Newbie needing some input!

[mommy*to*3]

Hello! My name is Kelly and I'm 29 years old. I've been married for over 9 years and have three kids. Brylee is 8, Chase is 7, then there is Spencer who is 17 months! I've been doing LC on and off for the past probably 10 years but never really stuck to it for a significant amount of time. Recently I've been debating over getting Lap Band but really want to give this a good try. I'm the Maid of Honor in my sister's wedding in Oct. which I'm dreading!lol...

I'm not on a certain plan per say just basically watching my carb intake. Not really writing anything down, etc. I've been doing this for 10 days today and weighed myself on the 7th day and lost 8 pounds. I do realize some of this is water weight. I then weighed myself today and was up one pound! I'm trying very hard to not let this discourage me but in the past if I don't see what I want to on the scale I quit. I'm trying to not let this be the case this time! Just a few basic questions as a newbie to this website!

1. Has anyone out there just watched their carb intake or do you follow a certain plan?

2. I'm having a hard time thinking of things to eat....basically feel like I'm eating the same thing! Anyone out there care to share some of your daily meal plans?? What kinds of things do/can you eat and are still losing weight?

3. Going to the grocery store tomorrow.....any suggestions on some "staples" I should keep at home?

Thanks in advance!

Kelly

[kaarren]

Hi Kelly,
Good luck with your plans. Just remember that you are eating this way for life, not just for a wedding in October. Try to get the mindset that there are some things you cannot have right now.
I also did not weigh myself for several months when I first started. It was just too much for me - letting the scale dictate my mood! I actually had to buy a new scale because I just did not want it in the house for a long time. Now I need it because I am adding carbs back and don't want to gain.

Keep cheese in the house, all kinds. Lunchmeat can be quickly grabbed and rolled up for a snack. The old celery standby is good for roughage. Meat - Its whats for dinner!

Karen

[tiredangel]

Are you eating dairy? If you are, cream cheese is a wonderful binder for stuffing peppers and mushrooms. For instance, last night I made poblano peppers stuffed with chorizo and cream cheese topped with cheddar. There are endless variants of those type things (cream cheese/bacon, ricotta/low carb spaghetti sauce, hamburger/salsa/cheddar stuffed in whatever pepper or mushroom and topped with cheddar, mexican mix, sour cream, though don't bake the sour cream).

Dairy free suggestions are lots of eggs, keep a cooked hunk of meat in the fridge (I like rare sirloin and pork loin). If you can handle nuts, celery with peanut butter (watch the portions, though, and make sure that the only ingredient is peanuts in the peanut butter). Salads topped with tuna or chicken breasts and homemade salad dressings (I generally do oil and vinegar with just a bit of mustard and salt). Try various marinades for meat. I make a bulgogi and a stir fry sauce using liquid sucralose, both of which make me not miss korean/chinese food as much (and my kids like them). Today I'm going to marinade a couple of chickens in lime juice/coconut oil/cumin/salt and grill them and serve with guacamole. There are all sorts of recipes here as well. Low carb really can be very decadent. The biggest problem *I* have with it is I can't eat as much as I'd like to because it's all SOOO rich.

I don't follow a plan at this point. I am low carbohydrate (below 25 grams a day, though I don't count too strictly). I don't eat low carb junk food, I try to stick with minimally processed food, though I'm not ambitious enough to make my own sausage.

Good luck and welcome to the boards :)

[DaddioM]

Hi Kelly :wave:

Here is a thread I started a while back for beginners.. it started with my own thoughts.. but others have added some good thoughts as well.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=175492

I did not "count" carbs, but I really studied the produce charts on carb counts, and read labels, so without counting, I KNEW I was very LC.

Meal plans.. gosh.. the people here have a gazillion recipes!! Here is one of my favorites, a pizza quiche, and the same quiche recipe can be modified just slightly to get a chicken enchilada bake. Both freeze well for later dinners or to bring for lunch.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=44087

Staples.. for me (other staples may vary)

LC tortilla's because I use them for sandwiches and pizza crusts and quesidilla's.
Pork Rinds.. because they are a ZERO carb snack
Peanut Butter
Diet Soda (althought quite honestly, if you can drink water instead, you are sooooooo much better off)
Sunflower seeds (in the shell) because gosh.. if I have to pull each one apart.. the work to get them apart is probably about equal to hte carbs I'm taking in!!

Good questions!
Good luck!

Mike

[dblewis196]

Welcome to the forum!

[JAnn]

Many people start with a specific program to help train themselves in the LC way then modify it to meet their needs. Be careful of the cheese and luncheon meats, they are high in salt and the meats have other things that may not be so good.

I keep it simple. Breakfast is usually eggs with bacon or a small pork chop. When I get tired of eggs I go for a protein drink with a flax meal muffin.

Lunch can be as simple as a can of tuna with mayo, maybe some SF pickles or relish (Mt. Olive), deviled eggs or left over dinner, if there is any. Sometimes I will heat up chicken broth and add cream to it for a soup. I am still looking for other easy lunches.

Dinner in the hot weather is usually grilled chicken or burgers with a fauxtato salad or mashed fauxtatoes with another veggie on the side. Simple.

Snacks can be deviled eggs, sf jello, raw veggies if you have the carbs. I like jicama with lime juice, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli.

For a treat I will occasionally add cream to a sf soda. Kind of like having a root beer float or a creamsicle!

Once you get into a routine then you can start varying it but trying to come up with completely new meals each day is too overwhelming for me.

I like to cook up a large cauliflower and make enough salad for several days. Same with the mashed fauxtatoes. Anything you make that can be doubled up and frozen or refrigerated for another meal really helps.

Hope this helps.

[DTris]

pepperoni is a staple for me. I eat it for breakfast, as a snack, on everything. Bacon as well.

