Low carb doesn't seem to be working...pleez helllp

[velvett]

I strongly urge you to read the book "Natural Hormone Balance for Women" by Uzzi Reiss. Every woman should read this book regardless of her age! One thing he discusses is the common practice of doctors using contraceptives for things like regulating menstrual flow. The thing is, since contraceptives are made with synthetic hormones, they can cause more of a hormonal imbalance. .

You've mentioned that before - gotta get that.

THE HORROR!

sigh....

 

[cherylynn]

I don't understand what's wrong with the whole wheat low carb bread. I would think it's better than rice or potatoes. I thought they were taboo.
And why skip the cheese and cream , they are high in fat and I thought fat and protein were good to help me feel full. I hear a lot of contradictory things and now i'm totally confused.

 

[Daisy_Girl]

I don't understand what's wrong with the whole wheat low carb bread. I would think it's better than rice or potatoes. I thought they were taboo.
And why skip the cheese and cream , they are high in fat and I thought fat and protein were good to help me feel full. I hear a lot of contradictory things and now i'm totally confused.

Low Carb Bread....PROCESSED. Check the ingredients of the oatmeal and compare them to the list on the bread. Which one is longer? WHich one looks more natural? Which one has more chemicals? To lose fat, you need a CLEAN diet. Clean means as basic as possible. Stay as close to nature as you can.

Carbs give you energy, but they are VERY easy to overeat. This is why you carefully monitor what you eat (amounts), get a food scale. Be anal about what you put in your mouth. Too much of ANYTHING will make it hard to lose fat. You shouldn't view carbs, even rice and potatoes as taboo. Overall, a clean diet with the proper amount of caloric intake and exercise will give you better results than a diet full of processed food (no matter HOW LOW in carbs) and half-ass training.

Dairy is usually NOT in a cutting type diet. Dairy can bloat you, plus it has sugar in it. The carbs in milk products are mostly sugar. (milk, cheese, cream, etc. Fat can come from MUCH better sources. Try oils (olive, flax) and nuts.

 

[velvett]

Low carb bread is completely misleading - do a little research on the bogus claims of 1-5 carbs per slice when they are really more than 15 carbs per slice.

If you take something out to change the macronutrients of something you have to add something to cover the difference.

How many successful dieters do you know that eat fat-free snackwells?

None.


Like Daisy said if you NEED to eat a carb (aside from fibrous ones) you should pick the best of them, oatmeal, rice, potatoes and yams.


Why don't you try changing it up and see what happens?

You won't know until you try.


Bottom line if it's processed don't eat it.

 

[velvett]

link to story

Low-carb bread claims don't pan out in lab test, grocers say
Sunday, April 11, 2004
BOULE L4 Boule: Mislabeling could be bad for diabetics L1 T his column has zero carbs.


Which is more than can be said of some commercial "low-carb" products. In a country filled with people who've recently taken up carb unloading, it's only natural that grocery stores have begun to fill shelves with products that claim to have fewer carbohydrates.

But do they? Can carb counts on packages be trusted?

Not always.

Oregonians Lois Kaplan and Bo Bodenschatz, who own LoBo's Low Carb World in Salem, have proof.

Lois and Bo, who are married retirees, opened their grocery store last year after a lot of research and preparation. From the start, they saw the store as a way to help people improve their health through low-carb eating. Lois lowered her cholesterol from a dangerous to a healthy level eating low-carb foods. And Bo, who was diagnosed with diabetes 11 years ago, was able to stop twice-daily insulin injections after a few months of eating a low-carb diet.

At their store the two spend a lot of time explaining low-carb programs. "We know many of our customers by name," Lois says. "We'll walk through the store with them."

Breads, in particular, are hard items for some people on low-carb diets to give up. So Bo and Lois have spent much of their nine months of operation looking for palatable breads with reduced carbohydrate counts. About six months ago, a distributor recommended breads with the Low Carb Emporium label.

"They tasted very good, especially for low-carb," Lois says. The label said the bread had 1 net gram of carbohydrate per slice, a very low amount. Customers of LoBo's snapped up the Low Carb Emporium bread, bagels and other bakery products.

And some stopped losing weight. "That made us suspicious," Lois says. Bo adds, "It just tasted too good to be low-carb. That was a red flag."

So the couple contacted Low Carb Emporium and asked for laboratory proof that the claims on the label were correct. They waited. They called. They e-mailed. They faxed. They got promises, but no report.

Bo and Lois had heard rumors that the Low Carb Emporium bread was much higher in carbohydrates than the label claims. "We read an article on the Internet that said the carb count was more like 14 or 15 net grams of carbs per ounce," Lois says. "That was horrifying to us. It's a huge difference, especially if you're a diabetic."

After weeks of requests, they still hadn't received any lab reports from Low Carb Emporium. So they pulled all the bread from their shelves and pursued their question with their distributor in Nevada, where Low Carb Emporium is headquartered. "I said if we didn't get answers from him, I didn't know what else to do other than to contact the FDA," Lois says.

That got an immediate response from Carol Shaw at Low Carb Emporium, Lois says. "She was very hostile. . . . She said to quit badgering . . ., that they did not like the threat. I told her it was not a threat, we were just trying to get answers."

Soon after, Low Carb Emporium announced it had changed its formula and its carbohydrate claims. Sure enough, new loaves were wrapped in labels that said the bread had a net carbohydrate count of four grams per ounce of bread mix. What did that mean, the couple wondered? How much bread mix was in a slice of bread?

"It became obvious the only way we could . . . tell our customers it was really low-carb and OK to eat, was to have our own analysis done," Lois says.

