Help me break up with carbs

kgibbz
kgibbz Posts: 102 Member
Hi Guys- I know what I need to do but it is SO hard and I need support, ideas and help. Especially with breakfast. I know if I start my day off with carbs Im setting myself up for failure. Does anyone have any dairy/carb free breakfast ideas?

*Disclaimer* I am not trying to go carb-free. I still want to eat apples, bananas, corn etc. I just want to kick my addiction to pasta, bread, etc.

Replies

  • mrsmitchell0510
    mrsmitchell0510 Posts: 83 Member
    Mmmmm..... I love carbs! It's too bad my PCOS doesn't seem to love them as much as I would like.
    I recently decided to try lower carb to see if it would help alleviate some of my PCOS symptoms since most of the research I was doing on PCOS seemed to show that women who tried a lower carb approach had success not only with weight loss, but also in alleviating some of the other symptoms (i.e. hair loss, depression, irregular periods, etc., etc.).
    What has helped me immensely was committing to go grain-free for a period of 6 weeks. I chose 6 weeks as a starting point and told myself that I would reevaluate after that 6 weeks based on the results I was seeing.
    Week 1, in addition to being grain-free, I ate no fruit. This one was so hard for me because I love fruit and I wasn't trying to break all carbs, but it was important in getting me on the road to lower carb.
    Week 2, I started training for a 10k and so I added some fruit back in so as to fuel my body for my running.
    I am now towards the end of my initial 6 weeks and I am feeling great! I have added back in some other carbs, like sweet potatoes, but am still grain-free for the moment. I am eating between 50-100g of carbs per day (usually closer to the 100g mark and sometimes even a little over that, especially on the days that I run).
    My breakfasts consist mostly of meat. I usually will just eat several slices of bacon or some spicy smoked sausage and I'm good to go. The important thing to remember when going lower carb is to make sure you are eating enough fat. This has kept me feeling satiated and not at all like I was missing out on things while having to limit my carbs. Cooking with real butter, heavy cream, coconut oil, avocado, and nuts has been delicious!
  • teddiebare
    teddiebare Posts: 46 Member
    I had to just change my approach to food, which admittedly takes a little while.

    Breakfast is always a protein shake. This week was 2-cups of spinach, 1-cup of unsweetened almond milk, 1/2 peach, protein powder and psyllium husk. That way I already have 2 servings of spinach, 1 serving of fruit, and a quarter of my protein in before I even get to work.

    Lunch is usually leftovers, but this week I'm having 4-ounces of either chicken or salmon, and a spinach, walnut, mozzarella salad with raspberry vinaigrette.

    Snacks this week are turkey pepperoni with string cheese, and then cheesecake fluff. If you haven't tried cheesecake fluff, I HIGHLY recommend it. It makes me feel like I'm having dessert, settles my sweet tooth, and makes me very happy. The variety I make is 8 ounces of cream cheese, 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, and sweetener/flavor to taste. Lime is a personal favorite, but this week I have sugar free s'mores syrup in it.

    Dinner is generally a meat and a vegetable.

    The hardest part is the reliance on a carb delivery system. You have to be creative with your meal plans. Instead of pasta, you can use spaghetti squash. Or my personal favorite is just meatballs and sauce. Instead of a sandwich, I wrap deli meat around string cheese, or just eat meat/cheese together like a sandwich. I like how subway lets you make a sandwich into a salad, you have to think like that. There are TONS of keto/low carb recipes out there, pinterest is a good place to start.

    I have been doing it for 9 months now and I feel amazing. I lift as heavy as ever, I'm never tired, I'm never hungry, I don't have brain fog. It's great. You just have to get over the initial hump, and I think just going for it is the best bet. You get the carb flu over and done with, and you can focus on learning the low carb lifestyle.

    That being said, I still allow myself one meal a week of whatever the heck I want. This has been VITAL to my mentality. I can always "just make it to saturday" if I'm having a bad week, and I can really plan out what I want. It's usually pizza or pasta, and I enjoy the heck out of it. It refills my glycogen for exercise, and gives me a chance to feel like it's a reward for a good week. It's good to give yourself a tiny break, but you have to be ready to get back to it in the morning.

    Bacon and cheese are big saviors for me. If I need to snack and I'm grumpy about it, I'll have a chunk of cheese and feel decadent. Full-fat salad dressing, butter, whip cream in my coffee and cheese are AMAZING coming from a low-fat background, and that's what I choose to focus on. Instead of moaning about losing my pasta, I revel in my buttermilk ranch (mmmmm ranch).
  • teddiebare
    teddiebare Posts: 46 Member
    Oh, and find good things you like at your favorite places. When my husband wants pizza, I order wings. I never liked them before, but I love them now! you just have to change your attitude and focus, and things become much less of a struggle :)
  • IvyLuci
    IvyLuci Posts: 117 Member
    For breakfast I usually have 2 eggs, made with a bit of butter, and then add something on top to hide the eggy taste which I am not a fan of. It's usually mustard or kajmak (I have no idea how to translate that, it's in the cream family). Total carbs 2 or 3.

