What's in our diet pills?

I've been unavailable for a couple weeks and I haven't posted anything for almost 3 weeks but I have been doing a lot of research. One article I read by accident was in the New York Times about the FDA. I promise you this is not boring. Anyone who is trying to lose weight needs to know this.

The FDA or Food and Drug Administration that regulates the manufacturing of vitamin supplements and diet pills has been called on the carpet for knowing the dangers of a chemical called BMPEA used in supplements and other pills and keeping quiet for the past two years.

All of this is now coming out in the open because Canada health authorities have called this chemical a "serious health risk" and banned the chemical from being used and pulled the products containing BMPEA from the shelves. This product was pretty widely used in nine different supplements.

Now it's been published that the FDA isn't properly policing the supplement industry because top regulators come from that same industry. It's like sending the Fox to guard the Hen House.

All of this comes at a time when the Federal Government is trying to put more regulation on the supplement industry that would include diet pills.

I've never been a fan of taking diet pills but I know many people trying to lose weight will get desperate after trying dozens of different diets. I've written lots of posts about diets and why they don't work, but having said that, I also know that desperation will cause people to use desperate measures and "pills" are a desperate measure. In my experience, pills will do more harm than good. Let me explain. Diet pills will usually cause quick weight loss of a few pounds but not without side effects. Some people become very nervous, others become weak, sometimes diet pills affect your sleep habits. And if you can't sleep that causes a whole new set of problems.

Some people are already on prescription drugs and then introducing a new drug can cause bad side effects and could counter your other drugs. Diet pills are more than just a supplement like vitamin D. Diet Pills are chemicals that will change behavior. And that's exactly what they are supposed to do. The simplest form of diet pill will at least curb your appetite. So the manufacturers think that if we can get you to eat less, you'll lose weight, it's that simple.

But it's not that simple. Losing weight is about losing body fat. If you don't eat properly you might lose some weight, but you'll be losing mostly muscle and you might actually increase your body fat but still lose weight. I hope I didn't confuse you. You can lose weight by losing 10 pounds of muscle in your arms and legs but add 3 pounds of fat to your waistline. You step on the scale and you weigh less, but your waist is getting bigger.

How can that be? How could I lose all that muscle? Actually, most people who lose weight will lose more muscle weight than fat. Muscle weighs far more than fat. If you look at a turkey, for instance, a raw whole turkey has yellow fat inside the Caracas,   take a cup of pure fat and then a cup of pure white breast meat and weight each one and you'll see the meat weights more.

So why do we lose more muscle than fat? Because you have less appetite and eat less, you lose your energy. You have to eat quality foods with lots of nutrition to keep up your strength and keep you active. You get your energy from the food you eat and you need that energy to stay active and burn fat.

I'll follow-up on this later in the week. There is a science to losing weight and I'll write more about the science and why heavy people can change and we shouldn't hold them responsible for their weight until we know the whole story.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want. 

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon, BN.com, iBook, kobo, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smash words.com. If you use the smash word promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (PJ42H). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Beginners at workouts need to read this.

Great article, this problem is the major reason most beginners stop working out. 

What You May Not Know About Muscle Soreness

• 4

You just crushed a really hard workout. You upped the load of your training, or you stepped out of your routine and tried a new activity. You feel great—until you wake up the next morning, barely able to move.

Enter delayed onset muscle soreness, better known as DOMS. It’s an acronym that athletes and fitness buffs wear with pride.

RELATED: The 20 Worst People at the Gym, According to Trainers

As its name suggests, “DOMS is muscle soreness that becomes evident six-to-eight hours following activity, peaking around 24 to 48 hours post-training,” says Jon Mike, CSCS, NSCA-CPT and PhD candidate in Exercise Science at the University of New Mexico. While the symptoms will often start to diminish at about 72 hours, “the precise time course and extent of DOMS is highly variable,” Mike says.

DOMS is most pronounced when you introduce a new training stimulus—a new activity, increased intensity or volume—or if you are new to physical activity in general. “Your body is making adaptations to better prepare your muscles to do that activity again,” says Lauren Haythe, certified Kinesis Myofascial Integration Practitioner and yoga teacher. That’s why on Day 1 at the gym, after doing squats or lunges with 10-15 pound weights, you can be brutally sore the next day. “But, as you continue on, you can build up from there, and you won’t be so sore,” she says.

