Giving up bread, potatoes etc.

leahyl

Was just reading another thread there and it made me wonder. I want to lose some weight around my tummy area - now i'm not huge or anything but i do have a little bulge in the lower abdomen if you get me - a bit like a bloated tummy i suppose. I always hear people saying that one should cut down or even eliminate the above from their diet - now i LOVE my bread and potatoes so was wondering what i would subsitute them with if i were to go cold turkey and give them up altogether?

What would i bring to work for lunch for instance - oh the dilemma! And for my meals in the evening - i have potatoes nearly every day!

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks:)

EileenG

Okay, if you normally have a sandwich for lunch, keep the same filling, but instead of bread, eat it with a huge green salad. You can buy bags of washed, ready-to-eat salad in all supermarkets and most small stores now.

At dinner, eat the same meat or fish or chicken or whatever, and fill up your plate with huge piles of green veg. You'll save about 500 calories a day, doing only that, and you'll improve the nutrition of your meals a lot.

Something like mashed cauliflower is a good substitute for rice or mashed potatoes. Celeriac is a low cal, low carb alternative to potatoes too.

Nocturne

Try this as a substiute
1/2 a small butternut squash
1/2 a sweet red pepper (the long ones not the bell peppers)
1/2 a leek
Boil it all up until soft season with cracked black pepper .. yummy and real sweet.

Transform

works well with sweet potato also but its does not mean you should have mounds of it!

Iristxo

Starchy foods and carbs from wholemeal grains aren't that bad if eaten in moderation. Just try to eat everything wholemeal.

I meant to add, if you eat a reasonably healthy diet with fruit, veg and some nuts and seeds as the bulk of you diet you can't go off carbs althogether. You just can't deprive yourself of everything and it is very difficult to stay full on fruit and veg.

Iristxo

Nocturne wrote: »

Try this as a substiute
1/2 a small butternut squash
1/2 a sweet red pepper (the long ones not the bell peppers)
1/2 a leek
Boil it all up until soft season with cracked black pepper .. yummy and real sweet.

That meal is gorgeous. However most people will find themselves craving "something else" at most an hour after. Add a couple of slices of wholemeal bread with natural no-sugar-added peanut butter (the type that they sell in health shops) and you will stay fuller for much longer.

positivenote

hi guys, just wondering as im in a similiar position trying to lose about a stone in 6 weeks or so by cutting out bread and potatoes, which has the less carb content wholegrain or wholemeal bread or are they both full of carbs also? kinda stuck for lunches ?
thanks

El_Dangeroso

Iristxo wrote: »

That meal is gorgeous. However most people will find themselves craving "something else" at most an hour after. Add a couple of slices of wholemeal bread with natural no-sugar-added peanut butter (the type that they sell in health shops) and you will stay fuller for much longer.

Despite having a lower gi, wholemeal bread actually triggers the release of more insulin than vegetables that have a higher gi. So I doubt if bread is more filling calorie for calorie than vegetables.

It certainly isn't in my experience.

Nocturne

Iristxo wrote: »

That meal is gorgeous. However most people will find themselves craving "something else" at most an hour after. Add a couple of slices of wholemeal bread with natural no-sugar-added peanut butter (the type that they sell in health shops) and you will stay fuller for much longer.

It is yummy..have you tried it. I thought it would be something that would be easy to make and reheat for lunch, maybe with some sliced turkey or ham or something like that.

Iristxo

Temple_Grandin wrote: »

Despite having a lower gi, wholemeal bread actually triggers the release of more insulin than vegetables that have a higher gi. So I doubt if bread is more filling calorie for calorie than vegetables.

It certainly isn't in my experience.

Is that your experience? Interesting. Whenever I have an all-veg of fruit meal I always find I end up looking for something else about an hour later at most. I know bread is not that good really but I do not know what else to have, meat not being an option for us cos we're more or less vegan (safe for a couple of portions of fish a week). The kids too, if they only have the soup, they're looking for more soon afterwards...

Iristxo

Nocturne wrote: »

It is yummy..have you tried it. I thought it would be something that would be easy to make and reheat for lunch, maybe with some sliced turkey or ham or something like that.

Hi Nocturne, I haven't tried that particular combination but we cook with butternut squash a lot, the kids love it. Plus as you say, it's very easy to reheat. I have a slightly more elaborate recipe that I can post as well if you're interested, only it contains honey and veg stock. I just don't put in the veg stock or make my own, organic with my own herbs and olive oil, and reduce the amount of honey in the recipe so that it does not trigger a big insulin reaction. Admittedly my recipe is more elaborate than yours certainly yours is easy to make and really yummy as you say

El_Dangeroso

Iristxo wrote: »

Is that your experience? Interesting. Whenever I have an all-veg of fruit meal I always find I end up looking for something else about an hour later at most. I know bread is not that good really but I do not know what else to have, meat not being an option for us cos we're more or less vegan (safe for a couple of portions of fish a week). The kids too, if they only have the soup, they're looking for more soon afterwards...

I'd definitely add some butter or olive oil to mashed veggies, and I'd always try to eat it with a protein source if I could.

Soup is just low in calories, so you can't really compare it in filling terms to bread and peanut butter, which would have around 3 times the cals at least.

Iristxo

Temple_Grandin wrote: »

I'd definitely add some butter or olive oil to mashed veggies, and I'd always try to eat it with a protein source if I could.

Soup is just low in calories, so you can't really compare it in filling terms to bread and peanut butter, which would have around 3 times the cals at least.

What source of protein would be good other than eggs and meat/fish? Our intake of fish is limited, we don't eat meat and although we do eat eggs we only eat so many of them. Any other options came to mind? In any case I do not think it is very healthy to ingest a large portion of your calories out of protein?

El_Dangeroso

You're correct, it's not healthy to overdo the protein. But it's largely self limiting as it releases hormones that suppress hunger, it's very rare to find a person that eats more than 20% of calories as protein for an extended time, even in trials on high protein diets people start at 30% and always drop back to about 15-20%.

Good source of vegan protein is a tough one. Are you dead set against eggs yeah? You can get free range ones from the market that come from very happy hens, but if that's a no go, then I think fermented tofu is probably the next best option. Not great but better than Seitan or TVP.

Oops, edited to add, just saw you do eat eggs. In that case eggs and fermented tofu would be good options.

I've also read that pea-protein isolate powder can be good too.

rubadub

I use iceberg lettuce leaves like wraps. Or instead of a burger I would cook lean mince up and sprinkle it over shredded lettuce & onions with frenchs mustard. I bulk curry spag bol etc out with red kidney beans instead of rice/pasta/potatoes

Temple_Grandin wrote: »

Despite having a lower gi, wholemeal bread actually triggers the release of more insulin than vegetables that have a higher gi.

I will have to put some quotes of studies in the off topic thread, they were about low/high GI in foods, inferring low GI aided weight loss, read about them on that shangri-la diet site.