    The way I gave up on some of my carby foods: when I started I had a limit of 20 carbs a day. So I tried to modify what I wanted to eat in a way it would fit. The food in question was oatmeal. Once I realized that I would have to eat less than half of what I usually ate, with water instead of milk and without any additions, I decided eggs were a better choice :-)

    Now my limit is 40ish, but the process is the same. If I really want something that is higher in carbs I try to see how much I need to modify it to make it fit. If it doesn't fit I don't eat it. The only exceptions to these are: a certain dish my MIL makes. It only happens once a year so eh, I'll survive. And if I just spent a couple of hours hiking up a mountain I'll have a piece of cake on top, my body will spend the carbs on the way down.
  • Hannah_Banana
    Hannah_Banana Posts: 1,242 Member
    Now - I'm coming at this from a person who LOVES breakfast, pretty much every breakfast food there is. And most breakfast foods are carb-y, sugar-y little devils. I tried for a while to create "substitute" or "low carb" versions of pancakes, waffles, biscuits etc, and it just never worked. All it did was make me crave them more.

    It may help to redefine what "breakfast" means. You don't have to eat breakfast foods for breakfast. I've woken up some mornings and had leftovers from the night before. It's also difficult because most low carb breakfast foods require cooking. I will occasionally make egg muffins on Sunday and save them in little ziplocks - they reheat really well, so I still have something warm and tasty, that packs enough good cals and fits into my macros. Couple recipes I use regularly:

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/burnred/bacon-egg-breakfast-cups-281t

    http://realfoodoutlaws.com/grain-free-bacon-egg-cheese-breakfast-muffins/
  • hii lucy !
    reading your post i got all excited. 47 kgs! hats off to you !! iam also suffering from pcod ..and my weight is shooting up like anything..sice iam a vegeteriani dnt knw how to limit my carb.can you please help me with it??
  • Dragonwolf
    Dragonwolf Posts: 5,600 Member
    Lots of awesome advice, I second pretty much everything on here! My go-to breakfast right now is 4 eggs scrambled in around 2-3tbsp butter. Sometimes, I top it with some cheese.

    As others have mentioned, don't be afraid of fats. This includes natural saturated fats (animal fats, coconut oil, etc). When you cut carbs, you need another source of fuel. Protein is not that fuel, fat is. And no, it won't give you a heart attack (the fat->heart attack thing is probably the world's biggest lie).

    Also, I recommend limiting carbs from all sources, even fruit, for the first month or so. Even these so-called "good carbs" can feed the addiction/habit. Get your carbs from non-starchy vegetables for the time being, then reintroduce fruits in a few weeks. This forces you to rethink what you base meals and snack off of.
  • IvyLuci
    IvyLuci Posts: 117 Member
    Ugh, vegetarian low carb is a bit tricky. Go through your diary, look at the foods you eat (and I assume like) the most. Is there something that is lower carb than others? If you eat eggs and dairy that helps a bit get the fats up. Basically my advice would be to keep the vegetables up to around 100g per meal, and fill the rest in with eggs and cheese, a bit of nuts and seeds. Try to get used to the fact that meals will look small (compared to a leafy salad, an egg and a slice of cheese looks tiny).
  • Dragonwolf
    Dragonwolf Posts: 5,600 Member
    hii lucy !
    reading your post i got all excited. 47 kgs! hats off to you !! iam also suffering from pcod ..and my weight is shooting up like anything..sice iam a vegeteriani dnt knw how to limit my carb.can you please help me with it??

    Is there any particular reason you're vegetarian? It might be worth considering a different approach if it's not for ethical reasons (or, depending on the specifics of your ethics, it might be worth considering alternative ways to honor them than completely abstaining).
  • tweetsmom
    tweetsmom Posts: 31 Member
    I make a breakfast quesadilla each morning that keeps me full until lunch! It is soooo good! It's best made fresh, but I make them ahead and heat them in the microwave and they are still yummy!

