values to calculate the weight of carbs in the food item.
 
I use Cronometer (free app) where you enter each food and how much you are eating of it. The app works out all the carbs, calories and all stuff like vitamins and minerals. Its fairly easy to use and you can copy one day food into the next which saves a lot of time if you eat same for breakfast each day for example.
 
I keep a food diary in an excel spreadsheet and simply calculate the carbs, fats, proteins, salt and calories fron the supermarket website. I found that after a month or so doing this I had almost my entire menu covered. Either this means I am a really boring eater (I'm not by the way) or we tend to buy the same or similar things often. I have now got to the stage where I am happy to "eyeball" what is on my plate although as there are only the two of us and we share 50:50 then I can also just look at the weight on whatever it is I have cooked and halve it. That way I don't have to rely on what other people have entered into an app or where the info comes from (US vs UK for example). I tend to use either Waitrose or Tesco as well as Sainsbury's websites for the info.
 
I’m same as @bulkbiker. I weighed everything in the beginning. I tend to eat the same foods often so now I can eyeball. Through this process I found there were foods that weren’t even worth making. Too small of a portion and too high carb.
When I do want to look some new thing up I use www.calorieking.com
I had a spreadsheet as well and looked food weight up based on carb content. Such as 3 caebs of broccoli = such and such weight. I kept it on a post card in the drawer my scale is in. When I went to cook it it was just a quick glance. The things we go through.....
 
MyFitnessPal is a free app and is widely used. You can scan barcodes on most products with them to add to a menu for the day and it works out totals. Give it a go for a few days and see what you think. It’s updated by its users so not everything on there will be 100% accurate but most things are OK.
 
MFP also has a section where you can enter & update your own recipes. I also recommend it but just remember that it's U.S. so you need to delete the fibre from the total carbs to get your net allowable carbs. I just make a note of my net carbs in the "food notes" tab.
 
I have paid for My Fitness Pal Premium and it has a feature where you can set gram targets for carbs, protein and fat, and it will show a count down of those figures on the front page of the app.
 
The free version allows you to change the carbs, prot and fats as well
 
When I was first diagnosed I used to check the packaging, supermakrket website info, or Google and weighed some stuff or worked out by portion size (e.g. half or quarter pack of berries) Now I know accurately enough what has too many carbs and what's Ok. But I deliberately chose not to eat any high carb food, so it was fairly easly to create a suitable diet, and the only thing I ever do now is look at nutritional labelling and ingredients if I'm investigating any occasional new processed foods or sauces, and go by that. Testing before & after meals will confirm or otherwise if I have it right.

Robbity
 
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