Tracking Your Carbs to Avoid Carb Creep

This morning, I was reading a thread over at Low Carb Friends about someone who has been losing weight very slowly, about 5 pounds per month. While that's really not a bad weight loss, she hasn't been keeping track of the carbs in what she's been eating, and is now wondering if that could be the problem.

Turning to a carb counter, she was very surprised to discover she had fallen victim to what is known as Carb Creep. That's when we've been low carbing for awhile, and the newness has warn off to the point where we are no longer keeping an accurate count of the number of carbs we're eating daily. She was shocked to discover how many carbs she was consuming in her morning coffee alone.

For some, it seems to be enough to just switch from high-carb foods to low-carb foods, and counting never gets to be an issue. But for others, it seems that we need to keep accurate count of just how much glucose-producing food we are putting in our mouths. I see this quite a lot though, on the various lists and egroups. This need to get rid of all of the counting. Especially when folks post recipes or ideas they tried the night before, yet can't tell you how many carbs that particular recipe or food idea has.

"I KNOW it must be low," they say.

Lots of folks use the various "counting" websites out there, and I use them too at times, but not as much as I used to any more because the whole Kimkins thing got me thoroughly addicted to Fitday, but not in a good sense. So now I use a different method to keep track of my carbs.

I rather like the way Dr. Bernstein and Dr. Eades recommend to do it. By spreading out your carbs throughout the day. Because for me, it makes all of the counting easier and much more natural.

Now Dr. Bernstein recommends 6 carbs for breakfast, 12 carbs each for lunch, dinner, and a snack in afternoon if you're having one. Not quite equally spread out throughout the day, since his system is based on blood sugar control. It therefore makes room for the dawn phenomenon (higher blood sugar upon awakening, even though you haven't eaten anything for hours) that takes a serious toll on insulin levels in the morning.

While Dr. Eades recommends 10 carbs at each meal, or 7 if you're going to have a regular snack with carbs sometime during the day.

I've chosen to do something similar myself. Because to me, it's seems to be sooooo much easier if I just limit myself to a certain amount of carb per meal, then let the whole counting process go. For example, I use a maximum of 12 carbs per meal, then generally eat only 0 carb foods, or biologically 0 carb foods for snacks, if I need one.

I don't always eat 12 carbs though. Like this morning, I had bacon and eggs (1.5 carbs), a slice of high-fiber toast (8 carbs), and a cup of Chai tea with Stevia and a tsp of heavy cream (negligible to 2, depending on how you count the Stevia and tea). That comes to around 10 or 11 carbs. But I won't carry those missing carbs over into the next meal. Cuz I find that just too much of a headache. Too much of a "diet-mindset" for me. I'll reset my carb allowance for lunch back to 12 again. Which probably in this case, won't even come close to 12.

I'm trying pretty hard to NORMALIZE my eating habits these days. Like figuring out just how many eggs, bacon, pieces of toast, cups of tea, and tsps of cream will allow me to stay within my carb allowance for that meal, then stick pretty much to that menu each time I have that kindda meal. Cuz it seems to me, that the BEST way to get rid of the "Diet Mindset" is to figure out a way to get rid of all of that counting without Carb Creep sneaking up on us.

While keeping our carbs in check is "very" important to keep insulin levels low, the whole point in switching to a low carb lifestyle in the first place, if we're always counting something -- even carbs -- we will tend to stay trapped in that diet mindset. At least, I know I do.