By the time you get to this phase of the diet, you will be well on your way to your target weight. In this second phase of the Counting Carbohydrates Diet, you will be able to eat up to 100 grams of carbohydrates per day. This is still a very limited carbohydrate diet. At the most, you will be getting about a third of your calories from carbohydrates. That’s about half of what the average Western diet usually provides.
But, as you probably know by now, not all carbohydrates are created equal, and so the carbohydrates you will be adding back into your diet will be limited to fruits and vegetables, with occasional whole grain pastas and breads. These carbohydrates have a low or moderate glycaemic load. You will notice that the list does not include sweets, crisps or baked goods. These high-glycaemic index carbohydrates are foods that provide too many carbohydrates and too many calories. Moreover, because they have a moderate to high glycaemic load, they make you hungrier. These are foods that tantalize but can’t satisfy. So, in this phase of the diet, the only carbohydrates allowed are complex carbs, primarily with a low glycaemic load. Fats will make up almost half of the calories consumed, and proteins fill in the rest.
On the 100-gram Counting Carbohydrates Diet, there is no need to check your urine. Once you eat this many carbohydrates, you will go back to using sugar (glucose) as your primary fuel. You will still lose weight for the same reason you were losing weight on the earlier diet: you will be eating fewer calories, and you will be avoiding the types of foods that promote high levels of insulin, since insulin can promote fat storage over fat usage.
One word of advice before you get started on this diet: the theory behind it is that by severely restricting intake of carbohydrates the food that makes up the majority of the calories most of us take in on a given day we will end up consuming fewer calories. The greater satisfaction associated with eating a larger percentage of your calories from proteins and fats undoubtedly contributes to this decrease in appetite. But if you end up sneaking carbohydrates back into your diet, you will be undermining the ways in which it is designed to make you lose weight. You’ll end up with the worst possible diet: one that’s high in fats and proteins and refined carbohydrates. If you add back the refined carbohydrates, you are just eating more of everything, and that is a sure way to gain weight.
