your danger carb food?
 

What is the most dangerous carb category for you?

By dangerous, I mean:

• eating it gives you unpleasant physical/psychological symptoms
• you crave it
• if you eat some of it, you can't stop/crave more
• if it's in the house/on your partner's plate, you are fixated on it
• you're certain it causes weight gain disproportionately to carb content

Grains
 

My only encounter with grains has been flour in gravy that I got by accident - the headache that ensued was most unpleasant. I don't crave them, nor do I go bananas (!) watching my boyfriend have some rye bread. I've just had a very bad reaction to grain on one occasion.

The others don't really apply - I eat fruit regularly and I've had potato skins and plan on having them again - they were great. But there are no 'craving' or 'emtional' issues associated with them. Sugar I just can't avoid completely - it is in some things and Cuba seems to have cured me of the 'hidden sugar headache' effect - all those blender drinks.

I know that when I am on maintenance I will be eating fruit, veggies (including potatoes - at least the skins ;) ) and some unavoidable sugar - but I dont plan on adding grains back in. They have a very bad rap in my book :thdown:

Nat

Pastries
 

I'm not sure this is really a "category" in the sense that Nat's was, but it's my danger food no matter how ya cut it.

I CANNOT have pastry-things in the house. CANNOT. I bought some donut holes for my Kelley a couple of months ago, and it was agony having to move them out of the way to get to my vitamins in the morning. (Counter space is at a premium in my kitchen. :) ) I know if I ate one, I'd have eaten the entire container. And I know I'd have had headaches, GI issues (as it were), and all kinds of other unpleasantness.

It's tough walking past a bakery in a mall, or even on the street. I used to *love* cream-filled chocolate-frosted pastries (here we call them "Bavarian creams," I'm not sure if that's the name elsewhere). I could (and did) eat a half-dozen at once. I bet I still could--but I won't. It wouldn't be worth how awful I would feel afterward.

I'm seriously considering restricting Kelley's sugar intake; she's not even 5 yet, she's wearing a size 6/6X (mostly, sometimes that's a little snug depending on the cut but 8's are WAY too big), and she weighs 50lbs. I really don't want her to have a childhood like mine, being "the fat kid" in school whose mother had to make all her clothes because there was literally nothing in the stores that was child-appropriate in the right size. Maybe I'll post something about that in the LC Parents forum, huh? Sorry for the digression, but this just got me thinking.....

Dairy
 

You should have added Dairy, I can easily over dose on cream cheese, heavy cream, or sour cream.
Chocolate and nuts are my other weakness...

Raz where is the chocolate button?

Forget sugar, potatoes, grains and fruits.....chocolate is it's OWN food category!

:lol:

My danger foods are anything with the combo of flour, sugar and fat. Cookies, cakes, donuts,... Those types of foods always get my craving machine rolling. :devil:

Since I can't eat just one, I won't be eating any. But that's OK, cuz I have found some of the most delectable ways to mix cream cheese, jello or pudding, and whipping cream! :clap:

okay, I'll admit it! I've not designed perfect categories...and I bet the combination of flour/sugar is a common one, TX!...but I still am curious about the comparative dangers for a larger group of these four general categories. I see that so far, no fruit bingers have replied.

I have to admit, Raz, this made me chuckle - then I thought about it. When I started this WOE I thought that giving up all the fruit I had become acustomed to eating was going to be tough - but it wasn't. And I used to go through a lot of fruit. Milk was another sore spot and for the first week I continued to ration some of my carbs so I could have a small glass - until I realized I prefered water.

Looking over my menus for the last 6 months I see all kinds of veggies (and more recently, fruits) and I wonder how it would be possible to miss the fresh, crunchy stuff. I eat more veggies now than I ever did. I think LCers eat a more balanced variety of food than those following 'prescribed nutritional guidelines'. And now I am rambling.

Nat

Chocolate and pastries are the biggies for me. Sometimes I could take 'em or leave 'em.

Other times, I throw caution to the wind and have a "little party in my mouth" as Oprah's Dr. Phil would say ;)

Bread and rice.