RELATED: 7 New Recovery Tools You’ll Love to Hate

While all kinds of muscular contraction can cause soreness, eccentric contraction—where the muscle lengthens as it contracts—is most often associated with DOMS, according to Mike. This includes movements such as running downhill, lowering weights or lowering down into a squat or push-up position. “There is also some evidence that upper body movement creates more soreness than lower body exercises,” says Mike.

Muscle discomfort is the most common characteristic of DOMS, but there are other symptoms. According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), these may include reduced range of motion and joint stiffness, local swelling and tenderness, and diminished muscle strength. These symptoms appear gradually following exercise (not to be confused with acute pain that may arise during physical activity).

RELATED: Are You Foam Rolling All Wrong?

Muscle Soreness: Myths vs. Facts

No pain, no gain. Lactic acid build-up. An indicator of muscle growth. These are all phrases that we tend to associate with DOMS. While you may think you know everything you need to know about the condition that has you waddling like a duck, you may be surprised by what’s actually happening in your body.

Myth #1: DOMS is caused by the build-up of lactic acid in your muscles.

The verdict: Not true. During exercise, your body needs energy, and it breaks down molecules to get that. As a result of this metabolic process, your cells naturally become more acidic, which makes your muscles feel like they’re burning. But this isn’t caused by lactate. Lactate is actually a by-product of the metabolic process and serves as a buffer that slows down the rate at which the cells become acidic. “People produce lactate all the time, even at rest. It clears your system 30 minutes to 1 hour after working out,” says Mike.

A study in Clinics in Sports Medicine found that DOMS is the result of microtrauma in the muscles and surrounding connective tissues, which causes inflammation. The reason that eccentric muscle contraction (think lowering a dumbbell back down in a bicep curl) is more likely to be the culprit is because it places a higher load on your muscles compared to concentric contraction. “It’s the active lengthening of muscle fibers under load. It’s like you’re pulling on a rope, and there’s so much force that the rope starts to tear and pull apart,” says Mike.

RELATED: The Truth About Lactic Acid

Myth #2: It’s not a good workout unless you’re sore the next day.

We often wear our DOMS as a badge of honor and believe that if we’re not sore, we’re not doing enough during out workouts. But that’s just not true.

“It doesn’t mean that you’re not getting as good of a workout because you’re not crippled the next day,” says Monica Vazquez, NASM certified personal trainer. “You should feel [soreness] 24 hours to three days after the activity. If, after three days, you try to do the same exercise and you cannot because you go immediately to muscle failure, you’ve done too much,” she says.

According to Mike, studies have shown that soreness itself (using a scale from 0 to 10 to assess the level of soreness) is poorly correlated as an indicator of muscle adaptation and growth. There are many factors that influence how DOMS presents itself in individuals. “There is great variability, even between people with similar genetics and even among highly-trained lifters [and athletes],” he says. So while comparing notes (and commiserating) is all part of the process, soreness and DOMS isn’t the best gauge of how effective your workout was or who’s in better shape.

Myth #3: The more fit you are, the less susceptible you are to DOMS.

It’s true that you will start to feel less sore as your body adapts to your workouts and learns to distribute the workload across your muscle fibers more effectively. That’s why you should regularly change up your exercise routine.

However, there is also a genetic component to how sensitive we are to pain and soreness. “People can be no-responders, low-responders or high-responders to soreness,” says Mike. If you’re a high-responder, you will experience DOMS more acutely than someone who is a no- or low-responder when given the same training load. While you can’t change your genes, it is important to know where you fall on the spectrum to understand how your body may respond to changes in your workouts.

Myth #4: Muscle damage is a bad thing.

Yes, DOMS appears to be caused by trauma to your muscle fibers, but it’s not a definitive measure of muscle damage. In fact, a certain degree of soreness seems to be necessary. “When muscles repair themselves, they get larger and stronger than before so that [muscle soreness] doesn’t happen again,” says Vazquez. While these mechanisms are not completely understood, Mike notes that some muscle trauma is needed to stimulate protein production and muscle growth.

