I see that many diets mentioned here lump potatoes in with simple carbs. My book argues that is not correct, and that, in fact, a plain baked (or microwaved) potato with the jacket is not only delicious and higly satisfying, but also for many reasons almost the perfect food.
A long time ago I cut out all carbs for about a month for a protein diet. I really started to hate meat. I didn’t care so much about lack of sugar as much as the breads.
I used to suffer from severe IBS until I went to a nutritionist and she told me the problem was sugar (specifically, processed foods high in sugar and simple carbs.)
She was right. I changed my diet rather dramatically. Almost no bread passes my lips unless it’s whole grain, I eat brown rice, quinoa and brown rice pasta, and I tend to avoid processed foods when possible. If I had known that was all I needed to do to feel better I would have done it years ago, in a heartbeat.
I learned to approach the concept of ‘‘sugar’’ in a new way. For example my staple breakfast when I had IBS was a bagel and orange juice. I didn’t think of it as basically eating sugar for breakfast but that’s exactly what it was. And then when I crashed I would feel even sicker and more depressed.
I have been able to stick to this regiment with varying degrees of success. I do have a sweet tooth so it’s hard sometimes. The switch to 90% whole grains appears to be permanent.
The best thing in the world you can do for yourself is eat leafy greens with some protein for breakfast. I am fond of kale with carrots and corn sauteed in chicken broth, with some chicken sausage for protein. It’s a power breakfast for sure and will keep you full longer than cereal or bread (I haven’t done that in a while.) I’m also a fan of Green Monster smoothies, which are made with spinach but you can’t taste it.
There’s a good cookbook called ‘‘Glorious Greens.’’ I am confident that if you begin slowly, say start with breakfast, and begin substituting your sugar for leafy greens and whole grains, you’re going to start feeling a lot better.
Potatoes cause my blood sugar to spike worse than any other food. I get palpitations and blurry vision. I feel the same way eating a donut so I avoid them both.
I’ve gone practically without sugar since I was in college… hmm… that would be going on 33 years now.
Having thoroughly kicked the habit, I don’t feel any desire to resume it. Now, excessively sugary things (I’m looking at you, Southern tea) actually seem bizarre and repulsive to me. I don’t even use honey or any sort of sweetener any more. Dessert is something alien to me. But then I have hypoglycemic issues which I can easily keep under control by laying off the sweets. That does provide a powerful incentive to stay on the wagon.
I was listening to the John Tesh radio show, where he reads articles and helpful hints in between easy listenin’ songs. He read from an article (I forgot who published it) about how sugar is hidden in everything, like processed foods. Put ketchup on your fries? Congratulations, you have used up your sugar allowance for the DAY!
It is the volume of potato that was my problem, and the … additions (butter, sour cream, frying oil etc). I do have some now (but not chips), but I prefer sweet potato anyhow.
Si
Thanks for that link. I wanted to chime in about the “low-glycemic” idea, but didn’t have the cites.
We cut out sugar and carbs (to less than 20g/day) at first for weight loss, which happened, but now we do for health. Sugar, starches and wheat damage your cardiovascular system, among other things. We eat lots of animal fat, butter, etc. and take coconut oil.
Cite?
I’m at work and have to keep my Doping to a minimum, but here’s a start. I don’t know if the original article is accessible since it’s new.
Also here:
Reactive Hypoglycemia. I am not diabetic but I used to have this happen to me a lot because I ate a lot if pasta. I was vegetarian and pasta was easy and convenient. I have cut back on pasta meals and don’t have as many problems with this. I did give up sugar and processed foods once for a while but bad habits crept back in and my schedule just makes it hard to eat right. I am going to try again after this week. I’m working a lot in the beginning of the week and the boyfriend is on vacation so I know we won’t be eating healthy this week.
