Originally Posted by
Green_Tea
Once I start on the carbs, I crave them more and more.
I *do* still eat carbs, but in a seriously limited fashion. I eat a whole wheat english muffin, a bagel thin, or oatmeal with or as breakfast. If I have a sandwich for lunch it's on two slices of whole wheat bread or a whole wheat sandwich thin. If we have brown rice or pasta with dinner, I measure out 1/2 cup for myself, and do not go back for more. I pretty much never snack on carbs anymore, because I can't control myself. I would much rather eat 18 almonds for 3 points than 24 snap pretzels, because after 24 pretzels I'm still hungry for more pretzels. Beer and wine were never an issue for me (alcohol and I are not friends) but soda was. I have made the decision *not* to drink soda anymore, as much as I love and miss root beer. Someday I may try to add back in a natural (w/o HFCS) root beer as an occasional treat and see if I can self-regulate, but I'm not ready to try that yet.
I eat a lot of fruit. Pretty much every day, I eat some raspberries or blueberries with breakfast, an apple or unsweetened chunky applesauce or some grapes with lunch, and a banana as a snack. I also have with lunch or as a snack sugar snap peas, baby carrots and cut up red bell peppers. And I cook veggies with dinner. I do not count any of those as points. I also don't eat large quantities of any of them, and tend to buy the bananas that are on the smaller side.
Despite all that fruit, I'm losing pretty fast. I'm averaging just over 2 pounds a week, and I'm down a total of more than 15 pounds since 1/15. I keep expecting that to slow down, but it's not. I never feel deprived or hungry...unless I get into the refined carbs instead of snacking on fruits, veggies or nuts, and then I'm absolutely starving for the rest of the day.
For me, that is why I'm having more success with this program than the old one. It is so much easier to eat a lower-carb diet, which is what my body needs, than it was when carb-y snacks were the same or lower points than fruits.
And honestly, the other really big change that I've had to make was to take over all of the cooking and meal planning. We were eating far too much take-out because DH would call at 5 to say he was coming home and neither of us would have any ideas for dinner. Now he calls at 5 and I'm already preparing whatever dinner I'd planned to cook that night. I notice a really big difference in how I feel the next morning (water retention!) when we've eaten out, even if it was within my points, so for me it's just better to cook.
So, if you've read this far, I guess my advice would be to look at how many servings of refined carbs you're eating in a day and see if it's possible to replace some of those with something else.
Sarah
Mommy to:
Carolyn, 10/04
Anna, 7/08
Matthew, 8/13