Myth #5: Pre- and post-workout stretching is a good way to prevent and treat DOMS.

Unfortunately, no. A review of studies for the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews on the effects of stretching before or after exercise on the development of delayed-onset muscle soreness found that pre- and post-workout stretching did not reduce the effects of DOMS in healthy adults. In fact, research has found that static stretching prior to working out does not safeguard you against injury and may actually decrease your power and strength.

While you may not be able to avoid soreness altogether, ACSM suggests advancing slowly with a new workout, giving your muscles time to adapt and recover. Vazquez recommends always including a proper warm-up (including dynamic stretching), and cooldown period as part of your routine.

RELATED: 10 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Workout

Stop Waddling: How to Recover from DOMS

There are a number of ways to alleviate those can’t-make-it-up-the-stairs symptoms. A sports massage is one good way to reduce the effects. “A massage will move the fluid and blood around in your body, which can help heal the microtrauma in your muscles better,” says Haythe. A study in the Journal of Exercise Rehabilitation found massage to be beneficial on both gait and feelings of post-workout soreness.

Other common ways to treat DOMS include foam rolling, contrast showers (alternating between hot and cold water), Epsom salt baths, increased protein intake (to increase protein synthesis) and omega-3 supplementation (to reduce inflammation), and sleep. New research in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that supplementing with saffron may also help to alleviate DOMS. Regardless of your preferred Rx, Haythe recommends looking at your diet to make sure you’re taking in nutrients to help your body heal. “Find a diet that can really help you feel the best that you can feel,” she says.

When It’s More Than Just Soreness

There may be times when you overdo it with your workout and feel bad. Really bad. But when should you be concerned?

“If your level of soreness does not go down significantly after 72 hours and into the 96 hours mark,” says Mike. ACSM advises that if the pain becomes debilitating, you experience heavy swelling in your limbs or your urine becomes dark in color, you should see your doctor.

If it’s an injury, you’re more likely to feel it immediately during your workout— something that should never be ignored. Soreness, on the other hand, will appear gradually, often the next day. “An injury will likely limit your range of motion and last longer than three days,” says Haythe.

When all is said and done, DOMS shouldn’t be avoided or revered. And it shouldn’t be your only gauge of your level of fitness or strength. “People think that the only part of their workout that matters is the hard part,” Vazquez says. “But, you can do more of the hard part if you don’t injure yourself.”

Long-term, Haythe says, “You’ll build more muscle, strength and endurance if you give your muscles a chance to take a deep breath and recover.”

—By Christine Yu for Life by DailyBurn

Should You Count Calories?

You’ve seen the statistics. Americans are more overweight than ever and the trend is expected to continue. The lifespan of our children will likely be shorter than ours for the first time in the history of mankind, due to chronic diseases related to obesity. In this day and age, weight loss doesn’t happen by accident, but weight gain does. Why? Consider the following:

• The majority of Americans do not get the minimum physical activity needed
• The average American takes approximately 3,000-5,000 steps per day, which means they’re sitting most of the day
• Portion sizes are significantly larger than before
• Food is available in endless quantities, anytime of day, and high-calorie foods are often cheaper

The bottom line is our environment encourages sitting and eating 24/7. Sitting while commuting to work, sitting at a desk to make a living, sitting for entertainment (phones, movies, video games, TV), and of course sitting while eating. To make matters worse, humans are programmed to eat and take the path of least resistance -- a survival mechanism that helped our hunting and gathering ancestors survive, but is now killing us. Literally.

Here are more facts to ponder:

• 1 out of 10 people do not know how many calories they need to maintain their weight
• Most people think they eat less than they actually do (20-50 percent less on average)

Translation -- we’re not very good at consuming the right amount of food and beverages to maintain a healthy body weight.

If you want to change something, like your clothing size, body fat percentage, or the number on the scale, the first step is to become aware of your body’s needs and the choices you’re making. In other words, awareness opens the door to change. Otherwise, you’re clueless and you don’t even know it. You end up becoming a victim of creeping obesity -- that 1-3 pounds the average American gains during adulthood because they’re not paying attention.

