A friend of mine lost a ton of weight on atkins. She said that it wasn't for everyone, that she thought I could incorporate some of it into my life. I'm up for anything, so I agreed. She suggested that instead of the crackers I used to eat, I try some nuts and seeds. She eats a handful at a time.

So, I took up eating a handful of pumpkin or sunflower seeds when I got hungry. My handful is 1/4 cup. That's 300 calories.

I was better off with the crackers...

Apparently, the recommendation is to eat 5-9 almonds as 1 serving. Yeah, right. I have small hands so to measure out "a handful", I'd get my hubby with his man hands to do it. Funnily enough, the weight loss stopped - go figure. The things we do to fool ourselves...

This reminds me of a friend of mine (who is a diabetic) who told me yesterday that she's found a great snack - trail mix in a great big container from Costco with craisins, peanuts, chocolate chips and lots of sunflower seeds! She told me she can eat a cup of these and it doesn't put her glucose up. The next moment she was moaning about how she can't lose weight . She's very sensitive about anyone suggesting what she should eat, so I didn't say anything. It's really sad .

My sister (who also has diabetes) is the same way - she eats loads of sweet stuff (cream puffs, chocolate, etc.) and just adjusts her insulin shots when this junk puts her insulin up. I'm sure they know what the long term consequences of uncontrolled diabetes are - but the sugar addiction has them in its grip and they seem to crave it even more than people who don't have this terrible disease.

Well..I don't know about that. Crackers tend to be processed and they often contain transfat (partially hydrogenated oils are very common in packaged baked goods). Studies have shown that a serving of nuts (1/4 cup as described) 5 times a week can reduce the risk of heart disease by up to 30%. That is a SIGNIFICANT health benefit. I try to eat a serving of nuts everyday, I just factor the calories into my daily total.

Only three days of food in your Fitday can be viewed - 300 calories, 800 calories, 1100 calories, 300 calories of nuts would be GOOD for you. I know it sounds completely non intuitive, but you have to eat ENOUGH to lose weight. It's a balancing act - eat/burn calories to lose weight without freaking your body out that it's in danger of famine.

Glory, I don't religiously update my fitday (for food - I do for exercise). If I'm wondering about the content of something, I'll ask fitday. Otherwise, I just keep a good/bad tally in my head. That's why I didn't know about the pumpkin seeds until I got curious and looked into it. If I go down the calorie counting road again, I'll lose weight and not in a healthy way.

The crackers I ate were saltines. Literally, water, flour and salt.

Sorry I misread your Fitday

Crackers send up a red flat for me because the common Nabisco brand Saltines contain transfat (and high fructose corn syrup as an added bonus).

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Yup, I can only agree with what you say here. My mom is now diabetic.. I guess about 8 yrs or so now. When she first found out, she followed the 'plan' to the letter, lost a bunch of weight, maybe 40 pounds. Then slowly, slowly, she started eating sugary foods more than ever before. She started out with tea bisquits, then muffins with chocolate chips. These days, if she goes out for dinner, she eats cheese cake with strawberry sauce/raspberry sauce, ice cream sundaes with chocolate sauce, etc.

About 1 yr ago they told her finally that she had to start taking the needles. Her pills weren't cutting it anymore. I've pleaded with her, tried everything I could to get her to stop. She just gets really angry. It makes me sad. Part of why I am dieting is because I too will get diabetes if I don't get this under control. I have no trouble with my blood sugar now, thank goodness. It is a really serious motivation to lose weight for me.

Abbeycat36 - I've always been afraid of getting diabetes too. Several close relatives have it - my sister, my cousin and two of her children and my paternal grandfather. I have a "sweet tooth" and I was probably on the road to diabetes before I changed my way of eating a couple of years ago, although, like you, my blood glucose level is normal.

Sugar seems to be as addictive as hard drugs or tobacco for a lot of people.

I'm sorry to hear that your mom won't change the way she eats - but at least you are taking steps to stay healthy yourself.

penpal,

yes, I think that if the signs are there, it is wise that we are paying attention before it's too late. When I visited a doc just before I started my diet about a month ago, he said that it was not only 'likely' but more likely a certainty that I would become diabetic. EEK that scared me.

My mom, oh how I wish she would eat better. but you can only try to help, you can't force it, I guess.

I would like to make a few comments about a couple of things:

~The crackers vs. the nuts/seeds.

Nuts and seeds are much more nutritious than crackers, but they are caloric, so the serving sizes are much smaller. When you eat nuts, seeds, dried fruits in trail mix, etc. the serving sizes are about 1/4 cup-and these 1/4 cup servings (depending on what you are eating) are 130-250 calories.
Also, someone who is eating carbs-like a calorie counter-is on a different plan than someone who is on Atkins. Atkins is an "all or nothing" sort of plan. Their carbohydrate intake (or lack thereof) is what is causing a lot of their weight loss...so using some Atkins advice won't work really, for someone who is on a calorie counting or WW type of plan. We are not in ketosis, so we are still much more vulnerable to the overeating than someone on Atkins.

