The Slimming Pool Weight Loss Blog: Hey, I was Eating That!
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Net Carbs - Slowly Driving me Insane
If I hear one more person say, "I need to give up carbs," I think I'll scream.
Please, people, hear me now: Give up junk! Not carbs. Whole food carbs are good food, necessary food. Carbohydrate is your body's primary fuel source. You don't give up carbs - you choose better carbs.
The Atkins grocery is also a pet peeve. How is it helpful to provide tons of "low carb" cookies, cakes, pies, breads, cereals? It's helpful to the Atkins Corporation's bottom line but not your bottom. Those products are not a whole lot different than the real thing except they're expensive.
Choose good carbs - whole fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads (100% whole grain, not just labeled whole grain), beans, brown rice (yes, rice), potatoes (?). Food that grows in the ground and on the trees - not grains that have been pulverized to a fine powder with all the bran removed (white flour), with a few vitamins added back for good measure then passed off as food.
If you are convinced you need more protein and less carbs, that is fine, but choose good carbs and avoid the heavily processed foods and you'll be ahead of the game. Go through your cupboards today and see how many boxes you have of foods that started out wholesome but are now ... dead. Check your grocery receipts next time you shop and see how many whole foods you buy compared to how many processed? Your grocery costs will drop substantially when you buy more produce, less boxed, pre-made foods.
How to Calculate Net Carbs - This question is asked because people want to be able to eat bread again, so they see a label that says "2 Net Carbs!" and they notice it is bread, but they think, "Hah, the label says it's only 2 Net Carbs, so that must mean it's okay," and they go ahead and eat twice as many slices, because, it's not very many carbs, after all. Guess what? They could do the same calculation on the regular bread and come up with the same result! You don't need the special "low carb" version, they are just labeled that way. It's junk science - a new name for a bogus way of counting your nutrients. Stop driving yourself crazy with counting every little nutrient - just make better choices.
Today's Advice: Eat Citrus
Choose fresh fruit over juice, and real juice over soda pop. Avoid artificial sweeteners - eat a piece of fruit if you want a sweet. Drink more water. Wean yourself off sugary drinks. Even artificially sweetened drinks still cause you to crave sweets - get off them. If you drink four diet drinks a day, switch to three and one tall glass of water. Add a squeeze of lime if you absolutely must have flavor, but remember, if you lived in the forest, with no stores nearby, and you had a fresh stream of clear running water, it would be enormously pleasurable to take a nice, cold drink from that stream. We are meant to have pure water, and fresh food - let's get back to basics.
Use EFT to get past the sticking points, especially if you have trouble with the idea of eating more fresh foods and less processed.
"Even though I hate drinking water, I deeply and completely accept myself."
"Even though I can't stand drinks that aren't sweet, I deeply and completely accept myself."
Think about what you eat that is artificial and what you eat that is real.
