How to Count Carb Calories

Counting calories is one of the primary ways of losing weight or tracking the progress of your diet. Sometimes, however, the label on your food is torn or damaged, and you have only partial nutrition information. Or perhaps you need to determine the calories provided by each of the macronutrients in your food. The calculation needed to determine the number of calories provided by the carbohydrate in your food is very easy to do.

Things You'll Need

• Calculator or paper and pencil

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Instructions

• 1

  Enter or write down the number of carbohydrates in one serving of your food. If you are eating something you made, be sure to include all ingredients in your calculations. If you are eating something that has a nutrition label, use the total carbohydrate count.

• 2

  Subtract the number of grams of insoluble or dietary fiber. Because fiber is not digested like other carbohydrates and has little to no effect on blood glucose levels, some experts -- including Drs. Michael R. and Mary Dan Eades, authors of "Protein Power" -- say that you may subtract those grams from the total carbohydrate count. Other experts recommend subtracting only half of those grams, as federal regulations do not require manufacturers to differentiate between the two types of fiber in most nutrition labels.

• 3

  Multiply the adjusted carbohydrate count by 4. There are 4 calories in 1 gram of carbohydrate.

• 4

  Multiply by the number of servings eaten. If possible, check the serving size on the nutrition label, as serving sizes are often less than you might expect. For example, a typical serving of bread is one slice. If you ate a sandwich, you would multiply by two. If you ate two sandwiches, you would multiply by four.

• 5

  Record the result in your diet journal. At the end of the day, you can add all of the calories from carbohydrate to determine your day's total calories from carbohydrate.