Noumenon

I've been sort of dieting since about Jan 5.

I say 'sort of' because I'm not really following any specific diet. A little bit of the raw food diet, a little bit of staying away from obvious stuff, and plenty of fruits, rabbit food etc.

But my cravings for bread, and baked potatoes, and roast chicken, and sausages is becoming irresistible.

The weekend before this I bought 3 chooks for $15. A good price I rationalised to myself. Then, to prevent them from going off I promptly roasted them in the oven. I now have 3 frozen roasted chooks in the freezer, from last week lol

Similarly, I have this 4 grain dish I loved making and eating before. Includes rice, bulgur, risone, etc., with chicken stock, pepper paste, and diced tomatos. A full pot of that too has been sitting in the fridge for days now, because well, it's no longer part of my diet. Not until I get my weight down to 60 kg's, and according to my progress rate that will happen around mid April. I cook stuff like this and I can't eat it ;(

Oh and did I mention I bought fresh pide bread, and savoury sausages too? Yep, the breads in the fridge too.

Somebody give me [im]moral support here, or I'm gonna break down and pig out on the whole lot lol

I'm really sick of eating watermelons, nectarines, grapes, peaches, apricots, nuts, and salads. Oh and the bastards at the supermarket have ice-cream on discount!

The good thing is that I have extended my daily walks to at least one 11.2 km walk, and at least one 22 km bike ride a day. On some days I go further and make it a 50 km ride. And though my calf muscles have returned to their former glory, each foot is hosting a coupla blisters. Am I going to make it? One month down, 10 kg's lost, 2.5 months and 25 kg's left to go!

IHaveDiabetes

Hang in there. I just re-started my diet on January 10th and feeling the same cravings as you (I need to lose 50 pounds, which I think translates to somewhere around 23-25 KGs). I also have two young children at home, and although we do not feed them lots of sweets, there are a ton of items that are in the fridge, pantry, etc. for them (and my DW) and are always in close proximity to me. I am also the cook of my family and generally prepare all of the meals. Because I cannot force grilled chicken and salad on my family almost every night, many times I have prepare a meal for them and one for myself. When I am at the stove cooking up something for them, and smelling the aromas, it is extremely tempting to dig into the pot and finish it off. I am also a scrap eater -- kids being what they are will usually not finish their food, and leave some behing, like 1/4 of a piece of fried & breaded chicken cutlet two nights ago (I made myself grilled chicken w/ a touch of lemon juice). On the way from the kitchen table to the garbage can, I was so tempted that I picked up the piece of cutlet and stopped myself only seconds before placing it into my mouth (that little piece probably had more carbs, fat & cholesterol than half of my meal). How or why I stopped, I am really not that sure, but I did think to myself that I am going through all this "suffering" with the dieting and all of the exercise, that this one piece will not really make a difference.

Also, I try to give myself a "happy meal" (a meal to keep me happy) at the end of each week. So one meal a week, I can have food almost like a normal person - so, for that meal I could have food that I would not regularly have during the meal. However, my portion sizes are in moderation (no pigging-out), and I still will not have anything drenched in sugar.

So, don't give into those urges and think about your long term goals. Also, if you think the happy meal is a good idea (you know your own body better than anyone, and you may also want to talk to your doctor/nutritionist), make yourself "normal food" once a week - I believe if you keep yourself deprived of everything for too long, it will eventually wear you down mentally (which happened to me, and is the reason I had to go back on a fairly strict diet).

Cheers!

Noumenon

Thanks IHAVEDIABETES. You appear to have it tougher than me, what with cooking for your kids and family, and constantly having the temptation to taste your food that you're cooking. I have empathy for you. Especially considering I hate wasting food too.

Yesterday I did cave in. I wiped off the fungal growth on a plate of rice pudding that's been sitting in the fridge for possibly a couple of weeks, and well, I ate it. Surprisingly, I didn't taste much of the sugar in it. I make rice pudding with loads of sugar. Still the glucose meter shot up to 8.2 mmol/L within 2 hrs, so I couldn't hide it. It was about a 500 gram serving. So today I dumped the other plate of rice pudding.

I really feel bad about wasting food. So I might take a plate full of roast potatoes, pide, and other 'sinful' foods to my brothers house tonight. They have a growing young family. I will keep the frozen roasted chooks, 'cos if I add small servings of it in my salads it should be okay. So long as I don't sit down to a full roast chook and 3/4's of a loaf of sourdough.

I need to organise some sensible "happy meal" too. I mean, even with water melons I tend to eat up to a kilo [2.2 lb's] of it in one sitting, then a pound of grapes, etc. A kilo of salad may be fine, but anything in excess is probably not helping.

Thanks again for your encouragement! Today I went for a walk in the summer heat of the afternoon and lost a kg, down to 81.4 kg from 92.5 since Jan 5 now.

__________________
Diagnosed Denial Type 2 on Jan 2010, personally I think I have Glucose Intolerance and Insulin Resistance, and am not yet Diabetic.
OGTT: FPG 6.1 mmol/L, 1 Hr after 75g Glucose Load 14.4 mmol/L, 2 hr's after 75 g Glucose Load, 14.6 mmol/L
HBA1C: 6.2 %
Random: 10.1 mmol/L
Meters: Accu-chek Performa, and Accu-chek Performa Nano.

jswede1149

Pumpkin pie and no sugar added fudgesicles are my temptations. These items wreck my blood sugar and cause weight gain.

