We all have our favorite foods, but what if I told you that you are eating too much of some favorites?
We’ve all heard horror stories about how much sugar or fat someone consumed today and their skin became very itchy or they had to go into hospital for an expensive surgery to remove a body part due to complications caused by food allergies.
Sadly, these cases are becoming more common as people grow older and develop nutritional deficiencies. Having enough vitamins and minerals is important as we age because without them, your health can suffer.
Many people start to lose weight as they get older, which is great! However, as we know, lost weight can be due to chronic illnesses or poor nutrition.
This article will talk about something that many people worry about when trying to lose weight- how many grams of carbs you eat per pound. This information will help you determine appropriate levels while still keeping yourself at a healthy weight.
I’ll also tell you why knowing this information can be helpful towards achieving your diet goal.
Conversion of grams to pounds
When converting from weight units such as grams or ounces, to pound units you must be careful with your math. You should know how many more or less there are an average 1lb in a one-tenth cup measure so if you have a one tablespoon amount, then it is equivalent to one ounce.
One teaspoon equals four tablespoons which is two ounces so that would be twice as much as one ounce! This means that half a bottle (two teaspoons) has one quarter of the amount we want for our recipe. To make sure this doesn’t happen, check out our article about tips for using cocoa powder. There we talk about why having an equal ratio of cocoa butter to dry matter isn’t important when baking with chocolate.
Another way to look at it is that one whole bag (four cups) will not result in 4 lbs like one tenth of a bag does. The difference is that one bag contains twice the amount of sugar needed to achieve the same consistency, so you need to use double the measurement to get the same results.
Conversion of pounds to grams
When converting weight into grams, you should know what kind of scale you have! A metric weight measure is needed to correctly convert weights into grams.
A standard balance or spring-loaded scales can be used to weigh large quantities (up to 100 lbs/45 kg). These are ideal for most people because they do not require any batteries that may leak as well.
Dumbbells and kilograms both use the same basic equation to calculate weight. The difference is how each unit is defined and calculated. Let us look at some examples:
Definition: Weight is the amount of mass an object contains
Example: I am holding this book and it weighs two ounces. My weight is therefore two ounces.
This seems simple enough, but there is one small problem…
How does one actually find out the weight of something? You must either use a weight chart or a ruler with markings next to it. By doing so, you learn the exact weight value of the item being weighed.
By using a weight chart, you compare the known weight of another material and multiply by its specific gravity to get the total weight. Specific gravity is how much matter an element holds compared to water or air, our normal state. This varies slightly from element to element.
For example, magnesium has a higher density than water so it takes more volume to contain the same amount of matter.
Multiply grams by 0.05g
The other way to find your daily nutritional needs is to simply multiply your total gram intake for each food item by the number of calories in that food.
So, if you are eating 1 cup of broccoli, then it’s okay to leave out the butter because there is no calorie content involved. However, if you choose to add one tablespoon of melted butter to the broccoli, remember that we talked about how many calories matter!
If you follow this rule, then you should know that most people get too much fat every day. Nutritionists say that around 30-50% of our diets are made up of fats, so staying within that limit is very important.
Another thing to note is that not all oils contain the same amount of omega fatty acids. Coconut oil is almost half coconut oil saturated fat, but does not have any additional nutrients. So, when choosing oils, make sure you check the labels to see what kind of vitamins they contain.
Multiply grams by 0.01g
The other way to find your weight in pounds is to multiply your total gram intake by 0.01. This is called multiplying by a decimal, and it is important to know how to do this!
So, let’s try that again for one of our examples. We will use the number of grams you should eat per day as your multiplier. And since we are doing a parallel column, here is what the result would be.
In this case, there are 2 numbers in the equation so we will put them next to each other like this: 2×0.01 =.02 lbs
Now that these two equations have a similar structure, we can take both parts and combine them into one. So, we will add together all the terms in the first part (the multiplication) and then subtract the term with no an increase attached to it (the 0.00 lb difference).
Our final expression for calculating weight in pounds is: Weight in pounds = Total grams × 0.01 – 0.02
That makes sense right? If you eat more than zero grams of food every day, your body will retain excess water and weigh more. If you don’t eat enough foods or ingest too much liquid, you will lose water and drop in weight.
Calculating weights in pounds takes some practice, but isn’t difficult once you understand the basics.
Multiply grams by 0.001g
The next step is to multiply your dry weight by 1,000 to get your final product weight. This is called multiplying by a factor or multiplier.
The reason for this is because different vendors use different scales to measure gram weights. Some may weigh less than others, making their measurements inaccurate. By using a 1,000-fold increase, you are compensating for other possible errors.
This article will tell you how to find the approximate number of grams in a pound via another method!
Fortunately, there’s an easy way to figure out the conversion from dry weight to liquid weight via the density of water. It’s just dibsium (2) times boron (8), take away the “zero” and we have our answer!
Density = 2 x 8 = 16 mg/cc
That means that one ounce equals sixteen milliliters which is also known as a fluid ounce.
Multiply grams by 0.0001g
The next way to find your daily calorie intake is by multiplying grams of each food item by.0001 (one one-thousandth) of a gram.
So, for example, if you have 2 tablespoons of olive oil, that would be two grams of oil. Two tablespoons of tomato sauce equals one tablespoon of tomato puree, which is also one gram of tomatoes. One ounce of dried pasta has three cents’ worth of water, so it is one gram of water per ounce.
Multiply grams by 0.00001g
The next step is to multiply your dry weight by 1,000 to get your total weight. Then, simply divide that number into your final pound value.
So, for example, if you had 2 pounds of dried cherries, then 2 lbs x 1,000 = 2,000 mgs. 2,000 divided by 16 are our net carbs per tablespoon. That equals 12.5 carbs per one cup!
Another way to look at it: If you were to eat one cup of dried cherries– which would be two tablespoons- you would have access to around twelve and a half (12.5) grams of carbohydrates.
Just remember, one person’s carbohydrate may be different than another’s due to genetics or diet habits. So, do not rely solely on these numbers as benchmarks but rather use them as a starting point for talking about nutrition with yourself and your doctor.
Multiply grams by 0.000001g
The next step is to multiply your dry weight total of each ingredient by 0.000001 or one thousandth of a gram.
This is because we must round down for our final calculation. If you find that there are too many zeros, then just take out the last zero until it rounds down. For example, if you have 2 mgs of an acid as an ingredient in a recipe, instead of having two zeros after the number, you would only need one.
So, what is this rounding thing? Well, when you do math, there are some numbers that cannot be expressed exactly like fractions. This includes weights and measurements!
For example, if I were to tell you that my cup size was a half-cup, you wouldn’t know how much liquid I had in it. We can’t really measure exact liquids, so they don’t work well with that rule. But, we can get very close!
That means that we use rules to approximate those things. A lot of people learn about these rules in elementary school where they teach you polynomial division which is pretty cool.
But, since we are talking about baking here, we will go over another set of rules called rules of thumb. These are helpful tips and tricks used in culinary arts to make calculations more easily.
The most important part of these is to never add pure water to something else.
