Bad at Math

Have you ever had one of those moments where you decide how you are going to move forward with a diet or exercise plan and you throw yourself in whole hog without doing ALL the research first.  Well friends, that is me.  Sometimes I get SO excited about starting something new that I am hoping will be the thing that "sticks" the thing that gives me the results I want to see, that I glaze over the details.  I think its one of the things my hubby loves about me, well, I am hoping that it is.  ;)

So we have been "low carbing" at our house for about a month now and are very happy with our results.  I am very excited to share too that once I got over the initial funk of how do I energize my body when I'm not loafing (Freudian) loading up on breads, pastas, chips...etc.  too that I really was able to embrace the results and add in a steady exercise program again too!  I even was mature enough to acknowledge that adding in exercise (especially my weight training) may stall the decline on the scale, but that was OK since I was toning my guns back up!

But then last Friday I had a palette problem.  Nothing tasted right.  My egg salad (made with mayo GROSS not miracle whip) tasted almost fishy...my Coke zero tasted overly sugary...what was happening!  I had to break down an eat...an apple.  WHAT!  Crisis, holy smokes!  Sadly, that was my honest reaction to start.  Apples are not going to help me stay under 20 carbs a day.  Did you just read that?  Under 20 carbs a day. What is wrong with that statement.  Until I went home and started playing with my carb tracker app and realizing the errors of my ways, nothing was wrong with that....but you see I had missed, in my overzealous nature one very important word...NET. 

You see, to get things started, I should be aiming to stay under 20 NET carbs a day.  That is a much different thing then 20 carbs.  How did I miss this?  Alas, accept it and move on with adjustment.  This for some reason made me think...OK, I can REALLY do this and be a little more forgiving.  You see take my nutrition drink I had this morning with breakfast.

Label says 5 under carbs...but that is a bit misleading.  With the low carb approach you have to do math...my arch nemesis...so what I needed to do was:

Total Carbohydrates
- Dietary Fiber
- Sugar alcohol
= Net carbs

Now my nice little drink is a mere 2carbs.  Whoo hoo!  Thank you carb tracker app, and I can't believe I am going to say it...but thank you math!