The only thing I did for my weight reduction was to count carbs. Remember you do not have to worry about how much fat you are consuming, you do not have to worry about how much protein you are consuming; you do not have to worry about how many calories you are consuming. The only thing you are going to worry about is how many grams of carbs you are going to consume. As long as you are eating balanced meals, amounts of everything else like, fat, proteins, and calories, will work out themselves.
People ask me if I am allowed to eat certain foods or not. The answer is simple. I can eat anything I want as long as I stay within 170g of carbs. I can eat two scones from Starbucks in the morning (180g) and nothing else for the rest of the day. Would that constitute three balanced meals for the day? Of course not.
Here is the mantra for today: I will eat no more than 170g of carbs every day.
Start reading Labels on Food Products:
America is a great country. All the packaged food in America has to have its label of nutritional value on the packaging. Please pay attention to the amount of carbohydrates per serving and size of the serving. A half a gallon carton of milk I have, reads: serving size 1 cup (240 mL) (or 8 fl. Oz.). Total Carb. (per serving) 14g. This is where you get the information about the amount of carbs you are going to ingest. If you are going to have half a cup of milk with your breakfast, then you count 7g of carbs, simple! Also, remember to read the list of ingredients on the label. If there are chemicals and preservatives that you cannot pronounce then you probably don’t want to eat them. Also pay attention to the marketing part of the label like, “Low Fat”. Usually, items that are “Low Fat” are made tastier by adding a lot of sugar or other sweeteners to them.
By law, the order of the ingredients in the list has to be in descending order of the quantity of the ingredients. So the first ingredient has the highest proportion in the product and the last ingredient has the smallest proportion in the product. So if you buy Peanut Butter from Trader Joe’s and the ingredient list reads only “Dry Roasted Peanuts”, then you know that you are getting 100% peanut butter. If however, you get Skippy peanut butter and the ingredient list reads many items including salt and sugar, you know what to do with it. Similarly, if you are looking at a blueberry muffin and the first ingredient listed is sugar while flour or blueberries are later in the list, then you should ask yourself why they don’t call the product blueberry flavored sugar cake. By the way, almost all muffins sold at supermarkets have sugar as their first ingredient. Go check it out, you’ll be amazed. Many people have figured out this trick so the food manufacturers use another trick. They split the sugar content among multiple different sugar equivalents. So 15g of sugar can be split into 5g of sugar, 5g of high fructose corn syrup, and 5g of cane juice. Now the sugar component won’t be the first on the list. But you can outsmart them by reading …. what? The amount of carbs.
Please note that it is my experience that many of the packaged foods sold at India grocery stores do not accurately reflect the carb counts.
Carbohydrates (carbs) vs. Sugar:
For those mathematically inclined, sugar is a subset of carbs. All carbs get converted to sugar in the body. The body uses sugar to convert it into energy for the cells. Excess sugar is converted into fat and stored away for future use when additional energy is needed. I am a lacto-ova vegetarian. Meaning I do eat milk and egg products but no other animal products. My discussion throughout is from the perspective of a vegetarian like me. If I didn’t eat milk or egg products then I’d be a vegan. A vegan diet is far superior for reversing Type II diabetes. For a diabetic or for weight reduction, it is important to note that carbohydrate is carbohydrate. It makes no difference for the purpose of counting carbs what kind of carbohydrate it is. Let me explain with an example. Some people eat brown rice instead of white rice because it is taken for granted that brown rice is better for you. However, they are surprised to find that despite eating brown rice there is no effect on their weight or sugar levels. That brown rice is better than white rice is true but it is not the whole truth. Here is the whole truth: Brown rice has more vitamins and nutritional value. Brown rice is better for digestion. Brown rice gives one more chewing satisfaction and that may help reduce the amount of intake. However, a cup of brown rice has exactly the same amount of carbs as a cup of white rice. Yes, brown rice does take longer than white rice to get converted to sugar in the body. So the sugar levels in the blood rise slowly for brown rice but the ultimate result is the same. A cup of rice has 45g of carbs, whether it is brown rice or white.
So if you go to an Indian restaurant and eat one cup of rice pudding (kheer) that they serve at typical lunch buffets in the U.S., you are consuming 70g of carbs (Rice + milk + 4 spoons of sugar). The dessert alone has more carbs than what you should consume for the entire meal.
Talking about Indian restaurants, I should mention that most of them add sugar to almost all the curries. I know that because I estimate the amount of carbs for the curries I’ve eaten and take insulin accordingly. Five hours later I find out that my sugar reading is way off. Based on the numbers I can pretty much tell you how much sugar was put in that curry. Therefore here is another mantra I follow: I will never eat from a buffet at an Indian restaurant.