~The diabetes.

I am a gestational diabetic (diabetic when pregnant...which is currently!) and it runs in my family. My aunt (mothers younger sister) passed away 7 years ago in her 40's. VERY young.
The reason? When she was diagnosed, she followed her diet to the LETTER. If the diet said 1 serving of this and that...and 1/2 cup was a serving, THAT was what she had. She went from over 200 pounds down to a size 6, and looked WONDERFUL. She felt wonderful.
Over time-she started letting things slip. An extra bite of this, a little more of that. Her blood sugar would end up high and low at times-because she was not following her diet. She thought that eating a little less of this or a little more of that was OKAY-because she could adjust her shots/glucose/whatever a little later in the day to make up for it.

After a while her shots got changed to heavier doses. She gained weight back. She slowly had more and more complications due to NOT FOLLOWING HER DIET. Your blood sugar levels are not something that you can "play with". They have to stay stable at all times. You can't let it go low...simply to have room to eat something sweet later, and so forth. When you rblood sugar levels are too low for a period of time-it puts a lot of stress on your body and organs. The same thing when it gets too high. Your body as a diabetic also has many, many issues with fitness, healing, and circulation, and so forth as well-and when they tell a diabetic to avoid the sun, make sure they are getting regular exercise, and the like-they MEAN it.

A lot of diabetics think their blood sugar is something they can play with. They let it get a little low today...and bring it back up with a few sips of soda, or a small piece of cake. Nothing big happens...so they think it is okay to do the next time. IT'S NOT. There are small amounts of damage done internally EVERY TIME you play around, and have your blood sugar unstable. These "little highs and lows" add up, and create much uneccessary stress on the body.

As a result, after years of the doctors stressing how important it was for her to STAY COMPLIANT with her diet, proper use of her medication, and exercise-she had a heart attack in her mid-forties, at home, alone. The bad thing about it was...is that she passed on a Saturday night, and my grandparents came by her house on Sunday morning, to pick her up for church (she went with them on Sundays, since it was on the way) and my grandparents FOUND her.

Please, if you have to-feel free to print this out and pass it on to noncompliant family members. It is no joke. It happened suddenly, and unexpectedly-but the result was heart failure due to the stress of her unstable blood sugar levels and extra weight-because she did not control her diabetes.

On another note-as a gestational diabetic myself, I am at very high risk for being a full time diabetic in the next 10-20 years. While I am pregnant, unstable/high blood sugar levels not only hurt me, they can hurt my unborn child. I cannot stress how serious of a condition that diabetes is.

My gestational diabetes went undetected during my first pregnancy, and because of that, high blood sugar levels throughout my pregnancy caused me to have a baby that was 10 pounds, 4 ounces (when 6-8 pounds is average), 23" long (when 19-21" is average) who had a 15" head and chest (when 13"-14" is average).

The result of my undetected illness, was that I delivered her naturally, rather than via c-section-and as a result of her being "too big" I suffered from a severe postpartum hemorrhage and had to have emergency surgery immediately after the birth. We also experienced "shoulder dystocia" which is where her shoulders were to large to fit through my pelvic bones. The result of that, luckily, was damage in the pelvic bone area to ME-but it just as easily could have resulted in a broken collarbone to my daughter during the delivery.

High and low blood sugar levels cause a myriad of other things to happen inside our bodies...it isn't just a little "number" that makes you feel woozy or lightheaded now and then if it is "off" a bit.

The other factor that comes to mind with this snack comparison is that the nuts and seeds should be keeping you satisfied a little longer than the crackers. In this case the extra calories are worth it. The trouble with me is moderation with both crackers and nuts! I am better off with fruit or vegetable that will take me a bit longer to consume and is easier for me to stop after it is gone. That sugar/ starch addiction is rampant. Maybe we need a patch or something for withdrawl!? lol The pharmaceutical industry is missing out!

Yeah, I agree with Glory. I can;t have any crackers or square or circular shaped crunchy disks- They're addictive for me. The other day, I went over my friend's house and they had triscuits and colby cheese. I didn't take the cheese, as much as I wanted to, but I had about 6-7 triscuit crackers and had to leave before I ate anymore.

Yeah, I'm the same way. Fruits and Veggies give me a good boost, and it does take longer for me to consume. Nuts, I only eat 2-3 at a time. I take two nuts each time I grab out of the jar, by the time I 've went to the jar three times, I know it's been one too many times.

Starchy crunchy things like crackers will really throw me off!! Even whole wheat crackers!

I wonder how many times our unsuccessful struggles are something as small and simple as this.

... I thought I was only using a tbls of salad dressing
... an ounce of cheese is how small????
... oh! trim the fat!
... but it only looked like a drop of oil
... I guess the teaspoon was heaping
... that vending machine muffin is TWO servings?

I go with the Nabisco multi-grain crackers. Only like 60 calories for 5 crackers, and I have those with a slice of FF cheese. Many evenings, that's my before bed snack. I like them.