This may sound stupid and obvious, but I’ve read (on this site) opinions on either side—that during a fat-loss plan you need to count and track every calorie consumed including post-workout drinks vs you dont need to count those post-workout drink calories because your body absorbs them so rapidly. Which is most true? Dont wanna throw things off by over or under shooting on the calories.
yes count everything.
Hey Texas,
My belief is that you should count PW calories! Why wouldnt you? Its not like those calories magically disappear. I dont think I have ever read on this site that one shouldn’t count PW calories. So, where are you from???..haha. Sorry I couldn’t resist (lame joke…I know). Oh yeah…and Syracuse kicked some ass last week huh?? Opps…couldnt resist that either. Talk to you soon
Count them. Its food, why wouldn’t you?
Yeah, I know, makes sense to me too, but that’s what happens when you listen to some of the geniuses in the forums…they start stating things that don’t make a lick of sense but make you question what you accepted in the first place. Thanks!
I’ve never heard don’t count the calories, but I have heard don’t count the PW carbs if you are on a low carb diet.
Okay—bingo, thanks for clarifying—THAT’S what I’m talking about specifically. What’s the opinion on that—to count or not to count the PW drink carbs on a low to no carb diet?
If following T-dawg or some other low-carb diet that has you consuming 100 or less carbs per day, you don’t count the carbs from your post-workout shake as a part of the 100 grams you’re allowed.
Actually, Nate, you do count those toward your 100 for the day. Reread the article.
Actually, Nate, you do. Or at least I do.
I count everything when keeping a food log. I also think it’s kind of silly not to count some carbs because of their fiber content. True, the fibery (is that a word?) carbs aren’t anything to worry about, but it’s a pain to do the math. Most people won’t even keep a food log, much less subtract fiber carbs and make the process more complicated and time consuming.
My reasoning is this: Let’s say that you experiment and decide that, for dieting, 120 carbs is perfect for you. In that trial and error process, you counted everything. Well, maybe in reality you only consumed 90 “real” carbs. The rest came from fiber. So what? It’s not important if the number in your log is 90 or 120, all that matters if that you’ve found what works for you. Who cares what the “real” number is. It’s just as easy to count everything and simplify the process.
That’s what I do.
Just basically was trying to figure out if I could get by with taking Surge after my workouts on the Fat Fast, you know, like if those carbs were to going to kill the diet or anything. Thanks.
To Chris:
I do the same. Just because protein comes from rice or oatmeal, I still count it. I just make sure I still am getting a lot of quality protein.
Glad you brought up the protein issue, Jason. Yes, I agree totally.
Nate is right in that you should keep these “fiber carbs” in mind, although I wouldn’t worry about differentiating them in a food log. For example, let’s say you’re on the T-Dawg 2.0 and are eating 100g of carbs per day. You get to your last meal of the day and you want to eat something that has, say, 8 carbs (that’s a cup of cottage cheese blended with Low Carb Grow.) Well, dammit, you’re at 99g already!
Well, if you know that some of your carb intake that day came from “fiber carbs” then you know not to sweat going over 100g a little.
(I wouldn’t sweat going over 7 lousy grams anyway, but that’s beside the point.)
You can do the same with protein, only in this case it works in the opposite manner. If you’re shooting for 250g a day and you get 250 but many were from things like beans or oatmeal, then sure, toss in some more protein if you want.
In the end, it’s mostly minutia, unless of course most of your daily protein intake is coming from beans. In that case, it’s time to buy some beef and Beano!
My mistake.
I don’t follow low-carb diets like T-dawg, but I read the articles. I just didn’t read them close enough!