This post is both about providing information and exploding a few myths. If you're pre-diabetic, or diabetic, or have PCOS or just want to control your carbs, you really need to know how many carbs you're actually eating.
Disclaimer: This post focuses only on carbs not on calories. All other principles like eating enough protein and going easy on the fat still apply.
For someone with diabetes, doctors recommend between 35-60 gms of carbs in any meal and overall about 180-200 a day counting snacks and things like that. IMHO, 200 gms a day is way too much and I would suggest keeping it under 150 gms, but you can do your research and make up your mind.
A typical meal. Good or bad? Let's check.
Let's say you have 2 dosas for breakfast with chutney, a typical serving of rice with light alu curry and a bowl of dal, 1 cup of tea with 2 Mcvities digestive biscuits, and 3 rotis with another simple vegetable across the day and perhaps you threw in an apple somewhere in the middle...what does this actually look like? Do you know whether or not you've had what you'd call a "healthy" meal?
That's 251 gms of carbs in all. NOT GOOD! And this is your basic ghar ka khana. You haven't even eaten any of the bad stuff yet.
How can you redo this day so your carbs are better but you don't feel the pinch?
You don't have to be scientific and calculate all day, but you have to be mindful. You can eat high-carb food, but do you want to eat all three high carb items in the same meal? Why not spread it out instead? Eat the rotis with the dal and the rice with the lauki and 1 dosa with a boiled egg instead of 2 dosas and so on.
And if god forbid, you gorged on that chocolate cake or boondi laddu, you know you shouldn't be eating rice for dinner. Eat paneer salad instead with one roti instead. It's the same thinking as counting calories, but for someone who has trouble with insulin, this is an even more critical activity.
If you look at the table below, I've suggested a few substitutions. Option 3 gave you 100gms of carbs less and most likely fewer calories as well.
But how will I know how many carbs I'm eating?
I've found it really challenging to find the carb values for Indian foods. They're available on most calorie counting apps, but they can be wildly inaccurate, so taking some of the values available online and using research, good sense, and the support of my calculator, I've compiled a list of high-carb foods with typical serving sizes and carb values. Are these 100% accurate? I don't know, unless I come to your house and measure the exact recipe you used :). That said, this is about as close to accurate as you'll likely find on the internet. That said, if you find inaccuracies, I will be very grateful and will fix them ASAP.
So here's the table and trust me this took all day to research and compile. I hope you find it useful.
Disclaimer: This post focuses only on carbs not on calories. All other principles like eating enough protein and going easy on the fat still apply.
For someone with diabetes, doctors recommend between 35-60 gms of carbs in any meal and overall about 180-200 a day counting snacks and things like that. IMHO, 200 gms a day is way too much and I would suggest keeping it under 150 gms, but you can do your research and make up your mind.
A typical meal. Good or bad? Let's check.
Let's say you have 2 dosas for breakfast with chutney, a typical serving of rice with light alu curry and a bowl of dal, 1 cup of tea with 2 Mcvities digestive biscuits, and 3 rotis with another simple vegetable across the day and perhaps you threw in an apple somewhere in the middle...what does this actually look like? Do you know whether or not you've had what you'd call a "healthy" meal?
- Breakfast (2 dosas + chutney) - 60 to 65 gms of carbs
- Post-breakfast apple - 21 gms
- Lunch (Rice+Alu curry + Dal) - roughly 100 gms of carbs
- Tea - (Digestive biscuits +tea) - roughly 20 gms of carbs
- Dinner (3 rotis + Sabzi) - 50 gms
That's 251 gms of carbs in all. NOT GOOD! And this is your basic ghar ka khana. You haven't even eaten any of the bad stuff yet.
How can you redo this day so your carbs are better but you don't feel the pinch?
You don't have to be scientific and calculate all day, but you have to be mindful. You can eat high-carb food, but do you want to eat all three high carb items in the same meal? Why not spread it out instead? Eat the rotis with the dal and the rice with the lauki and 1 dosa with a boiled egg instead of 2 dosas and so on.
And if god forbid, you gorged on that chocolate cake or boondi laddu, you know you shouldn't be eating rice for dinner. Eat paneer salad instead with one roti instead. It's the same thinking as counting calories, but for someone who has trouble with insulin, this is an even more critical activity.
If you look at the table below, I've suggested a few substitutions. Option 3 gave you 100gms of carbs less and most likely fewer calories as well.
But how will I know how many carbs I'm eating?
I've found it really challenging to find the carb values for Indian foods. They're available on most calorie counting apps, but they can be wildly inaccurate, so taking some of the values available online and using research, good sense, and the support of my calculator, I've compiled a list of high-carb foods with typical serving sizes and carb values. Are these 100% accurate? I don't know, unless I come to your house and measure the exact recipe you used :). That said, this is about as close to accurate as you'll likely find on the internet. That said, if you find inaccuracies, I will be very grateful and will fix them ASAP.
So here's the table and trust me this took all day to research and compile. I hope you find it useful.
