i'm in tears right now... everything just got so much more complicated for me, it seems...
i picked up my Carb Addicts Diet book last night and started reading. i got through all the chitchat about how great the diet is, how it came about, all the stories, and actually got into the diet when i realized that this, yet again, is another impossible diet for me. i tried to come up with what the **** i'm supposed to do for breakfast and lunch (my complimentary meals) and realized that i simply CANNOT drink black coffee for breakfast, live on cucumbers every single day for lunch, and eat a salad EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. for dinner! this just does NOT work for me! i'm so hungry in the morning! by the time it's almost lunch, i'm ready for food again... how the **** is some book going to tell me that i have to cut out my oatmeal when that's the food that works to keep me held over until lunch?! i'm not a breakfast eater, and that was the one thing that i could handle that wouldn't upset my stomach, and now i'm not going to be allowed to eat that? now i can't put cream and sugar in my coffee? this is STUPID! and i tried to work out a way to eat lunch with the list of foods that were given to me and theres just no possible way. i go to school. i get school lunches. i'm not a raw veggie eater. i'll eat cucumbers raw... but carrots? no! ew! sorry! no way! and i don't like the fact that i feel guilty about that and that i feel like i'll have to train myself to eat something i don't like. regardless, i don't want to eat the same thing every single day for lunch... cucumbers get old. we have a sandwhich/salad bar at school, but i like ranch on my salads, which, on this diet, is forbidden, and what the heck do i do if i get a sandwhich? pick the bread off and eat the meat and cheese and vegetables? great, then i'll have people looking at me funny.
why the **** does this have to be so hard for people like me? i didn't ASK or CHOOSE to be the way i am. i was born with insulin resistance. i've been like this for my entire life, as far back as i can remember, and i inherited it from my mom, who got it from her mom. it is NOT fair to me. i want to be beautiful on my prom, i want a pretty dress, i don't want to be a public embarrassment to my boyfriend because he deserves a beautiful girl to be with. i hate every single bit of this and i feel beyond helpless right now. what the heck is left for me to do?

First of all take a deep breath. Any change in your life can feel overwhelming. I also understand, because I have been there. I am still there at times where I just feel like I don't understand why my body has be so screwed over. Why does everything have to be SO hard for me?
Secondly, I don't think I could do that diet!! Carbs ARE important. As long as they are healthy. Have you looked at something more like South Beach? It focuses on healthier carbs. But the reality of it is, it is going to be hard to change your eating habits. But if you commit to it, if you give it time, you will find that food starts to taste different. Veggies/fruits will start to taste better.
I wish I could go back to being your age, and talk to myself. I feel like for me I would have saved myself a lot of heart ache if I had tried to figure it out back then.
Try just by starting small. Start walking more, or doing some type of exercise that you like. Cut back on soda if you drink it, drink more water. Try to choose whole grain carbs over white ones. Start portion controlling your Ranch dressing.
I'm not a huge raw veggie eater either...I HATE carrots. But there is a whole world out there of veggies that you could like, and who says they have to be raw? Nothing wrong with lightly steaming them or grilling them!
You CAN do this! You will be so much happier down the road if you figure out how to eat for your body NOW....as you get older, your metabolism will slow down and it will be HARD to lose weight.
You CAN do this!!!!!

Have you read the forum on "Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads"? It sounds like it may be a good fit for you. I'm almost to goal and used this as my plan. I haven't been starving and even went the last month without weighing myself and still lost weight. Here's the link to the thread if you want to check it out: http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/main...at-salads.html

The most important part of changing your eating habits is finding something you can stick to. Pretty much all diets work if you actually do it, and it sounds like maybe the one you're doing isn't the best fit for you.

thankyou... i am just freaking out because im so upset about this... the stupid woman who wrote this book with her husband said that she would starve herself all day, eat dinner, and she lost weight that way... i'm like... are you kidding me? with the options that the diet gives you to eat for breakfast and lunch, you may as well just starve yourself all day and just eat dinner... and in it, it says that if you don't like breakfast to just skip it... really?! that statement goes against everything i've ever read about dieting... you're supposed to eat breakfast...

I haven't read that, but I'd be just as frustrated!

Listen, if you are insulin resistant, perhaps Insulin Resistance or PCOS low-gi would work out better for you? I read the pcos low gi but actually like the menus in helen foster's gi book better.

I'm IR, and I can't be skipping meals. I've also come off Metformin and managed the IR with diet alone. (I'm back on a low dose this month to see if it would help me as a hunger suppressant.)

Anyway, what worked for me is eating every 4 hrs, and making sure I paired protein with carbs. Not as exact as the Insulin Resistance diet suggests, but more or less in that direction with an eye toward the lower GI choices.

