Hello to all.
This is my first post so thank you in advance.

Little about me.
I very successfully followed PP when the first book came out to the tune of 90lbs. I have since very successfully regained the weight and stopped the low carb lifestyle due to numerous things like getting married and life in general.

Well, I'm back and I've dropped nearly 40 uneventful pounds. My body hates carbs, loves protein so life is pretty easy. Much easier this time around with all of the low carb products available on the market.

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere but,
Here's my question:

Let's say we have a portion of soup that we've made and it has 20 carbs and 8 fiber. Pretty simple, 20-8=12. Here's the thing. if we add extra fiber powder to the soup can we deduct that fiber from the total carbs?

Sorry if this is a rookie question but it wasn't in the manual the last time. Or if it was, it never sank in between my ears.

Thanks everyone!

Ahhhh....No.
Sorry.
There's always an off chance that I am wrong, but unfortunately, I doubt it.
The good news is, You lost 40 lbs.!! Wow!

If you fiber powder contains 5g of fiber it also contains 5g of carbs. Fiber is a nondigestible or semidigestible carbohydrate.

If you add extra fiber powder to the soup, you're adding fiber AND total carbs. So instead of doing 20-8=12, you'll be doing 25-13=12. You can't add fiber to reduce the total carb content of a food.

That would be so cool if you could do that though. Just add fibre to everything then magically melt away all the pounds. I add fibre to my protien drinks on occasion, not to get rid of the carbs, just because it does help me stay on track with not having snacks and helps me avoid going on a carb binge. The other thing that helps is limiting the carbs I have in the house.

Fiber helps to slow the rate of digestion so you stay fuller longer.

Once again, I just discovered I am misinformed, which is why I am here. What is the business with "usable" carbs? If we are supposed to consume 25 grams of fibre a day, then we are over the 20gram a day limit while inducting?

Good question, because it is confusing. But not every gram of carb is matched by a gram of fiber. There are 12 carbs in a tablespoon of sugar - but not a single gram of fiber. Thus, the Net Carb Count is 12.

OTOH, flax seed has 3 grams of carbs per serving - and 3 grams of fiber. Net carbs = zero.

About half the carbs in berries are fiber, so you get to subtract the grams of fiber from the carb count.

As you can see then, by eating 'right' on LC, you can easily eat 25 total grams of carb per day, but if those foods contain 10 grams of fiber, your Net Carb Count will only be 15 grams.

Hope this helps!

Lisa

Be careful to no overdo the fiber - it interferes with the absorption of iron, of Vitamin D, and if you're unused to a high fiber diet can cause severe digestive upset.

There are some zero carbers on the forum that informed me that fiber is not good for the digestive track, it actually tears it up. I think fiber is safe in small doses, probably a lot lower doses than RDA states. I get fiber with spinach and nuts, seems to be ok with me.