Asymmetrical Information

do you use a sugar substitute or do you also cut out diet sodas, etc?

Ideally, I would cut out all soda. Realistically, I allow myself diet ginger ale, since it's the only vice I have left. But I draw the line there; I don't eat light yogurt or splenda'd cakes or tea or anything. The point for me is not to go on an exotic diet; it's to give up things that taste sweet.

I'm so confused. If apples are ok, it must be sucrose that's the problem. But why are smoothies bad, if all the sugar comes from fruit? I prefer the "avoid crap" diet technique, but I suspect this amounts to more or less the same thing.

Most smoothies that you buy are not just blended fruit and ice. There's either sugar or honey added directly, or theey have sweetened yogurt.

Or, like a lot of 100% fruit juices, they contain a lot of apple juice or white grape juice, which is higher in sugar content than other forms of fruit/juice.

The smoothie store doesn't really advertise too loudly what the contents are. They make it so it tastes good (sugary) and they know we think "fruit = healthy = no guilt = buy more."

I often make my own smoothies out of fresh fruit, unsweetened yogurt, ice, and milk. It's the sugar that most smoothie places use I object to -- either sugary powders, frozen yogurt, or sweetened yogurt.

I'm not trying to avoid all sugar; just processed sugar in large amounts (I don't care about the sugar in ketchup or fresh-baked bread). It's somewhat idiosyncratic, of course, but the general rule is, "if it tastes like some kind of dessert, that's what it is, no matter what you call it".

you lost me at giving up coffee. How did you survive this diet?

Is it OK to take your coffee black? I grind my own beans, so even black I get what I most appreciate in a good cup of coffee, namely that it's fresh. I think oftentimes the sugar/half-and-half trip is just there to cover up a cup of coffee that's scorched from being on the hot plate too long.

Of course it's okay to take your coffee black: do it one better and don't grind the beans (gotta get your fibre somewhere. . .)

I think that giving up coffee is a useful exercise if you like yours in a "snow white and the seven lumps" format!

The smoothie recipe I use: a banana, some frozen fruit, some yogurt, and some orange juice. Protein powder if you want it. (The OJ sounds counterintuitive, but the whole thing works well.)

Its hard to be fabulous when your fat. I likes to eat, but when the scale starts creeping up to much I quit eating any food and live on Jackquins Vodka and methamphetimine. It's the ghetto fabulous version of the upper crusty Stoli and blow diet.

Yogurt-based anything can be a huge sugar trap if you don't pay attention to the labels. Plain, unsweetened yogurt (which admittedly tastes a tad sour, by itself) has something like 25g of naturally-occurring sugars in an 8oz serving. Almost any other cartoned yogurt or "yogurt shake" on the shelf, however, will have as much as 35-40g in a 6 or 8oz serving, or in other words, as much sugar as is found in a typical 12oz can of soda pop.

Kroger's Lite (226g total) has 100 cals, no fat, 11% potassium, 9g protein, and 13g sugars. However, it also has aspartame, which might not be a good thing.

Sounds like you discovered the Atkins Diet without buying all the Atkins crap.

I had the exact same experience when I dropped sugar for a few weeks.

Next cut out meat/dairy, and watch a few more pounds go away.

My theory of the American diet and American obesity that it is a function of agricultural subsidies -- it's the government's fault. I don't have any data, but I have a sneaking suspicion that sugar/meat/dairy gets a lot of subsidies (relative to, say, veggies), which leads to lower prices on the store shelves, which leads to ... all together now ... higher consumption.

Is there any chance you'll be posting some tasteful pictures? You have ever right to be proud. Enjoy the aplause.

Goodness, you don't have to give up coffee, and if you can't drink it without equal, go ahead and sprinkle some in. I gave up coffee and alcohol because I have acid reflux, not because of some dieting thing. Caffeine was, like, my favourite thing in the entire world, and if I could, I'd still be hoovering down vats a day.

A steady diet of cheap whiskey and hand rolled cigarettes have kept my 5'10" frame at 155lbs.

Seriously, I've pretty much followed Jane's guidelines and have maintained those dimensions for a long time. It helps that I enjoy what I eat - which is carb light, absent sweets, and heavy on lean meats, fish, and vegetables. I tend to skip the fruit but only because I don't really enjoy it all that much. Likewise milk and cream (but I love good cheeses - aged gouda for example).

The funny thing is I don't know how much of this is diet or some combination of diet and metabolism. I mean, in my immediate family I am the short, heavy one among the males. But we do all tend to eat the same stuff - nature? nurture? Beats me.

Jane, I don't know if cholesterol was also a problem for you, but the extra benefit for me (extra besides having lost 55 pounds - I started last summer) was that my cholesterol came down 45 points when I cut out sugars and most of the carbs.

And that while still eating meat and dairy. Go figure.

Hey Jane, great job. I lost 92 pounds three years ago and didn't allow a crystal of sugar past my lips for an entire year. Not in conventional sugary foods or as an added ingredient. I agree with you -- the desire for it goes away after a while although it took me a lot longer than you for that to happen. About 3 to 6 months.

Now for the bad news -- white flour=sugar. They are nutritionally identical -- pure carbohydrate with no other nutrients. To make matters worse what little fat they have left in them is almost always rancid by the time it gets into your kitchen. Might want to add that in next Lent.

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