What kind of carb count constitutes "Low Carb" in your opinion?

[merilisa]

I am a long-term lowcarber, but it occurs to me that everyone's idea of a lowcarb meal would vary. I am trying to tweak a crocpot recipe I like to make it more LC, and at 8.8 carbos per serving of this rather substantial dish, I can't tell if it constitutes lowcarb or not. It's a chicken and mushrooms dish with lots of mushrooms, but it also cas a touch of carrots, and some tapioca. I serve it with broccoli, which would bump the whole meal up to about 15 carbos.

I might eliminate the carrot. I can't see that it really adds anything.

What do you consider a lowcarb meal?

[3boys4me]

For the whole meal I wouldn't think 8 grms is too much. That's usually what my veggies comes up to in my dinner meal.

I really want to try turnips but according to DANDR's carb counter a cup cooked turnips is 11 carbs! I will also want my green veggies with that too...so I don't know if I'll have it or not.

It is still sitting in my fridge...

[LindaSue]

Also, is that before or after deducting fiber? If you haven't deducted the fiber yet, the count could be much lower. My personal rule of thumb is if a recipe has about 6 or fewer carbs per serving, it's fine the way it is pretty much. Anything higher than that and I try to tweak it down a bit, if possible. I don't always stick to that strictly though, but I do try to make sure that those carbs are coming from veggies, eggs, cheese, cream and seasonings (pretty much in that order).

[horseyladyct]

Personally, for me, 10 carbs or less is lc...........

[merilisa]

Okay,

for six servings (they are ample) with the carrots in the recipe:

59 carbos
9 grams of fiber
50 grams fiber deducted
8.33 carbos per serving

without carrots

52 carbos
7 fiber carbos
45 grams with the fiber deducted
7.5 per serving

Mind you, this is without the broccoli that I would usually eat with this

On the other hand, this is quite a substantial serving. Another way to go about this is to reduce the portion size, especially eating it with broccoi. This is hearty and a little goes a long way. I will have to make it and see if it isn't, in reality, 8 servings from one recipe.

[merilisa]

Okay, I think I've got it. With the broccoli (in other words, the complete meal) it comes to 7.25 carbos per serving with no carrots, and 7.75 with (it's only a tiny amount of carrots.)

Thanks for the help. I wouldn't have thought of deducting fiber. I have been LC'ing so long that my first Dandr had no mention of Splenda in it, and in order to get Splenda into the states, I had to smuggle it in!

[Galatea]

Be careful with the deducting fiber game. My experience - It works really well when you are at maintanence, because there is nothing left to lose. If you are trying to lose weight, the fiber deduction business just causes super slow weight loss and stalls. I was averaging 5 pounds a month weight loss towards the end of my loss time on DANDR. I then went to the deducting fiber game and ended up with 10 pounds on in 2 months and was under 1800 cals a day and 20 net carbs.

In the orginal Atkins 72 version - there were no fiber deductions. Those of us who have been doing it this way have lost amazing amounts of weight after being stalled for 6 months to a year. The sticks are now truly purple everyday. Most lose between .5 pounds and 2 pounds every single day. You add back carbs, at 5-8 grams a week, but no deductions.

In answer to your original question - on maintanence I consider 10 carb meals to be low carb. When losing I try and keep it in the 4-6 range and if I want a 10 carb meal, I throw in a couple of zero to 4 carb meals to balance it out.

[SouthernMama]

7-8 carbs for lunch or dinner is LC for me, for breakfast, which I rarely eat, I won't go over about 4 carbs, and rarely have that many.

I have been deducting fiber for about 2 months now and am still pleased with my loss, but everyone has to find what works best for them.

[Sooz]

As Galatea said I think it depends on whether you are in maintenance or are still losing weight. We in my family have all pretty much reached our first goal, but I want to see how low we can go, so we will stay at under 30 carbs a day for the next couple of months. So I usually keep my meals to 10 grams or under. When we go into maintenance mode, I think 20 grams or under will be the rule of thumb for a while.


For example, I saw an ad for Sara Lee LC bread today, and it is 9 (yes 9!!!) grams of carbs per slice. Don't know if that is pre or post fiber, but I would NEVER eat a piece of bread that was 9 grams of carbs....... Not low enough for me!

Sooz

[merilisa]

I don't think I trust deducting for sugar alcohols or fake flour, but I can see where deducting fiber for veggies makes sense, since I have always been able to eat much more veggies than Dandr allows and still lose, but one bite of "products" and ketosis all goes to hell. Similarly, more than a little garnish of nuts and poof, I am still in ketosis but I have no loss.

I used to deduct for flaxseed, but that was it. I am going to give it a shot for veggies, and see how it goes.

[auntie3]

I "try" to balance my carbs throughout the day as much as possible, or I find that I get that post meal sleepiness about 2 hours after I eat. For me, since I have to keep pretty low carbs to lose, that translates to about 6 grams of carbs per meal. I deduct fiber grams for my veggies, though.

In your recipe, you mention tapioca. There are 5 grams of carbs in 1 1/2 teaspoons of dry tapioca! I think I'd cut that out, and use something like Xanthan gum as a thickener, instead. Cutting the carrots is also a pretty good idea, since they have quite a bit of natural sugar - 3 ounces of shredded raw carrot has 9 grams of carbs.

Your recipe sounds great, and I think it would still be great without the carrots.

[LindaSue]

Sooz, I also saw that Sara Lee commercial and thought "what a joke". That's only a couple carbs less than regular marshmallowy white bread per slice. Most store bought bread has somewhere between 11-12 carbs per slice. I'm sure that bread isn't worth eating for 9 carbs. If I'm going to spend that many carbs on bread, it had better be something really good like a nice, chewy sour dough rye. Thank goodness I no longer have a taste for bread at all. Too many other great things to eat.

[Sooz]

It's true LindaSue about it only being a couple of grams less than regular bread.

We have a company here in Colorado called Rudi's, and they make LC bread. Our friend is the CFO of the company and he says people like me, who concentrate mainly on the carb count of breads and not just the price, don't make it into their research numbers. Too bad, because I think it will hurt companies in the long run not to consider how precious one or two grams of carbs is to people who are losing weight.

Sooz