Has anyone given up bread pasta and potatoes?

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Replies

  • Notsowobblynow
    Notsowobblynow Posts: 28 Member
    Bump
  • RunForChai
    RunForChai Posts: 238 Member
    Ezekiel bread is amazing! Find it in the freezer section. I find it tastier than regular bread.

    I love Ezekial bread toasted with a little almond butter---it is very satisfying.
  • K_Serz
    K_Serz Posts: 1,299 Member
    I dont really like pasta and dont eat it that frequently. Bread, I like bread, and would probably eat it more, but I like REAL fresh baked bread. Too much of a pain to stop at the store every other day for it just for some good bread. Potatoes?

    I love me some GIANT Russet potatoes. Like everyone else has said on here. I dont eat 1lb of potatoes a day. Maybe a couple a week. What I HAVE stopped eating are potato chips and french fries. Which you could argue are.....or are not potatoes ;-)
  • amy1612
    amy1612 Posts: 1,356 Member
    I dont generally eat bread or pasta, or anything with gluten...but I have IBS and find that this helps me. I eat a mostly primal diet, including sweet potatoes, potatoes and rice.

    If you have no medical reason to give those foods up, then dont. Eat them if you want, as with everything, in moderation.
  • casmithis
    casmithis Posts: 216 Member
    Yes, I have but not for weight loss reasons. I have digestive issues so I'm just working with my doctor and natureopath to try to figure things out. I eat brown rice and pasta made from brown rice. I had a bun that was gluten free once for a burger but didn't like it so I'm back to bunless burgers. I feel a kagillion times better and surprisingly don't really miss it (well there was 1 time my husband made home made fries, I almost took his eyeballs out, I think it was the smell though).
  • dwalt15110
    dwalt15110 Posts: 246 Member
    The first time I lost a lot of weight (140 pounds in a little over a year) I ate no carbs. Funny thing. When you start eating them again, they create a sort of craving and you want them more and more. So I put a lot of the weight back on. Not all of it, but a lot. If pasta, potatoes and bread are things that you love, my suggestion is that you learn to fit them into your menu so that you do not feel deprived and that you will not develop those cravings.
  • kgerm317
    kgerm317 Posts: 191 Member
    I haven't given up ANYTHING that I love. Instead of white bread or pasta and regular potatoes, I tend to eat multigrain bread and pasta and sweet potatoes or red potatoes. I limit my starchy carbs and I only eat them early in the day (before 3 p.m.) So far, this has worked out great for me. I was a total carb-aholic and don't really crave them at all anymore. I actually had regular russett potatoes the other day and didn't even care for them that much and I don't care much for white bread, either.

    Good Luck to you :) You'll find something that works for you and keeps you happy and healthy!!
  • ericnealdavis
    ericnealdavis Posts: 66 Member
    I switched out whole grain bread for white (I make my own now using the "Healthy Bread in 5 minutes a Day" book), whole wheat pasta for white, and brown rice and quinoa for white rice. I still eat potatoes, but now I watch the portions carefully and I probably only eat potatoes once every two weeks or so. Although the switch is better for me nutritionally, the biggest impetuous for changing was my wife. She is very sensitive to blood sugar changes so the lower glycemic values of the whole grains helps to keep her insulin from spiking and driving her blood sugar too low.
  • mizzcasual
    mizzcasual Posts: 223 Member
    I found this online was just researching

    http://www.experienceproject.com/question-answer/My-Personal-Trainer-Has-Told-Me-Not-To-Eat-Bread-Rice-Pasta-Potato-Wtf-Am-I-To-Eat-Then/1514654
  • mizzcasual
    mizzcasual Posts: 223 Member
    I'll probably try for a few weeks maybe 3 weeks and see how I go .
  • LAW_714
    LAW_714 Posts: 258
    Yes, I've almost entirely given up pasta and bread. If you read up on the way we've genetically modified wheat in the last 50 years (the vast majority of wheat grown today was created through mutating the plant by use of a toxin so deadly that if you were to ingest that toxin directly, they would advise against anyone offering you aid because it would kill the rescuer). Add the way that big business processes these foods (improving their shelf-life by sucking virtually all of the natural nutrition out of it) and you end up discovering that they are not nutritionally dense foods. In fact, they're pretty nutritionally vacuous and what nutrition they have is largely added *back* into them from other sources (some of those sources being non-food based and kind of gross). Then add their ability to cause blood-sugar spikes and there just seem to be better food options available that give you more benefit for your calories.

