New to Keto

I believe most folks count net carbs; I did when I started this journey back in October.  But I struggled to get my numbers down (particularly my blood glucose) so I read a lot of medical-based research, and came up with this -

When counting carbs, one has to consider whether to count total or net carbs.  (Net carbohydrates = total carbohydrates – fiber – sugar alcohols (if applicable).). From the Virtahealth website, I offer this medical-based thoughts to help illuminate your decision:

‘Should I count net carbs or total carbs?’  By Dr. Stephen Phinney and the Virta Team

Their response is: ‘We recommend counting total carbohydrates, with the most of your food coming from real, whole foods.  With some exceptions, unprocessed non-starchy vegetables, nuts and seeds contain a relatively small (<25%) of their total carbs as soluble fiber. The use of net carbs 1) assumes there is little to no impact of both fiber and sugar alcohols on blood sugar (responses can vary among individuals so discounting them is not appropriate) and 2) often promotes the use of a lot of products like bars, low carb breads, etc. While they may be “low in net carbs” this can lead to a significant amount of added carbohydrates to your daily total.’

It’s made a huge difference for me and things are going very well: A1C is well in the normal range, cholesterol is too, and I’m down 60 pounds.

Going the total carbs route took a lot of self discipline - and tested it severely - but was worth it; it can be done.

I hope this helps, and good luck!

I went with Net Carbs.  Also down nearly 70 lbs and am 1.5 lbs to goal.  It's the same thing.  So it's less than 20 Net Carbs per day.  On that I did it all.