How to read a Nutrition Label without a Math Degree!

Ok ok you are ready to do this Keto diet thing...Dont eat Carbs, eat a lot of fat...got it... Well unfortunately its not quite that easy. I remember when I first decided to try keto, I had been reading a lot about it and following a bunch of inspo pages on Instagram. I was feeling pretty knowledgable and ready until I walked into the grocery store that is... I was suddenly flooded with anxiety and felt like all that knowledge I thought I had dropped right out of my head. I had no idea what was good and what wasn't. It looked like everything I picked up had carbs in it, I was like whoa this is going to be harder than I thought.... Well come to find out, I didn't really know what I was looking at on those labels. I had no idea what "NET CARBS" even was.  You don't have to know every detail about the Nutrition label but it is important to know the basics and what pertains to your particular macros. Let me break down the basics for you.

Serving Size

Before you get too excited about the stats on something check the serving size and servings per container. For example,  on this sample label, there are 60 Calories per serving. the "Servings per Container" are 16 Which means you have to divide the product by 16 to see what your serving size is. Another example, my favorite Lily's Chocolate Bar! The servings per container is "2" which means that half of the candy bar is one serving. If each serving has 150 calories that would mean if I eat the entire candy bar it would be 300 calories since there are 2 servings her bar 150 x 2= 300. Hope this makes sense.

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Total Calories

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Total Fats

Carbohydrates, Fiber & Sugar Alcohols

Total Calories means the Total Calories PER SERVING. It does not mean the total calories for the entire item. This is a common mistake people ,make when reading labels. For example in this sample, 1/16th of the package is 60 Calories. If you ate the entire package it would be  960 Calories (60Caloriesx16servings=960) You see how this could be a critical error?!?

Total Fats
Obviously the idea here is to eat food that are high in fat. As long as you hit your daily targets you are good, Trans Fats are typically not listed but the idea would be to steer clear of trans fats which can also be found in the ingredients listed as Partially hydrogenated oils. 






Carbs, Fiber & Sugar Alcohols
The grams of total carbohydrate is the first thing to look at. If it's very high, you can almost always put that food right back on the shelf. Even if the carbohydrates are coming from a "good" (nutritious) source, too much carbohydrate at once will shoot blood glucose up. The exact amount that is "too much" for you will depend on your own body's ability to tolerate glucose, and the particular plan you are on.
Beneath the Total Carbohydrates line in this section, there will be two or three other lines - fiber, sugars, and sometimes sugar alcohols. In order to determine what your NET Carbs are for an item. Take the total Carbohydrates minus Dietary Fiber minus Sugar Alcohols. Dietary Fiber & Sugar Alcohol have no to low glycemic effect which is why they can be subtracted. Important to note here not all plans are based off of Net Carbs, but if you are on of my my custom plans they are built off net carbs. Which gives you quite a bit of room to play with doe low carb items. So in the example item, There are 8 net carbs per serving (15 - 4g fiber - 3g sugar alcohol= 8 net carbs)

Protein

Protein
​One of the more challenging pieces to the KETO diet can be monitoring your protein intake. Eating excess protein on this diet can prevent the body from reaching ketosis. In the absence of carbs the body will convert protein to glucose for energy. Which is why it is important to limit protein intake to no more than 35 grams per meal if possible.

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There are obviously quite a few components to the nutrition label that we have not covered but in terms of being able to grocery shop and find foods that will fit your macros this should be a good start. As long as you can calculate your serving size and your net carbs with some basic math you are well on your way to KETOSIS :-)