I’m not eating keto, or Bernstein’s LCHF; more like about 35 - 40 g carbs for lunch, dinner. Does it matter to use carbs or net carbs? Fiber may slow down the digestion/breadkdown of the carbs; fiber doesn’t make the carb disappear. Therefore I am wondering…is counting carb “adequate” for most folks not on a super low carb diet?
Does net carb become more of an important factor if on very low carb diet?
We don’t find that to be true. I think “net carbs” are just a way for people doing keto to feel better about their decisions. i.e. the zero net carb keto bread we buy has a super low glucose response in my son, much much less than regular bread, but it still requires insulin. So while I think the net carb thing is ok for non insulin using diabetics I would lean towards just counting carbs and be done with it.
I prefer counting carbs.
I heard that some people consider avocado to be almost “0 carbs” because of the fiber. I still count half of an avocado to be around 3-4 g carbs. Just curious what others do.
I think the idea behind using carbs - fiberCarbs is that if the fiber will just pass through as roughage, without being digested, then it won’t become glucose in the bloodstream.
I don’t know what “net carbs” means in the case of something like zero net carb keto bread—I’ve never read the label on such a strange thing. But in cases where it means total carbohydrate grams minus fiber grams, that’s what I would use for dosing insulin.
Here is the label for Franz Keto white bread, and it definitely affects blood sugar. So even though it is zero net carbs, it has a blood sugar effect. Just much less than regular bread, and it doesn’t taste too bad, especially toasted.
Instead of raising BG as if it were 12g carb, would you say it raises BG as if it were 2g carb? Because that would be consistent with digestion of half the protein into glucose.
Does anyone know if humans can get energy from anything that shows up as “fiber” on a nutrition label? We don’t ruminate, but I don’t actually know whether for us all kinds of fiber are strictly non-digestible fiber.
That is possible. It is a bit hard to tell since my son is much more carb sensitive than others, so he often will go 80-200 with a crazy small amount of carbs (like 5-8) but 2 could be in the ballpark of the effect, I am also guessing some of the fiber is digestible, but that is not backed by any actual testing, just a feel.
I do nothing. These minimal-carb foods I generally treat as zero carb. I could spend ages figuring out the net carbs and the exact insulin dose, but a minute later life’s many variables can throw that careful calculation out the window. I might climb the stairs again, or scrub the kitchen counter, or have a nap, or get stressed about something, or any number of other things that are going to affect my blood sugar on top of consuming half an avocado. So I don’t sweat the small stuff.
I’ve been using Carb Manager for 2 days 
.
What I learned from it is that for the few major meals (lunch and dinner) that I’ve had, I have a bunch of 2-3 g carb items that may add up to ~ 11-12 g. Each one is not much…yet they add up. My lunch/dinner is closer to 40g carbs each. The biggest contributor not surprisingly is bread, or sweet potato, or some other starch.
Exactly, if all you eat is 1/2 an avocado, you can probably treat it as a zero carb treat if your body doesn’t over-react to carbs. But if you don’t ever count it, then you could be missing 20% of the total carbs in many of my recipes, because there are many small carb additions in each recipe. So we cook recipes by weighing the ingredients and totaling the carbs across portions and so my son can know the carb count for the “normal” meals.
Yup. It wasn’t until I started literally listing every single ingredient, for example, in a salad, that I realize the tomato, carrot, apple, avocado slices… They all add up. After awhile, from “experience” I suppose I can use some “fudge” number because it’ll probably reveal a similar pattern for “salad”. Same thing for the “starch” portion. A fudge number for carb sandwich, for example, unless the breads are SO drastically different.
What’s been difficult for me to understand is whether there is a HUGE difference between, for example, rice or pasta (I’m not sure yet); or banana or apple (yes). My previous Endo suggested that I avoid these “difficult” foods… Therefore I never learned to “deal with them”.
Glad you are working on it. You should be able to eat all of those foods in moderation and/or normal portions with proper insulin dosing. But as you have seen, it is quite a bit of work to get right.
I always use carbs minus the fiber and it has worked well for me. But I have different carb ratios from mornings where I have leftover DP or FOTF effect versus afternoon/night. 2-4 carbs of a small chunk of fresh pineapple can make me go up 40-50 points in the morning whereas later in the day it is good for a 15 point jump.
I think also when you are on a low carb diet, (I am not) your blood sugars are affected a lot more by less carbs. I never bother counting the whole avocado, just the whole grain sprouted bread and I’m fine. As long as I get close to my goal of 95 1 or 2 carbs don’t seem to matter too much, I can adjust easily with my pump if I am off later.
There is no food I won’t eat as long as it’s vegan for me. Well, except I limit rice lol…rice seems to be my nemesis. The trick is in just learning what to do to eat it, because for me I really like my numbers to stay in time in range. Trial and error.
Right?! There is something about rice! I’m sure that the rice is not intending to be evil, yet for some of us diabetics, rice certainly is devilish when it comes to dosing. I have read that some people think wild rice is “better” than rice. I’m not sure what wild rice is. Does anyone have experience with wild rice?
Thanks! It seems like if I keep it to about 45 g total, no problem. I get decent numbers, mostly below 140 often closer to 125. It’s quite a bit of work to get it right. The “wrong” starch group and combinations of foods leave me hungry if I want to stay around 45 g. If I feel nice and satiated with the “wrong” starch group, I exceed 45 g by quite a bit; about 60+ g, then the dosing gets messed up.
What’s FOTF?
FOTF Foot On The Floor, when your BG levels shoot up as soon as you get up.
Foot on the a Floor effect. It refers to one’s BG spiking first thing in the morning when getting out of bed. Many experience this, same with Dawn Phenomenon which is similar but the spike usually occurs earlier while still sleeping.
FOTF is a real term? Very interesting. I see it all the time but was totally unfamiliar with the term. Thanks!