Don't lose heart -- you are not alone!

A.

i have the insulin resistance diet book... i am so upset with the carb addicts one that i am going to start reading the IR one again.
eating every 4 hours, or eating all those small meals is really hard for me. i don't like it. i'd much rather stick to three meals because that's how my day goes, especially with school. i'll definitely check the other two you suggested to me. (: thanks.

Well, it doesn't have to be exact. You have to work with your school schedule, so probably breakfast before school, lunch whenever that happens at school, dinner, and then a snack to stick in whenever it is that it is needed. Sometimes I really need that before bed snack and other times I can skip it.

GL!
A.

i'm reading reviews on both of the books... and i'm reading that the first one leaves things a little vague and that they have really strange or exotic recipes in it... that's another thing... i'm a girl who is stuck in a middle - low class american family. we don't have money to eat exotic, organic, gourmet foods EVERY SINGLE DAY. and that's where a lot of diets get me - things simply aren't doable...
is the second book better for more down-to-earth recipes? or do you have any suggestions about really down-to-earth foods in general? seriously. i can manage lean meats, whole grain bread, and some vegetables, but i don't have the money for so many interesting things... if i did, maybe i wouldn't be overweight in the first place.

Eat whatever you can afford -- just keep a food log somewhere like fitday.com or similar.

The IR book suggests 2:1 carbrotein ratio at each meal. I think it was 30 g:15 grams. I'd have to dig it back out to be sure. But so long as it's 2:1, I don't stress if it is 40 g : 20 g or something.

The Helen Foster is more realistic meals to me and I like all the colorful pictures. There's several 2 weeks plans (ex: one is a vegetarian style) but the first one on the first day is like this:

Breakfast: oats with blueberries, strawberries or peaches, glass OJ

Snack: Yogurt, dried apricot

Lunch: Tomato & Chickpea salad w/ grilled chicken

Alternate Lunch: Grilled chicken sandwich, side salad

Snack: banana, buts

Dinner: tuna steak with salsa, new potatoes, mangetout (pea pods)

If I don't have dried apricot, I'll sub some other dried fruit -- raisins, craisins, whatever. If I don't have tuna, I'll go with tilapia. No pea pods? Sub broccoli. It isn't the end of the world.

I find having a general plan and being able to be flexible and not perfection makes it more doable for me. Then I don't have to wonder what to eat next, but if there's brocc. that need using up in the fridge, those are what is going in the dinner rather than the pea pods!

A.

First, a because it looks like you need it.

Secondly, I'm going to tell you something that you may not fully understand right now, but I hope that you will write it down and put it on your mirror or tuck it away somewhere where you may find it again later.

The thing is, if you want to be healthy and lose weight, you HAVE to fundamentally change the way you eat, your relationship to food, and the priority you give your food/health.

There's no other way to do it.

That means that you're going to have to make hard choices. You will have to sit there at the table, with your friends at lunch, and put up with their strange looks when you take the bread off your sandwich. Sure, maybe you won't eat organic vegetables, but you will have to eat vegetables.

One of the fundamental things that I fought so hard against when I was starting this journey was the idea that I had to change the way that I ate. Everyone around me ate "normally" why couldn't I?!

I would read PCOS books and Low GI diet books and fight and fight against what they said because I didn't want to admit to myself that I had to change the way that I ate. I had to change my schedule. I had to buy food. I had to COOK food (ugh!) and I had to make my health a priority.

So, I changed things. My friends didn't like it at first. They didn't like that I wasn't eating junk with them anymore. I made them feel guilty that they were eating junk. My parents didn't understand why I wasn't eating more. I would have fights with my mother about portions on my plate. I would tell my boyfriend that he had to wait for me to leave an exercise class because he was not more important than my health. I had to change myself. I had to start cooking my food. I had to start measuring and counting portions. I had to be aware of how food was making me feel.

I didn't do any of this overnight.

You're lucky because you're a lot younger and your body can and will bounce a lot faster than mine will. I wish I had known this stuff 10 years ago.

Yes, it will be frustrating. Yes, it sucks that you have to change your schedule, your exercise, possibly even the relationships you have with people in order to put your health/weight first.

But you can do it.

I carry snacks with me all the time. You can eat every 3-4 hours if you like. A serving of mixed nuts, for example, you can eat in the hallway walking to your next class. That's a good source of protein and fats. You can add an apple to that if you want something fresh and sweet with it. That way you balance your carb (apple) with your protein (nuts).

