This is 3 weeks into my diet change, I am still going strong and will post more pictures as I progress!
My problem might be different than yours but I am now a reformed carb-a-holic. I eat somewhere around 30 grams of carbohydrates per day when ALL I was eating before was carbs. For most people, carbs are what causes your jeans to start cutting off the circulation on your waistline, metaphorically speaking, but cutting them all out is not the solution. Look up information on the Atkin's diet and you will see that doing this is actually dangerous, so please do not cut them all out! You do need carbs to function. You want to lower your carbs without adding fat to your diet, this can be tricky. You also want to get your carbs from good sources like fruits, as long as you are eating the "good carbs" you are a lot better off! Keep in mind when reading labels you want to always check if a food contains dietary fiber and if it is over 5gs you can subtract the fiber grams from the carb grams. To give you an idea of what my daily diet consists of, here are some general snacks/meals I eat on a daily basis.
1 cup of coffee. I do not add sugar, sugar substitutes kind of make me gag so I buy creamer that is already sweetened. I use the Coffee Mate Natural Bliss in Sweet Cream or Chocolate.
1/4 cup flavored almonds, Blue Diamond Dark Chocolate flavor is amaaazing! You can get them in tons of different yummy flavors
1-2 string cheese, the Kraft Tomato Basil kind are so good!
1 Low-Carb La Banderito Soft Tortilla, 2 eggs scrambled with red pepper seasoning, cilantro, lime juice, mozzarella cheese, crumbled turkey bacon, Cholula hot sauce, avocado
1 Protein Shake: 3 tbsps Peanut Butter, 1 Cup Silk Original Flavor Almond Milk, 1/2 banana, 1 cup Performance Whey 100% Isolate Vanilla protein powder (I bought this at Costco), 2 cups of ice and blend. SOOO good and keeps you full all day! I usually have this later in the day like 5 P.M. so that I do the majority of my snacking during the daytime rather than at night.
1 cup of fruit, I try to steer clear of super sugary high-carb fruits. Berries are lower in carbs and I love them anyways so I eat lots of strawberries! Fresh fruit can be expensive, an alternative is buying some no sugar added frozen fruit to snack on. Click here to see which fruits contain the most carbs/sugar.
1-2 slices Paleo Bread..If you've had this before it does have a very dry, spongy texture but it is the closest thing I have to bread so I will chomp it down without complaint! I might make a PB&J sand which using Trader Joe's Superfruit Organic jam and Jiffy PB Butter ( I'm a PB junkie so I love me some Jiffy but you can cut down on the fat by finding an organic kind at Whole Foods or a health food store.) It's also yummy to put on sliced bananas strawberries with PB.
1 serving Turkey Pepperoni or jerky..I love snacking on this but watch out for jerky labels they can sneak a lot of carbs into the flavoring!
For your cheat: If you have a major sweet tooth you might have to wean yourself off the sugar but I promise a week into this diet you will barely crave it..sugar is highly addictive (as if you didn't know) so like anything else the first few days will be the hardest. I snack on Lindor Extra Dark Chocolate..it's something like 7g of carbs for like 7 squares and they taste like heaven! This well help squash that urge to gorge on sweets and give you a little bit of solace. I honestly don't eat chocolate that much anymore but it helped fulfill my sugar craving in the beginning.
**I also flavor a lot of my food with hot peppers and homemade salsa! I'm a spicy freak and this really helps me feel like I still get to enjoy my favorite foods!
My recipe for salsa: This makes enough for one person to last a few days. (Keep in mind I usually eyeball the ingredients but these are the estimates I use)
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cloves minced garlic
1 cup fresh cilantro
1/4 cup diced onion
salt and pepper to taste
lime juice
garlic salt to taste
Put in a blender and enjoy fresh salsa that tastes like its always in season!