Anyway, I can ditto that once you get past the first few days on a sugar/starch restricting diet you crave them less, feel better and have more energy. I lost a couple pounds just cutting out junk. By the way, I only restricted my sugar, I still used a sweetener in my coffee but cut out other sweetened drinks and I still ate some carbs but no white bread. I think being too restrictive makes me crave things psychologically, not physically, so I have to allow myself some treats now and then. My main problems that cause me to fall off the wagon is my crazy work schedule and just getting busy and eating what’s convenient.
I tried Atkins just to see. It didn’t make me feel any better and it was certainly harder to get up for things like running on a treadmill for an hour.
But the difference was minor. I could’ve taken it or leave it. It’s probably a good idea to cut out as much sugar as possible. Salt too. It certainly isn’t going to hurt you, unless you go to a very extreme.
I dramatically cut back sugar back in 2004 after reading the book Super Foods Rx: 14 Foods That Will Change Your Life.
I eventually lost 70+lbs and have kept every bit of it off. I still closely watch the amount of sugar (and white processed flour products) I eat, but I do allow the occasional treat item. I still eat sweet potatoes, whole grains, brown rice, whole wheat pasta/tortillas, oatmeal, quinoa, etc on a daily basis. I just watch the portion size of those kinds of foods.
All my life, I thought I had a problem with food because I couldn’t seem to stop eating. I would eat an Oreo and immediately want another, and another and another! Turns out, the problem wasn’t all food, just some foods. Eliminating/reducing those foods has been a minor miracle (to me). The less I eat them, the less I want them.
After nearly 6 years, I still estimate my calories every day (just a running tally in my head). I am careful in restaurants, I pack lunches for work, I cook healthy dinners. I built a lot of healthy habits that make it easy for me to maintain my weight loss.
Sure, it’s work. But it’s worthwhile to me.
I would say, 95% of the time, it’s mentally easy for me to live like this. Occasionally, my inner 5 year old whines that it’s “not fair” that I can’t eat whatever I want to. At those times, I remind myself that I had 20 years to eat whatever I wanted to and it never made me happy. Now, I eat carefully and I’m a slim and healthy person with a closet full of adorable clothes. I smile more, I have more energy, I don’t dodge pictures (there are only a handful of pictures of me for an entire DECADE), I happily reconnect with old friends on Facebook, wedding dress shopping last year was pure bliss.
I’ve always heard that just being thin won’t solve all your problems or make you happy, it sure helped me!
To the OP: try it. See if it works for you. I’ve tried cutting out sugar and starchy things entirely, but it gave me a monstrous headache and made me have violent mood swings; however, several of my friends have tried the same with no ill effects, or at least milder effects.
I will say that I’m a huge believer that diets should be individual. I have a huge problem with books about nutrition that try to villify any specific type of food for everyone or prescribe a specific diet for everyone. I look at it this way: everyone has slightly unique body chemistry based on genetics, environment (where they live, food indigenous to that area, culture of food), potential defects (for example, I have a seizure disorder, probably thanks to some defect in my makeup) and whatever they do to themselves (exercise/not exercise, smoking/not smoking, what they eat). So, with all those different factors, it makes perfect sense to me that while I might feel really good on a certain diet, that same diet might make someone else feel really sluggish or hyper or whatever.
That said, what works for me is this:
First, I try really hard not to cut anything out. The way my mind works, the second I decide to forbid something, I binge on it. Instead, I have goals in mind of how many servings I should eat of every category of food.
I have a daily goal of the number of fruits & veggies I should eat - about 2-3 fruits, 4-5 veggies. Because this is a significant amount, it’s the foundation of my ideal diet, which means that, to meet this goal, the majority of my daily food intake should be fruits & veggies.
Next are proteins & dairy. These are about neck and neck for me and include nuts because I often substitute nuts for meat. I try to get 2 servings of protein & dairy each a day.
Next are grains. This is the easiest category to fill, so it’s the lowest priority for me and I don’t typically set a goal for how many grains I should eat in a day. Heck, if someone brings in bagels to the office and I eat one, I’ve already had four servings of grains.