Perhaps you are paying attention, maybe even counting calories, and you’re wondering, is it worth it? Here’s what the research shows:

• People who track what they eat at least 5 days a week lose twice as much weight as those who don’t
• People who track what they eat regularly maintain weight loss better
• People who use a body sensing device that tracks activity and calories burned lose 2-3 times more weight than those who don’t

This makes sense. After all, how do you manage something, whether it’s your checkbook, your blood pressure or your waistline, if you’re not tracking it? Well…you don’t. You end up with bounced checks, uncontrolled blood pressure and having to buy bigger clothes.

What you don’t know does hurt you. Especially when it comes to your health.

When you pay attention and discover that your morning coffee drink and muffin is nearly 1,000 calories AND you know your body burns about 1,800 calories a day, you are empowered to make a smarter choice. When you use measuring tools to find out that your morning bowl of cereal is five times more than it should be, you can make an adjustment. When you read the nutritional guide in a restaurant and see your favorite salad is over 1,200 calories, you can choose something else.

Counting every single calorie to the point of obsession is probably not healthy, as most obsessions aren’t, but getting and staying informed about your body, your activity level and your food choices is 100 percent empowering. In my opinion, tracking is not a chore but a choice. A choice to pay attention and stay in control of my body and my health. I had to learn to eat fresh and forget about the foods I like and change to those foods that were god for me.

Do You Need a Detox Diet?

Everyone asks this question. This article will tell you the truth about detox diets.

By Katherine Brooking, MS, RD

Thinking about a “detox diet?” As a dietitian, I get questions all the time about the potential benefits of “detoxing” or “cleansing” or “fasting.”  We often hear of mega-watt celebs — everyone from Beyonce to Gwyneth — crediting liquid diets for their fabulous figures.

And with the rise in popularity of the BluePrintCleanse and similar plans, I’m seeing more and more people turn to so-called detoxification programs to lose weight, shed belly fat, clear acne, and even increase fertility… just to name a few! But before you forsake your fork, know the myths and facts about juice cleansing.

What is a juice cleanse?

Juice detox or cleanses have different regimens, but the basic requirement for most is a diet consisting of only fruit or vegetable juice (some include nut milk) for a period of one day to several weeks. Daily total calories also vary from plan to plan, but most are very low (as little as 800) to up to 1800 daily. Many of the weight loss plans are 1600 calories per day or below.

Cleansing and weight loss 

Most experts (this one included) do not recommend juice fasting as a way to lose weight. If you’re itching to shed pounds, a drastic cut in calories may seem like the fastest way to see instant results.  However, when you eat less food for a prolonged period of time, your metabolism slows down to conserve energy. Then, when you go back to your usual diet, your lowered metabolism may cause you to store more energy, so you will likely gain back the weight you lost and possibly even put on more weight when eating the same calories you did before the fast.

On the plus side, some people successfully use juice cleanses to help banish bad eating habits. If you’re struggling with too many sweets, fast food or packaged foods, a day or two of drinking juice can be a way to “jumpstart” a new pattern of eating.  However this does not work for everyone. Some people end up feeling more hungry and grumpy with juice alone, and then go into eating overdrive as soon as the fast is over. What’s the long-term solution for weight loss? Regular exercise combined with a calorie-controlled diet of fruit, vegetables, whole grain, lean protein, and healthy fats.

Juice fasting to “detoxify” the body

Most juice cleanses include a “detox” phase during which dieters are instructed to drink only water, juice or herbal teas to help rid the body of toxins. But there is scant scientific evidence showing that fasting will detox or cleanse your body. The truth is our liver, kidneys and digestive system are well designed to rid the body of waste – there is no need to ‘cleanse’ our body through juice or other types of fasts. In some people, severe calorie restriction can produce feelings of happiness or even euphoria. But beyond a few days, fasting isn’t actually doing a body good as nutritional deficiencies may result.

If you’re considering any type of fast, it is important that you check with your doctor first. For most people juice fasting for a few days is harmless, but for others, it can be dangerous. Cleanses are not advised for pregnant and breastfeeding women, the elderly, and individuals with certain health conditions like diabetes.

The Bottom Line

Though detox diets may not live up to all the claims, for most healthy people, a day or several days of juice cleansing will not cause harm. But for lasting, long-term weight loss, hold on to your fork and keep eating healthy meals and snacks.

