Why Diets Fail (Because You're Addicted to Sugar) (22 page)

We thought it might be helpful to see examples of the kinds of foods you can eat broken down by meal (see the box on
this page
). Given the variety of foods that you can eat on this diet and how creative you can be in experimenting with your own preferences, the numbers of meals you can create on your own are really limitless. Once you get started and begin to identify foods that are sensible alternatives to the sugar-rich foods you used to eat, you’ll be well on your way to making appropriate and delicious food choices without much effort at all.

NEVER SKIP BREAKFAST

Your mother probably told you time and time again that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, but like most things other people tell us to do, if we don’t understand why, we are less likely to do it. You may be used to a hectic morning routine that leaves little time for breakfast, or you may be used to exchanging a healthy breakfast for a few more minutes of sleep. Why make a change now? Why is breakfast the most important meal of the day? Well, for one, forgoing breakfast also means forgoing all of the nutrients that breakfast can provide. It’s been shown, for example, that individuals who eat breakfast consume significantly more nutrients per day than those who skip it.
⁹
Eating breakfast has also been shown to enhance cognitive performance in adolescents, indicating how valuable it can be for mental functioning.
¹⁰
Some studies have also shown an association between not eating breakfast and a higher BMI
^11
,
12
as well as weight regain after dieting.
¹³

SAMPLE MEALS ON THE SUGAR FREEDOM PLAN

BREAKFAST

• Eggs

• Bacon

• Ham

• Sausage

• Omelets (add in ham, cheese, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, avocado, salsa, sausage, black olives, bacon, salt, and pepper)

• Sugar-free yogurt

• Fruit in milk

• Cheese, sausage, ham roll-up

LUNCH

• Green salad (easy on the croutons), low-carbohydrate dressing, or oil and vinegar

• Meat and cheese salad—sausage, ham, mozzarella or Monterey Jack cheese, avocado, tomato, olive oil

• Crab salad (imitation crab for the cost conscious)—crab, celery and pepper wrapped in lettuce

• Egg salad (watch the mayo; it can have added sugar)

• Tuna salad

• Chicken salad

• Hamburgers (add in cheese, bacon, tomato, onions, lettuce, but no bun)

• Chicken lettuce wrap (use large leaves of iceberg lettuce as the wrap)

• Turkey lettuce wrap

• Peanut butter sandwich (using low-carb bread and peanut butter with no sugar added)

• Soups

• Chili

SNACKS

• Nuts

• Cheese and ham and sausage with mustard

• Peanut butter with celery

• Avocado

• One piece of fruit

DINNER

• Chicken

• Turkey

• Hamburgers (no bun)

• Meatloaf (without the breading)

• Ribs (with sugar-free barbecue sauce and sugar-free ketchup)

• Steaks

• All meats

• All game

• Broccoli

• Cauliflower

• Zucchini (with sprinkled Parmesan and butter)

• All fish

• Shellfish

• Shrimp

• Lobster with butter

DRINKS

• Water

• Sugar-free drink mix

• Sugar-free sodas

• Tea

• Coffee

When Americans tour Europe, they are typically surprised to see a breakfast buffet of cheese, sausage, and ham laid out with a few crackers. But these are good breakfast choices, with few or no carbohydrates (sans the crackers). Foods like pancakes, French toast, or waffles with lots of syrup on them are not good options. They are loaded with sugar and carbohydrates that will leave you wanting to eat more and more.

Before this diet, your breakfast may have looked like the unhealthy breakfast of many Americans: chocolate doughnuts, sugary cereal with milk, and or a bagel with cream cheese, and, of course, coffee (light, with lots of cream and sugar), maybe washed down with a big glass of orange or apple juice. Now, after reading about and understanding how much sugar these foods contain, you probably see why this was not a good way to start off your day. But after recalling the earlier discussion of addiction, it might make sense as to why people reach for these types of foods first thing in the morning after a period of deprivation from them (that is, while they were sleeping).

While you may have to say good-bye to chocolate doughnuts on this diet, there’s no reason why you can’t enjoy getting out of bed and having a delicious and filling breakfast. One of the keys to successfully implementing this diet is to eat meals regularly, which means no skipping breakfast! Several options are listed in the box on
this page
.

One great option for breakfast is eggs, which are a natural source of protein and have no sugar or carbohydrates in them. Plus, they’re inexpensive and they’re filling. You’re fine eating the whole egg. But, if you’re concerned about your cholesterol, you might want to remove the yolk since that’s where all of the cholesterol comes from. Another great thing about eggs is that they can be
prepared in several different ways (scrambled, sunny-side up, and so on), so your routine doesn’t have to get boring. You can create almost any omelet you can think of: just toss in your favorite low-sugar-equivalency items. Eggs can be a great way to start your day, and omelets are a good way to sneak in more vegetables.

Aside from eggs, there are lots of other options for breakfast. For instance, you can enjoy sugar-free yogurt, but be careful. Some fruit-flavored yogurts say they are sugar-free, but when you read the nutritional information you may find there’s plenty of sugar in the fruit jam that’s added to the plain yogurt to make it fruit-flavored. You can always buy plain yogurt and add in your own fruit. If you chop the fruit into small pieces, you will get added fiber and still make the yogurt taste sweet.

LUNCH AND DINNER

Lunch and dinner can be interchangeable. For one of these meals, it is always a good idea to have a big green salad. Some salad dressings are good options, but be sure to watch the labels as many often contain added sugars. Be extra wary of those that are labeled “fat-free,” since these often contain excess sugar to make up for the taste that’s lacking from leaving out the fat. You can always use olive oil and vinegar, and be sure to limit the croutons. One way to spice up your salad is to add a piece of chicken or meat to it (either on the side or chopped up on top).

