Can You Drink Beer and Lose Weight?

 Can You Drink Beer and Lose Fat?

 When you think of a guy who drinks a lot of beer, usually the first thing that comes to mind is a large, round belly. I have to admit that I do drink beer, but I lost my fat and I'm just maintaining. Remember there is a big difference between someone who drinks one or two beers a week and someone who drinks one or two beers a day.

Beer is deeply entrenched in our culture as a way to let loose, have fun, and relax. It’s no surprise then that the U.S. beer industry sells more than $100 billion in beer to U.S. consumers each year.

To put this into perspective, U.S. consumers 21 years and older consumed 27.5 gallons of beer and cider per person during 2015. Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in the U.S.

In this article you’ll learn why drinking beer can cause you to gain fat, some strategies to drink beer and still lose weight, along with nutritional information on the top 10 beers sold in the U.S.

Most of this information was in a post on VeryWell.com

1. Beer does not fill you up but does provide calories

One of the big challenges with drinking beer is that it provides calories without satisfying your hunger at all.

There are a few reasons why:

1. Beer is an “empty calorie” because it provides almost no nutrients
2. Beer is in liquid form, which means you can drink calories really fast
3. Beer contains alcohol, which is metabolized by the body differently than other macronutrients like protein, carbs, and fat.

Regarding the last point, drinking alcohol can stop the process of fat burning completely (See: How Drinking Alcohol Causes Weight Gain).

The foundation of losing weight is to eat fewer calories than you burn while staying full. That’s why eating whole foods – think meat, vegetables, fruit – that fill you up but provide fewer calories is such an effective eating strategy to get lean.

If you drink 5 beers (~750 calories), you will still have plenty of room in your stomach to have a full meal right after. And this is exactly why drinking beer can make losing weight very difficult.

2) Beer can negatively affect your sleep

If you normally drink beer at night, the alcohol from the beer can negatively impact your sleep.2

You also may need to get up a few times during the night to go to the bathroom because of all the fluids you drank, which is certainly not helping improve your sleep either.

Lack of quality sleep is directly linked to both weight gain and muscle loss.

In fact, one weight loss study found that people who slept 5.5 hours vs. 8.5 hours lost 50% of their weight from muscle.3 Another study found that sleep-deprived people had a 45% increase in appetite for high carbohydrate, calorie-dense foods.4

Sleep is also hugely important for your activity levels and the quality of your workouts. If you feel well-rested, you will likely have a much better workout.

3) Beer may inhibit your self-control

When most people get a buzz or just get drunk, their inhibitions fly out the window. You may say things or do things that you wouldn’t normally do otherwise. You have less self-control.

When you combine less self-control with food, you get a situation that can derail an entire week of hard work.

Whether you are drinking beer at your meal or going out at night with friends, the chances are you will eat more food than if you didn’t have beer at all.

Drink Beer & Lose Weight Strategy

Now that you have learned the 3 reasons why drinking beer can make losing weight much harder, we can create a strategy so that you can enjoy beer while getting results.

Your results while drinking beer depend on two things:

1) How much beer you are drinking
2) How you are adjusting your eating habits based on your drinking habits

The best strategy is to limit the number of beers you have per week. The fewer beers you drink, the fewer empty calories you are ingesting. Maybe it’s one beer a day, or even better would be 2 beers on Friday or Saturday.

Being very clear about the number of beers you can have in a week will help you significantly. Once you have the lean body you want, you may not need to be as strict, but it’s still a good habit to keep.

Now if you want the best results, go dry. Stop drinking beer completely. If you love beer and that’s not an option for you, then refer back to creating a specific number of beers you will have each week.

The other side of the coin is to consciously adjust your eating habits based on your drinking habits. So if you are having a burger with a couple of beers, don’t have the fries. Eat less food and focus more on lean protein sources and veggies when drinking beer with your meal. That’s ideal.

Calories In Top 10 Beers (12 Ounces)

Below is a chart that displays the top 10 most popular beers in the U.S. along with nutrition information for 12 ounces.5

As you can see, most beers are in a tight range between roughly 100 to 150 calories and contain 5 to 10 grams of carbs and 11-14 grams of alcohol. Most of the calories (around 70%) in beer are provided by the alcohol. I rounded the numbers to make them easier to read.