How to Eat 5 Small Meals a Day

I understand the concept: Five small meals a day takes the edge off your appetite, evens out blood sugar levels, and keeps your energy steady. But I confess: I don’t always eat this way.

Although my fitness trainer encourages me to eat healthy food every few hours, my meals usually look like this: coffee, a bit more coffee, lunch at 3 p.m., dinner at 9 p.m. I start over again the next morning.

When I decided to change this habit, I found that doing these five things helped:

1. Plan ahead. Five meals a day equals breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. To do this right, you need to plan what you’ll eat every day for each “meal.” And you need to schedule eating every 2 to 3 hours.
2. Stock up. Face it: You’re going to grab whatever food is closest. So stock up on veggies, fruit, healthy carbs, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy products such as milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese.
3. Go for taste. Choose snack foods that will sustain you and taste good. Remember, healthy food can be satisfying.
4. Whip up a smoothie. Blend fruit, milk, yogurt, and a little honey for a sweet, filling snack packed with vitamins, fiber, protein, and calcium.
5. Combine carbs and protein to stay full longer. Try whole wheat toast with peanut butter or a hard-boiled egg; whole-grain pasta with olive oil and cheese; or oatmeal with fruit, milk, and honey. Or make yourself a big pot of soup (like my Tuscan chicken soup) to heat up for lunches or snacks.

By Domenica Catelli
WebMD Magazine - Feature

Reviewed by Melinda Ratini, DO, MS

This is a great article and I copied it so you can see that I'm not the only one that promotes the 'several small meals" concept. I prefer to even out the meals and avoid snacks. Actually I think that 6 small meals a day works best. And I try to keep each meal the same amount of calories (300 to 400). Bigger people, say 200 pounds or more, will have to stay closer to 400 each meal, at the beginning and then over time your appetite will diminish     and you'll be happy with 300 calories. That's 1800 a day, the proper amount of daily calories to lose weight. 

The Health Benefits Of Losing Weight

I’ve talked before about the health benefits of losing weight, but that was a couple of months ago in a post you probably didn’t read anyway. So I’ve written something again that’s completely different about the same subject.

Losing weight can improve your health in many ways. Just losing 10% of your current weight can make a difference in the way you feel on a daily basis. Here are some other ways losing weight will benefit your health.

First you’ll have increased energy and Improve mobility
Lower cholesterol levels and improve your breathing
Reduced blood pressure and it'll help you sleep better
Reduce aches and pains and prevent angina (chest pain)
Decrease risk for heart attack or stroke and prevent Type 2 diabetes
Improve blood sugar levels

Science knows more about what causes obesity and diabetes today than just a few years ago. So what you learned from your doctor 10 years ago might need to be updated.

Myth: High fructose corn syrup is to blame for obesity and diabetes.

Reality: There is no scientific evidence to suggest that high fructose corn syrup is uniquely responsible for people becoming obese. Obesity results from an imbalance of calories consumed and calories burned. U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows that per capita consumption of high fructose corn syrup is actually on the decline, yet obesity and diabetes rates continue to rise. In fact, obesity rates are rising around the world, including Mexico, Australia and Europe, even though the use of high fructose corn syrup outside the United States is limited. Around the world, high fructose corn syrup accounts for about 8% of calorie sweeteners consumed.

I put that last paragraph in this post because it wasn’t too many years ago, probably 20 or so, that the FDA allowed the food manufacturers, the makers of processed foods, the right to substitute sugar with high fructose corn syrup. And now that the overweight problem has exploded across America, I imagine they have been taking some heat over that decision.

Many of you might not remember, but 30 some years ago, it was the choice of the food manufactures and the government to keep the cost of food lower. Find ways to lower the cost of manufacturing processed foods and keep them more affordable for the public. At that time America was going through a period of inflation like I had never seen. Grocery prices were going up every day. Every time you’d go to the store the price of everything from milk to meat to fruit would be more than the day before. People were in a panic and no one know when it would stop. That’s why the decision was made. While Europe decided to just increase the cost of food staples and live with it. Today Europe doesn’t have the large amounts of processed foods like we do. More consumers buy their fruits and vegetables in open markets from farmers. Meats are sold in butcher stores and things are more expensive. Now they do have the superstores especially in France from what I remember, but there’s not that many.

