Betty:

I understand your concerns. I went through similar concerns, thinking that I should pay attention to all the carbs in my meals. I tend to have pretty big portions, i.e., 4 or 5 cups of salad, 2 or 3 cups of cooked veggies with meals, that sort of thing. I once counted up all my carb grams in a nutrition database and found I was eating something like 70 or 80 a day (having cut down obvious carb grams to about 7 or 8 per meal, thinking I was making it up with carbs in veggies and cream and so forth). It got me kind of worried at first, but I learned something important. The way your body feels ranks above all else!

When I brought down my carb grams, the fatigue came back, the irritability, the depression. All those things that LCing had taken away were back! And I was still stuck in my weight. I realized that I had lost faith in the SP program (not saying this is what's happening with you, only that this is what I realized in my case). So this week I am back to the 15 carbs per meal in the form of fruit, though don't incorporate the carbs in snacks except on weekends (when I need more energy). Now, I can't tell if this will get me moving again (I'm PMSing and know already I'm bloated up!), but I'm less tired, less irritable and depressed (apart from the effects of PMS, but I can tell the difference by now!

I wonder if this counting carbs in everything isn't a hangover from the Atkins diet. I don't know if some of the other ones advocate counting carbs in everything, but I know, for instance, that GO Diet and Carb Addicts doesn't advocate this either.

I'm not saying you shouldn't try it. But I hope you pay close attention to how your body feels and monitor things like fatigue, mood, etc. And if you feel worse, then I hope you won't be afraid of adding in more carbs. There are a lot of other suggestions for moving stalls and cutting carbs is only one of them.

HTH

Tal