So a few weeks ago Bo took one of the new loaves of Low Carb Emporium bread to the Food Products Laboratory in Portland. Two weeks later they had their results: the bread had nearly 15 net grams of carbs per slice, more than triple what the package claimed.

"If you're diabetic and you're eating this bread and you don't realize the carb count is three times what the label says it is," Lois says, "you're asking for a real health problem."

In a phone interview from Nevada last week, Lori Smith, owner of Low Carb Emporium, dismissed the lab results Lois and Bo got. "This was politics," she said. "These results came from a competitor." But LoBo's is a store, not a competitor.

"We don't manufacture the bread," Lori then said. "We just put our labels on them and distribute them."

Lori would not give the name or phone number of the company that makes the bread and provides the carbohydrate claims on the labels. "I promised them I would not do that. They're being bothered a lot about this," Lori said.

Lori Smith, Bo and Lois, grocery consortiums and consumer groups all agree: The FDA should establish regulations for carbohydrate content claims. The FDA has rules for claims about fat content, fiber content, calcium content. But not carbohydrates.

It is against the law, however, to make false claims on packaging.

In January, a former health food executive from Kentucky was sent to federal prison with a 15-month sentence for sticking low-fat labels on high-fat doughnuts and shipping them to health food stores across the nation.

Lois and Bo say they aren't interested in a lawsuit or in getting anyone in trouble with the law.

They just want accurate information on food labels. "We believe the bread is mislabeled," Lois says. "If it is, we're concerned people will eat the bread and before long they could have a serious health problem."

Last week Bo and Lois sent a letter and a copy of their lab results to the other low-carb stores in the area, "so we can help them protect their customers," Bo says.

So far their investigation into Low Carb Emporium products has cost Lois and Bo over $1,500 in lab costs and wasted merchandise they pulled from their shelves. Bo doesn't mind. "I think anyone with a business that can affect people's health should have as much concern for the public's health as they do for their own business interests," Bo says.

Investigations across the nation have uncovered other cases of false carbohydrate claims on store merchandise and in restaurant food. So people following a low carbohydrate diet would be wise to remember the advice dispensed by their grandmothers -- the same grandmothers who used to bake cookies and make cinnamon toast for their visiting grandchildren: If something seems to be too good to be true, it probably is.

 

[spiderwoman]

go to the thread 'this pretty much sums it up...' and have a laugh...

 

[cherylynn]

any specific kind of potato? and quantity? What on earth are you allowed to put on it?
I hate this dieting and short frame of time pressure. Tonight I ate spaghetti. UGH! getting frustrated and totally sick of the meat. I ate about 1 c. of reg. spaghetti w/ragu and white chicken chunks in it. YUM! and a small salad.
I feel bloated and fat now....I wish I didn't always feel bloated and yucky!
I'm starting to wonder if I need to see the dr.

 

[velvett]

any specific kind of potato? and quantity? What on earth are you allowed to put on it?
I hate this dieting and short frame of time pressure. Tonight I ate spaghetti. UGH! getting frustrated and totally sick of the meat. I ate about 1 c. of reg. spaghetti w/ragu and white chicken chunks in it. YUM! and a small salad.
I feel bloated and fat now....I wish I didn't always feel bloated and yucky!
I'm starting to wonder if I need to see the dr.

Yam, sweet potato - then any other kind - think small or half per serving.

If you're going out of your mind for pasta - ditch the regular pasta and get some rice noodles - AKA Mei fun or Mai Fun noodles.

Ditch Ragu (or anything bottled) grab some fresh tomato, fresh basil, salt, pepper, sweet onion, garlic as a quick sauce. (Better thing is to avoid it completely)

Do you like fish?

You could eat fish instead, salmon, scrod, flounder, sea bass, scallops - the list is long.. You can pan sear and bake or pouch (oven or deep skillet) and use those juices on the rice noodles.

What sort of veggies do you eat?

You can stir fry them together and use a lot of different ones - spinach, all kinds of peppers, mushrooms, shredded carrots (in moderation) broccoli, sweet onions, etc.

Funny thing about dieting - you either have to lose complete interest in food and just eat to nourish or you have to try and make the foods you should eat more interesting if you should get bored.

 

[cherylynn]

I think I need a supplement to help kick start me and give me energy and less hunger. I believe these b/c pills are making it harder...cuz I sure feel hungrier than b4.

 

[jenscats5]

any specific kind of potato? and quantity? What on earth are you allowed to put on it?
I hate this dieting and short frame of time pressure. Tonight I ate spaghetti. UGH! getting frustrated and totally sick of the meat. I ate about 1 c. of reg. spaghetti w/ragu and white chicken chunks in it. YUM! and a small salad.
I feel bloated and fat now....I wish I didn't always feel bloated and yucky!
I'm starting to wonder if I need to see the dr.

Listen to the other ladies, they really know their stuff. Also check out the Food board as there are many great recipes on there that can fit into your way of eating. Remember, this isn't a diet, it's a way of eating. This isn't some temporary solution to fit into your prom dress....to truly be healthy & fit you need to permanently change your way of eating.

There are foods you can eat that are better for you than others. You want to get plenty of fiber, essential fats, and protein. Sweet potatoes/yams are better than white potatoes but white potatoes are better than potato chips. Whole wheat pasta is better than white, but Trader Joe's sells different types of pastas that are wheat, rice, high protein, etc. See if there's a store near you.

Olive oil & balsamic vinegar mixed with spices makes a great salad dressing. For a more unprocessed spaghetti sauce use red & yellow canned diced tomatoes and spices.

You just need to think of replacements for the foods you usually eat. Post up meal examples and everyone here can tell you how to correct it if it's not ok.......Good luck & post often!!