no flour no sugar diet
 

i tried researching it a bit and haven't come up with much. i'm wondering if it works and how people do it.

Well, I didn't exactly do "no flour, no sugar." What I did was severely cut back on foods with limited nutritional benefit - that meant a lot of foods made with white flour (white bread, pretzels, cookies etc) and sugar. I concentrated on eating foods with powerful nutritional properties (blueberries, salmon, whole grains - like whole wheat bread, whole grain couscous, whole grain tortillas, whole wheat pitas, oatmeal - broccoli, oranges, tea, sweet potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, etc.

The best part was - my cravings for sugar and processed foods really disappeared and I felt great. It has been nearly 2.5 years and I lost 70 lbs and kept it off, I have tons of energy and honestly don't miss the nutritionally vacant food (including packaged baked goods, soda and fast food).

I had to find something that I could stick with forever in order to keep weight off forever. It takes more planning but it was definitely worth it to me!

My post could read very much like Glory's. I am calorie counting and making them "good" calories. High in nutritional value. Therefore sugar and flour don't really fit in. I have had an occasional piece of bread and an occasional cookie, but that's it for the most part. And my cravings have also practically ceased. And I have never felt better. I've been doing this for 3 1/2 months with extremely good results. I don't even miss the stuff, whereas that's all I used to eat for the most part.

There are a number of weight loss plans that kind of follow the guide lines of no flour, no sugar. They are really no white flour, no sugar, no processed food plans. You could check out the Whole Foods forum as well as other forums such as South Beach Diet and I believe Sugar Busters as well. As far as my understanding, Weight Watches Core program also follows a similar approach.

As for me, cutting out sugar was the best thing I've ever done. Although I do have an occassional piece of dark chocolate after dinner, I mostly don't eat sugar or items that contain sugar. I also don't eat items that have white flour in them but I do eat items that have whole grain flour.

I lost and maintain my weighloss the same way Glory described. I cut out anything that contained processed white flour and added sugars. Natural sugars, such as those occurring in fruits, dairy and vegetables were OK, but not if added to a product (example- corn syrup is natural, but it is an added sugar).

I've never felt better in my life. I have NO cravings for floury or starchy foods, but I do admit that sugary, crunch, salty still gets to me!

Mel

are there any websites or books that i could look at that could help me or should i just try it on my own?

First, let me add that I didn't completely, 100% cut out white flour and sugar from my diet - that would have been really really hard and I don't want to live without birthday cake on my birthday. What I did was mindfully and purposefully cut back on nutritionally vacant food and make healthy decisions as much as possible.

I would highly recommend the book that changed my life - Super Foods Rx: 14 Foods That Will Change Your Life. My goal was to eat as many "super foods" as possible every day and I kind of fell into healthy eating as a result. It was a big change for me, to change from a diet where I cut out food to a way of eating that encouraged better foods. Making my goal what TO eat instead of what NOT to eat was very positive for me.

I was successful with weight loss beyond my wildest dreams. The way I eat now makes me very very happy. The way I eat is very beneficial for my long term health!

Jaceycat I don't know if you have health insurance or not, but if you do you might want to consider going to a nutritionist or a dietician. This is how I started at first. I called my insurance company just for the heck of it and found out that I was covered 100% for as many visits as I wanted, indefinitely if need be. I only went to see her about 5 or 6 times, but she was very helpful to me choosing a plan based on what I liked and didn't like. Then I was able to go back to her and get weighed and discuss what I did or didn't like as far as my food went and we were able to tweak it to where I was happier. Perhaps this is something you might want to consider. I stopped going because I felt I had learned enough about the right and the wrong foods, for myself that is and enough about nutrition to go it on my own. But I know there are many people who go for a very long time. The key is finding what works best for yourself.

"No Flour, No Sugar" is, to the best of my knowledge, the plan come up with by the doctor who writes that column. (Darned if I can remember his name!) I know he publishes a cheap booklet on it, but he's also discussed it quite a bit in various columns. From what he's said, it is just what it says it is. You eat nothing with either flour or sugar in it. That easy.

It is pretty much guaranteed to work, as it forces you to eat real foods. No flour means no white bread, no hamburgers, no pies or cookies or cake or anything of the sort. No sugar means no candy, no desserts, no sodas. Read labels. If it says "flour" (and fyi, it is often used as a thickener, so it can be in stuff you don't really expect, like a lot of sauces and even stews and some soups), don't eat it. If it has added sugar of any sort--as Mel said, some foods have naturally occuring sugars (lactose & fructose), don't eat it. It's kind of surprising what they shove sugar and high fructose corn syrup into. I do a lot of my grocery shopping by price, but I can't buy the cheapest tomato sauce because it's got HFCS added to it. (Hunts is what I wind up buying.)

If you are just starting out, this is one of the simplest diet concepts. Very easy to understand. There are a lot of diets out there that work with similar concepts, but 99% of them allow bread & such eventually; this does not. It's not, however, low-carb. You can eat potatoes, corn, what have you. If you want to do it, I'd suggest pairing it with a couple of other basic concepts--enlighten yourself as to what a portion of anything consists of, and be sure you are only eating one portion in your meal (the exception being nonstarchy vegetables, which are so low in calories it's a nonissue so long as you don't soak them in butter), and be sure your proteins are lean & your fats healthy (no trans fats!). Beyond that, though, there's not much point in mucking it up with other rules. No flour, no sugar...the beauty is in its simplicity.

The doctor who seems to be responsible for the "no flour no sugar" way of eating is Dr. Peter Gott who writes a column that appears in many newspapers. It seems to me that he has a book out now.

I would imagine a google search would turn up a lot of information.