how many carbs should i have?

[heartland]

I had 152 carbs today!!!!!!!!!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:
I know thats tooooooooo many!

also i had 47 grams of fat and 63 g. of protien.


I just found out i have nooo idea how to eat!
I used Fitday today- can ya tell?

HEEEEELP MEEEEE!!!

[WannaLoseIt]

Im not a carb watcher, because I didnt do well on that type of diet, my dr has me on a low fat low cal diet, im allowed 20-30 grams of fat a day and 1200-1400 calories a day. Depends on what kind of changes you think you could live with in your daily life. When I tried low carb I remember something about under 20 carbs, but now sure exactly. Good luck:)

[hocysk8er]

Atkins is 20 carbs for the first two weeks to sort of shock your body, then it increases from there. According to a well balanced 2000 calorie intake you should have 300 per day. If you are doing low calories and fat, I am guessing you should try to stay at about 125 or less if you want to lose weight. If you are just doing low carb, you are going to need to do 20 carbs a day for 2 weeks, then move up by 20 carbs/day each week.

[Tia]

I was told to keep the carbs at about 100 and eat more protein. I find this very easy to follow and I have done Atkins before too.

[Kristin415]

I have been doing 1200 calories, less then 40g of fat and for carbs, I don't count them. I just did a month report of Fitday.com and it shows the past month my average Cals are 1342, fat 46g, and carbs 171!! This is higher becuase of the holidays. BUT my carbs are always in the 150-170's. I hate to be a pain BUT I have lost 60 pounds since Aug. and I didn't give a hoot about carbs. I had ceral every morning, and bread with my lunch, and some kind of carb with dinner (rice, potatoes). A doctor on TV said you lose weight by lowering your calories. Not by cutting carbs. And when you cut calories, you really are cutting your carbs also. Pasta for example has 200 calories in a cup, that is a lot, and it is becuase there is a lot of carbs in it. The more carbs the more calories. If you look on the side of a ceral box it shows if you're doing 2000 calories a day that you can have 300g of CARBS! Atkins is crazy with their 20 something a day in carbs. I think this diet may have worked for many. I don't want to sound like such a downer on it, it's just my opinion. If you like things with carbs in it DON'T torture yourself. I lost weight because I ate what I wanted. I just made sure I didn't eat like I was before. And it worked! Sorry for the big speech. You're my first post of the day and I just got up so I must have alot to say :) Take care sweetie, and don't sweat the carbs!!!

[gila91]

Kristin-I like your speech! I was trying to keep my carbs at around 50....and thats with only maybe 800 cal. example: a grapefruit is low in fat, low in cal. but has 37 carbs. If I try to stay around 50, that one grapefruit took most of my daily carbs! Also, I found that all the *fat free* items have more carbs than non fat. Fat vs carbs??????? I see you keep your fat intake down. Do you eat FF products?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I need more calories-I have read that 800 is not enough so in order to bring my calories up, I will need to bring my carbs up. I think 100 sounds reasonable :)

It is a big balance act :thinking:

[JourneyTo130AndStayingThere]

IMO, I see nothing wrong with that. It is only 1283 calories, and honestly I think calories are what counts. But, your protein looks low, you should try to increase that some, and when you increase that your carbs will decrease. Also, you may have a lot of fiber, make sure you subtract that from your total carbs because fiber has little impact on your blood sugar and actually can help with weight loss.

[Kristin415]

I don't eat FF free things too much. They taste like poopies! Like Fat Free Sour cream and fat free cream cheese... YUCK! I do the reduced cal or light. It tastes good and is half the calories. Some reduced cal foods are crappy too, like Cheeze it's. They taste waxy. I think it is the calories that matter. Some low carb things I see have MORE calories! The low carb thing is a fad. It won't be around forever. But for now it is something for people to obbsess over. I like my ceral, milk, bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, I can't live without them!

[Determined1-- derland here I come]

MMMM Melissa what did you eat? Sounds delicious :D
Seriously, you shouldn't have more than 30 carbs in one meal. and over the course of the 5 meals I would eat in a day I wouldn't exceed 150 carbs.
And I was still losing weight.
But if you feel bad about it... maybe it was something you had on your "no no" list?

[EmBee30]

I'm like Kristin I guess..I eat alot of carbs because it's so hard on me to restrict those. If I did manage to do it for a while, I know I wouldn't maintain it.

My monthly averages on Fitday are:
Calories 1102
Fat 40
Carbs 144
Protein 46

That's pretty much what my averages would be from any month-long span since I started, and I still lost about 40 pounds. The biggest thing I try to watch is Fat...and I try really hard to keep it in the 30's, but it's TOUGH!

[heartland]

OK, i went the wrong way today! I had 184 carbs-82g. protien-45g fat-1457 calories. I had a piece of cheesecake for a snack and that was entirely the wrong thing to do!!!!!!!!!! It wasn't even good---i'm kicking myself now.