Oatmeal isn't the best option for people with IR because it's a lot of carbs with no protein. If you can eat your oatmeal with a protein, that would be the best call -- eat some eggs with it.

You can also have better "carbs" in the morning. Have you every had quinoa? It's a great option for IR people like us and if you add dried cranberries to it, it's delicious and light.

Yes, take off the bread at lunch. Useless calories that just make your IR worse. Save your bread calories for really good bread.

Take care of your body. No one else will do it for you. Be aware that you might feel withdrawals as you take the carbs out of your diet. Your body will crave them. Give it healthy carbs instead of cookies.

i personally get very scared of the meal plans. i look at them and think, "how the **** am i going to get my father to take me grocery shopping for all of this?"
it would be a different story if i were an adult funding my own life.
so i try to work out what staples are better than others, and what i can eat cheaply on a daily basis.
i really liked the idea of the carb addicts diet because i could eat well for breakfast and lunch, and then have some room to breathe for dinner. but the things they suggest for these two meals are outrageous. i'm sorry, but to me breakfast foods are carbs - like oatmeal, cereals, you know? i can't eat a salad with chicken for breakfast... to me, that is absolutely absurd.
ugh. all of it is so horrendously tedious to take care of and hard to think about. i'd love to be able to sit down with someone who could give me all of the answers instead of having to sift through book after book of useless nonsense that won't work with my lifestyle.

Read my response. You have to make the changes, no one can do it for you.

If you want rules, take the rules from Atkins or South Beach. The thing is, you HAVE to change to adjust the rules. You can't keep doing things the same way and expect different results.

sorry, rana! i posted that before i saw it.
thankyou for the advice. i agree though.. it's just so HARD! i worry so much about the fact that i may not be able to eat the way diets expect me to because i don't have the extra cash for the extra things they suggest you eat... then i feel guilty again.
the thing i find hardest is that there's no set guidelines for me. a book can give suggestions but it doesn't know my body or anything of that nature... it's not personalized specifically for me and that's kinda what i need right now... i really need to be able to see the things that i need to change, and i'm confused on where exactly to start. i know the basics, but for some reason i feel uncomfortable if i don't have all of the details... like i might start something and not realize i'm doing all of it wrong without that one little detail. i know that i can make the changes i said i'd hate to make. i think i was just raging. but like you said, the most frustrating thing is watching other people who are allowed to eat whatever they want and not gain a pound, whereas even though i've maintained my current weight for about two years, i'm still not the way i really want to be.

LB, you're not alone!!!!

Exactly how you feel is how I felt for the longest time.

I completely understand.... omg, how I understand!!!

The problem is that we're such individual people that no one can really give us the rules for what will work.

I have a job and I actually paid to go to a nutritionist because that's what I thought I was going to get from her.

What I got from her was a plan that was customized to my lifestyle at the time, but it wasn't what I wanted to hear either. Her plan didn't really understand me and I actually sat down with her for an hour the first time to go over my life and what I ate!!!!

The thing is, I wanted something easy that I didn't have to think about and the weight would just fall off.....

But....

Nothing like that exists....

I would have found it if it existed.

Look, don't feel bad that you don't know what you're doing. I didn't either. I tell myself that I'm my own science experiment because I don't know what will work or not work. I just try changing one little thing.

I didn't jump on a food plan because it was so overwhelming and maybe that's the problem you're having now because you don't how how to handle getting the food you want.

Maybe you need to start small, like not drinking any sodas (even diet) or juices or milk. Just drink water. Can you do that?

While you take that week to only drink water, you start thinking about a different kind of breakfast. Take a look around your kitchen and figure out what else is there. Go to the grocery store with your dad and check out the different options and ask him if you can get something else, other than oatmeal. Practice making it in the afternoon/evening. See if you like it. Then the next week, start eating that.

There's a blog that I ran across (I didn't bookmark it, otherwise I would post it here) about a woman who eats oatmeal with everything. She puts peanut butter in her oatmeal to make it healthier. Maybe that's an option to balance out the carbs. (She also puts bacon and other stuff in her oatmeal and she swears it's delicious, but.... )

Baby steps.

i'm not THAT big on oatmeal, it's just quick and easy for me in the mornings when i'm trying not to miss the bus.
i can definitely do the water, that's simple... i drink tons of it anyway.
the big problem i've seen myself run into is i'll eat great all day and feel good and then i come home from school, crave carbs like no other, and eat everything i can get my hands on... there seems to be no other alternative to hold you over like carbs can.
i'm looking at the quinoa though... is it good? i'd like to try it, if i can find it at the store. i just wish there were little samples of everything so i could try it before i invest in it and then hate it... that's happened quite a few times, hahah.