I know this isn’t a popular idea, but I think we might have been better off by letting the prices go higher and keep the food more basic with a lot less processed foods. After all besides obesity, look at the rate of cancer and how the number of cancer patients have soared in the past 20 or 25 years. Cancer is a direct result of the food we eat, o.k. that’s not exactly true, some cancer is inherited, but largely food is a big part of the problem. Even fresh foods that aren’t processed are grown for mass market so they have to be grown faster and picked sooner than food that you would grow for yourself. That means that pesticides and growth stimulates had to be used to mature the food as quick as possible. Those people who live in farm country know the difference between the vegetables you buy from your neighbor and the ones you buy at the grocery store.

There’s a growing trend even in the big cities to grow fresh vegetables. On news programs you can see how New Yorkers have community gardens on top of apartments and in vacant lots. In Chicago, the same think, people are starting to realize that supermarket food maybe dangerous. These imported fruits and vegetables from South and Central America look great, but do those countries have the same restrictions on using pesticides and other chemicals?

Think about it, were is your food coming from and is it really good for you. Look closely at things you buy and ask yourself if this is really good for me. I’ve been putting more thought into what I buy in the grocery store and I read more labels, you might be surprised how much money you’ll save at the store next time.

How To Count Carbs

A great article, some people want to count carbs instead of calories and that's okay. I thing it's better to count calories but I was into counting carbs before I changed to counting calories. 

Some people prefer the high-protein diets and little carbs. You have to pick a diet that you can live with for the long-term. If your a workout fanatic then you want a high-protein diet to help your muscles rebound from the workouts. But most of us will do well on a well-balanced diet of fresh food  low in calories with plenty of vegetables and fruit with some fish and poultry, nuts, seeds and greek yogurt. Except for greek yogurt don't eat dairy. Read the article below, carbs are things you should understand. 

WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Michael Dansinger, MD

When you have diabetes, it’s important to balance your carbs with your medication. Have too many carbs and not enough medication and your blood sugar can soar. Too few carbs and too much medication and it can crash. Neither is good.

Counting the carbs you eat at each meal or snack can help you balance them with your medications and keep your blood sugar stable.

How Many Carbs Should You Eat in Each Meal?

Half of each meal. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that you get between 45% and 65% of your calories from carbs. You could think of this as half your plate at each meal can be taken up by carbs.

Carbohydrates in grams. To be more precise, count the carbs. You can see how many grams of carbohydrates are in packaged foods by reading the nutrition facts labels. For non-packaged foods, you can look this information up online.

The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for carbs is 130 grams per day. Per meal this comes to about:

• 60-75 grams of carbohydrates per meal for men
• 45-60 grams per meal for women

Carbohydrate choices. This can help you eyeball the number of carbs you’re going to eat once you know approximately how many carbs are in different foods. Using this method, you have a certain amount of “carb choices” you can have in a meal or snack.

• Men can have 4 to 5 carb choices per meal
• Women can have 3 to 4 carb choices per meal
• Whether you’re a man or woman, snacks should be 1 or 2 carb choices

So what is a "carb choice" or serving of carbs? A carb choice is an amount of food that has about 15 grams of carbs in it.

For example, 1 slice of bread is one carb choice. But 1/4 of a large baked potato is also one carb choice. So having a whole baked potato could blow your whole carb choice budget for one meal.

You can find lists of carb choices for different foods online. You can also ask a nutritionist or diabetes instructor.

In general, it may be easiest to keep the amount of carbs you eat at each meal somewhat consistent. That way you don’t have to adjust your medications too much.

However, these are just basic ranges for the number of carbs to eat, says Dawn Sherr, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Association of Diabetes Educators.

“It’s individual to your needs and depends on what your goals are. Are you trying to lose weight? Are you trying to manage your cholesterol? Are there other issues going on with your health?” she says. “Always talk to your doctor, diabetes educator, or dietitian because they can help you adjust your carbohydrates to meet your goals.”

How Do You Know How Many Carbs Are in What You’re Eating?

