Day 2...

claymic said:

its the evenings that are worse. Today I have had my dinner and up till then I was within my 100g carb limit (to start with). But I was then watching telly and within an hour I had 4 slices of bread.

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Do you like salted peanuts? - for me a small bowl of salted peanuts or dry roasted works well as a snack for watching the TV and they do nothing at all to my blood sugars.

claymic

When I started out I did the same kind of thing you're doing so I made a target number of carbs / day and tried my best to stick to it. That's fine but recognise it isn't a diet you're doing its a means of controlling your blood sugars. These are two completely different things. So if you get hungry after your main meal then do one of two things, either eat more meat and veg in your main meal to fill you up or munch on something like cheese and celery later on.

At the stage you are at I didn't give one jot what or how much I ate so long as it didn't take me above my daily target. If you're hungry last thing go cook an omlette or have a good fry up of bacon and eggs but don't eat four slices of bread as that's self defeating!

You can get the fat, protein, carb balance sorted out once your BG's are under control.

All the best

Not sure about amounts of protien but I'm sure someone will tell us both To be honest for the first 3 or 4 weeks I just focussed on blood sugar levels and didn't worry about fat or protein at all.

I gave up smoking too, just over a year ago now. With smoking the craving for a ciggie is a kind of "in your face", "must have one NOW" feeling. I found carb craving a lot more devious (as you found out tonight!). I always have a stock of celery, ham and cheese in the fridge. If you really, really, really need some carbs and know you're gonna break then do Ritz crackers and cheese and celery. Ordinary Ritz are 14.5g for 8 crackers so still a considerable chunk of a 75 to 100g / day target but are far less than 4 slices of bread. If you take a lump of cheese and cut slices to put on the Ritz as you're sitting eating I found you got asimilar kind of effect to the ritualistic thing of holding a ciggie.

DO NOT BRING THE RITZ CRACKER BOX INTO THE ROOM WITH YOU

claymic always make sure you are well stocked up with low carb food/meals .
For bread cravings try out the 3 minute microwave bread its filling and surprisingly very nice with butter and whatever else you want to top or fill it with. The recipe and video clip is in the low carb recipe section of this forum.
All the best to you