I live downwind from a Wonder Bread factory. While I haven't eaten white bread in a decade, I have to admit that sometimes in the summer, when it's 4 in the morning, really hot and humid, can't sleep a wink -- and all the windows wide open for the slightest breeze -- the smell of fresh-baked bread will waft in, and drive me nuts!

Don't have much of a sweet tooth. Chips and nachos - I definitely cannot stop at just one, but if they're not around I don't crave or think about 'em at all.

Doreen

PASTRY ALL THE WAY!!!
 

Oh my lord, I love pastry! Any kind! :bhug: Flakey pastry wrapped around some bavarian cream. Put a pie in front of me and I don't really care what kind it is because the pastry is the best part! :rheart: Meat pies, same thing! I don't care what's in the package, it's the wrapper I love! :doah: Mmmmm... pastry.....

Oh gawd, I feel a craving coming on.... :(

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Must resist Tim Hortons!! :lol:

Whew, that was fun! I think I need a cigarette now!

Hmm. I can and do live surrounded by all of the above and I do not crave it. I can touch it, smell it and even taste it. I don't even like the sensation of sugar on my tongue. It feels caustic.

It's not the food, but what is in my mind that may send me on a binge. Sugar is my drug of choice - flour/fruit/cream/nuts are just the vehicle - and a binge usually start in early evening at work. If I start I can't stop because when I crash, I turn into a raving hag and feel stupider than I already do for starting in the first place. I usually follow it up by some Hagen Dazs that I will pick up on the way home. It's better to go into a sugar coma near a couch.

The sensation feels physical, like going into a closet and locking the door. I can actually hear the click. Then it's just me and the food. Not even the light of day can come between us.

The next day is the hangover and anywhere from 4-8 pounds of water to deal with.

Karen

my craving
 

PIZZA AND CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!


Enough said :D








Smiley

CHOCOLATE!!!!!!! ANYTHING CHOCOLATE!!!!!!

And ANY kind of dessert!!!!!

Ellie :wave:

Fruit is something I have to be very carefull of, because i love it, and a half a cup of berries seems so little. Especially when fresh strawberry season is just around the corner. What I dearly miss is melon. I used to eat a half of one thinking fruit was good diet food.

Oddly, I have had no cravings for bread at all. There are too many other good things to eat to waste stomach space on bread.

Chocolate...
 

I must agree that chocolate should be a separate category. Can we have a separate category for Big Kats actually? Those things are the bane of my existence.

I should add chocolate as well
 

I'm back,

I already said that pastry in any form was it, but since we're adding chocolate as it's own group, I need to change my vote! I LOVE CHOCOLATE!!

I used to buy 2 Mirage bars at a time, because 1 wasn't enough.

My landlady works in the warehouse at Rogers Chocolates here in Victoria, and brings me chocolate all the time. I can't tell you how much my friends have been enjoying it lately! I don't dare keep it in the house. I will have a meltdown if I do!

One of the things that I like about the Suzanne Somers plan is that once you are in maintenance, you can have dark chocolate (low sugar), and that's my favorite! I can't wait!!!

When I first started low carb dieting the chocolate was the hardest thing for me to live without. I truely believe it's the main reason I was over 80 pounds overweight as I can't seem to control myself when it's around. Now there are all these great tasting low carb chocolate bars on the market so I don't get the cravings nearly as bad. I count on needing to keep my house stocked with them for the rest of my life.

What does me in is bread, cookies and crackers. I have a almost 3 year old so of course these things are in the house and I sometimes find myself eating just one. I mean that is only 7 carbs right? But before I know it I have eaten 5 of them and my weight loss for that day has been pretty much blown. I haven't yet found a low carb bread or cracker that satisfies this craving though I do hope there is something out there.

I also would love to binge on fruit but have an easier time controling myself with it. Maybe becuase it's more filling?

