where are the semi-lowcarb people?
 

hi guys, i haven't posted in a long time because it feels like all the "semi-lowcarb folks have gine somewhere...i am still hanging in there on my life without bread plan. it has become a way of life for me. altogether a loss of of 27 pounds with no pain and feeling good. for those who dont know, much higher than atkins (72 grams carbs) but , to me, much more livable.i am losing weight slower than the extreme plans but i can attend family functions, have a few carbs, (wine, little goodies) now and then and, for me, its the only way i can do this. i have tried induction before and couldn't do it for more than a week. also, i am a senior and doing anything considered abit "extreme" affects me more than a younger person. anyway, would like to hear from some others on this link. tell me how and what you are doing..best wishes

Hi, Dottiedo.

I have been semi-low-carb during the past year due to an impending divorce and associated stress. I did gain back five pounds and just now am going back to a stricter food plan.

Once I am at my goal I will probably do just exactly as you are doing but when I err I usually am at around 50 carbs or so.

I am 63.

I am here. I follow the Montignac Method and it works out very well for me. I eat my whole grain carbs for breakfast, then follow low carb the rest of the day. I also have dark chocolate and wine occasionally.

My hat's off to those who can do Atkins. Without a few good carbs in my diet, I feel very sick.

I'm currently more in the semi-low-carb group, trying some of the ideas of the Perfect Health Diet, including adding in some "safe starches" here and there. So far no clue about how it may be helping or hindering me. I'm still on a 5-year stall. :D

thx for the replies, it's good to know there are a few of us having some success with this....

I am returning to this message board realizing that I need help in maintaining the lifestyle. I'm 42 and have really gone off the wagon. I need to get back on track and am trying to do semi-low carb instead of going whole-hog. Some how when the kids were younger and life was less busy, I could follow the no-carb approach much easier. I have to keep reminding myself that I am on the road to diabetes and that I'm going to wind up on medication as well as muscle/body aches. I really need to loose a solid 50 lbs (guessing). Hoping that this board can keep me accountable!

I think I fit here. I am new and following the Colorado Diet. I gave a pretty specific introduction to Colorado Diet on the introduction page.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...782#post8886782

lets help each other
 

: :so looks like there are a few of us here, hanging in for the long hall. its amazing to me how much trouble we have all experienced with FOOD! i can remember as a small child, not thinking of food at all. we got up in the morning, ate what my mom put in front of us, got our stuff and went to school. at school we ate what she put in our lunch bag, when we got home , same thing at supper time. sometimes, if it was on the weekend, we got popcorn or peanuts and pop for a special treat and, oh yes, my mom always put a cookie or some cake on after supper was done. i think it began for me in highschool;the "am i too fat?" thing and soon enough, i was on the fast tract to yoyo dieting..once you begin the dieting stuff, you never have a healthy outlook on food again. except, now i have tried to put that diet thing behind me and eat better than i have in a long time; try to have the foods that trigger cravings out of my house as a matter of discipline..that is cookies, candy, cake, ect. the only time i have a treat is a special time, (birthdays, holidays) now, i consider a "treat" to be abit of real cream in my coffee and a pat of creamy cows butter on my vegies maybe some nice havarti on a ryekrisp in the afternoon..well, good eating to you all. here's to family gatherings and partaking of wonderful, filling foods in these gatherings and enjoying good company.everyone, start enjoying your life, and let it include FOOD! : :wave: :

I love your line -

Smile lets help each other

I feel like I am having such a hard time getting started again. For every 1 step I take forward, 1 take 2 backward. I just can't get my act together and I'm not sure why. Sometimes I panic that my ring won't come off my finger (this has always been my test- how tight my wedding ring is and if I can also fit my engagement ring on the same finger). It's scary really. I want to do this, I really do, but why am I so lazy with cooking? Since having gotten a puppy (who is almost 7 months now) I have been walking 3-4 times a week which is good for both of us. I guess I feel like its just easier to cook a box of pasta for all of us instead of cooking something that is carb friendly for me along with something that is "normal" for the rest of the family. I would love to have a chef that prepared all my meals. I'd love to go back to the time when I didn't have to worry about what others were eating. For me it really started when I was about 14. I lost a good amount of weight and looked great as a freshman in high school, then it started creeping on... managed to get through college and my wedding... but after being married and having the kids... I just don't know... it's tougher to be committed! Help!

oh i know how you feel; i am by myself now, kids all grown up and gone and, sadly, hubby passed away. it is easier for a person who doesnt have to cook for others. you probably should just cook a somewhat "regular" meal for the family but up the protein part abit, or add a piece or two of chicken, steak or whatever, just for you. then just eat alot of the vegie, scarf down the protein and let the family have the carbs. i am on "life without bread" now so i actually can have 72 carb grams a day. sometimes i will allow myself one/half cup potatoes mixed with onion, pickles, eggs and mayo (all allowed) for a nice little salad for 14 carbs. in the old days, i would probably have a cup or two of just potatoe salad! but it seems to satisfy me anyway. you could also leave the table after you have finished and have some 70% dark chocolate, (5 carbs a serving) and 4 ounces dry red wine (4 carbs) so now we see 25 total carbs for a nice meal and dessert. sooner or later, you will see results on the scale, just not as fast as Atkins. i have heard anything UNDER 100 carbs daily is considered low carb....just relax, love yourself and enjoy all the great veggies and steaks and even some berries and cream. i will admit i dont go crazy with butter or cheese, or even nuts, but it doesnt take much to satisfy.

