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Carb & Cal Counter - a bit confused.

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Cathy Frankland

Cathy Frankland

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Morning all,

So my great news is that this week, with changing diet (lower carb Med diet (BSD book)) my blood sugars from late morning - until bedtime have ranged from 8.3 - 10.4, which is fab for me, as last week they were 12.9 - 16.6, but I am rather confused about my new Carb & Cal Counter book. The book looks great, with SO many foods listed, but I just don't get it - I want stuff that is low carb and low sugar, but the sugar isn't listed in the book as it is on food labels in the shops.

Sorry if this is rather a dense question, but does stuff with a low carb number in the book also automatically mean that is low in sugar and therefore okay to try in my diet? Also, what is the deal with the fibre number in the book - should I be looking for stuff that is low in carbs AND low in fibre, or just concentrating on the carb number??

Thanks lots (as always!),
Cathy xx

P.S. Not including my fasting blood sugar in the readings above - they are not as high as they, but still around 13, so more work/testing needs to be done to check for Somogyi effect or dawn phenomenon...sigh.... never mind - onwards and hopefully downwards!!
 
I ignore the 'sugars' bit on food labelling. The chances are that if it is low carb, it will be low sugar too.🙂
 
Well done on your progress. Concentrate on the total carb count, do not worry about sugar. All carbs turn to sugar in the body. Unless you have a condition where you have to keep your fibre low, the higher the fibre the better. It is healthier to choose foods with less sugar because sugar has no nutrition, but for counting carb purposes, all are the same.
 
The carb figure includes any sugar, so you don't really need to take it into account separately. Fibre is deducted from the carb count in the UK ( in the USA you have to deduct it yourself) Fibre won't add to your blood glucose, so no need to worry about it. ( Fibre is good for you, in that it prevents constipation, and it tends to slow down the absorption of any carb you do eat)
 
The main bearing that reducing actual sugar has on the body is that if we restrict our overall consumption of anything that tastes sweet (so that also includes stuff with artificial sweeteners) it does, over time, reduce our craving for so much of anything sweet - ie to retrain our taste buds.

OK initially we may feel hungry - but if we increase our portion sizes of veg (especially green leafy ones) along with reducing the spuds etc and eat unprocessed fats (eg cream, milk, butter) instead of processing them into pastry and making a pie with that meal's protein - then we stay full and reduce weight and visceral fat (the 'brown' fat round internal organs that leads to probs (eg heart attacks, kidney trouble etc)
 
All sugars are also carbs. The carb count in the book includes the sugars and any other carbs.
Your body is not interested in where the carbs have come from.
Any carbs that you eat will be changed into glucose and so will increase you blood glucose level.
 
I'm rather in awe - you are all so knowledgeable and I feel rather dense about all of this (steep learning curve!!!), so thank you for all of the replies.
Tonight I was making one of the Gousto meals that I have had as a special reduced trial price - stir-fry haddock pieces, tender-stem broccoli & mange tout, with miso fine noodles. Looking at the book I am expecting my post-meal blood sugar to have rocketed because of the noodles, but I think the broccoli, mange tout & haddock should be fine, so next time I am guessing swap the noodles for bean sprouts should be the plan - is that right?
Then for pudding tonight we each had 1/2 papaya (less than 80g, which the book says is 7g carbs), with a squeeze of lime juice, a handful of raspberries, then a dollop of low fat + low sugar creme fraiche and a sprinkle of seeds. 7g of carbs for the papaya doesn't sound much to me, but I thought exotic fruit like that, melon, pineapple, etc... were a no-no, so I've gone back to being confused again.... sigh.... help?!!!!
Thank you SO much, it feels so good to have people to turn to about stuff like this!
Cathy xxxx
 
We are not all knowledgeable about everything. I too would like to know if swapping the noodles for bean sprouts would be a good idea, I would guess yes. I have steered clear of all "exotic" fruits since diagnosis as I think they are a no-no. But I do think it would have been helped by swapping the low fat creme fraiche for thick double cream. Just what works for me. You will soon work out what works for you if you test before and after meals.
 
Papaya - 16g carb in 145g weight, so approx. 10g carb in 100g weight.

That IS a surprise indeed Cathy cos I'd have thought it would be shedloads more too! - not a thing we buy so I've never had cause to even look before.
 
The low fat creme fraiche is higher carb than the full fat version as sugar is added to make it taste nice. You will have to add that to the carb count too.
 
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