    I eat carbs, I just try to choose the healthier ones.
  • LoosingMyLast15
    LoosingMyLast15 Posts: 1,457 Member


    I was speaking to my trainer and he said I should give up bread , pasta and potatoes and that I could switch to sweet potatoes.

    i'd fire the trainer. this irish girl loves her potatoes and my italian husband loves pasta. i have wheat toast with peanut butter almost everyday for breakfast. do i eat pasta every night no and the same thing for potatoes. when i do (which is at least once a week) i just watch my portion size (and i measure my pasta so i know exactly how much i'm eating - i can tell you before i started to measure i was eating TWICE as a much). i haven't given up a single thing it's all about portion control.
  • EinTX
    EinTX Posts: 104 Member
    When I was diagnosed with type 2 diabeties my dr. said potatoes only as a very special treat. I haven't had any since, along with white rice or white flour or white sugar.

    I do eat carbs but I get them from fruits and veggies. That said when I did this it was all about controlling my glucose levels. Once I did this, and I actually increase the good fats and protein in my diet to keep from getting so hungry, I learned that almost all my snacking were carb based. When I stopped eating the carbs I stopped snacking so much. If I did snack it was on nuts and I became satisfied much more quickly and for a longer period of time. My weightloss is based strickly on cutting out the white carbs, that is the only thing I have dilegently tracted.

    I rarely crave any of it and I was quite the sweet baby before my life style change. I wanted sugar after every meal. Mints were my excuse to complete a meal.

    For me it really has made a huge impact on my weight and that wasn't even the initial focus for my lifestyle change. Each of us are individuals and we need to decide what works for us. For me, I don't tolerate the refined carbs well at all and it is much easier to obstain because I can't take just one.
  • momzeeee
    momzeeee Posts: 475 Member
    I've almost totally eliminated wheat from my diet, since it causes me to have some major bloating problems. I will eat potatoes a few times a month, but I'm not a big fan of them so I can take or leave them. They don't cause bloating issues for me like wheat does though. I'm not low carb, I just get carbs from other sources :)
  • QueenofScott
    QueenofScott Posts: 305 Member
    I don't eat white potatoes (could eat sweet potatoes, but I'm not a fan, except occasional baked fries). I eat bread and pasta, but only whole grain. I also eat brown rice.
  • h9dlb
    h9dlb Posts: 243 Member
    completely given up bread pasta and potatoes and finding it easy to keep my carbs around 100g mark, and Ive not missed them to be honest
  • SusanDugas
    SusanDugas Posts: 30 Member
    Three of my four favorite food groups (add rice)!?!?! How could I possibly just give them up? That would be a far too restrictive diet for me and I am fairly certain it would not last. I have learned, however, to use portion control, scales and to seek out addition options for spending my daily calorie allotment, i.e. lots of veggies added in, checking labels for calorie counts (along with sodium content) and re-inventing my most loved recipes in a much lower calorie option. Plain potatoes are not that high in calorie content and, if eaten with skins, are a great source of potassium.
  • kusterer
    kusterer Posts: 90 Member
    i have done the "no whites" plan of eating twice, for a long time each. Food Addicts Anonymous basically advocates this. No sugar, white flour, white potatoes, or white rice. Lost 90 lbs the first time, never gained more than 40 back. Lost 70 lbs the second time, gained almost all of it back. I lost weight, was totally fixated on what not to eat, eventually fell off the wagon, and gained weight back. It works, but for me it wasn't sustainable. By the way, it wasn't "low carb," you eat whoie grains and less processed food instead of the sugar, flour and rice. Sweet potatoes instead of white.
  • TheFitnessTutor
    TheFitnessTutor Posts: 356 Member
    It is not hard to stick with once we take them out of our diet for a few days. The carb-heavy foods impact our metabolism in many ways including regulation of blood-sugar cycles, leptin resistance (which leaves us feeling hungry) and with the increase of insulin resistance that we are seeing, uptake of the unused carbs as fat as the body can't process them.
    Not taking carbs out of the diet can hinder weight loss in many ways. Give going without a try and see if it works for you!

    So if your body can't "process something" whatever "process" means, you store it as fat? How do you store it as fat if you can't process it? Again, define just in laymans terms the difference between process and digestion?

    And leptin resistance occurs mostly from over eating and under exercising, like insulin resistance. To bastardize and vilify a whole 1/3 of the caloric macro nutrient families is sophomoric at best.

    Plus carbs can be used to manipulate leptin in favorable manners when dieting to keep the metabolism from slowing down more than it already real.

    I think youve read too many internet blogs/gurus or found the guru youtube channels.