Here is a summary of all the mantras:
People ask me if I am allowed to eat certain foods or not. The answer is simple. I can eat anything I want as long as I stay within 170g of carbs. I can eat two scones from Starbucks in the morning (180g) and nothing else for the rest of the day. Would that constitute three balanced meals for the day? Of course not.
Here is the mantra for today: I will eat no more than 170g of carbs every day.
Start reading Labels on Food Products:
America is a great country. All the packaged food in America has to have its label of nutritional value on the packaging. Please pay attention to the amount of carbohydrates per serving and size of the serving. A half a gallon carton of milk I have, reads: serving size 1 cup (240 mL) (or 8 fl. Oz.). Total Carb. (per serving) 14g. This is where you get the information about the amount of carbs you are going to ingest. If you are going to have half a cup of milk with your breakfast, then you count 7g of carbs, simple! Also, remember to read the list of ingredients on the label. If there are chemicals and preservatives that you cannot pronounce then you probably don’t want to eat them. Also pay attention to the marketing part of the label like, “Low Fat”. Usually, items that are “Low Fat” are made tastier by adding a lot of sugar or other sweeteners to them.
By law, the order of the ingredients in the list has to be in descending order of the quantity of the ingredients. So the first ingredient has the highest proportion in the product and the last ingredient has the smallest proportion in the product. So if you buy Peanut Butter from Trader Joe’s and the ingredient list reads only “Dry Roasted Peanuts”, then you know that you are getting 100% peanut butter. If however, you get Skippy peanut butter and the ingredient list reads many items including salt and sugar, you know what to do with it. Similarly, if you are looking at a blueberry muffin and the first ingredient listed is sugar while flour or blueberries are later in the list, then you should ask yourself why they don’t call the product blueberry flavored sugar cake. By the way, almost all muffins sold at supermarkets have sugar as their first ingredient. Go check it out, you’ll be amazed. Many people have figured out this trick so the food manufacturers use another trick. They split the sugar content among multiple different sugar equivalents. So 15g of sugar can be split into 5g of sugar, 5g of high fructose corn syrup, and 5g of cane juice. Now the sugar component won’t be the first on the list. But you can outsmart them by reading …. what? The amount of carbs.
Please note that it is my experience that many of the packaged foods sold at India grocery stores do not accurately reflect the carb counts.
Carbohydrates (carbs) vs. Sugar:
For those mathematically inclined, sugar is a subset of carbs. All carbs get converted to sugar in the body. The body uses sugar to convert it into energy for the cells. Excess sugar is converted into fat and stored away for future use when additional energy is needed. I am a lacto-ova vegetarian. Meaning I do eat milk and egg products but no other animal products. My discussion throughout is from the perspective of a vegetarian like me. If I didn’t eat milk or egg products then I’d be a vegan. A vegan diet is far superior for reversing Type II diabetes. For a diabetic or for weight reduction, it is important to note that carbohydrate is carbohydrate. It makes no difference for the purpose of counting carbs what kind of carbohydrate it is. Let me explain with an example. Some people eat brown rice instead of white rice because it is taken for granted that brown rice is better for you. However, they are surprised to find that despite eating brown rice there is no effect on their weight or sugar levels. That brown rice is better than white rice is true but it is not the whole truth. Here is the whole truth: Brown rice has more vitamins and nutritional value. Brown rice is better for digestion. Brown rice gives one more chewing satisfaction and that may help reduce the amount of intake. However, a cup of brown rice has exactly the same amount of carbs as a cup of white rice. Yes, brown rice does take longer than white rice to get converted to sugar in the body. So the sugar levels in the blood rise slowly for brown rice but the ultimate result is the same. A cup of rice has 45g of carbs, whether it is brown rice or white.
So if you go to an Indian restaurant and eat one cup of rice pudding (kheer) that they serve at typical lunch buffets in the U.S., you are consuming 70g of carbs (Rice + milk + 4 spoons of sugar). The dessert alone has more carbs than what you should consume for the entire meal.
Talking about Indian restaurants, I should mention that most of them add sugar to almost all the curries. I know that because I estimate the amount of carbs for the curries I’ve eaten and take insulin accordingly. Five hours later I find out that my sugar reading is way off. Based on the numbers I can pretty much tell you how much sugar was put in that curry. Therefore here is another mantra I follow: I will never eat from a buffet at an Indian restaurant.
Here is a summary of all the mantras:
· I will eat no more than 170g of carbs every day.
· I will never eat a scone or a muffin again.
· I will never eat from a buffet at an Indian restaurant.
· I will never eat commercially prepared cereal ever again.
· I will wait at least three to four hours after dinner before lying down to go to sleep.
2 comments:
Very informative. You make it simple and easy to follow.
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