If you like sandwiches, you have to get creative since bread is high in carbohydrates and often has added sugars in it. You can still enjoy a good chicken, turkey, pastrami, or ham sandwich, or even a BLT, but instead of using two whole pieces of bread, try making a half of a sandwich with normal portions of cold cuts, or using thin sandwich bread, which is lower in sugars than standard-size bread slices. There are also several low-carbohydrate wraps and breads on
the market today that are lower in carbohydrates than traditional breads.

Most soups are fine to eat, though you should stay away from soups that have a lot of rice or macaroni in them. Chili is a heartier soup and can be a good option for lunch or dinner, but, interestingly, kidney beans have a high sugar equivalency, so opt for chili that is light on beans.

For entrées, you can eat chicken, turkey, meatloaf, spareribs, steaks, hamburgers (without the bun), or any game meat that you
enjoy. You can spice them however you want, and you can even include gravies, but be careful because many store-bought gravies contain added sugars. There’s enough fish, shrimp, lobster, and shellfish in the ocean that you could prepare a different fish meal every dinner for a year and never have the same meal twice.

What If You Are a Vegetarian?

If you are a vegetarian, there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you are probably already used to being creative with your diet and conscientious about ingredients, especially when it comes to dining out. The bad news is that because meats and seafood are generally considered a staple for those on low-carbohydrate diets, you may have to get a little more creative than usual when trying to implement this plan. Fortunately, by now you’re probably accustomed to using other foods rich in protein, such as tofu, seitan, cheese, nuts, and beans. Note that while tofu and seitan generally have low amounts of carbohydrates, it is important to check the nutrition labels for carbohydrate and sugar content as this can vary from company to company.

Because you already incorporate a lot of vegetables into your diet, you’ll certainly find that’s to your advantage when implementing this plan. As mentioned earlier, salads are a great option for either lunch or dinner (remember to check the nutrition labels on salad dressings). Topping salads with cubed tofu can give them some protein content so they are more satisfying. Grilled portobello mushrooms are another great addition to salads. Eggs, quiches, and omelets can serve as great meals, and, as mentioned earlier, vegetables can easily be added to omelets as well as some cheese. Other options for vegetarians include some hummus (check the nutrition label as this may vary from company to company) and sugar-free peanut and other nut butters.

This is just the beginning of an enormous, varied menu of wonderful meals that you can create. If you look at this plan as an opportunity to get creative and to experiment with different spices and ingredients, or if you see it as a challenge that requires you to think outside the box, you can really enjoy this way of eating, instead of focusing on the limitations that it may involve. So much of this way of eating and how successful you can be on it depends on how you conceptualize it, so embrace your creativity and accept the challenge of cooking wonderful, healthy, tasty meals for yourself—and your family!

SNACKS

Studies suggest that snacking can be a double-edged sword when it comes to our waistlines. On the one hand, we are almost constantly surrounded by images of food or opportunities to consume it. TV commercials, convenience stores on the ride home from work, vending machines, and food trucks on the corner—they all entice us to eat. This makes it easy for us to snack without realizing how many calories we’re consuming, or to make a pit stop because it’s convenient and we feel like eating something. Snacking is so commonplace today that over 27 percent of children’s daily caloric intake comes from snacks.
¹⁴
In fact, the increase in the number of meals and snacking is one of two key factors (the other being increased portion sizes) contributing to the finding that from 1977–78 to 2003–06, the average daily caloric intake among American citizens
increased from 1,803 to 2,374 calories; that’s an increase of more than 570 calories!
¹⁵

Does this mean that we should eliminate snacks from our diets? No. The key is to snack on foods with high nutritional value and to eat them in reasonable amounts. Instead of popping open a soda or munching on chips until the bag is almost empty, you need to adopt a different tactic to satisfy your hunger. It’s much better to eat fruits and vegetables, because they contain fiber and nutrients, than sugary foods and drinks. In fact, one study showed that participants who ate dried plums as a snack were much less likely to want to consume more food than participants who ate low-fat cookies.
¹⁶
Although the dried fruit contained sugar, it also contained fiber, which the cookies did not, and fiber is thought to promote satiety. Interestingly, participants given the low-fat cookies were also much more likely to want a sweet- or savory-tasting food after their snack than those who were given the dried plums, suggesting that what we eat may predispose us to want certain types of food.

It is fine to snack on this diet, but make sure that you don’t graze on snacks all day long. You shouldn’t “pre-eat.”
Pre-eating
is a term used to describe when someone eats to avoid getting too hungry and overeating at a meal. It’s important to learn the delicate balance of letting yourself get hungry so that you can learn to recognize the signs that your body gives you to indicate a need for calories but not letting yourself get so hungry that you eat whatever you can get your hands on. Many of the snacks that you presently consume might be high in sugars, and you may consume them not because you’re hungry but because you feel compelled to eat sugar. Over time on this diet, you’ll find that you’re snacking less because you lose your cravings for those types of food.

Unfortunately, we usually need snacks when we are on the run, and most conveniently packaged snacks are terrible for us. Things that are easy to grab—like candy bars, granola bars, and bags of
potato chips—are the worst kinds of snacks. If you’re at home, you can easily and quickly prepare a healthy snack that fits much better with this diet. If you know you’ll be on the road or need to eat at the office, prepare healthy food at home and bring it in ziplock bag or container. That enables you to avoid the desperate choice you might make when time is limited and your only options are processed foods.