I have read elsewhere in this forum that IP'ers do not follow the "net carb" rule that Atkins normally applies (take total carbs, less dietary fiber, less sugar alcohols). However, my coach told me we should look at net carbs when considering food choices. I am perplexed. What are other coaches saying? What do you all do? It opens a whole new world of food opportunities. I don't want to get too excited yet. What do you all think?

Someone, you or the coach are overthinking the program. Follow the sheet, dont count anything, lose weight. It could not possibly be simpler.

You are only allowed one meal a day that isnt prescribed. Where will you count the carbs?

As I am doing alternative, I count straight carbs, not net, just because I don't want the extra carbs to be safe.

I'm doing alternatives as well after MUCH research into products that nutritionally are VERY SIMILAR to IP products, in all categories not just carbs. I choose products that are unrestricted (under 8 g of carbs) and also restricted (under 16 g of carbs) and follow the SAME protocol. I have my products that work for me and I just go for it like the IP sheet. No daily counting involved.

As Longhorn said, if you are doing IP products there is no reason to count, the work is done for us. That said, I always count the net carbs if I need to figure something out. The fiber and sugar alcohols don't count anyway, so why count them.

If you are calculating "net carbs" remember that sugar alcohol isn't exactly "free"' it is reduced calorie, not zero-calorie, they can add up particularly in products that have high sugar alcohol content (bars typically).

http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fit...-alcohols.html

Tips for Carb Counting and Sugar Alcohols

The effect that sugar alcohols have on your blood glucose can vary so it is difficult to know how sugar alcohols will affect your blood glucose levels every time. Because there is less of an effect from sugar alcohols than either sugar or starch, you can use the following tips to estimate how much carbohydrate from a serving to count in your meal plan for foods that contain more than 5 grams of sugar alcohols.

If a food has more than 5 grams of sugar alcohols:

Subtract ½ the grams of sugar alcohol from the amount of total carbohydrate
Count the remaining grams of carbohydrate in your meal plan
Note: This tip is useful for those who are intensively managing their diabetes with insulin or advanced carbohdyrate counting.

Example:

Portion: 1 bar
Total carbohydrate 15 grams, with 6 grams of sugar alcohol
One bar counts as 12 grams carbohydrate (15 – 3 = 12)

This is exactly what I am doing. I spent a lot of time reading the alternative products thread and comparing nutritional values, and buy only products that are very similar to IP, and then I don't have to think about it, really.

FYI (in the name of virtually useless and somewhat disgusting information), only termites and perhaps similar insects are "born" with the ability to digest fiber/cellulose. Other animals that can digest cellulose generally have to have very complicated multi-chamber stomaches and have to acquire the ability from their parents, usually by eating their parent(s) poop.

Dietary fiber (cellulose) calories aren't digested at all (unless you're a cow, termite or other animal that has the ability to digest cellulose). So no matter what your food plan, you should be able to subtract net carbs (if you want to). Some manufacturer's and calorie counting resources will do the math and subtract the fiber calories (and some will not - I think that's a terrible injustice, because most people don't care what the calories would be for a cow - they want to know how many calories a human is going to absorb).

The problem is we're not really sure how many calories people absorb (except that we know that all people can't digest/absorb the calories in fiber). However, we don't "really" absorb all of the non-fiber calories we eat either, that's why some animals can survive eating the stuff out of other animals poop. Not all the calories are absorbed "the first time." Some animals we know have terribly inefficient digestions (for example cats, which is why dogs often like to eat cat poop - because they smell the undigested meat in the poo - my parents had a maltese who could only be kept from snacking on the litter box by putting the litter box on a cabinet the dog couldn't reach).

Sugar alcohols tend to be more variable. Some research suggests that different people digest sugar alcohols differently (which may be why some people get diarrhea from them and some do not. It's quite possible that the people who have little or no digestive upset from the sugar alcohols are digesting them more fully than those who get ill - this is a popular theory, but to my knowledge hasn't been thoroughly tested). What this means (at least in theory) is that 10g of xylitol might have zero calories for some people and 30 calories for others (these are theoretical numbers, and aren't based on actual findings. Research that has found differences have averaged the difference, but from what I understand there seems to be a very large individual difference).

Probably more than you want or need to know (especially about the poop-eating) right?