Greetings everyone! "So-Called Low Carb Life" is a great title for my family!
We started going low-carb around the 10th of January (2007). My husband has a family history of diabetes, and obesity. My husband has struggled with his weight all his life. He has done the cabbage soup diet (lost lots of weight, smelled horrid!), the Eat-Less-Diet and exercise lots (lost some weight), but unfortunately no matter what diet he tries, he always gains the weight back plus some. He has not had a physical in a couple years, but I figure that diabetes is just around the corner as he grows older and more overweight.
When Jerri told me about the low-carb diet she was on, I was instantly interested because of all the information that she gave me about how going on this diet helps people with diabetes. I checked out some books, talked with my husband and we decided to give the low-carb diet a try. Now we haven't been on the diet very long, but we have already had our struggles! We did fantastic for the first 2 1/2 weeks, with no cheating (ie: eating excess carbs). My hubby lost about 15 pounds. Then he/we started diving into the carbs every once and awhile, but enough to make us crave more carbs etc. So to date he has lost 17 pounds. I think that he would have had more weight loss but the flirting with carbs proved to be disastrous! I cannot blame him alone though, because I was right there with him eating carbs also! Unfortunately, I have the mindset that I can get away with eating more carbs, because I am already skinny. Okay, it's time I realized that being skinny doesn't mean you don't need to eat healthy!
We have three children who have been going lower-carb also. I say lower-carb because they are eating many more carbs than their parents, but still less than what they would usually be eating. They went for one month with no desserts, which was actually really nice! (Okay they wouldn't agree with me on this one!) They are in public school, which for my middle daughter means that she gets a snack everyday in Kindergarten. These snacks are provided by different parents each day. Since she couldn't have desserts/sugar for one month, I sent a healthy snack every day with her to school for her to eat just in case the snack parent sent in a dessert food. It turned out that every day of that month, the snack was some form of a dessert food! I found this unbelievable that these children are eating a dessert every day before lunch! I just had no idea that this was happening! So even though their month of no desserts is over, I am continuing to send a healthy snack to school with my kids.
My older daughter is in first grade; she eats lunch at school. I have begun to realize that if she ate "hot lunch" at school everyday, she would be eating pizza every day! So we only allow her to eat "hot lunch" a couple times a week, and the rest of the time she either gets a sandwich made with low-carb bread, a lettuce wrap sandwich, or chicken salad, etc.
I think one of the hardest changes has been the first meal of the day- breakfast! I have never cooked breakfast for my family before unless it was a Saturday. My husband leaves for work most mornings before 5:30am, which makes it impossible to cook breakfast for him (I am not a morning person!). However on the mornings that he goes to work a little later (6:30 ish) I do get up and cook breakfast for him and the kids. I have found though that I am sick of eggs (so are the kids) and am not able to stomach them any longer. I need to find some other low-carb breakfast items. Please let me know if any of you have any suggestions for new breakfast foods that we can try! Keep in mind that we are not home-schoolers, and we have a limited amount of time to devote to breakfast making (again, I am not a morning person and I have 2 children to get on the bus by 7:45 am.).
Anyway this week we are back on track and re-devoted to the low-carb lifestyle.
Encouragement is deeply appreciated.
Long healthy lives are our goal!!
13 comments:
Thanks for sharing that Jewbee. I can relate to your husands background and the yo-yo plus.
I am excited for you all! Also amazed at the school snacks and food. I see the Pepsi truck often parked in front of the school we live near and then see the kids walking home from school...the majority overweight. Sad.
So I'll check in and cheer for you and quietly be on my own journey as well. (as quiet as I can be in the comments. :) )
Thanks for the encouragement Roberta! I am a homeschooled kid myself, so I didn't know what is served at public schools until this year with my first grader. It's really pretty crazy what these kids eat, some of them everyday! It is really quite sad.
Jerri says that Bacon is good - maybe you could just have bacon for breakfast. ;)
I would try going low carb if I could still eat what I like to eat - i.e. CHOCOLATE! But right now I just don't have the willpower to cut out all sugar and carbs! I'd settle for cutting out fast food and Coke (but... I like my Coca-Cola...). I guess this wasn't really encouragement for you, but keep up the good work! You should take some "BEFORE" and "AFTER" pictures to put on this blog. ;o)
Sometimes I do just eat bacon for breakfast, with a cup of tea or coffee. Hope to be posting soon lots of breakfast ideas.