Beer Name	Calories	Protein (g)	Carbs (g)	Fat (g)	Alcohol (g)
Bud Light	110	1	6	0	11
Coors Light	102	1	5	0	11
Budweiser	145	1	11	0	14
Miller Light	96	1	3	0	11
Corona Extra	148	1	14	0	13
Natural Light	95	1	3	0	12
Busch Light	95	1	3	0	11
Michelob Ultra	95	1	3	0	12
Busch	95	1	3	0	12
Heineken	148	1	11	0	14

So you can have your beer and drink it too as long as you are strategic and limit your beer intake if you want to get lean.

I had to stop drinking alcohol when I was trying to get lean. Alcohol will stop or slow down the fat-burning process. I stopped for three months. It was much easier to lose. Alcohol has calories and if you want to lose fat faster you have to get all your nutrition with the least amount of calories.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. 

You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

Is Belly Fat Worse Than Love Handles?

 The Dangers of Belly Fat

A new study suggests that belly fat — especially hidden fat deep in the gut — may indicate an increased risk for heart disease. How do you know if you have fat deep in your gut? Your body puts fat under the skin and close to the surface first when it’s filling fat cells and that’s to insulate the body. That’s a survival technique that you inherited from your ancient ancestors who had to worry about surviving through the winter. That layer of fat is not that thick, between one and two inches. Then if you’re still adding fat,  your body has to put the fat inside the layer of muscle, around the organs, and that the fat that causes you health problems.

The six-year study of more than 1,000 adults found people with a “spare tire” in their midsection had a greater risk for heart disease compared to those with visible flab elsewhere under the skin — or “love handles.”

“Adipose tissue [fat in the stomach] along with fat below the skin has been associated with abnormalities, including high triglyceride levels, low HDL levels [low levels of good cholesterol], high blood pressure, and greater risk of diabetes,” said Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California.

The study looked at abdominal fat quantity and quality.

The researchers cautioned, however, that the study only showed an association between belly fat and potential heart disease, not that belly fat causes heart disease.

Fonarow said perhaps deep abdominal fat is unhealthier because it might increase insulin resistance, which can lead to high blood sugar and type 2 diabetes.

“This study suggests individuals even with a body mass index in the normal or overweight category but who have increased abdominal mass — a pot belly — may be at increased cardiovascular risk,” Fonarow said.

The study was led by Dr. Caroline Fox, a former senior investigator for the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. She and her team collected data on 1,106 men and women, an average age of 45, who took part in the long-running Framingham Heart Study. All agreed to have their stomachs scanned to determine the amount of their belly fat.

Over six years, the researchers found that increases in the amount of fat and decreases in fat density were linked with changes in the risk for heart disease. Each additional pound of fat was associated with newly developed high blood pressure, high triglycerides, and metabolic syndrome, which includes high cholesterol and increased odds of type 2 diabetes, the researchers said.

To summarize, belly fat is hazardous, whereas love handles not so much. Just adding one pound of fat increases the risk of heart disease, but losing one pound will decrease your chances and for every pound of fat, you lose your chances go down.

Remember, losing one pound on the scale doesn’t mean you lost a pound of fat. Most of the pounds you lose on the scale are from the food and drinks in your digestive system.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

Want To Get Off Junk Food, Make A Plan

 A news article this week says that 86% of deaths are caused by a bad diet. Sounds like the math is not real, right. When you lump together any deaths caused by heart disease, diabetes, the most common forms of cancer, and other diseases like Liver, and kidney disease you can arrive at a percentage like 86%. These diseases and viruses are not necessarily caused by a bad diet, but a bad diet will cause a weak immune system, which prevents the body from fighting diseases and viruses.

Better: Formulate A Plan

Going into the grocery store with a meal schedule, shopping list, and extra willpower will help you avoid caving in and buying junk like frozen pizzas, doughnuts, and ice cream. Plus, having a plan will likely save you some time, as it will keep you from wandering aimlessly through the aisles, trying to figure out what to buy and cook. Your bank account will also benefit since sticking to a list will prevent you from buying a bunch of random items that you don’t really need, or already have hiding in the back of your pantry. So make your list and check it twice -- then make it your personal mission to enjoy a shopping trip with health and wellness -- rather than chips and dip -- in mind.

Best: See It Through

It's a commonly held notion that people don’t like change. When it comes to making edits to your daily diet, that can certainly be true... until you start to see noticeable differences in your appetite (lower), energy (higher), and waistline (shrinking by the day). Humans aren't naturally programmed to require all of the added sugar, fat, and salt we’ve become accustomed to eating via the consumption of prepackaged, restaurant, and fast food. “Our taste for salt doesn’t develop until six months of age,” says Moss. “You can get unhooked on salt in about six weeks.”

