Ok, not a real diet plan. I just cut corn syrup from my diet. I started finding it was in everything. Drinks, ketchup (both regular and high fructose), pretzels, sausage (both kinds again), mayo,… the crap is everywhere.
I decided to do a little experiment and remove it from my diet all together and weigh myself every few days to see if there’s a change.
Of course this means I have to read tons of labels and sometimes pay a touch more for the “organic” version, but it has been kind of fun.
I haven’t changed anything else in my diet nor have I changed what and when I eat/drink. I just make sure whatever I’m eating contains zero corn syrup. I also am not doing any extra exercise, just my regular routine.
My regular everyday diet wasn’t over the top either. I don’t eat lots of crap and junk. I don’t eat fast food. We cook a balanced dinner every night, lots of salads, average to low fat foods, things like that. My main junk-foodish vice was Gatorade -which I often had a glass or two a night. I’ve replaced that with lemonade sweetened with cane juice.
At the end of the day I lost 8 lbs of corn syrup. Eeegh.
(ok, tonight I did break down and eat a bite size halloween Payday which contains corn syrup, but I only ate one)
Good job! I had this idea too. I figure everything with corn syrup in it is crap you don’t need anyway. I still let myself have good chocolate and ice cream tho’.
We need to come up with some whacky, psuedo scientific explanation and write a diet book advocating this very thing. We could make millions…
Could you elaborate on this? The reason I ask is because I seem to find high fructose corn syrup in EVERYTHING. I would think that to cut the corn syrup out, you’d have to majorily alter your diet. But maybe not?
That’s the thing, to cut out corn syrup, you really have to stop eating all processed foods. That means vegetables, fruit, meat, good bread. No sodas, no vending machine pastries, no white bread, no premade condiments (make your own salad dressing). Shopping at a natural food store may help. For instance, I like tuna with crackers. I get a Triscuit copy at Whole Foods that only has whole wheat and slat as ingredients. How big a change it is depends on what your diet looks like now.
Nope. I think store-bought bread is the only thing I eat with corn syrup in it. Meat, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, cheese, yogurt, skim milk, Michel Cluizel 85% chocolate, diet soda, popcorn, homemade soup, whole-wheat pasta, kasha, oatmeal… hopeless.
Congratulations to you, though. It must be exciting.
Oh, they’re the Whole Foods private label stuff. Here’s the ingredients for Triscuits and here is Baked Woven Wheats. The big difference is the fat, the fiber is the same. And they have started making Triscuits with soybean oil so they don’t have trans fatty acids anymore which is good.
Basically, that’s the change I made in July - I cut out all processed foods. I’ve lost 30 lbs and I really feel great, tons more energy. I do buy regular salad dressing, but I use a tablespoon to measure it
Yeah, I was gonna correct that but if I went back and corrected every single mistype, my post count would double. (and I freakin’ preview too, I just transpose everything. Sigh…)
It wasn’t too hard really. Not for my regular kitchen stuff. The Miracle Whip went into the trash as was replaced with a regular mayo. My ketchup also had to go and was replaced with something labeled as “organic” -which I have to say I like better.
I’m still eating things like frozen pizzas and sweets. I just had to find versions without corn syrup. I don’t normally drink soda or eat “junk” food. My regular diet already is somewhat healthy -one of the reasons the weigh loss was such a shock. Just think of what would happen to someone who eats fast food and soda everyday.
This experiment wasn’t to lose weight, it was to see if I could avoid the junk. I thought I might lose some weight which is why I brought the scale into the picture. Normally I don’t even pay attention to how much I weigh. I don’t consider myself fat, nor thin. I could afford to lose a couple pounds though. My body frame is on the bulky side -if I gave a shit I could easily look like one of those no necked body builders.
I’ve found lots of chocolate and ice cream without corn syrup.
Really, at the end of the day, I’m not missing anything out of my diet other then a couple of brand items -Gatorade and Miracle Whip (I liked the way it tased in tuna sandwiches). I’ve found replacements for everything.
You know, it’s dead easy to make your own salad dressing. Seriously - there’s hardly a reason to buy it at the store when you can make a batch in like five minutes with your blender.
You don’t even need a blender - an empty jar does just fine. Takes less than a minute to prepare. Put one big heaped teaspoon dollop of dijon mustard in the jar, a pinch of salt and pepper (& herbs if you like), a quarter cup of oil, put the lid on and shake vigorously until the mustard has combined with the oil. Then open the lid and put in two or three tablespoons of your favourite vinegar, replace the lid and shake vigorously again. Bada bing.
I did something similar by cutting out processed breads and junk food and sodas. I still treat myself to the occasional junk food splurge once a week but I try not to keep breads and chips and things in the house. I’ve also tried to make a point to eat better overall. I lost about 10 pounds and could stand to lose another 10 but I am hovering here at this point. I think I need to be more strict about my diet or exercise more if I want to lose more.
Wow! I bet some of the weight was water loss, as I imagine the natural food alternatives are lower in sodium, and Gatorade is basically Kool Aid made with saline. But still, you are probably doing yourself a favor, as you say, by cutting down on junk.
I just read an article about the physiology of appetite that mentions that the body doesn’t recognize corn syrup as calories. So if you had a meal with sucrose-sweetened iced tea, you’d probably eat fewer calories to compensate for the sugar in the tea, but if you have a Coke, you’ll eat as much as you would if you drank nothing.
Personally, I did something similar - I try to avoid any kind of refined starch. I still let myself have sugar and honey, but I wind up just having it in my tea, or on my oatmeal. Very different from having a slice of cake. And come to think of it, this takes pretty much all processed foods out of my diet, and therefore removes corn syrup as well.
I’ve lost 8 pounds in two months, but I don’t care, as long as the number is going down steadily!