[EmBee30]

I was bad today!! I ate at McDonald's... :o (B-day party there today I HAD to attend and how can you resist eating when you are there having to SMELL it and SEE other people eating!!?? Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, I ate a donut later on. BUT..it's my t.o.m. time and I had to have chocolate. lol
I've had 1462 calories, 64 fat grams :eek: 177 carbs, and 48 protein. Ughhhhhhhh.

[EmBee30]

Oh, and Heartland..I meant to ask you and forgot b/c I was so distraught over what I ate today..lol, are you trying to go with any particular type of food plan..like low fat or low carb? How's fitday working out for you? :)

[heartland]

i don't eat mcdonalds and donuts...(well, not today)...LOL
and I still had around 170 carbs!!!AAAAAAAAAAA!!!! That ticks me off.....EVERYTHING has carbs!
----------------------------------------
ok, i went to fitday. I wanted to post what i had today.

special k w/skim milk
cheeze-its(reduced fat)
starburst(one serving)
chicken(baked)
1/2c corn
salad w/FF dressing

1,159 calories
28 grams of fat
54 grams of protien
182 grams of carbs :eek:

[ December 29, 2004, 08:48 PM: Message edited by: heartland ]

[heartland]

I like Fitday. It just doesn't have every kind of food i need! Like low fat cheeze-its! So i modified another type of cracker. I just hope fitday is accurate!!!!
No, i'm not following any type of diet. This was day 3 of my diet and i just tried not to eat as much. I'm gonna start really working on keeping my carbs around 100 a day.
I skipped lunch today and i was away from home. I started to get the shakes so i just grabbed some starburst. Those and the cheeze its put me over.

[EmBee30]

Okay, in my opinion.. I think that is FANtastic!! Your calories could stand to go up a little more, but if you're anything like me, it's tough to add cals. and not add fat. I think your carb intake is just fine! 28 fat grams is great, you could even go up a little more. Did you have any lunch at all?

[EmBee30]

We posted at the same time, lol.
About Fitday, did you see where you can add your own foods in? Alot of things I eat are not already in their system so I use the Nutrition Facts on the back of the food and add that info where it says "New Custom Food". If it's something you will eat again, it's handy b/c it saves the information in there for future use.

[heartland]

starburst and cheeze-its...lol
that was lunch!
I had breakfast at noon though---i slept in!
Supper was at 7.

[heartland]

OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I see that now! :spider_red: Well, that's convenient!

[EmBee30]

Yeah! It is. You should see how long of a list I have in there. :blabla:
You REALLY get to see what all kinds of things you eat when you get that list going and pull it up. lol *Scary*

[phengirl75]

I love fitday.com I haven't been using it lately though..
RE: Carbs... I was a true carber last year.. I had just had my baby and I started Atkins on Sept 25,03.... I stuck to it HARDCORE!!! UNTIL>>> Thanksgiving Day... I decided to have a regular meal and ate whatever.. carbs or not.. after Thanksgiving I got back on track.. UNTIL New Years Eve... and I pigged out on pizza... and from New Years Eve until August 10th I was on a mission to eat... I totally blew it. When I was committed to low carb... I started at 230lbs.. and got down to 175 in that short time frame. I'm convinced if I would have stuck it out I could have gotten down to 100 lbs... you can definetly shed the weight on Atkins or just a regular follow your own plan low carb diet... HOWEVER.. I'm a bread/pasta girl... so I know that there's no way I could low carb for life... and since I stopped low carbing I did gain back from 175 up to 210... so>>> then I started the Phen and lost it back.. I TOTALLY agree with Kristin, you can lose weight eating whatever the heck you want to eat... you just have to do it in moderation. The sad part is that I figured this out.. had it down pat.. BUT I still f'd up and went back to eating ridiculous amounts... hopefully I've got it back under control now. In 1997 I did a low fat diet... eating ONLY things low in fat... I shed the weight.. got down to 155 lbs in like no time... as soon as I was off of it.. BAM gained it back. ... not from eating regularly.. but over eating.. Obviously no matter how you lose the weight you will gain it back if you continuosly over eat, however I think that if you watch your calorie intake.. you don't have to obsess over eating this or that.. but if you watch your calories mainly and make "wiser" choices you will lose the weight and successfully keep it off.
I'm determined to get down to where I want to be.. I just know that the road getting there is long.. but I know I will eventually get there.. may take hitting bumps in the road like I just did.. but I'll keep going! :)
Stick to something you know you can follow for life.. not just for 3 or 6 months til you lose the weight.. you know what I mean??

[Ready4Confidence]

I'm actually a big dork---and I'm ALREADY STUDYING for all my next semester classes... (finished a textbook already!)
Almost all of them are in Nutrition. Today, I came across "atkins", low-carb diets, low-fat diets..... and all that jazz. I will do a little research tomorrow during work and I'll getback with ya on what the good ole text books say about carb-watching.

[heartland]

Thank you Ready!!! :heartpump:
Great to see you posting again....missed you!