Think about that for a minute: six weeks to a healthier, stronger, leaner you. I’m not saying it won’t be challenging, but that kind of payoff can boost your self-esteem and overall health. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and start the process of ditching unhealthy junk!

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

How Much Belly Fat Is Risky?

 Whether it’s on the latest magazine cover, during a doctor’s appointment, or even just in the department store change room, belly fat seems to be getting a lot of our attention these days. But how do you know whether your personal stockpile of abdominal fat is a longevity threat or just a cosmetic nuisance?

As we get older, fat tends to migrate towards the mid-section of our body, whether we’re male or female.

Many women notice a “menopot”, or thickening of their waistline after menopause. This can be true even if they traditionally had a flat tummy, and haven’t gained any weight. Yes, as you get older your waistline can grow and you don’t have to gain weight. Other parts of your body are naturally shrinking. Your muscle mass can shrink over 50, especially if you don’t work out.

You can avoid that menopot by changing your diet and doing some exercise. It’s inactivity that will change your body’s shape.

Read more: Help! My body shape is changing!
While subcutaneous fat sits just beneath your skin and is not considered dangerous, visceral fat that surrounds your internal organs is hormonally active tissue associated with insulin resistance and a host of other serious problems. Visceral fat can lead to diabetes and metabolic syndrome, a collection of risk factors that increase your chances of cardiovascular disease, even death.

Read more: How obesity hurts your liver
One way to assess your belly fat risk is to measure your waist-to-hip ratio; a ratio of 0.8 or less in women, or 1.0 or less in men is considered within a healthy range. Other methods of measuring visceral fat include computerized tomography which uses multiple X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and ultrasound technology.

Get the answer lying down: In her book Fit to Live, Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland’s medical school Pamela Peeke, MD, has this advice on a low-tech way to determine which kind of six-pack you’re packing:

Lie down on your back
Feel for your pelvic bones with your index fingers
Contract your abdominal muscles as if you were lifting something very heavy
Feel your abdomen from side to side
Peeke writes that if your abdominal muscle stays quite flat as you’re bearing down, then the fat you feel on your abdomen is subcutaneous, or “outer” fat. If, on the other hand, your abdominal muscle sticks out (as though you’re slightly pregnant), it means you have dangerous visceral fat within your abdominal cavity.

Try it! While crunches and other ab exercises may tone your belly, they won’t remove the fat inside it. The good news is that getting rid of any body fat will help diminish the amount of visceral fat within your abdomen. Eating enough fruits and vegetables, fiber, whole grains, and fish — all part of a Mediterranean-style anti-aging diet — as well as regular daily exercise will help you lose pounds and dangerous belly fat.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat, look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

About Protein Powder Supplements

 

This article from Verywell.com discusses what you need to know about protein powder's health benefits and potential downsides. Read on to learn four good reasons to use protein powder supplements, potentially bad protein powder ingredients, how to take it safely every day, and more.

This is a post from the VeryWell.com site, but before you read this I have been using protein powder for years. I talked to my doctor about it first and he said to use only plant-based protein powder. There are several brands on the market.

Four Reasons to Use a Protein Powder Supplement

Four reasons people use protein powder as a nutritional supplement are: 

Muscle gain (hypertrophy)

Weight loss 

Age-related muscle loss (sarcopenia)

Wasting syndrome (cachexia)

Muscle gain: People with specific goals, such as increasing lean muscle mass, can benefit from using a protein powder supplement to complement their whole-food diet. One of the primary reasons to use a protein powder is to build muscle, which improves metabolism (basal metabolic rate) and burns calories, even at rest.1 To reap these benefits, you should lift weights or do resistance-training exercises a few times a week. 

Weight loss: Another reason to use a protein powder supplement is to promote weight loss. Some research suggests that protein powders are a quick fix that can help control appetite. However, protein-rich snacks, like yogurt, may have a similar effect, according to other research.3 Protein powders shouldn’t be used as a meal replacement but can complement a healthy whole-food diet. 

Sarcopenia: After age 30, adults can lose about 3% to 5% of their skeletal muscle mass each decade. Age-related muscle loss is called sarcopenia. Older adults who aren’t getting enough protein through their regular diet may benefit from a muscle-building combination of protein powder supplementation and full-body strength training workouts at least twice a week.

Cachexia: Protein powder supplementation can slow muscle loss in people at an increased risk of muscle-wasting syndrome (cachexia) due to illness.

What Makes Protein Powder Good?

In a perfect world, everybody could get all the protein their bodies need from real foods. However, in the real world, eating enough high-protein foods to meet your body's protein requirements isn't always possible.