    First I sauté onions (1/2 cup chopped), mushrooms (3 oz. fresh) for 2 minutes or so with non-stick spray, then add spinach (3 oz fresh) and more nonstick spray and cook until the spinach is wilted but still vibrant green. Next, I add Jimmy Dean turkey sausage crumbles (about 3 oz) to warm them and blend the flavors. In a separate pan, I scramble/cook three eggs, then I add them to the meat/veggie mixture and remove from the pan. In a skillet that at least matches the diameter of the tortilla, spray with nonstick spray (this is key to getting a "crispy" tortilla), then place a multigrain tortilla in (around 120 calorie size, you could also use a low carb tortilla but I find them to be too expensive). Top that with 1-2 oz shredded cheese (I like to use pepper jack for a little kick!), then 1/2 cup of the egg/veggie/meat mixture and fold the tortilla in half. Using one tortilla and folding it in half makes it very easy to "flip" it to its other side. I can't tell you how many I made using two tortillas in true quesadilla fashion, losing half of the filling in my attempt to flip it from one side to the other before "discovering" the fold in half concept! Much easier! Brown both sides of the tortilla, remove from pan, and enjoy!

    Here's at least one idea for breakfast!
  • Dragonwolf
    Dragonwolf Posts: 5,600 Member
    I make a breakfast quesadilla each morning that keeps me full until lunch! It is soooo good! It's best made fresh, but I make them ahead and heat them in the microwave and they are still yummy!

    First I sauté onions (1/2 cup chopped), mushrooms (3 oz. fresh) for 2 minutes or so with non-stick spray, then add spinach (3 oz fresh) and more nonstick spray and cook until the spinach is wilted but still vibrant green. Next, I add Jimmy Dean turkey sausage crumbles (about 3 oz) to warm them and blend the flavors. In a separate pan, I scramble/cook three eggs, then I add them to the meat/veggie mixture and remove from the pan. In a skillet that at least matches the diameter of the tortilla, spray with nonstick spray (this is key to getting a "crispy" tortilla), then place a multigrain tortilla in (around 120 calorie size, you could also use a low carb tortilla but I find them to be too expensive). Top that with 1-2 oz shredded cheese (I like to use pepper jack for a little kick!), then 1/2 cup of the egg/veggie/meat mixture and fold the tortilla in half. Using one tortilla and folding it in half makes it very easy to "flip" it to its other side. I can't tell you how many I made using two tortillas in true quesadilla fashion, losing half of the filling in my attempt to flip it from one side to the other before "discovering" the fold in half concept! Much easier! Brown both sides of the tortilla, remove from pan, and enjoy!

    Here's at least one idea for breakfast!

    My mom used to do this (don't know if she still does). The only big difference is in how she wraps it. She's make them into a burrito (put fillings in the middle, fold one side, then the two next to it, then the part across from the first one). Crisp up the side with all the folds and it stays together when you flip it to crisp the other side.

    Since I don't eat bread anymore, I don't do these anymore, but they were awesome. :drinker:
  • Just a question, because I too have been looking for low carb alternatives for breakfast. I have been substituting a lot of meats and cheeses into my diet to give me energy and help me not crave the carbs, but since I've heard that women with PCOS are also at a higher risk for CVD isn't it important to watch cholesterol as well?
  • Dragonwolf
    Dragonwolf Posts: 5,600 Member
    Just a question, because I too have been looking for low carb alternatives for breakfast. I have been substituting a lot of meats and cheeses into my diet to give me energy and help me not crave the carbs, but since I've heard that women with PCOS are also at a higher risk for CVD isn't it important to watch cholesterol as well?

    It kind of is, but the CVD risk actually stems from our inability to properly handle carbs, not from fat or meat intake. Contrary to popular belief, things like meats and saturated fats actually do not increase CVD risk. In fact, many of them (and a LCHF diet as a whole) improves your cholesterol levels.

    Here are a few resources that might help you out on this front:

    (Dr. Peter Attia's talk on the history of the diet-heart myth)
    http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1846638&resultClick=3 (Systematic review and meta-analysis of the studies regarding dietary effects on CVD markers; total of over 600,000 people studied, 100,000 of which in randomized, controlled studies; conclusion -- no evidence to support encouraging high consumption of polyunsaturated fats and low consumption of saturated fats)
    http://www.exrx.net/Nutrition/FatsSaturated.html#Framingham (Diet-related findings of the Framingham Heart Study, the largest and longest running observational study on CVD risk factors; conclusion -- dietary fat intake has little to no effect on CVD risk, and in fact, the people who ate the most saturated fat were also the most active and had the lowest cholesterol levels; link also includes other study conclusions)

    In other words, enjoy an omelet for breakfast, with whole eggs and ham or bacon and cheese.
  • Thanks for the reply! I did read that! But most of the articles I read were short term cross-sectional studies. Thanks for including a link for some longer term studies for me to read up on! I DEFINITELY agree that if you cut carbs then you MUST add more fats to get energy! I learned the hard way! Lol!