I hear you vabmail. I remember when I was 42 and deep into the kids thing and family meals (I'm a sole empty nester now). what a very busy and pressured time of life you have, no wonder you are not so gung ho on meal planning and extra work, which as you know is what it takes because convenience food is almost always too carby.

Could we break your job of managing family meals into baby steps? Here's a few things that helped me. I had my 3d and last child in high school when we really transformed our food. She was skeptical at first but when she experienced how great the food was, and then compared with her friends' struggles with bad food and acne and weight and moodiness, yuck o!

In no particular order:

Have the family work with you on favorite menu items that meet the must-haves: things they like, and not too much work for you. We had separate lists for good breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

Stage the transformation one meal at a time. First learn to make good breakfasts: shopping, cooking, having things ready. Then do lunches. Then dinners. After a couple-3 months all your meals will be right on!

On weekends, shop on one day, and cook ahead the next. Too much to do all in one day. My kids absolutely loved this. it meant that at least one predictable day a week, I would come home from the store with their favorite things for a week. (And we knew it was their favorites because they had to help with the menu lists). If you freeze things like meat loaf it's almost as easy as the box of pasta.

On a moderate low carb plan you can make most recipes with just a little modification. I love meat loaf with oatmeal; I just cut down the oats a little, add more egg, and don't do the ketchup on top but instead have a little squirt when we serve it. Soooooo good.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. Dinner seems to be the hardest for me. I can do fairly well with breakfast and lunch. So I guess I really just need to concentrate on dinner and how to swop out the bad carbs for good carbs. My son LOVES salad so that is an easy fix for me, but my daughter is much pickier with veggies. And my husband, forget about it. I definitely need to find some low carb substitutes for flour (pancakes) and breadcrumbs. I'm working on it ladies - one step at a time!

I'm picky with vegetables too. They have to be cooked and not bitter or slimy. well, not vegetable-like actually ha ha.

I had a chef boyfriend that gave me a low-carb topping that makes ANY veg taste better:

2 parts sliced almonds (like 4 Tbs)
1 part minced ginger (like 2 Tbs)
saute in a mix of butter and olive oil until the almonds are toasty and aromatic (be careful, they burn about 2 seconds after they're perfect)
add white pepper and salt

Then sprinkle it on anything. Soooo good and gets some fat added so people are actually satisfied with veggies. amazing

Thanks Seejay - the topping sounds great! I now have to start stocking my refrigerator with veggies so that I always have them on hand. I am excited that I joined a farm share this summer so I will have lots of fresh organic veggies from the farm. It's fun to figure out what to do with the selection from each week.

I have to say - last night worked out well for me. I made to cheeseburgers but was only able to eat a little over 1 and enjoyed the red cabbage slow I made. I did have a few onion rings, but I forgave myself for those because the rest of the day was awesome. Later for dessert I had my old staple - ricotta cheese, agave, cinnamon and raisins. Happy to be on the right track again... though I was thinking of ordering pizza tonight since we need a quick dinner - not really in the mood for a salad from there but might just order for the family and make my own chef salad from stuff I have at home.

thanks everyone for the encouragement.

My mom has battled weight issues since she was 9 and she often tells me to get this in check while I'm young, so I'm trying. I really, really am.

Yay! one dinner down! Your mom is so right. However you are already light years ahead by knowing so much and working on your routines. Very impressive!

try crushed bacon rinds (zero carbs) for breading chicken and fish; it's good!

you know what else is good, dip in egg and then in grated parmesan/romano cheese. This is really good for veggie "fritters" too. Like with eggplant slices - see Suzanne Somers' most excellent eggplant and mozarella sandwiches ...

http://www.piebirds.org/2011/03/cri...mozzarella.html

So glad that I found this thread! I lost 20 pounds about 3 yrs ago doing very low carb. I maintained that for over 2 yrs. Then I missed certain foods so much, and fell head first into potatoes, pancakes, and wheat products. My weight is out of control (need to update stats) and blood sugar is rising. I want to eat heathfully, without feeling guilty when I eat starch!

Welcome chicachyna! I love this way of eating. I feel much better than on very low carb, plus, you can eat just about any whole foods if you keep the amounts small. Still no white-powder, drug-like processed food for me (flours and sweeteners), but definitely roots and fruit.

Also - unlike in the past, it is completely satisfying to have a small potato with a meal. It's because I can also have sufficient fat. In the past I could never be satisfied with small amounts of starch - had to have mass quantities - figured out later it was because I was also eating too much protein and way too little fat, you know, the basic lean meat deal. Insulin was always still darn high.

But, with the Lutz or Groves or Kwazniewski, it feels absolutely fabulous to have just a little starch with meals. That's how I do it anyway.

