Measuring carb corrections in drinks without measuring

Tips, Tech & Gear Treatment
1

There is a fairly easy way to estimate a specific number of carbs from any drink, without measuring.

There are a lot of instances when you may not be able to measure out a specific number of ounces in a drink. Anytime you are away from home, if you are at work, or if you are in a restaurant, or need to stop at the Kwik-E-Mart and get a little bit of sugar…

If you are away from home you don’t need to be a slave to glucose tabs or counting skittles because you can’t measure a drink. You can get very close to a specific carb amount with any drink.

How can you pull 3 grams of sugar from a can of Coke without measuring? Or apple juice or chocolate milk?

I have been doing this for years. I don’t measure chocolate milk or OJ if I am using it for a low. Most of the time I don’t even use a glass (don’t tell the wife). I can pull a specific number of ounces straight from the carton.

This is easy to do. Only two things needed.

  1. First, take a measuring cup and practice taking a 1 ounce swig/gulp/sip of water. It doesn’t take long to get a very good sense of what 1 ounce is. Just practice it a few times. You will be amazed at how close you can get with a bit of practice.

  2. Next, all you have to do is remember a few carb estimates for things you might drink for a low.
    Here are some general carb numbers (per ounce) for a few different drinks
    (yes, I know they may vary a little bit by who makes the drink, and who you ask…):
    Apple juice = 3.5 grams
    Orange juice = 3.2 grams
    Grape juice = 4.5 grams
    Chocolate milk = 3.2 grams
    Coke = 3.25 grams
    Gatorage/Powerade 2.0 grams
    (Not showing sweet tea or lemonade because there is a big variation on those)

Even if you don’t remember them exactly, you can see that for most things shown above (except the sports drinks), 3~4 is a pretty close estimate.

So just practice a little bit to get the 1 ounce swig/gulp/sip. Then wherever you are, you can always get a really good estimate of how many carbs you are drinking without having to worry about measuring.

9 Likes
2

I didn’t do well in history because I couldn’t remember dates, etc. I can’t remember details from a list of most anything. But I get where you are coming from. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
3

If you remember 3.5 grams, that gets you pretty close for a lot of sweet drinks! Just get the 1 ounce swig figured out.

1 Like
4

I’ve spent the past couple hours practicing with gin. Funnest experiment EVER!

7 Likes
5

Videos ?

4 Likes
6

I like to practice with beer, because I can practice 12 times with every bottle.
:beer:

3 Likes
7

But you did not list it in the cheat sheet :slight_smile:

2 Likes
8

I corrected a (mild) low with a Guinness once because I had raced a whole bunch the 2 days before and the thought of another Gu or anything at all sweet was not appealing. Beer is about 1g/oz.

2 Likes