How Many Carbs Should I Eat?

In the Resolutions and Goals thread, georgiapeach asks:

How many carbs per day should I be aiming for? I am reading a lot of low carb material and my head is spinning. Please help.

Your ideal daily carb load is something you'll really have to determine for yourself through trial and error, but I can give you some guidelines. The big question is how carb intolerant are you? If you carry your weight primarily on your abdomen, and are hungry again within an hour and a half of eating carbs, you can assume you have carb trouble. Here, from my first book, How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds, is a list of indicators of carbohydrate intolerance. The more of these questions you answer "yes" to, the more carb intolerant you are likely to be, and the more strictly you will have to limit carbs to take weight off, to keep it off, and especially to improve your health.

* I have had a weight problem since I was quite young.

* I have bad energy slumps, especially in the late afternoon.

* I get tired and/or shaky when I get hungry.

* I am hungrier 90 minutes after a breakfast of carbohydrates (cereal, donuts, pastry, toast, juice, soda -- anything starchy or sweet) than if I had eaten nothing at all.

* I'm depressed and irritable for no reason.

* I binge badly or frequently on carbohydrate foods. (Chips, cookies, ice cream, candy, bread, crackers, etc.)

* I carry most of my weight on my abdomen.

* I have high blood pressure.

* I have high triglycerides.

* I have high cholesterol.

* I have adult onset (type II) diabetes.

* I have heart disease.

* I have had a female cancer. (Breast, cervical, ovarian, uterine.)

* I have had a stroke.

* I am an alcoholic.

* I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, or symptoms of it.

* Obesity runs in my family, especially abdominal obesity.

* High blood pressure runs in my family.

* High triglycerides run in my family.

* High cholesterol runs in my family.

* Heart disease runs in my family.

* Adult onset diabetes runs in my family.

* Female cancers run in my family.

* Stroke runs in my family.

* Alcoholism runs in my family.

* Polycystic ovarian syndrome runs in my family.

When I started low carbing, I simply ditched all concentrated carbs -- ie, anything sugary, and anything with starch (grains or potatoes) -- and concentrated on meat, eggs, cheese, and green veggies, with some nuts and seeds and the occasional strawberry. I did extremely well eating this way. However, 14 years later, having gone hypothyroid, and staring menopause in the face, it's gotten harder; I've had to become somewhat more restrictive. Indeed, I now weigh myself every morning, and if I'm more than two pounds above a target weight, I have an all-meat day (which, for my purposes, also includes eggs, but no dairy, veggies, or nuts, and no alcohol) or even two in a row, if that's what it takes to knock off the extra weight. I've discovered I feel really good on all-meat days, not just physically, but mentally. There's something about it that makes me feel positive and motivated. I tend to get a lot done. Go figure.

However, the simple approach -- just don't eat any concentrated carb foods -- may work for you if you're younger than me and don't have a strong tendency to obesity.

Dr. Atkins wanted you to cut back to 20 grams per day for at least a couple of weeks. This is roughly the carb load you'll get from a couple of small servings of green salad or other low carb veggies, like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, or green beans. This two-week period of very low carb eating is called "Induction," and is meant to "detox" you from carbs, force your body to shift over to a fat-burning metabolism as rapidly as possible, and induce dietary ketosis, which will, among other benefits, suppress your appetite.

After the first two weeks, Atkins instructs us to add back five grams of carb per day each week -- that is, to do a week of 25 grams per day, then a week of 30 grams per day, then a week of 35, and so on. You keep adding back that 5 grams of carb until you find a level at which you still test in a very mild state of ketosis, and are losing weight at a steady but moderate rate. Once you reach your goal weight, you once again inch your carb intake up in 5-gram increments, till you find a level at which you neither gain nor lose, and stay there for life.

That said, many people stay at Induction levels for far longer than two weeks, enjoying the rapid weight loss, high energy, and complete lack of hunger that come with it. You certainly may do this if you like. I've been eating Induction levels recently, myself, at least much of the time. Too, some people find that they're so carb intolerant that they really need to stick to Induction levels to continue to lose weight steadily.

Protein Power is similar to Atkins, but the Drs. Eades want you to start at 50 grams of carb per day. They also invented the idea of the "effective carb count" -- the idea of subtracting grams of fiber from total grams of carbohydrate. This is because fiber is a carb, but it's a carb we can't digest or absorb.

Is lower better? Or are you better off eating the larger quantities of fruits and vegetables made possible with that fifty-gram-per-day figure? I'm afraid you can only find out by trying it for yourself.

See, that's the thing: Carbohydrate intolerance appears to come in degrees. For example, I've known several people who did well on the Zone diet, which calls for 40% of calories from carbs, 30% from protein and 30% from fat. That's not really a low carb diet at all, but notably lower than the average American diet, and far lower than the low fat grain-and-bean fest that has been foisted upon us as "healthy" for the past couple of decades. However, the people I've known who did well on the Zone were A) male and B) formerly slim, athletic guys who had just put on fifteen or twenty pounds since getting a desk job and a family. In other words, guys who had a pretty good metabolism to begin with. I tried the Zone for a couple of days, and was starving all the time.

I've also known people who did well on 150 grams of carb per day, so long as they stuck to unprocessed, low glycemic index carbs. Again, these were people who had only started gaining weight in middle age, when their lifestyles slowed down and their hormone levels changed.

I, on the other hand, have battled my weight my whole life. I also have a family history that's full of carbohydrate-intolerance-related health problems. I've never been able to go above 50 grams or so per day and keep my weight off. Heck, I gained weight writing low carb cookbooks. Why? Because most anything you do to make the food more interesting involves adding at least a few carbs, and because having a constant wide variety of foods encouraged me to eat more. Not saying you shouldn't use my cookbooks; you need a satisfying cuisine to be comfortable with the idea of staying low carb for life. But even cooking from my recipes you may well need to keep an eye on your daily carb intake.

So I'm afraid it's trial-and-error for you, my dear. Sorry to not have a hard-and-fast answer for you, but that's the way physiology is.

One other thing: Ignore the people who tell you that so long as you eat low carb you can eat unlimited calories and lose weight. It is true that you can eat more calories and lose weight on a low carb diet than you could on a carb-containing diet,(see my latest article at Carb Smart) but I know of no research indicating you can eat unlimited calories. Most people will be able to eat between 2000-2700 calories per day and lose weight while low carbing.