I think the best thing about the semi-lowcarb plans is that you dont have to FOCUS so much on your food...no counting, maybe a little weighing on the food scale till you get it down, but you dont have to be obsessive about anything..just eat whole foods, kind of like humanity used to eat. just an extra piece of chicken or fish (protein) instead of bread. and by the way, if you are doing net carbs, you can even have a good high fiber piece of toast with your eggs and bacon. almond milk only has 2 carbs per cup and i have come to like it as much as regular milk.

Hi, I am not sure where to post now that I have switched plans. I gave "The Carbohydrates Addict's Diet" a shot and I failed miserably. I didn't want to give up so I just started reading and researching more. I came across Barry Groves' website. I just finished reading his book yesterday. Natural Health and Weight loss. I think I might give it a go. I think I like not having to wait all day to eat a fruit or a starch. He doesn't advocate eating all your carbs at one meal. Today has been good so far. I have not intentions of measuring or weighing my foods. I will look up general information for carb counts and then just use my hunger as a guide. That was one reason why I was drawn to CAD. I just don't have the type of personality that wants to weigh and measure every little thing that I eat. I guess I can't say that I am really following his plan, but I will be following the principles.

So, I will see what happens with this plan. Anyone else following his plan? I was sorry to see that he is dead.

I'm not familiar with Barry Groves. I'll have to look him up. I know that I will never eat any other way. One of the best benefits of following my plan is stabilized blood sugar. Before when I tried to diet, my blood sugar levels would go way up and way down, giving me horrible mood swings. I was beginning to think I was bipolar! I read Suzanne Somers' books, then traced it back to Michal Montignac and I've been happy ever since.

Thanks for chiming in Mrskeith. There are so many ways that people lose weight and maintain. Trying to find the right amount and types of food for our bodies and lifestyle can be so frustrating. I refuse to give up though. If I find I can't stick to Groves' plan then I will try something else. Day two I am feeling a little slugglish but it is almost lunch time. I am thinking that I didn't eat enough at breakfast. I will have to up my fat content a little bit I think.

Too bad this section is no longer active...this is me to a T. Back in the day when I was thin I stayed that way by eating low carb. I lived alone and didn't have to worry about what someone else wanted to eat. I ate vegetables, and otherwise my only carbs were things like the filler in meatloaf or the breading on fried chicken, and I didn't eat those things often. After marrying a carb lover my diet and also my weight changed. I still try to avoid starchy carbs but it's not as easy as it used to be. I try to stick to protein and veggies and only cook starch for DH, but I find myself eating it sometimes and therfore my weight loss is very slow....almost non-existant. If I make a point to stay on plan is the only time I show a drop.

I am going to read through the posts anyway because it gives me ideas.

I'm still here. Over the summer I gained about 3 pounds trying to eat like a "normal person". I failed to consider that the average normal person is very overweight these days. So it is back to the Montignac Method for me. I found that I missed my wonderful food and how amazing I felt. In fact, I just finished eating a large buckwheat pancake with sugar free syrup for breakfast. This will keep me comfortably full until lunch and it has lots of healthy fiber.

I truly believe that eating low on the glycemic index is what works best for me. Please stick around and share your progess. :-)

Good to see someone here, MrsKeith. You have already helped me. I never heard of the Montignac Method so I googled and bookmarked and now I have something to read through later on. Like I said, I've done low carb off and on for years, but unfortunately, due to the many "off" years I am now type 2 diabetic so low carb is a necessity. I was running high for a few days and medication brought it down. Now I'd like to stay low carb and keep the blood sugar down because once it goes back up, only meds will bring it back down, and the med's I'm on cause weight gain. I do that well enough on my own, thank you very much! LOL I think low carb makes you more carb sensitive because I am at the point that anything that even smells like bread spikes my blood sugar terribly, and naturally, bread and it's family is one of my favorite foods. So I try to do as well as I can. If my blood sugar is anywhere near good, I know I'm doing a good job.

The Montignac Method is very similar to Somersizing, as Suzanne stole the idea from Michal Montignac. However, his diet is much more balanced and less gimicky. You eat your whole grains for breakfast, even 100% whole wheat bread. Potatoes are replaced with lentils, split peas and other beans. It's all about right combinations of foods and the glycemic index. I recommend his last book "How to Get Spaghetti Thin" as it has the latest information and is the easiest to understand. Honestly, once you get the hang of things, it's the easiest thing in the world. Here's what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast: fruit, then a buckwheat pancake with SF syrup, coffee
Lunch: grilled chicken salad with homemade vinaigrette dressing
Dinner: whole wheat spaghetti with marinara sauce, sauted diced tomatoes and zuccini in olive oil, and about a 1/4 of plain yogurt with SF jelly mixed in for desert.

I was down a pound this morning. ;)

I guess I would be semi-low carb. Since putting my food into mfp, I average 30-75 net carbs daily. I just can't do the 20 or less suggested by Atkins.

Atkins induction is Very Low Carb or VLC. Not to be confused with regular low carb.

The Nutrition and Metabolism Society defines Low Carb Diet this way:

I have never heard that Seejay, thanks for the definition.