[mommy*to*3]

I'm not even sure if I'm doing this right but thanks everyone for responding to my post! I just love hearing different ideas! ....Thanks!

[blip1995]

3 things I can't live without:
Mushrooms
Fresh garlic
Cream

I love to saute mushrooms with garlic until almost done then I add some cream and reduce it down. YUM!!

[dblewis196]

3 things I can't live without:
Mushrooms
Fresh garlic
Cream

I love to saute mushrooms with garlic until almost done then I add some cream and reduce it down. YUM!!


I do this too and put ground round patties in it and serve it over fauxtatoes.
Really yummy!

[kathleen24]

Hi Kelly,

It can be challenging changing the way that you eat, especially for those of us who get up into the triple-digits-to-lose range, because it can feel at the beginning as if it's all about what you're giving up--the payback feels like it's down the road somewhere, maybe, whereas we KNOW that food can supply instant-I-want-it-NOW-gratification . . .

I may be mis-reading what you posted, so forgive me if I'm wrong or overstepping, but I sense a bit of ambivalence in your post--lap band is a maybe, wedding dreadfuls hanging over your head--scary feeling to face trying again, and maybe failing again. It's hard. We know. I'd like to offer you encouragement and assurance that if your body responds that dramatically to watching your carb intake, you will probably find the success you're hoping for if you stick with it. This forum can be a great place to get information, and also the support to put that information into practice. I'd like to suggest that you consider starting a journal so that you can start connecting w/people, work through some of the day-to-day things that can derail us if we're not watchful.

To answer your question regarding food: I tend to get almost all of my carbs through vegetables, berries, and raw nuts (walnuts and almonds). I eat some dairy (yogurt and cottage cheese, a little bit of cheddar on my salad). Those dairy choices are not induction friendly, but have allowed me to be content w/my food choices--a critical component of long-term success. It also keeps my digestive system happy; I'm not one who can handle a lot of cheese/cream/etc. I feel so healthy and so good.

As someone posted above (great posts, btw!), thinking of this as a long-term `this is just the way I eat' thing seems to be one of the factors that spell the difference between success and failure for most.

Many of us here were at the point of considering surgery, and the idea gave us impetus to give this another shot. Remember, even if you have lap-band surgery, you'll still need to watch what you eat for the rest of the time that you want to keep your weight down.

It feels wonderful to drop weight--hang in there and it will be sooo worth it. We're here for you if you need us!

[kaznik88]

Wow - this site is very inspirational and I hope to inspire someone one day too :)

[Kirsteen]

I look for ideas in the back of my Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution book. The ones written by Mrs. Atkins are quick and easy. Now and then, I also dip into Karen Barnaby's cookery section or the recipe sections on this forum. I also get ideas from people on this site, but I avoid sweet recipes like the plague.

FISH

I now eat far more fish than before. Little oily fish like filleted herring can be quickly fried with some herbs and sliced tomatoes for a good lunch. A quick meal can be made by poaching white fish (or salmon etc.) in a little balsamic vinegar and water. We love this salmon recipe:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost.php?p=7831379&postcount=1

We make a great fish pie mixing boiled egg and poached smoked haddock, then topping it with boiled cauliflower, then a sauce made from the water/milk used for cooking the haddock/cauliflower, plus cheese and a little garlic. It's really delish.

We mix smoked mackerel with cottage cheese to make a topping for slices of raw tomatoes.

A tin of tuna can be mixed with 1/2 an avocado (cubed) and drizzled with sesame oil for a nice salad.

SOUP

Apart from the fish thing, we make soups - I have a celery and stilton one I like, plus here's a link to a wonderful Italian meatball soup which is marvelous and feeds us for days:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost.php?p=6676880&postcount=310

The celery one is in my section of MY PLAN, but if you can't access that, we adapted it from this one - using less water and larger quantities of cheese and celery:

http://www.dlife.com/diabetes/diabetic-recipes/Celery-and-Stilton-Soup/r6820.html

QUICKIES

Prawn cocktail served over lettuce or inside an avocado. Greek salad - cubes of feta cheese served over lettuce and dressed with good quality olive oil (cucumber, olives or tomatoes can be added if desired). Tuna dip with tuna, mayo, lemon juice, etc.. and serve it with crudites like cauliflower. Salad of chopped boiled eggs and bacon with lettuce dressed with mayo flavoured with a little mustard (recipe adapted from the Atkins book.

MEAT/POULTRY

We roast whole organic chickens - I tend to add veggies, herbs, etc. when I cook it to add to the flavour. Apart from eating it plain, there are all kinds of ways to use cooked chicken. Caesar salad, curry, etc..

There's a basic curry recipe at the back of the Atkins book, or it's easy to make a curry from a few basic spices, such as chili, ginger, cumin and coriander - fresh chili, ginger and coriander leaves are lovely, if you have them. We got some lamb recently, and made a lovely curry by frying onions, adding the lamb, water, fresh chili and fresh ginger (dried would be fine too), plus powdered cumin and coriander. I finished it with some fresh coriander and cream at the end, but that's optional. We sometimes curry white fish to make it more interesting.

We occasionally buy minced beef for various things, burgers, chili, bolognese, stew. I mean to start making moussaka / lasagne recipes using aubergine soon.

PIZZA

We also buy carry-out pizza. We can buy something called a meat feast pizza, which is kebab meat, chicken, bolognese sauce, ham and pepperoni, plus the usual cheese and tomato base. I only eat the toppings, and it tastes great. There are recipes on this site for things like cauliflower pizza base, but I don't feel the need for that.

There are loads of other stuff I eat - home-made pates, dips, meat, soya stuff, and all sorts... It just takes time to try out things and decide what suits your tastes and tummy best.

Good luck