Be mindfuland check your portion sizes. Knowing how many carbs you’re eating can be tricky because it depends on serving size and how many servings you eat, says Toby Smithson, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

“Nowadays we can get into the habit of eating our meals really fast and eating more than we think without even realizing it. We’re used to seeing larger portions in restaurants and packaging, and what we think is one serving may actually be two or three.”

Reading labels helps, but it’s best to experiment in your own kitchen, Smithson says. “Pour a serving into a measuring cup, and then pour it onto your plate or into your bowl to see how it looks. This will help you prepare for going out to restaurants or to your friends’ or relatives’ houses.”

Another strategy is to pour what you normally eat into your bowl first, then scoop it out with a measuring cup, Sherr says. “One person’s bowl of cereal is different from another’s. One person might be used to eating one serving of cereal for breakfast while another is used to eating two.”

Keep in mind that foods like fresh fruit can vary greatly by size, Smithson says. “An apple can be anywhere from 15 to 30 or even 45 grams of carbs depending on how big it is.”

There’s an app for that. Sherr encourages you to use technology. “Many restaurants have nutrition information on their web sites, and there are phone apps for common foods,” she says, adding that these can help you plan ahead when you’re going out to eat or doing your grocery shopping.

Keep Track

Different foods will affect your blood sugar in different ways. This depends not only on the kind and amount of carbohydrates you eat and the insulin or medications you take, but other things such as how active you are, Smithson says.

“I ask clients to keep a food journal once in a while. A day or two lets us match up patterns with blood glucose readings,” Smithson says.

She suggests writing down the foods and number of carbs you eat, the insulin or medications you take, whether you exercised or had other physical activity, and your blood sugar readings.

“Try things out on yourself,” she adds. “If you see that your blood glucose is higher after eating potatoes, then you can plan for that the next time you have them by either changing your portion size or your medications.”

Smithson says that it’s important not to beat yourself up if you make a mistake counting your carbs. “It can be confusing or overwhelming at first. Remember that managing your diabetes is about more than just the food. We look at carbs because they have the most direct effect on blood glucose, but it’s not the only thing.”

All Carbs Are Not the Same

Keep in mind that the type of carbs you eat can have different effects on your blood sugar. You should also know that your body uses two types of carbs for energy: simple and complex. They affect your body a little differently.

Simple carbs are sugars. Your body digests these very quickly, so they raise your blood sugar quickly too. These include sugars that are added to processed foods such as:

• Table sugar
• Molasses
• Honey
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Fruit juice concentrate

Fruit and milk contain simple carbohydrates naturally.

Complex carbs are starches. They take longer for your body to digest than simple carbs. So they take a little longer than simple carbs to affect your blood sugar. You’ll find them in:

• Bread
• Cereal
• Rice
• Pasta
• Tortillas
• Crackers
• Pretzels
• Beans
• Potatoes and yams
• Peas
• Corn
• Whole fruit

Fiber is also a carbohydrate, but your body doesn’t digest it, so it doesn’t affect your blood glucose.  

When you read a nutrition label, it will tell you the amount of total carbohydrates in a serving. Ask your doctor, diabetes educator, or dietitian whether it’s OK to subtract any of the fiber grams from the amount of total carbs. Some methods of carb-counting say it’s OK, while others say to go by total carbs.  

As you choose carbs, keep in mind that some are healthier than others, Sherr says. “The less processed the food is, the better. Whole grains will affect your body differently than sugary treats.” This is because processing the grains to make flour can strip away fiber and nutrients.  So for a slower increase in blood sugar, go for whole-grain foods, and whole foods like vegetables and fruits instead of processed foods or juices.

Reviewed by Michael Dansinger, MD 

SOURCES:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign McKinley Health Center: “Macronutrients: the Importance of Carbohydrate, Protein, and Fat.”

CDC: “Carbohydrates.”

University of California, San Francisco: “Understanding Carbohydrates.”

Cleveland Clinic: “Carbohydrates and Blood Sugar Control for People with Diabetes.”

Dawn Sherr, MS, RD, CDE, spokesperson, American Association of Diabetes Educators.

Toby Smithson, MS, RDN, LDN, CDE, spokeswoman, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

University of California, Los Angeles: “Carbohydrates.”

Joslin Diabetes Center: “How Does Fiber Affect Blood Glucose Levels?” “Carbohydrate Counting 101.”