    Sure low carb approaches can be beneficial but it's about the total amounts consumed and the USUAL obesity of the person involved.
  • RitaSantoss
    RitaSantoss Posts: 986 Member
    Nope.
  • JingleMuffin
    JingleMuffin Posts: 543 Member
    no but i gotta go get me a baked potato right now
  • berriboobear
    berriboobear Posts: 524 Member
    I never ate too much bread and pasta, rice was my downfall. I've actually been really good with cutting most of it out (not completely since I still need my fix sometimes), but it hasn't been as hard as I thought. :)
  • msketo
    msketo Posts: 1
    Yes, I lose about 1 lb a week by not eating starch (keto) :D
  • pjp1125
    pjp1125 Posts: 313
    I've cut down on simple carbs significantly- especially sugar. I limit my pasta intake because it is extremely difficult for me to limit my portions (being Italian and all). Same goes for bread, but even more so- I love bread so much that I will eat an entire loaf (italian or portuguese, not sandwich). I will occasionally indulge, but my results have been far better with far less of them.
  • nomayo
    nomayo Posts: 228
    I haven't really "given up" bread, pasta and potatoes, but I try to not eat them right now because I can't stick to my portions, I can't just have one slice of bread, I have to eat and eat and eat. This is the reason why I'm not consuming those that much lately. I rather eat veggies. But if I go out with my husband, or I'm invited to a party or something, and let's say, pasta is the only thing available, I will eat it.
  • knittnponder
    knittnponder Posts: 1,953 Member
    I **CAN'T** eat any of those things because I am gluten intolerant and apparently potato intolerant. I didn't even know you could be potato intolerant but apparently I am. I have been gluten free for over a year and potato free for a few months. Let's have a moment of silence please...

    I have not magically lost any weight by going GF or potato free and actually gained at first because I was trying out a bunch of gluten free recipes. If I could still eat those foods then I would, hopefully without going overboard.

    My opinion is (because I KNOW you were waiting with baited breath for it!) if you want to see if it makes a difference then cut it out but don't expect miracles. You could possibly find you have an intolerance to it but intolerance doesn't mean it's automatically stored as fat. I have a friend who is also gluten intolerant but it manifests for her that she can't gain weight no matter what she eats. And before you wish for that let me just say she wishes to gain as fervently as we wish to lose.

    We are all so individual and some have metabolic issues that would make this a good idea but so far I'm unconvinced it holds true for everybody.
  • sarahfashion861
    sarahfashion861 Posts: 44 Member
    I have gave up pop, bread, chips, fried foods. I eat meat, veggies, fruit and small portion pasta and rice. I have lost about 30lbs in 4 and half months.
  • riboui
    riboui Posts: 8
    As a generalization, humans become attached to whatever carbohydrate source they learn to eat early in life, whether that is wheat, rice, potatoes or cassava. It's not surprising that most posters here would be attached to wheat, and be loath to voluntarily give it up.

    I personally removed grains, rice, potatoes, and legumes from my diet several years ago after logging my food intake for a few weeks and noticing how high my carbohydrate intake was. I found it very effective in reducing carb and calorie intake. Also the preponderance of fats and protein in my diet seemed to reduce my hunger considerably.

    On the flip side, I found it difficult to eat an adequate amount of carbs, and would occasionally dip into ketosis. I eventually added some oatmeal, or a small amount of rice (2 tablespoons) to my meals. I now am back to eating all grains, but in far smaller quantities that before.

    Other people I know who have gone the no starch route, have done so to kick start their weight loss. They will follow a very low carb diet for a few weeks then bump carbs back up. From what I've observed, it seems to be effective, and they are able to consistently lose weight and keep it off.

    In logging my food intake here on MFP, it seems to recommend a carb percentage of around 55%. I find that higher than what I would prefer, and conversely the protein percentage too low. I don't have any problems with the recommended calorie amount. I just find myself more satiated with a lower carb amount and higher protein amount. I don't know if it's possible to adjust those within MFP.
  • RoamingDuck
    RoamingDuck Posts: 74
    I've stopped eating refined white grains like rice, pasta, and white bread. However, I still eat them OCCASIONALLY if I am having a cheat meal or day.

    I've found that if you cut out these high calorie foods that are relatively low in nutrition, you can replace them with highly nutritious foods like fruits and veggies, or even more meat or dairy. You find that you can eat refined grains endlessly because they do not have a lot of nutrition, and therefore leaving the body craving more! However, eating lean protein and veggies that are full of nutrion will not leave you feeling like a bottomless pit. I think it's worth it. :]

    I still use wheat bread for my sammiches btw.
  • ravenbard
    ravenbard Posts: 51
    I have been told by my Endocronologist to not eat any pasta, or potatoes. I am allowed 1 piece of whole wheat toast daily but that even spikes my sugar readings. It is very hard for me to cut out breads and potatoes since I love them both and feel so hungry not being able to have them anymore. For some I would say moderation is the key but for others they have to omit them from their diet.

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