27%?

  • I was reading this:

    http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sou...h-diet/MY00499

    And it says on South Beach diet- while on phase 2, you are supposed to get 27% of your intake from carbs and no more.

    Um... I'm getting more like 35% to 40% a day, losing the past few months at a rate of about 1 lb a week. (I weighed 212 in January).

    Is anyone else keeping track of how much carbs they are consuming? I just feel like this is wrong- I thought besides phase 1 you weren't really supposed to count- but to just focus on eating the proper foods in phase 2. I was under the impression that in the first week you see how many times you can have some carbs (ie one time a day a meal with carbs, or 2 times a day) until you get an idea of what will make you lose and what will make you stall/gain?

    Just curious cuz I'm like should I lower the amount of carbs I'm eating? They all mostly coming from multigrain items and the peas I'm eating (I LOVE peas) today.

    How many carbs are you all consuming?
  • I don't count carbs at all, BUT I almost always limit myself to 1 ww/multigrain serving a day. Almost all the other carbs I eat come from veggies, nuts, etc.
  • I'm in phase 1 starting 2 and so far on fitday I'm around 37% carbs from beans and veggies.

    So I'm not sure where they are getting their numbers.

    Sarah
  • Almost every day that I plan out, I enter in FitDay. The lowest carbohydrate percentage I saw since I started back on South Beach at the end of January is 29% - and that was a weird low-cal (~950), high-fat (43%) day with probably not enough veggies.

    Average is a right around 40% carbs. I almost always limit myself to one grain serving/day.

    Recent Phase 1 days were 32% and 34% carbs. But I eat a lot of beans.

    The article says you get 10% carbs in Phase 1. Huh Maybe they forgot that we eat beans and LOTS of veggies on South Beach?
  • Just for laughs, I entered their "typical" Phase 1 day that they listed.

    B- omelet with 1 whole egg, 2 egg whites, 1 cup fresh spinach and 2 laughing cow cheese wedges, coffee w/ 1/2 c. 1% milk, V8 juice
    S- celery sticks with 2 Tablespoons hummus
    L- 3 oz grilled skinless chicken breast on 2 c. Romaine lettuce with lowfat balsamic vinaigrette
    S- 1 oz mixed nuts
    D - 3 oz grilled tuna, 1 c. cauliflower, 1 c. asparagus, 1 cup mixed salad greens with 1 medium tomato and 1/2 a red bell pepper with 1/2 Tablespoon olive oil
    Dessert - 1/2 cup ricotta

    No beans. No yogurt. 22% carbs. Still higher than their stated 10%.

    BTW, this was only 1130 calories.
  • Emma - I noticed the same thing about their typical day
    No actual citation for the information either. Disappointing but not surprising, I met the same sort of misinformation from the dietitian I met with when I started this journey.
  • But it's the mayoclinic- I thought they were a good source- it's just confusing to me. I feel like writing them a letter saying this isn't right! I've never ever hit below 20% doing SBD.

    Did you see at maintenace you "jump up" to 28%? I'm like um really 1% difference? lol.

    Today I am right in at 33.1%, yesterday I was at 36.9%...
  • I bet they are basing this on the original plan where there was no milk or yogurt.
  • I agree, I don't know where they got their figures. South Beach is more about being low glycemic than low carb.
  • Now that I think back, I used FitDay early on just to check my calorie content, and I never looked at the distribution of calories (unless it was really high fat from eating too many cashews) !! I think that's the joy of SB... is you don't have too.

    Maybe their dietician is the same school as Cyndi's....
  • I look at it just for the heck of it on my sparkpeople.
  • That was an interesting article. I used to believe that a calorie, was a calorie, was a calorie. I followed a 1200 calorie per day diet in the beginning of the year, faithfully measuring and logging everything. In 6 weeks I lost 4 lbs. Yuck. Now I'm on the third week of SB (just moved to Phase 2 and I've lost 9.5 lbs so far. I'm definitely a convert!
  • I hear ya on that CM- I counted calories for a freaking year and lost like 8 lbs- I switched to low carb and have lost 30 additional pounds since then.
  • seriously? No. On phase 2 I am usually between 40 and 55% carbs. If you are eating the amount of veggies it calls for plus the 3 servings of starch (which I usually get 2-3) and the 3 servings of fruit (of which I usually only get 1-2) there is no way to be at 27%

    OK I went back and looked at my lowest carb day (I calorie count based on SBD)
    I had I think only 1 fruit serving maybe 2 (cant remember if a serving is a whole apple or a half apple. I had a whole apple split over 2 meals). I had a slice of ezekiel bread with breakfast and a serving of brown rice at dinner.

    So this baaaarely makes it into phase 2. Maybe it would be phase 1.5 and my carbs were 38%