Take care,

Hey Elisabeth! Look out for those "low-carb" chocolate bars. They're loaded with carbs -- use the hidden carb tool under "tools" at the top of the page on the orange bar. Those blasted Carbolite chocoate bars have gotten me in trouble over and over again.

Just last night, in fact, I used a ketosick and it was pink. I then immediately ate three tiny squares of Carbolite chocolate and had nothing else, not even water. Twenty minutes later I tried a ketostick again out of curiosity -- NO PINK AT ALL. This is not the best way to test your reaction to a food, but it does give some indication of what's going on.

(For a real testing method, see Karen's thread on doing your own low-carb research. It involves stabbing your fingers for blood samples; I'm a coward.)

I currently get my chocolate fix by mixing whey protein isolate (zero carbs, zero flavor), super premium cocoa powder (some carbs, some fiber), a bit of sucralose, and water. I add a significant amount of cocoa powder to that mix. I call it chocolate milk and it makes me very happy.

Before you eat another bite of that chocolate, check for hidden carbs so you know what you're getting into.

Allison

If you can find them...
 

There are three *excellent* lowcarb breads I enjoy. They're varieties produced by Natural Ovens of Manitowoc (based here in WI), and they sure solved my "no bread" dilemma.

Look for them in the regular bread aisle of your supermarket. The varieties are Hunger Filler (only 8 ECC!), 100% Whole Grain (9 ECC), and Sunny Millet (also 9). Someone at Natural Ovens realized the niche for lowcarbing, because the Hunger Filler label even reads "Our lowest carb bread"!!

I love 'em, that's all there is to it. Good flavor, wonderful texture, and they're tasty right out of the bag or toasted. Keep them in the freezer or the fridge for best "shelf life." Good hunting to you!

Hi Allison,
Okay I guess I just don't get it. I am mentally scratching my head. I have here a atkins Endulge bar. Supposed to be 2 carbs but after doing the calculations it was over 6 carbs. But aren't those extra 4 carbs supposed to be undigestable? I know I used to measure my ketosis daily with the keto sticks and never noticed a difference when I had a bar.

Maybe some people metobolize things differently. My husband for instance can have over 80 carbs a day and still stay in ketosis but if he drinks a glass of wine he drops completly out of ketosis for at least two days. I, on the other hand, can't have that many carbs but can have up to three glasses of wine and stay deeply in ketosis as long as the rest of my carbs are around 20 - 30. His body just doesn't handle alcohol at all.

Karen I hope I can find that bread here. I tried some muffins which were decent but they were too sweet. When I was testing to see how many carbs I can have and still stay in ketosis I had one slice of whole wheat bread a day. It was wonderful. I hadn't realised how much having a slice of toast in the morning had been a part of my daily life till I did that. Once I am into maintanence I think that may be something I reintroduce to my diet. Just one though, 18 carbs for one item is really limiting. Now if I can find some other low carb bread..... I would be in heaven:)

take care,

Evil hidden carbs
 

I'll take a stab at the hidden carbs issue. I quit using *any* brand of low-carb bars quite some time ago--and I was a heavy user, too. I'd eat three or four of 'em in a day.

Yes, those "other" grams of carbs are supposed to be undigestible. They're glycerine, or sugar alcohols, or both. However, just because they don't affect your blood sugar/insulin doesn't mean they don't affect you at all. For me, they caused stalls. For some other folks, they stop ketosis pronto. Maybe you'll be one of the people they don't affect at all. If so, that's great for you. But it's still important to be aware of just how many grams of carbs you're ingesting. The only ones Atkins allows you to subtract from your daily count are those from fiber. These "hidden" ones still count against your daily total. So, if you've been counting 2g, and you eat four of those things that are really 6g, that's 24g of carbs already, not the 8g you *were* counting--and you haven't even had any veggies! :eek:

YMMV, of course, but for my money I'm way better off without the "fake food." I'd rather spend my carbs on good lowcarb bread and tasty veggies and unsweetened blackberries, than glycerine and sorbitol/maltitol/etc.