Cutting back on carbs is a great start, JH. Just be sure you don't simply eat more of the carbs you are keeping in your diet. ;)
Besides, there are some pretty good low carb chocolates out there!
~jer
Oh hey, I made brownies the other day and ate most of them. :x
The exercise I get through work is helping me turn some of my fat to muscle (my thighs are nearly all muscle again except for some flabby bits still lingering) but eating fast food for lunch nearly every day with one or two large Cokes sure doesn't help the waist line! Although I have actually lost about two inches around my waist, which is great.
So cutting out fast food would mean more sandwiches, and you don't eat bread at all, do you? Lettuce wraps are so messy and hard to eat on the go.
Now I'm afraid to go to the doctor for a check up because I really don't want to find out that I have the same problem as you do, Jerri, with my blood sugar! Do you think that its genetic, or..?
You can get low carb bread- though I do confess I do not eat it unless in the form of toast to go with eggs for breakfast. However the kids eat it and haven't complained once. We do buy low carb tortillas, that are actually not bad. I prefer them as soft chicken tacos, though, instead of cold with lunch meat. How are you getting so much exercise?? Is it something you are doing at work? I need some help with my flabbiness!
I do like bacon, but I can't eat it every day, or even ever other day. I love a bacon lettuce wrap though with mayo and mustard- that is one of my favorites!! Mom is raving about her breakfast muffins made with low-carb mix. I might have to try that out for John's early morning departures! We'll see! :-)
I drag around pallets loaded down with wine at work. Plus lifting cases a lot too - I should probably just add in a few crunches in the morning before I leave and that will probably do it for a whole body work-out!
Jh,
Yes, blood sugar issues are genetic. But, most doctors wouldn't even test you unless you had obvious symptoms or mentioned family history or just asked for the tests to be done. Even so, once again, 99% of doctors do not treat pre-diabetes. They'd rather wait till you are really sick instead of instructing and helping you make changes to avoid diabetes in the future. But think of what incentive it would be to find out that information! Any reduction in carbs will help you, but you really need to stick to it.
Diet soda's are much better for your blood sugars/weight loss. If you tell yourself that is all you can drink, you might choose to just drink water instead, lol, which would be even better for you!
A less messy alternative to sandwiches or lettuce wraps, is to just roll up meats and cheese with a bit of mayo/mustard/cream cheese, whatever you like. Make a few rolls and take them to work with ya. You can eat lower carb even with fast food. Just don't eat the bun, and no fries. Ouch. I miss fries.....
Sounds like quite a workout JH! Too bad you can't just eat something that gives you muscles, eh!! lol! There's a pill for just about everything though!
Red Robin is great for low-carb meals. Like you said before, just drop the bun and get a salad instead of the fries. I had the terriaki chicken "burger" tonight and just didn't eat the pineapple or the bun. It was delicious! Full of flavor and with a salad it was enough to fill me up! Outback Steakhouse is another place that you can do low carb easy. Their vegetables are fantastic- I could almost do a whole meal just of their veggies!! Yummy!! I don't care for their bread to begin with, so it is not hard to skip that. Just order a steak with veggies, and a salad and you are in heaven!! :-) Of course water to drink- diet soda is just not soda, it's horrid!! (that's my personal opinion!)
Oh if you want a 'good' alternative to Red Bull or diet soda, if you're an energy drink consumer, Rockstar has a new No-Carb drink out that is actually really good. So you can get all jazzed up on caffiene with no sugar!
I love that teriyaki burger at Red Robin. I always get it with no pineapple though. :)
Just so ya know, be sure to check the Rockstar label, what are they using to sweeten it? Though if it is truely no carb, it should be fine. =)
Red Robin is currently my favorite low carb life place to eat. My favorite is the same as JH - terriyaki burger, hold the pineapple, or just don't eat it, no bun, lettuce wrap with a salad instead of fries. Umm, yummy. Though, I would give an arm or leg to be able to eat fries! Or onion rings! But, not at the expense of my blood sugars. Well, at least not on a regular basis..... **shame, oh the shame**
Getting hungry . . .
I hate water, but add strawberry flavored syrup to it, get a fruit fix and water at the same time. The thing is if you can go those 2 weeks you really do begin to loose your taste for sweets/breads.
Dana
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