If you can't get enough daily protein from food, using a supplemental powder that's high in protein is a good thing. For example, getting enough protein is important for women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). In a pinch, protein powder supplements can help achieve daily requirements.

One practical thing that makes protein powder good is that it's a simple add-water-and-stir nutritional supplement that can easily be blended into smoothies or shakes and added to recipes for pancakes or baked goods. When used as a supplement in moderation, protein powders are like an insurance policy that ensures your body has enough of all its essential amino acids, the building blocks of life.

Is Protein Powder a Substitute for Real Food?

Protein powder is not a substitute for real food. It is a nutritional supplement and shouldn't be used as a substitute for eating real, unprocessed high-protein food throughout the day.

What Makes Protein Powder Bad?

Protein powder loaded with sugar is unhealthy. Avoid protein powders with more than 5 grams of total sugars. Calorically dense protein powders with more than 200 calories per serving that are packed with tons of added sugars are not healthy.

Also, some protein powders contain heavy metals. In 2018, the Clean Label Project reported that many of the top-selling protein powders contain heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead. Some scientists have questioned the scientific validity of this study and report.9

In 2020, a Toxicology Reports risk assessment of heavy metal ingestion among consumers of protein powder supplements concluded that a typical intake of protein powder in recommended doses probably wouldn’t result in adverse health effects due to heavy metals.10Nonetheless, avoiding heavy metals in your diet is always a good idea.

How Much Protein Do I Need Each Day?

To calculate your minimum protein requirements based on ODPHP guidelines, enter your stats into this personalized DRI calculator. Based on this calculator, someone weighing 150 pounds who isn't very active needs at least 54 grams of protein each day.

You might need more protein depending on your personal goals and activity level. For muscle building, some research suggests that weightlifters may require 0.73 grams of protein per pound of body weight to gain lean muscle mass. This would be about 110 grams of protein per day for a 150-pound person.

For people trying to gain muscle mass who work out regularly, consuming 25 to 30 grams of protein from a powder before or after a workout is safe as long as daily intakes don't go above roughly a gram of protein per pound of body weight in 24 hours.

Although the upper limit of safe protein intake isn't clearly established, an easy-to-calculate rule of thumb is not to exceed 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight each day. For someone weighing 150 pounds, this would be 150 grams of protein.

To safely use protein powder supplements daily, make sure you aren't chronically consuming excessive amounts of protein compared to other macronutrients. Excessive protein powder intake may cause digestive problems or adversely affect kidney function in some people. For healthy adults without chronic kidney disease, eating a high-protein diet shouldn't cause renal problems.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

About Weight Loss

 I get emails almost daily, and several people are still asking basic questions about losing weight. They can easily lose 10 pounds but it stops there. 10 pounds seems to be a barrier. 

I want to clear up something that most of us still don't understand. It's easy to lose the first 10 pounds because you're not losing fat or any other body mass. You are only losing fluids and solids in the digestive tract. Your body will typically hold 3 days of solids at all times, add the liquids and you have close to 10 pounds that you can lose by fasting. 

After that, it gets harder to lose because now you have to reduce body mass. The reason I wrote about lifestyle change frequently is that losing mass from this point on requires that you lose unwanted mass like fat and soft muscle mass on your body. This is the mistake most of the beginners make. They might lose weight but the fat is still there. Muscle mass will burn easier so you lose weight but it's not the mass you should be losing. 

Trainers will tell you that yes you should diet but you have to workout. Why you might ask? If you are helping your muscles grow you might not lose weight as fast as you want but you are changing fat for muscle. 

You see when you are trying to lose weight you're missing the point, you should be trying to lose fat. Forget the scale and start using a tape measure. After you lose a couple of inches in the waist you might not lose much weight but with a smaller waist, you'll look a lot better. 

That's where your diet comes in. You won't lose fat if you don't change the food you eat. 

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.

How To Count Carbs

 Great post, this is essential for dieters. Most of our unwanted calories come from carbs. Yes, carbs are essential but the fruits and vegetables in your diet will provide all the carbs you need. Excess carbs will only fill your fat cells and cause weight gain.

How to Count Carbs

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 mindful and 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.

Follow me on X, the former Twitter, @ray0369 to get a link to my latest posts.

If you want to lose your body fat look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. 

Look for my first book at Amazon.com, bn.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com and other online bookstores. Just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Look for my podcast by searching “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight” on the podcast app that you use. You’ll see a piece of my book cover.