yayyyyyyyyyy Enjah.....good job!

Glad I found this thread. I have been doing IF with counting calories and carbs because I'm to an age where I have to count everything to lose weight. I read that 75-80 g of carbs a day is in the "sweet zone" to assure fast weight loss. And it worked -- was losing easily 5 pounds a week. However, last week I started really feeling weak, having headaches, having trouble sleeping -- just generally felt BLAH all the time. It was to the point where I thought I needed to go to the doctor to see if I had anemia or something.

Finally looked online about the effects of low carb diets, and all of my symptoms were listed. Yesterday I allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted, but with plenty of carbs. Feel 100% better today. Now, the down side is that as with all low carb diets, eating all out means there was weight gain this morning, and obviously I can't keep doing this. But, I think for me it's going to mean having to increase my carb intake each day -- will just mean that the weight loss is slower which is ok as long as I don't feel like I have for the past week.

In reading this thread it sounds like the carb limits are all over, and I'm assuming that what this means is basically figuring out what you can tolerate and then go with that. Has anyone else had problems with reducing their carb intake too severely?

Carb limits really are all over. I've been at what Atkins calls "Induction" level and what other plans call "very low" for 7 months. I feel fine, and it's solved a lot of my issues. I have another "diet buddy" who does excellent at 100g a day and cannot drop below that or she gets wonky. I myself have to up my limit around TOM.

How long had you been doing low carb? A lot of people go through an "Induction Flu" period where they feel pretty lousy as their body adjusts to the reduced carbs, but after that, they feel good.

My main focus is hitting my calorie target (1800/day), but a close second is monitoring my carbs.

I have a friend who was diagnosed diabetic, lost a bunch of weight and got healthy, and has been successfully maintaining for 5 years. I'm not sure if he and his doctor worked this out, or if it is something that he just "qualitatively" does, but he makes sure that he doesn't go over 50g of carbs for any single meal (not counting fiber).

So I try to keep this in mind for my daily carb intake. I'm very happy if I can keep it under 100g for the day, and I make sure to not go over 50g/meal, which keeps it at less than 150g/day (since I'm eating 3x/day).

The other thing I've found for me, is that I can have very few, if any, of these carbs coming from white flour, sugar/corn syrup (and the like), or potatoes. If I do, intense cravings get the better of me.

I use a free app on my iTouch called "Calorie Counter", only because it was the first one I downloaded and worked fine for me. Foods are easy to log, and you get your total calories, carbs, protein, and fat numbers presented for each meal and each day automatically.

I don't understand this whole "carbs not including fiber"
Can someone dumb this down for me? I read the every carbs on every food label. This is different?

OK, I looked it up, so when I am counting carbs, I subtract the amount of fiber from the carbs, and that is the number I keep track of, correct?

The way I understand it, is that fiber is carbohydrates, but humans don't digest/process them. So if you are eating something that has 20g of total carbs, but 5g of fiber, your body is only processing 15g "net" carbs.

Thanks!
I started just LOOKING at my carb intake and I have to say, it is SCARY.
Easily in the 200's everyday, but looking at the fiber, it brings it to the 100's which is still scary... But better! lol

Thanks for explaining the carbs and fiber. Now I know how to figure out how many carbs I need to lose weight.

I use Fitness Pro to track and plug in 60% protein, 20% fat and 20% carbs to lose. I love the scan feature and very easy to track.