Oatmeal on Maintenance
 

I have decided to add oatmeal on my maintenance plan. My CCL is 50 carbs - so I DO subtract the fiber and COUNT the carbs in teh oatmeal. I do NOT eat quickoats, only 100% rolled or steelcut oats due to less processing/lower GI. I have found that it does have a little protein, a little fat and much needed fiber.
I sometimes/usually only eat 1/2 serving.

Here are the brands I buy - click around!
http://www.mornflake.com/Pages/nav.html

http://www.dfreeman.ie/

Approximately (varies)

1/2 serving = cooked (i let is SWELL with lots of water)
13 carbs - 2 fiber = 11 carbs!

Not bad and I get my oatmeal. Oatmeal has a VERY low GI and a VERY low SI (satiety index)...so it does NOT make me crave more carbs and keeps me full for hours.

Adding just a PINCH to a protein shake is good too.

I don't like flaxseed and I don't eat processed products.

I think oatmeal is a very healthy, high fiber, low gi food for mainenance folks ONLY...anyone else do this or have supportive thoughts?

nsmith4366:

I say "go for it". You're in maintenance, you've earned it. You can monitor how your body is reacting to this change. Once noted, you can determine how best to deal with it. This is a WOE for you now.

Only because we are talking about oatmeal (high in soluble fiber), will I mention this. My understanding about the fiber is that the insoluble fiber is not counted, but soluble fiber is (because it is digested, but at a slower rate than regular carbs). Since it's hard separating the grams of soluble fiber vs. insoluble fiber, if you use the full ECC, you'll underestimate your carbs to an extent. Don't know how to get around it other than by finding out the amount of soluble fiber.

Nevertheless, you are only talking about 2 grams of carb anyway, so it's not something to really fuss over in maintenance. I wish I could do it, but it sets off fierce carb cravings. It used to be my breakfast of choice.

Good luck,
Wanda

Thanks
 

Yeah, it's working for me. Okay, 2 gms of INsoluable fiber and 2 of soluable. Hey, I get 50 gms a day of carbs/2 this way or that won't kill me. This is livng - life - not sweating the small stuff about lowcarbing ANYMORE -

...the wonderful benefit of maintenance. ;)
Thanks - I'd advise others to "indulge" just a bit if they are on maintenance - in low gi healthy unprocessed whole grain carbs...but in moderation and COUNT'em in your total without obsessing on the numbers of course.

:) Thanks. I'm doing great. I eat nonstarch veggies, leaner proteins, limited oats as mentioned and health-ier fats. 50c daily - life is GOOD. Never crave junkfood, sugar or processed nothing.

Would love to hear from some other happy maintainers!

The beauty about this way of eating is that there are no hard-fast rules. It's about finding what works for your body. I've read almost all the plans and picked out important things from each. I'd love to do Schwarzbein, but I can't because it sets off cravings. But for someone else, it's exactly what they need because they can't imagine life without some carbs. It's about whatever works. Ideally, every person here should be on their own customized WOE based on experimentation and fiddling to find out what works for them.

Happy maintaining & congratulations. I'm envious of your ability to eat 50 grams of carbs yet not crave. That is my problem and I'm working on it. I went through some really bad cravings while upping my carb intake. As you can see on my stats, I wasn't too successful. :( It set off some huge binges and I ended up gaining weight. I'll work through this, though, once I get the weight off. Part of my problem is that when the stuff is around, I'm tempted. So around holidays or when I have company, it's difficult for me to hold on. But I'm sorting it all out, experimenting with ways to deal with this.

Hang in there
 

Oh, I was SO afraid to add carbs...and did you know I stayed at INDUCTION levels for FOUR years??? I was that afraid. Then I allowed myself, 25 carbs, then 30, then 35, then 40 etc...thanks to fitday.com I was able to keep a journal and keep track/gave me confidence I needed. I was never an unhealthy (sugar/fat/carb) eater to start with - so maybe I had an advantage. All I had to do was go from refined complex carbs to unrefined low carb foods and drop the sugar and add some fat.
Lets just say I went from a bagel, coffee, diet coke, sugarfree cookie diet to a veg, lean protein, no sugar/caffeine, no processed foods and added some fat diet. Now, YOU tell me which sounds HEALTHIER??

It was all about BALANCE. ;)

N If you want to know more let me know.

Re: Hang in there
 

I just found fitday this week and I'm estatic about it. It's already helped me immensely. I think it would have helped me before when I was adding carbs.

Unfortunately, before LC, I was an unhealthy eater. I was so afraid of being hungry, I used to carry around bags of candy with me everywhere I went. Hypoglycemia and a low-fat diet will do that to ya! Giving up sugar has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I gave up fat for about 6 years (after being told my IBS was caused from fat). Piece of cake (non-fat, of course ;) ). I think the low-fat diet was what caused things to really snowball because I traded low-fat for high-sugar.

I gave up sugar okay for 3 months when my health had fallen to rock bottom. But as I got better, I became a little too confident and fell off the wagon about once a week. I need to realize that it is an addiction for me, I can't just have a little bit. Sugarholics anonymous for me. But, I've been sugar-free for 21 days. :yay: It's a start.

Thanks for listening,
Wanda

when I moved to the states 6 years ago I was a lean 180 lbs, maybe a little too skinny. when I started noticing the weight pile up, I'd exercise more and hit the "fat free" foods. Little did I know what I was doing to myself. I'd convinced myself that the extra weight I was puttin on was muscle bulk, but when I stopped excercising as work got busy, the weight kept piling on. You dont notice it when you're not weighing yourself on a regular basis and it's a slow decline into obesity. Well I took a good look at myself last year after eating one of the chocolate oranges in one sitting and thought something has to change and it has.

Sugar free for nearly 3 months now, and don't really miss it all that much. For all those critics of the Atkins diet out there, how can you say that eating fresh veggies, salads, fruits, lean meats and fish is a bad diet??? I was watching a prgram about the zone diet recently and the guy who inveted the diet said the best way to shop is to just go around the edge of the grocery store and avoid all the aisles. If you think about it this makes pefect sense. the edtges are where all the refridgerators are and the fresh produce, the aisles are where all the packaged preservative laden, processed complex carb rich foods are. I don't think I've been down an aisle for weeks now (except for personal hygene stuff of course....). :blush:

Duncan