I am on a vegetarian, low carb diet. I think is a reason why I crave these items.

Thankfully, we shop for groceries at a club warehouse where these items are not sold.

Noumenon

Hi JSWEDE1149,

I wonder what the ingredients of pumpkin pie are, other than pumpkin and no sugar as you mentioned. If it's just boiled pumpkin's I would have assumed it to be low in sugar and cholesterol, but your description sounds like it's a savoury pastry dish?

If it's just plain boiled/cooked pumpkins, then dayum, 'cos I like cooked pumpkins too. Thanks for the good idea of cooked pumpkins!

__________________
Diagnosed Denial Type 2 on Jan 2010, personally I think I have Glucose Intolerance and Insulin Resistance, and am not yet Diabetic.
OGTT: FPG 6.1 mmol/L, 1 Hr after 75g Glucose Load 14.4 mmol/L, 2 hr's after 75 g Glucose Load, 14.6 mmol/L
HBA1C: 6.2 %
Random: 10.1 mmol/L
Meters: Accu-chek Performa, and Accu-chek Performa Nano.

Shanny

Hey you guys! Don't take pumpkin pie off your menus! Just cook the pumpkin & then follow your pie filling recipe using heavy cream instead of milk (not much lactose in cream), and the sweetener of your choice. If you need a crust with your pie, make a nut crust with almond or pecan meal.

You can still have breading on your chicken cutlets too (and fish filets & pork chops, too! ) . . . just use almond meal instead of wheat flour.

And I made the tastiest pineapple/coconut custard the other day using unsweetened coconut milk . . . it was so light & delicious.

Don't lose heart - there's a lot of fabulous low-carb eating to be done around here! Let's put our heads together!

jswede1149

We buy store bought pumpkin pie. I think they add a lot of sugar and milk.

Noumenon

I bought some pumpkins last week. Might get around to chopping them to chunk size and steaming them. Will eat them without any dressings or add-ons.

__________________
Diagnosed Denial Type 2 on Jan 2010, personally I think I have Glucose Intolerance and Insulin Resistance, and am not yet Diabetic.
OGTT: FPG 6.1 mmol/L, 1 Hr after 75g Glucose Load 14.4 mmol/L, 2 hr's after 75 g Glucose Load, 14.6 mmol/L
HBA1C: 6.2 %
Random: 10.1 mmol/L
Meters: Accu-chek Performa, and Accu-chek Performa Nano.

Shanny

All the winter squashes are good with nothing more than butter/salt/pepper . . . I have a big spaghetti squash to bake today, and a butternut that I'll bake later in the week. These are SUCH delicious foods!

Noumenon

Thanks for the suggestion Shanny, but I'm on a weight loss diet. In particular I want to lose another 20 kg's. Prefer to lose it from around my belly flab [fat], but I realise that's not how it works, so gradually, slowly losing it from all around.

So fat's, oils, butter, carb's, sugar's are either out, or bare minimum. Same with salts as I have hypertension. Though since commencing my weight loss I have had no need for my hypertension meds since Jan 12.

I started this weight loss thing earnestly around Jan 5, and of course was even more clueless back then. I was still enjoying carb rich foods, high fructose fruits, even salads and canned tuna in oil [idiot lol].

Anyway, I realise I can't completely eradicate oils, fats, carbs, saccharides from my diet, but till I melt away my belly fat, I'm going to minimise it as much as possible.

Naturally I have reduced my calorie intake, and have increased my exercising. Walks, cycle rides, and recently started jogging. Though, because I am still unfit, jogging is not occurring in my fat burning heart rate zone. It's occurring at a higher bpm. But this will change as I become fitter, and my body won't have to work so hard to jog. For my age, they suggest I keep it between 100 and 120 bpm. So now, I'm looking for a cheap but effective heart rate monitor, but in the meantime I just stop and take my pulse from my carotid artery for 10 seconds, then multiply that by 6. I don't need a pedometer, or odometer for my bike as I simply google map my journey and it tells me to within 100 meters the distances I have covered. From that I can enter my heart rate, and work out my calories burnt too. So output is increased.

Objective is to lose as much body fat [and in particular belly fat] as possible. I have a suspicion these adipose cells are the cause of insulin resistance, and once most of the excess fat is gone, my insulin resistance should also become less of a problem.

We'll see how I go in the next two months.
BTW, any recommendations of a good forum on weight loss? One that isn't inundated with corporate shills, or fad peddlers would be nice. Perhaps one that has plenty of obese or overweight people. I am no longer obese. Thanks to the 10 kg weight loss I've achieved, I am now overweight with BMI 28.5. But I realise that I have to be increasingly scientific / technical / informed in order to continue my current weight loss rate. I'm learning that just piling on the exercises, and cutting down on food intake alone wont be enough as I get closer to my target weight.

Once I achieve my goals I will try the buttered pumpkins!

__________________
Diagnosed Denial Type 2 on Jan 2010, personally I think I have Glucose Intolerance and Insulin Resistance, and am not yet Diabetic.
OGTT: FPG 6.1 mmol/L, 1 Hr after 75g Glucose Load 14.4 mmol/L, 2 hr's after 75 g Glucose Load, 14.6 mmol/L
HBA1C: 6.2 %
Random: 10.1 mmol/L
Meters: Accu-chek Performa, and Accu-chek Performa Nano.