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Substitutes: yes or no?

peacetrain

peacetrain

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,405
Location
Lancashire
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
I was wondering how people are coping with new eating regimes?

Have you felt the need find alternatives to foods you can no longer eat?

For instance, some people have swapped Milk chocolate for 85%+ chocolate. I have added this chocolate to my diet but I didn't really eat a lot of chocolate before. I added it as a treat because so many other things have had to go.


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I just don't eat snack type foods any more. Have tried to substitute bread rice and pasta. I have had some success but it tends to be expensive or a lot of effort.
 
I don't snack at all but I sometimes have one piece of the chocolate at the end of a meal.
I never thought it would happen but have found it easier to cut things out altogether. I still have bread but now it's burgen and a loaf will last me a month. I still have rice but a very small amount about once a month, if I'm out.
I eat a lot more plain yoghurt.



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I am enjoying the new eating regime very much. Who knew you could do so much with cauliflower and ground almonds? :woot:
 
this is too difficult said:
All food now tastes good to me. But I would not eat tripe even if it tasted like whisky.
Click to expand...

Ah, whisky - why would you wish to substitute that ;)

But to Peacetrain, no, I have not found 'look-alike' foods for what I no longer eat, e.g. trying to 'camouflage' cauliflower etc to imitate foods I used to love. - I just changed my diet and have not found too much trouble doing so. - But mind you, I will once in a while (more and more rarely now) let my hair down and have the meal I dream about.

The trick here is, however, that when doing so to make a prior pact with yourself to quickly get back onto the horse again. We are all human, but the danger is to be unforgiving to yourself and kind of let go. - This is not a sprint but a marathon.

annelise
 
Yes I agree with Annelise. We are all human and if we do eat things that are bad for us then tomorrow is another day as they say! I am working on getting my brain to accept this is a life change and not a diet. So even when I reach my optimum weight I can't eat certain foods. I do so love bread! And rice! And pasta!!!


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Replacements yes, but I don't tend to like 'substitutes' for bread, rice etc. I'd sooner just have less of the real thing as an occasional treat. Same as when I was vegetarian for a few years, I think it's better just to embrace the new regime.
 
So far I haven't bothered with the flaxseed coconut/ almond flour substitute breads etc. I went gluten free years ago and my weight and health were at their best so I think that long term I'll just stay off the wheat and oats etc in any case. I do miss my jacket spuds but not sure anything could be a substitute for them so I'll just look forward to when I've lost the belly and derrière and can have the occasional spud based treat. I've found cauliflower a great substitute for roast spuds though, covered in creme Fraiche and cheese and baked till brown or just steamed then made into a Southern Indian hot dry curry with red chillies, garlic, mustard seeds and curry leaves. Tbh having to experiment has made me realise how boring carbs were.
 
I'm not substituting. For me, trying to pretend I'm having something just doesn't work. It's more a different way of eating. I'm not going to never have some things. In fact, I had a potato and a bit of melon yesterday evening but they showed up in a definite rise in BG earlier today.

For now, I say no to most carbs most of the time, but once I have shed loads of weight (and boy do I have shed loads to shift!) I can see that I will have more carbs, but I will always need to keep control of them rather than let them control me.
 
I have replaced my previous breakfast of cereal with milk for yogurt and berries. I have swapped over to granary bread and reduced the amount to one slice max per meal, plus I still eat spuds every day but vastly lower amounts. I ditched low fat stuff for the real thing (butter, mayo and yogurt) Basically I eat the same meals I always did but with tiny portions of spuds and bread and increased amounts of mushrooms, tomatoes, cauliflower.

I have never eaten ready meals, never had a sweet tooth, rarely eat puddings, only binged on chocolate at Christmas, I don't like savoury rice or pasta so no problem there. (except homemade rice puddings, which I miss) I've never been big on veg except the ones we should avoid plus cauliflower, so again I still have peas and carrots but much smaller portions.

I have tried to make my diet fit round me and my 66 years of eating traditional food without changing too much rather than inventing a completely new diet.. This way I know I can sustain it with portion control, eat the same as my hubby and family, and not feel deprived. It is working. I have lost 17% of my body weight so far and my BS levels are coming down nicely without medication.
 
During the early days, I briefly toyed with making a marvellous banana bread/cake using almond flour and it was delicious - too delicious in fact. If I'd kept on making it, I could easily have started regaining weight , so it was easier just to stop making it. That was my one and only attempt at "substitutes", so all in all I just find it easier to stick with the foods I know won't spike me and that I really enjoy but that don't trigger any desire to overeat. I was never madly overweight, but I definitely have some trigger foods that I'm much better off staying away from. But I don't feel deprived - I really see most packaged food as toxic these days, so have no problem avoiding it. I can't imagine managing this lifestyle if I was craving that sort of food all the time, luckily I think LCHF is the best way of eating to kill carbohydrate cravings.
 
I use almond flour when making flour less pancakes. I add milled linseed too. The pancakes are quite small and look like blinis. Delicious.

I haven't had porridge for about 3 months but when I did I added ground almonds. This made the porridge, made with water, much creamier. I only had between 10 and 15 grams of oats to keep my bg lower.


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