Hi.

[Emmaelsie19]

Hi guys I just need some advise.. I'm learning to carb count.. and I get the 2 units to every 10g of carbs for like cereal.. but what if your having a few things.. do you divide the numbers by something? I'd be grateful if someone could help me out please. Thanks in advance..

 

[Bruce Stephens]

I'm learning to carb count.. and I get the 2 units to every 10g of carbs for like cereal.. but what if your having a few things.. do you divide the numbers by something? I'd be grateful if someone could help me out please.

To a first approximation you want the total amount of carbohydrate you're going to eat (so add everything together). If you count it in multiples of 10g, then multiply that by 2 for the number of units of insulin. So for 65g of carbohydrate that's double 6.5, 13 units.

(Alternatively (which some use) 2 units for 10g is 5g to 1 unit, so you take the amount of carbohydrate in grammes and divide by 5. (Dividing by 5 is equivalent to dividing by 10 then multiplying by 2.) The calculator on the FreeStyle Libre works that way; for your ratio you need to enter 5. Taking the example of 65g, 65 divided by 5 is 13.)

 

[SB2015]

@Bruce Stephens has nicely covered the calculation once you have the carbs counted.

For carb counting there is usually the amount carbs per 100g on the back of packets of goods. Look at the carbs, not the ‘of which sugar’ (carbs come in all shapes and form, and sugar is only a small part of this) If you weigh your ingredients, then you can work out the carbs in your dish
Weight of your food, divide by 100, then multiply by the (grams per 100g)
The package designers don’t always make this easy, but the info is there.

Another approach is to use an app like ‘Carbs and Cals’ which has pictures of different size meal combinations and gives the carbs, alongside the weight of the portion, for each plateful. If yours looks a bit smaller take I
A bit off, if it looks a bit bigger add a bit on. I know that that is not very scientific but you get better at it.

If that all makes no sense ask again.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

I know that that is not very scientific but you get better at it.

The imprecision doesn't make any difference, I think. (My example using 65g is probably silly for this reason: 5g is neither here nor there, unless you're eating low-carb.) The ratios we use aren't accurate, and they're different over the day anyway; and today can be different to yesterday (because it's raining so probably I'll walk a bit faster). The goal is to get reasonably (and usefully) close.