I also don’t have a daily goal for how much fat I need to take in or cut out. I cook fairly healthfully, so unless I’m gorging on cookies or something, eating too much fat isn’t a huge concern, even if I put cream in my coffee. Plus, I rarely eat out, so I don’t usually have to deal with added fat unless I add the fat myself.
Anyway, if I happen to have fulfilled all the above food categories, I can have whatever I want - chips, ice cream, cookies. Anything. But, by the time I’ve fulfilled the above, I don’t usually want anything else. Either I’m satisfied or just done eating. And I also don’t have to think about what I’m eating beyond, “Does this meal have a fruit and vegetable? What about protein? Great.”
One thing I find interesting about this kind of stuff isn’t just how different things work for different people, but how opposite approaches lead to success for different people. One person finds that cutting something out of her diet entirely leads to cravings and binges and another finds that cutting something out virtually eliminates cravings for it. One person likes to use “replacements” for unhealthy foods, while another finds that replacements are unsatisfying and lead to cravings for the real thing. And so on.
Anyway…as I stated in this thread, I completely cut out refined-sugar sweets and sugary drinks 8 months ago. I rarely miss them. For me, eating anything heavy in refined sugars will trigger a nearly uncontrollable craving for more sugar. No sugar, no cravings, voila!
As for why I did it: I’m a sugar fiend. I’ve always known that it’s a problem and I’ve cut it out before, but fell off the wagon. Mainly, my reason for trying to cut it out had always been for health.
Then I read Drinking: A Love Storyby Caroline Knapp. It’s a wonderful memoir of a recovering alcoholic and it helps you really understand what goes through the mind of an addict. In reading it, I realized that my feelings and behaviors regarding sugary sweets were the same as her feelings and behaviors regarding alcohol. I don’t know whether “sugar addiction” really exists, but I was definitely acting like an addict.
So I kicked it.
The cravings may be gone, but it’s not always easy to keep it up for other reasons, but you know what keeps me on the straight and narrow? It fucking SUCKS to have a monkey on your back, even if it’s only sugar.
Please tell me about breakfast. That seems to me like it would be hardest meal of the day to avoid sugars. No bread and no sugar? what do you eat? the only thing i could come up with is eggs. With no toast, which makes me sad.
I eat Fat Free Greek yogurt with sliced fruit or berries nearly every day. I also like oatmeal with apple butter (I buy some great no-sugar-added stuff from a local farmer’s market). I also do scrambled eggs and salsa in a whole wheat tortilla occasionally. On the weekends, I like whole grain toast with natural peanut butter (kind of calorie-heavy for everyday for me, it’s a nice weekend treat).
My goal isn’t really NO sugar, and I still eat healthy carbohydrates like whole grain toast and whole wheat tortillas. I have never limited fruit in any way.
Cottage cheese is a great breakfast.
There are breads out there you can have. Low carb breads at the store already packaged or the kind you make at home.
Also:
flax/coconut muffins with real butter
Peanut butter dip with apple slices
cheese and macadamias
spinach casserole (spinach, eggs, bacon, cheese and cream)
leftover dinner
cheesecake squares (using Da Vinci sugar-free syrups I get at Walmart in the coffee section)
meats like sausage, bacon, or anything else quick to reheat; sometimes a sliced deli meat rolled up around cheese and lettuce
berries with cream
there are bars with low carb versions. I like Atkins breakfast bars occasionally
refried black beans on a low carb tortilla with bit of avocado or guacamole and some tomatoes and cheese
all sorts of quiches
I used to love those nitrite free turkey hot dogs wrapped in a slice of deli american, with a squirt of mustard, wrapped in a low carb tortilla. That was my favorite breakfast but I have a hard time finding the hot dogs these days and my belly can’t handle the nitrites anymore.
I don’t know about other stores but Kroger sells a low carb yogurt called Carbmaster. It’s the store brand, I think it has four grams of carbs. I loathe yogurt but my daughter eats some every day.