I'm addicted to sugar. If I stop eating it will the weight fall off?

[RedNailsAndRedDress]

As in the title really!

I have an extremely sweet tooth and am now a good three stone oversight

My main meals are always completely healthy. it's just sugar in the crap afterwards that is my downfall. If I cut it out then will the weight fall off?

I don't eat meat, but I do eat fish...but to be honest I eat way more eggs, cheese, butter and cream than fish. It's probably a lot easier for meat eaters but if you eat eggs and dairy you'll be okay. Plus there's nuts and avocados, tahini and nut butters.

Placemarking as I've seen lots of great links and good advice here.

It's a cliche but I'm starting again after the festive season is over. We are TTC to no avail and I've just crept into "overweight" for my BMI.

I'm doing well to only be slightly over as I've been eating tubs of roses and cake ahoy. Brakes need putting on sharpish.

Kreesh, no, it's quite easy to do for vegetarians.
Have a look at the recipe suggestions linked to above.

I think in the future the role of inflammation will be understood a lot better.
Cholesterol comes in 'good' (HDL) and 'bad' (LDL) cholesterol anyway, and only about 1/3 of your total cholesterol depends on your dietary intake, the rest is a genetic predisposition. And how we metabolise fats that we eat depends of course on what else we eat... such as carbohydrates and the insulin production they mediate.

Just looked at the dietdoctor recipes & they look lovely! I've been a bit lazy just eating salad with cheese and eggs... I'm a bit bored with the same thing everyday and those recipes look great (& easy).

Thank you. These look great. To be honest I've let my whole way of eating slip very badly as I'm a lazy vegetarian. Perhaps the truth is more that I feel overwhelmed by cooking as we both work full time and get home late with two hungry children. I know it's the same for a lot of people, but sometimes we eat porridge and toast for tea. My food intake is way too carbs heavy and my DD is a carb lover too. It worries me a lot!

reeshsheesh Wed 14-Dec-16 22:08:16
Any tips on how to manage a lower carb / low sugar diet if you're a vegetarian? I can't help feeling that it's too difficult to do if you don't eat meat.

Middle Eastern and Indian recipes using pulses with lots of vegetables mixed in are perfect, then have more vegetables to go with them. Pulses have protein and low carbohydrate. Ready made pappadoms are very good accompaniment, as being made with chick pea flour they are add protein without a lot of carbohydrates.

Olive oil and hemp oil, walnut oil are good. Nuts and seeds.

There are grains with lower carbohydrates. Quinoa, spelt, steel cut oats, wild rice, amaranth, oat bran. Maybe others. Generally anything with a lot of fibre that hasn't been over refined helps too. The sugar is slow release then.

Do you eat eggs or milk products by any chance, as that helps? You can mix plain, full fat yogurt with nuts, seeds, or ground flaxseed, and fruit.

You can add hemp protein powder to things.

Quorn products are low calorie high protein products for vegetarians, If you are a vegan they did intend to bring out vegan versions. There is also tofu.

'ditch the carbs' , sugarfreemom, lowcarbketodiet and lots of other related groups post on facebook a lot. I've been following their advice for a couple of months. It's not just sugar but carbs in general. It's hard.....I had 'carb flu' for a week and actually thought I was ill! Lost a stone, eating is under control....feel great

Such a shame, we've been given the wrong information for years, some people are not open to change, their low fat yogurts and pasta are what's narrowing their arteries, not saturated fat.. and they don't know it

It was the 'food pyramid' starting in the early 1990s which made things worse too in that it gave the false idea that carbohydrates (pasta, rice, bread) were the wide base foundation for healthy eating and fats and oils at only the tip on the same footing with sweets. It was influenced by lobby groups when it was drawn up.

Talking to someone by chance at a social event, it turned out he had lost a lot of weight on the advice of his doctor. I asked how he'd done it- he recommended I read the book Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes which I did and it changed my eating habits overnight. Since March I have followed a low carb, reasonable fat diet. I don't weigh anything and I eat normally (though I'm a bit sensible) on special occasions. I have lost 3 stones and dropped from a size 22 to a 14. I had been meaning to lose the baby weight for 20 years, I'm so glad I now have.

Chopsticks I read Gary's book too. Wow! Convinced me for sure. I have it on my kindle and also have a shortened booklet version. The science cannot be denied. I wish I had known this when I first started futilely dieting forty years ago. Sigh.

That book sounds very interesting Chopsticks and MyCats.

Having just lost 11lbs in 2 weeks on a high fat diet (high fat, limited protein, very little veg, no snacks) I can attest to this way of eating.
My flabby stomach no longer passes the 'pencil test' (remember using a pencil to see if you'd developed boobs as a teenager - if pencil holds you have boobs? I use the same in reverse to test how big my tummy is!)

I do feel slightly misled that for years we've all been told low fat high carb is the way to go when in fact it's the exact polar opposite

How the hell does that even happen?

MyCats I agree the book is amazing. Half the book is taken up with the references as so many scientific studies are cited. Much of the science has been known for a long time, so I feel sad that is has taken me until now to learn about the effects of carbs and sugar on the body.

I recommend it KindDogs.

Maggie, I am angry actually. Thinking back to decades of struggle attempting time after time to eat low fat carby food and lose weight, not to mention joining gyms and doing loads to exercise. The money I spent , the depression, the feeling like shite about myself after every failure . What a waste!

Now of course I understand that I DIDN'T FAIL, the diet advice failed me.

Limiting carbs to veggies and eating natural fats (not refined seed oils) and moderate protein means I eat smaller meals and feel full for a long time afterwards. Something that never happened when eating low fat rubbish, just feeling hungry and miserable.

The advice given to Type 2 diabetics; to eat a lot of carbs, actually worsens their condition over time so they eventually need medication. It is possible to reverse Type 2 by eating Low Carb Healthy Fat, which sounds wonderful so why aren't we recommending it officially?

Science for Smart People - this is quite a funny but v good explanation about the science behind low carb and (at least part of) the reasons why research was interpreted as it was. Falsely, as it turns out - and we can speculate about the reasons Big Pharma, Big Food Industry, Big Careers riding on it, some honest mistakes IMO

MyCats, the advice to diabetics is (slowly) changing.

It is quite funny that my late granddad who was diabetic (b. 1906) was taught how to count 'bread units' i.e. all carbs in the equivalent of slices of bread, and then that advice went out the window. And no, my granddad's diabetes did not kill him and he lived to a longish (70s) age.