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On Nov 9, 2:45 am, Feranija feranija@net... wrote:
On 11/07/2010 09:39 AM, Tony S. wrote:

Atkins since 9/25/10, (181, 173, 160), started with OWL

This is my 2nd time doing low carb. The last time was about 10 years
ago. Counting carbs is difficult by hand with a food journal, so I'm
wondering what online carb / macronutrient counters people are
using.
I'm looking for one that's accurate, quick, and flexible.

-Tony

I swear by Australian online nutrition calculator
athttp://www.foodstandards.gov.au/foodstandards/nutritionpanelcalculator/
You will need few click before it gets you to the actual calcualtor
(agreement etc..)

You may also
tryhttp://nutritiondata.self.com/orhttp://www.calorieking.com/

or get some nutrition calculator application.

I just used one of the pocket sized guides available at book stores,
drug stores, online, etc. It's small and has enough of what I
need. I also have used the USDA food database online to look up
items. Those together with what's on the packages of food, was
sufficient. For me, having to screw around entering stuff and
keeping track online would be too much of a hassle.

Also, if the main focus is low carb to feel better, not lose weight,
carb count isn't all that critical and you may be making things harder
than necessary.


True, mainly I'm eating low-carb for health. But I think counting is
good to establish discipline, and to learn what you're really eating.
I've been entering macro ingredients of everything I've been eating for
a week now into an excel spreadsheet. A simple VB macro allows me to
copy the counts and scale them using a food code and quantity. Works for
me and is as flexible as I can get.

I'm tracking, per food label, in order Calories/Fat Calories, Fat
gms/Sat Fat gms, sodium mg, Carb gms/Fiber gms/Sug Alc gms/Net Carb gms,
Protein gms. I thought it would be interesting to have all these values
on an excel pivot-table to play with. Very illuminating: my carb count
was higher than I thought, and this easily lets me see protein gms and
fat gms just for a nice overview. Fiber and sodium also interesting.

For foods with a box or label, I either take a photo of it with my
cellphone, write down the above quantities per serving size, or, lacking
that, use the old Food Counts book I have, though I can easily look up
any food on the net too while I'm entering data. Time consuming, but as
I build up my food codes, it's getting much easier to enter. For example
0.75 GB means 3/4 of a cup of green beans. The macro fills in the date,
looks up GB in previous entries, then copies each of the numbers,
scaling them to match 3/4 cup.

Here's my averages for last week:
Fat gm 170
Prot gm 181
Ncarb gm 57
Fiber gm 47
Carb 141
Calories 2,780
Sodium 3,540

Way higher for overall carbs than I would have thought, and yes to those
who say sugar alcohols are tricky. Just plain eating too much. Also ran
about 5 hours that week; bike riding about 2.5 hours. FYI I'm 5'9 174
currently.

-Tony