I recently went through two very difficult deaths in my family. I stopped LCing but now that I am trying to pull my life back together I would like to start again. I decided to go with the Atkins nutritional plan. I feel that Atkins is something I can follow for life. But I am so confused as to exactly what I subtract and what I count in the "net" carbs. The ladies that I work with are on the South Beach Diet and one of them is on the Carb Addicts Diet, they have told me that I am suppose to subtract the sugar alcohols and the fiber from the total carbohydrate...is this true? that would mean that a russell stovers sugar free peppermant pattie only has about one gram of carbs in it. I am confused. I've read so many different books can someone tell me how i am suppose to figure out exactly how many carbs are in something?

well... yes and no.

You do subtract the fiber from the total carbs, because those pass right through you. That's the easy answer.

The sugar alcohols, on the other hand... sort of. Technically, they also can be subtracted, but a lot of people find that they act just like a regular carb (only with more gas and diarrhea) and bring weight loss to a screeching halt, so they tend to count the sugar alcohol carbs as regular carbs or just avoid them all together.

There's a bunch of threads about sugar alcohols around that might explain it better.

Hope this helps, and good luck. I'm sorry to hear about your loss