Net Carb

I often see and hear about "net carbs". What do you deduct from the total
carbs to get the net carbs and does it really work? Presently I keep my
carbs between 20-25 a day. Would I still be able to loose the weight if I
eat 20-25 Net carbs a day?

Thanks, Kathy

John and Kathy quoth:
I often see and hear about "net carbs". What do you deduct from the total
carbs to get the net carbs and does it really work? Presently I keep my
carbs between 20-25 a day. Would I still be able to loose the weight if I
eat 20-25 Net carbs a day?

Net carbs is the same as effective carbs. You subtract out what you won't
metabolize. For most people, that's limited to fiber. Some folks do
subtract out sugar alcohols, but that may produce inaccurate results (some
folks do end up metabolizing those carbs, or some of them).

So, a slice of stoneground whole wheat bread that has 11 grams of carb, of
which 3 are fiber, has 8 net carbs.

I can't tell you if you'd lose weight or not. Depends on how many
calories you're ingesting. Eating 20-25 grams of net carbs certainly
won't stop any weight loss based on the carbs, though.

Priscilla
--
"Come to Planet Earth! Watch people with brains not use them! Several
shows daily! Free admittance!" Keera Ann Fox in alt.support.menopause

Kathy,

The problem you may run into is that a lot of companies have jumped onto the
Low Carb bandwagon with no understanding at all of what "net carbs" is
supposed to mean and many of the labels on their products are highly suspect
if not fictional.

Use common sense and be suspicious of foods claiming very low carbs where
the ingredients include flour and sugars, including sugar alcohols which
affect many of us very much like real sugars, especially Maltitol which
metabolizes as 3/4th of a gram of real sugar for those of us who don't get
the runs from it.

My guess is that you'll lose a lot more weight if you do traditional low
carbing where you eat meat, cheese, low carb veggies and not much else,
because that way you cut your calories too. If you eat 500 extra calories a
day of supposedly low carb foods you are not going to create the calorie
deficit needed to lose weight. Low carbers can eat a bit more calories than
other dieters and still lose, early on in the dieting process, but not a
whole lot more.

Plus, the low carb manufactured foods I'm seeing in the stores lately are
full of unhealthy ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated
fats. These will put weight on you.

http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/products.htm is a page I put
together that discusses "net carbs" in some detail.
-- Jenny - Low Carbing for 4 years. At goal for weight. Type 2 diabetes,
hba1c 5.4.
Cut the carbs to respond to my email address!

Low carb facts and figures, my weight-loss photos, tips, recipes,
strategies for dealing with diabetes and more at
http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/

Looking for help controlling your blood sugar?
Visit http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/...0Diagnosed.htm



"John and Kathy" wrote in message
...
I often see and hear about "net carbs". What do you deduct from the total
carbs to get the net carbs and does it really work? Presently I keep my
carbs between 20-25 a day. Would I still be able to loose the weight if I
eat 20-25 Net carbs a day?

Thanks, Kathy

"Jenny" wrote in message ...
Kathy,

The problem you may run into is that a lot of companies have jumped onto the
Low Carb bandwagon with no understanding at all of what "net carbs" is
supposed to mean and many of the labels on their products are highly suspect
if not fictional.

Use common sense and be suspicious of foods claiming very low carbs where
the ingredients include flour and sugars, including sugar alcohols which
affect many of us very much like real sugars, especially Maltitol which
metabolizes as 3/4th of a gram of real sugar for those of us who don't get
the runs from it.

My guess is that you'll lose a lot more weight if you do traditional low
carbing where you eat meat, cheese, low carb veggies and not much else,
because that way you cut your calories too. If you eat 500 extra calories a
day of supposedly low carb foods you are not going to create the calorie
deficit needed to lose weight. Low carbers can eat a bit more calories than
other dieters and still lose, early on in the dieting process, but not a
whole lot more.

Plus, the low carb manufactured foods I'm seeing in the stores lately are
full of unhealthy ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated
fats. These will put weight on you.



This is a new one. Which low carb food products are full of high
fructose corn syrup? I've used dozens of them and have yet to see
them in a single one. If there are any, they surely are the
exception. Most of the products I've seen also don't contain any
trans fats either.



http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/products.htm is a page I put
together that discusses "net carbs" in some detail.
-- Jenny - Low Carbing for 4 years. At goal for weight. Type 2 diabetes,
hba1c 5.4.
Cut the carbs to respond to my email address!

Low carb facts and figures, my weight-loss photos, tips, recipes,
strategies for dealing with diabetes and more at
http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/

Looking for help controlling your blood sugar?
Visit http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/...0Diagnosed.htm



"John and Kathy" wrote in message
...
I often see and hear about "net carbs". What do you deduct from the total
carbs to get the net carbs and does it really work? Presently I keep my
carbs between 20-25 a day. Would I still be able to loose the weight if I
eat 20-25 Net carbs a day?

Thanks, Kathy

John and Kathy wrote:

I often see and hear about "net carbs".

Most people have no idea what it means, so it's a chance to make up
whatever a company wants it to mean and gullible folks won't know
any better.

What do you deduct from the total carbs to get the net carbs

Insoluble fiber definitely. The trouble is labels don't give the
spearation between soluble and insoluble, so all fiber is deducted
by most folks.

There is intense debate about sugar alcohol deduction. While you
can find folks able to deduct sugar alcohols without problems the
number who do have assorted problems appears to be greater. Folks
get everything from stalls through diarhea from sugar alcohols.

and does it really work?

Debatable. Note that if you're on Atkins it doesn't matter in
the slightest because CCLL is determined by your own body's
reaction and your body doesn't care if you deduct fiber or not.
You may trick your mind but you won't trick your cells.

Presently I keep my carbs between 20-25 a day.