Best of luck to you, whatever you decide about the bars. The main thing is to learn what works *for you* and stick with it. :)

Wow! 24 Carbs! That really hurts. I rarely have more than 1 bar a day and usually only a few times a week. But every once in a while I eat several of them. I didn't notice a weight loss stall but I wasn't paying close attention at those times either. I am going to have to monitor this more closely. Thanks for the heads up.

I was wondering if you had a specific recipie for that chocolate milk you make.

Take care,

Chocolate.....
 

....should be restricted like cigarettes or liquor!!! Can't handle chocolate at all, but breads and pastas are a close second.

All the above!
 

I lived on fruit for many years, breakfast, lunch and a little for any snacks. It's hard to choose which one is the worst - I'd say all the above and chocolate (or is it that choc always comes with sugar).

Best to just stay completely off - albeit it feels hard some days.

Take care.

Cheese Puffs,Pizza and fettutchini. can't stop with just one!

Missing!
 

Chocolate and potatoes! Nothing really replaces them. Actually, I'm happy not to have them if no one else is. It's only on holidays that I want to relax and have a bit.

And Hot Cross Buns!
Last holidays I decided to relax and have a hot cross bun. It made me feel ill. I was disappointed and relieved at the same time!

Melberry

Sweet and Salty...
 

...and Fatty. Hi, I'm Joanie and I'm a JUNK FOOD JUNKIE. Could happily eat that stuff morning noon and night forever (or until I died of malnutrition). My favorite is to take whatever sweet thing I'm eating and go back and forth with something salty. You know...Twinkies and Cheetos back and forth...or Krispy Kremes and Doritos, or M&Ms and potato chips. All very healthy stuff, all very low carb. ;)

Now, it's important to state that whatever my junk item is, it has to have a lot of fat, too. I don't get excited about a piece of apple, then a pretzel (I do like apples and cheese, but not in that 'bing-y sort of way...)


Anyway, I didn't get fat eating just any old carbs. I got fat eating junk food. 'Nuff said.

Bread, Bread, and more Bread.
 

I used to love bread. I loved it so much, I never had to put butter on it, took away from the taste. I would eat bread and olive oil for dinner, as my whole meal. Rice too. When I was growing up one of my favorite dishes was rice with milk, sugar and rasins. It was delicious!

I used to crave potato chips too. But now, if I don't think about them and find other comfort foods, like diet coke or cool whip. And when I am upset there is nothing better than chomping on celery.

I have been eating the Atkins Endulge chocolate bars, about .5 bar every other day (I do not crave chocolate). They do not seem to have any effect, I have stayed in moderate ketosis. But my weight loss has been slower than I expected, so I keep an eye on the chocolate bars.

No more bread, no more rice....

Danger food...
 

I don't think it is any one thing, but what it is or the way it is presented for meself.
I cannot think of a single loaf of bread, cake, or pastry at the grocery store that I would have the impetus to buy, even if they were mystically transformed into LC, but walk by a French patissere with its heavenly wafts of crusty bread and jewel-like confection...
I am sure I have scared the patrons inside such shops, with my face pressed up against the glass, wild eyes peering in maniacally (I dare not step inside!) I should feel sorry for the man who cleans the windows... all that slobber.

Having said that, there is nothing like freshly made pomme frites either. I was of the opinion that chips have now grown palid and uninteresting. I discovered, again, that it has to do with how they are made. Cut to scene in French restaurant: My poor bf and I looking at each other, horrified, that I had thoughtlessly consumed a quarter portion of his pomme frites! My brain went blank, I guess. Reception problem! :daze: "You're going to be really annoyed at yourself," he says calmly. And I was. If I was going to 'cheat', I should have gotten the escargot encased in puff pastry!! :mad: Fade out scene to black.
Fortunately, they did not accompany me to the scale the next day, although I can't help thinking that I have impeded my own progress. Bad! Bad Sock! :nono:

Sorry... this isn't the confession line, but I just have to declare that danger lurks even in the most 'civilized' of environs, awaiting to deviously spring when you least expect it! Bwa-ha ha HA!!!! :devil: