runningfromfat: What would you suggest to have "in between"? Obviously chocolate, candy, and other junk foods aren't on the list (lol) but what should I have?

I'm giving some really heavy thought to this plan I'm on now and even looking at the other cycles, I'm not sure if I can stick with it. I might try cycle 2 (which introduces good carbs) though and give it a shot. Today I broke plan and made a sandwich with some organic bread I bought ($6 a loaf, ugh) and some natural sliced turkey meat.

Rana: My fruit is usually paired with my probiotic serving, which is plain Greek yogurt with a bit of homemade strawberry jam for sweetness. Lots of protein in the yogurt. Salt is usually off my list because a) I can't tolerate the taste and b) It bloats me up like the Hindenburg, but I will give it a try and just increase my water intake to combat the bloating.

Thanks for the tips!

I'm assuming you're trying the South Beach Diet or something similar? I eat fairly similarly to Phase 3 on that. I really don't think there is anything wrong with a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread loaded up with veggies (actually it sounds delicious!). Now, if you're eating processed turkey with cheese on white bread, well, then I'd suggest some changed but make sure when you eat a carb that you're combining it somehow with protein+veggies. Also drinking lots of water is vital!

FWIW, I've tried the South Beach Diet before and was never able to stick with it. The only "diet" that's ever worked for me is making changes that I could stick to and listening to my body's hunger cues.

It's not the South Beach, although I suppose it's similar. It's the "17 Day diet" (no you don't lose all the weight in 17 days lol). The first cycle is no carbs apart from your 2 fruit servings, unlimited amounts of lean protein, and unlimited vegetables plus 2 servings of a probiotic and tons of water. The second cycle (which I'll be starting on Thursday) introduces good carbs (whole grains, quinoa etc) along with a few new types of proteins (shrimp plus certain cuts of red meat for example) every other day. So like Monday you eat a cycle 2 menu, Tuesday you eat a cycle 1 menu, so on and so forth for 17 days. Then you move to cycle 3 where you start portion controlling and eating only a cycle 2 menu.

I'm going to keep at it, and give cycle 2 a try. Cycle 1 is so restrictive, it's almost impossible not to cheat or go off plan because you're shocking your system so bad.

As for the sandwhich, I bought this organic bread from Safeway. SunnyHill or something like that. Something to do with "The Running Room's" founder. Anyway, no fructose in it just organic cane juice for the sugar, and there's only 1 g of it in a slice, plus 100 calories per slice.

For the turkey, I bought Maple Leaf Natural turkey breast (nitrate free, no preservatives, no fillers) again with no fructose (just cane sugar).

1 Tbsp Miracle Whip, a few iceberg lettuce leaves (didn't have romaine in the house) and a slice of Havarti (not the processed cheese slices).

With the sandwich I'm having some carrots and slices of cucumber.

I'm not a really big bread-lover. I love croissants but very very rarely eat them b/c a) they're expensive and b) really high in fat. Bread though is not my top favorite thing to eat, white or otherwise, but I occasionally do like sandwiches.

I'll be giving the salty-snack idea a try as right now, I'm craving big time. We'll see how Cycle 2 goes, maybe it won't be as bad as cycle 1.

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/0...tose-alarmism/

This was given to me by a smart-alek, self-indulgant, know-it-all on another forum (no wonder he's single). It is rather compelling, though, and I haven't read all the way through it.

Me again. I know, you're getting sick of me lol

I ate something salty tonight (about 13 peanuts), have 1-1/2 L of water in me, and currently can barely move my foot b/c it's swollen up. Salt + Me = enemies again.

Will have to figure out something else to keep me from going for the sugar.

Interesting. I don't necessarily agree with all of his point but I think we're saying the same thing.

I get what he's saying that the TOTAL number of calories are increasing and it's not that people are necessarily eating a ton more sugar, BUT

-artificial sweeteners are consumed EN MASSE! Seriously, I'd love to know how much money people are making off of Coke Zero.

- Sugar makes you hungrier, which causes you to eat more of EVERYTHING. Ditto for artificial sweeteners (ask me how I know... ).

- Everybody's different and we reach obesity in different ways. Looking at averaged stats of a population, well, isn't very useful in answer the question WHY we got fat because it's so individual. Take DH and myself. If you look at our calories, yeah, we both ate more over time. However he went the route of too large portion sizes and lots of salt whereas for me it WAS sugar. Averaged out you're not going to see that difference. I don't think every obese person got there because of sugar (um, duh!?!) but some definitely did. Not every obese person got there because of fat and salt but some did. That's the big problem with these surveys is that you need to look at a individual's trajectory and THEN compare as a whole but not just average out from the beginning.

Actually... he basically addresses my point.

And sadly, YES people can go through that amount of sugar. And again, what about artificial sweeteners? Because trust me they have an affect too. I've eaten 170g of chocolate before in one sitting, it wasn't pretty.

Also... he says:
However, fruit is very different than pure sugar. It has fiber, lower calories, and A LOT of water. When you're eating sugar a lot of times you're also get a decent amount of fat and salt, so I wonder what affect that combo has on our bodies?

Totally agree with this.

and this too. But is this what everyone on 3FC already knew for a long time? You can't oversimplify your diet and say it's JUST one thing. Yes, giving up sugar helped me enormously (to the point that I don't think I would have ever been successful without it) BUT I already was eating a large number of veggies/lean meats/whole grains before I started. Sugar was really the smoking gun for me. However, that's certainly NOT universally true.

In the end I think him and I are saying basically the same thing. However, I really wish that researchers would focus on individuals in terms of how they gained/lost. For instance, I'm sure there are others out there like me where sugar was the smoking gun, there are others who have issues with portion sizes, another group that can't put down salt, then their are emotional eaters, etc. Some even have a combination of more of these. It seems like it would make more sense to do a study and observe where individuals are getting their most calories and if there is any correlation between how they're getting their calories (eating more after having sweets, after an emotional crisis etc). Then they could group those individuals that have similar struggles and treat the big underlying issues (emotional eating, sugar, salt etc). I have a feeling those studies would be quite a bit more successful! If you treat someone like DH for sugar it's worthless because he'll still go and overeat on meat. Ditto for someone like me and dinner portion sizes. However, if you find the underlying cause, well, you can make a world of difference for that person.

ETA: sorry about the longess and probable typos, I wrote this fairly quickly.

I was looking for a WRITTEN version of that youtube ... I didn't find one...in case anyone else was looking as well.

AND I strongly believe this is why losing weight is SO DIFFICULT! - because there's just an OVERLOAD of information out there! - it's really hard to know WHAT to believe, what to discard, what to scrutinize, etc.

Also explains why weight loss is such an individual journey... what works for one may not work for others, etc. Still, I am internet-info-addicted, and will continue to watch & read & so forth.

Ah, if salt (and I noticed you tried it and it didn't work) is an enemy, then don't go down that route!

The thing with yogurt and I had to discover this on my own (I also eat Greek because of it's high protein content) is that the protein/carb ratio in the yogurt itself is enough, without the added marmalade/jam AND the fruit to top it off.

Something I picked up from a book I'll have to look at (I have it at home) is that the ratio of protein/carb matter to keep your blood sugar steady.

Usually, fruit is paired with cottage cheese (not a whole lot of fruit, because cheese has it's own carbs) or with almond butter (yummy) or another protein like jerky. I rarely eat it by myself because I know it throws my insulin off and starts the vicious cycle of craving more carbs.

I would go for unsalted peanuts (or other nuts) and see how that goes. I pick "lightly salted" because it's already a lot of salt in those packages, when I go to the grocery store.

And runningfromfat is giving awesome suggestions.

For me, something in-between is like when I make the homemade, lower sugar, lower fat, version of something I'm craving. French fries are potatoes that oven-roasted with a dash of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Some bakery food? Organic whole wheat pastry flour, organic eggs, organic cultured butter, and all that, with a lower-sugar recipe (and I use brown sugar instead and always put in less).

It usually won't be the calorie bomb that a muffin/cookie/whatever will be elsewhere. For something quick, I discovered a 100 calorie treat with totally processed food, but it's a relatively "healthy" snack -- low fat pastry crust from the grocery store and apple filling. One little apple snack is about 100 calories.