If you're on Atkins that means week 3.

Would I still be able to loose the weight if I eat 20-25 Net
carbs a day?

You'd probably lose better. Less is not more. Plenty of folks
stall if they stay low (the more you have to lose the lower the
chance of that happening). Plenty of folks lose more at higher
carb intake (every popular plan increases carb intake for this
reason).

Doug Freyburger wrote:

John and Kathy wrote:

I often see and hear about "net carbs".

Most people have no idea what it means, so it's a chance to make up
whatever a company wants it to mean and gullible folks won't know
any better.

I agree.

The "net carbs" idea is IMO so silly. I hear people say "Such and such has
only X 'effective' carbs!", and yet they say, "Nope, I don't get ANY
laxative effect". Well, in that case, ALL the carbs were "effective".
The only "ineffective" carbs are the ones that exit from the south.

So, either way one is getting a bad deal. Either it's all the carbs (or
more 'effective' carbs than the silly label says), or a major day on the
toilets

JMHO (Just my honest opinion), of course.

On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 21:48:31 -0300, Crafting Mom
wrote:

Doug Freyburger wrote:

John and Kathy wrote:

I often see and hear about "net carbs".

Most people have no idea what it means, so it's a chance to make up
whatever a company wants it to mean and gullible folks won't know
any better.

I agree.

The "net carbs" idea is IMO so silly. I hear people say "Such and such has
only X 'effective' carbs!", and yet they say, "Nope, I don't get ANY
laxative effect". Well, in that case, ALL the carbs were "effective".
The only "ineffective" carbs are the ones that exit from the south.

So, either way one is getting a bad deal. Either it's all the carbs (or
more 'effective' carbs than the silly label says), or a major day on the
toilets

JMHO (Just my honest opinion), of course.
WFF(olks)ID will use any excuse to eat more and exercise less. Net
carbs gives them an "official" excuse. As someone said around here a
lonnng time ago, the jeans tell the tale.
Lee Rodgers
Lowcarb Retreat http://www.lowcarb.org
CHAT http://www.lowcarb.org/parachat.html

"Lee Rodgers" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 21:48:31 -0300, Crafting Mom
wrote:

Doug Freyburger wrote:

John and Kathy wrote:

I often see and hear about "net carbs".

Most people have no idea what it means, so it's a chance to make up
whatever a company wants it to mean and gullible folks won't know
any better.

I agree.

The "net carbs" idea is IMO so silly. I hear people say "Such and such
has
only X 'effective' carbs!", and yet they say, "Nope, I don't get ANY
laxative effect". Well, in that case, ALL the carbs were "effective".
The only "ineffective" carbs are the ones that exit from the south.

So, either way one is getting a bad deal. Either it's all the carbs (or
more 'effective' carbs than the silly label says), or a major day on the
toilets

JMHO (Just my honest opinion), of course.
WFF(olks)ID will use any excuse to eat more and exercise less. Net
carbs gives them an "official" excuse. As someone said around here a
lonnng time ago, the jeans tell the tale.


I'm strangely attracted to you.

;-)

(Lee Rodgers) wrote in message ...
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 21:48:31 -0300, Crafting Mom
wrote:

Doug Freyburger wrote:

John and Kathy wrote:

I often see and hear about "net carbs".

Most people have no idea what it means, so it's a chance to make up
whatever a company wants it to mean and gullible folks won't know
any better.

I agree.

The "net carbs" idea is IMO so silly. I hear people say "Such and such has
only X 'effective' carbs!", and yet they say, "Nope, I don't get ANY
laxative effect". Well, in that case, ALL the carbs were "effective".
The only "ineffective" carbs are the ones that exit from the south.

So, either way one is getting a bad deal. Either it's all the carbs (or
more 'effective' carbs than the silly label says), or a major day on the
toilets


So now according to you even fiber should be counted as carbs? What's
that about? Just about everyone agrees that it's ok to subtract out
fiber because it's not digested. I've yet to see anything that
suggests one has to have to notice a laxative effect for this to be
true, so on what basis are you making this claim?




JMHO (Just my honest opinion), of course.
WFF(olks)ID will use any excuse to eat more and exercise less. Net
carbs gives them an "official" excuse. As someone said around here a
lonnng time ago, the jeans tell the tale.
Lee Rodgers
Lowcarb Retreat http://www.lowcarb.org
CHAT http://www.lowcarb.org/parachat.html

On 30 Jun 2004 04:36:53 -0700, Chet Hayes wrote:

(Lee Rodgers) wrote in message
...
On Tue, 29 Jun 2004 21:48:31 -0300, Crafting Mom
wrote:

Doug Freyburger wrote:

John and Kathy wrote:

I often see and hear about "net carbs".

Most people have no idea what it means, so it's a chance to make up
whatever a company wants it to mean and gullible folks won't know
any better.

I agree.

The "net carbs" idea is IMO so silly. I hear people say "Such and
such has
only X 'effective' carbs!", and yet they say, "Nope, I don't get ANY
laxative effect". Well, in that case, ALL the carbs were "effective".
The only "ineffective" carbs are the ones that exit from the south.

So, either way one is getting a bad deal. Either it's all the carbs
(or
more 'effective' carbs than the silly label says), or a major day on
the
toilets


So now according to you even fiber should be counted as carbs? What's
that about? Just about everyone agrees that it's ok to subtract out
fiber because it's not digested. I've yet to see anything that
suggests one has to have to notice a laxative effect for this to be
true, so on what basis are you making this claim?



I think you're talking about two different things. Fiber is ok to
subtract. It's mainly the processed, engineered foods that have "net
carbs" on them. For these "things," it's up to you to decide if
"polydextrose," "maltodextrin," "sorbitol," and "maltitol" are or are not
carbs.


--
Bob in CT
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