I feel like I may be eating too many carbs.
 

I am a calorie counter and almost every meal I eat has carbs. I have Oatmeal with fruit for breakfast and a sandwich or pita bread with hummus for lunch, and always some type of carb with dinner. Will this slow down my weight loss if it's all portion controlled and within my calories?

It depends on how carb sensitive you are. My body bloats up like a balloon on refined carbs and wheat. Some people have no problems at all.

Yeah, this is definitely something you have to experiment with. Just don't "count" the first week or two when comparing low and high-carb plans (because your body holds onto less water on low-carb than on high-carb - and you have to keep that in mind. The "water" really doesn't matter so you don't want to assume that you're losing better on low-carb when you only lost better the first week or so. Also if you switch to high carb from low-carb you're going to see a gain, but again it's water that your body needs to process the extra carbs. What that means in practical terms is don't compare the first two weeks when comparing different plans.

When I was younger, there didn't seem to be as big of a difference for me as there is now between low and high carb eating (but I never kept such good records before either).

Now, I can say that I lose about the same on 1500 calories of high-carb as on 1800 calories of low-carb (some people tell me that's very unusual, but there doesn't seem to have been much research on the difference for individual people - the research that has looked for differences has only looked between groups of people - not the difference for individuals).

So keep a faithful food journal for a few months (yeah, it really does take a few months to draw any conclusions) and then try a different plan with the same amount of calories, but a different amount of carbs and do that for a few months, then switch back. Switch back and forth at least a couple times to (so the full experiment is going to take up to a year).

Or just accept whatever weight loss you experience, eating the way you want to. There's no "wrong" way to do this, and there's no reason you have to try to follow the plan that nets you the fastest weight loss. That you like what you eat, and are content with the food plan is more important in the long run.

Try to focus your carbs on healthier choices that don't cause so much of an insulin spike. If you're eating oatmeal, eat the whole kind with very little added sugar. Try to get foods with a lower glycemic index. If you are eating bread type products, make sure it has fiber. Whole grain brown rice is better than white, etc. Overall, I would think you would probably be ok, unless you're one of those people who are really sensitive.Make sure you get enough protein, too. And don't forget our friends the vegetables!

Oh yeah, forgot to add I only eat whole grain. :) I do try to eat a lot of veggies and protein as well. I guess I'll see how this works with how I've been eating when I weigh myself Monday.

How do you feel? If your body feels fine then you might be fine with carbs in your meals.

I went low carb for a while and it was horrible for me. For the six weeks I did it (no grains too) and I was tired all the time. As soon as I went back to just calorie counting and eating more carbs I had more energy. Most people get over the carb flu after a period of time going low carb, I never did so I figured it wasn't for me. My carbs are still lower than most people (probably around 130-150 a day) but not 100 or less as I was before.

Different things work for different people. I should have just stuck with what I was doing...if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? ;)

sontaikle: Right! :) Well, I think in the past while being really commited to calorie counting I was eating carbs and losing weight still. I guess I always had this idea in my head that they were bad and wondered if it would slow down weight loss. I'll do what kaplods suggested and experiment and see where that takes me. I think it should be ok. I also really love whole grains and would be sad to not eat them anymore.

Carbs are NOT bad. Our bodies were designed to burn carbs for energy. When you deprive your body of carbs, it will burn fat for energy. This is why so many people like low carb dieting. I personally don't care to trick my body and I try to stay balanced in all aspects. I haven't really tracked my carb intake much in the past, but I'm aiming for about 40% of my calories to come from carbs. I will reduce that 10-15% on days that I don't exercise. The more active you are, the more carbs your body will need. At least that is my understanding......

There's quite a bit of scientific debate over how essential carbohydrates are, and the percentage needed (and the kind needed). Grains are actually relatively new to the human diet, and most grains contain "antinutrients" (they actually strip some nutrients from the body, which is why bread often is fortified with some of those nutrients).

That doesn't mean you can never eat grains, or that grains (or any other carb for that matter) are "bad."

I've been dieting for 41 of my 46 years, and tried low-carb diets in my teens and twenties. The diets I tried were extremely low-carb (Atkins induction "low"), and I felt so terrible on them (and it wasn't temporary "carb flu" because it lasted far longer than two weeks and got worse instead of better) that I condemned all low-carb diets as unhealthy.

So, when my doctor suggested I try "low-carb" for my insulin resistance (he said some new research had found that insulin resistant folks generally lost weight more reliably with low-carb) - I was skeptical. I wouldn't have taken him seriously at all, if he hadn't warned, "but don't go too low," though he admitted he didn't know what would be too low.

So I started experimenting, and discovered that I lose weight and feel much better, with far less hunger when I'm extremely careful with carbohydrates.

That doesn't mean I think carbohydrates are "bad," it just means that if I eat too much carbohydrate (even the high-fiber, whole-food carbs of fruit and grains) I feel lousy, am rabidly hungry, and have more flares of my health issues (I would have never made the connection between pain and autoimmune diseases and my diet - but in researching my health issues, I read in several fibromyalgia, arthritis, and autoimmune disease books that many people with these disorders find relief in a low-carb, low-GI, or low-grain diet).

I try to make paleo-friendly food choices for the most part (the paleo diets are often recommended for folks with fibro, insulin resistance, autoimmune diseases, and/or chronic pain issues).

I still do eat grains and dairy, but in very controlled quantities, and I work to avoid the foods I know aggravate my health issues (like wheat).

Not everyone has these issues of course, and so they're going to be able to eat more of these foods than I can (for weight loss, and for health).

But I have to say that I regret that I was so very biased against low-carb diets. If I had given them more of a chance thirty years ago, I may never have gotten so obese, or had so many of my health issues. Just the hunger difference has been amazing.

I had to find my own best "carb zone," which is significantly higher than Atkins induction low-carb, but is far less than in the SAD (standard American diet).

Most low-carb diets are not zero-carb diets. In fact, most (even Atkins) are not truly low-carb diets so much as controlled-carb diets. Even Atkins doesn't forbid grains, it just recommends adding carbohydrate foods back into the diet gradually and in a specific order. You're supposed to add back the carbs in small increments until you stop losing, then you backtrack a bit to find the best carb level for your goals (weight loss or weight maintenance).

Many people miss this step and then criticize Atkins for "banning grains" when the diet doesn't really do that.

Many other diets considered low-carb also are criticised for practices the diets don't actually endorse.

I would encourage you (or anyone) with weight or health issues to try a variety of eating styles (keeping calories consistent so you can compare one diet to another more easily). I like exchange plans because they make it even easier to compare one diet to another. Whenever I try a new eating style I "translate" it into an exchange plan (usually starting with about 1800 calories).

If I hadn't done this, I may never have made the carb-hunger connection. I learned that I was hungrier on 3,000 calories of high-carbs than on 1,000 calories of extremely low-carb (not that I'm advocating either. In fact, the extremely low-carb has unpleasant side effects for me such as severe headaches and a tendency to faint).

You may find that you do best (not only with weight loss, but also in how you feel) on an extremely high-carb diet. Or perhaps an extremely low-carb one.
It's more likely that you'll do best somewhere in the middle, but where in the middle will take some experimenting to discover.