Help I Am over Starched.

Try the southbeach diet. there is a great beginning about starches and fiber and how to pair the two to keep from having insulin spikes and resultant crashes. you don't necessarily have to stop you just have to be smart.
good luck,
L.

Hi C. - I feel your pain. My husband started on the Atkins diet 3 years ago and he still watches his carbs (he lost 65 lbs and has kept off 60!)Needless to say he also loved bread, potatoes and pasta and it was and still is very hard for me to cook for him and feed my boys at the same time! There are still some amazing lo-carb products out there although they are now a little harder to find. One that my whole family really loves is Dreamfield's Pasta and it tastes just like regular pasta to my boys. They have spaghetti, lasagna noodles, elbow pasta and rotini and I use just like regular pasta. Nature's Own has a sugar-free lo-carb bread; we like the honey-wheat. The potatoes are little harder to substitute although I use cauliflower to make mock mashed potatoes and my boys actually like it. My husband will have a baked sweet potato periodically. Walden Farms has really good sugar-free salad dressings. Needless to say we now have salads at practically every dinner. You can actually find a lot of products now made with Splenda and believe me we have tried almost every one. Krusteaz even makes a low-carb brownie mix which is actually quite good. Hope this helps!

Hey, C.! You can get recipes from atkins.com and probably the South Beach website, too. My hubby did the low carb thing for a while, there are lots of low-carb cookbooks out now that makes it easier! And, check out some of the new pastas that are whole wheat...they are a lot healthier for you and taste really great...and this comes from a fellow pasta loving girl! I never did the low carb thing, but here is one recipe I enjoyed eating. Hope it helps...oh, and BBQ steak is a great one! And, easy, too! YOu can serve it with a salad with blue cheese dressing topped with shredded cheese, yum!

SPINACH-STUFFED FLANK STEAK
6 slices bacon
1 1-1 1/2 pound beef flank steak or top round steak
1 10-ounce package frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and well drained (I used fresh spinach, a few bunches chopped up)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. In large skillet cook bacon till just done, but not crisp. Drain on paper towels.

2. Score meat by making shallow diagonal cuts at 1-inch intervals in a diamond pattern. Repeat on other side. Place meat between 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Working from center to edges, use flat side of meat mallet to pound steak into a 12x8-inch rectangle. Remove plastic wrap and salt and pepper to taste.

3. Arrange bacon lenghtwise on steak. Spread spinach over bacon. Sprinkle with cheese (you can also add more parm cheese and/or ricotta or cream cheese). Roll up from the short side. Secure with wooden toothpicks at 1-inch intervals, starting 1/2 inch from one end. Cut between toothpicks into eight 1-inch-thick slices.

4. Place slices, cut sides down, on the unheated rack of a broiler pan. Broil 3 to 4 inches from heat to desired doneness, turning once. (Allow 12 to 16 mins for medium doneness) Before serving, remove toothpicks. Makes 4 servings.

We did Atkins several years ago and really liked it once we got used to it. We found that once you give up the carbs, you lose the cravings for them. We even found that we didn't like the taste/feel of breads/potatoes after we were really into it. However, I got pregnant, so we stopped and have never really gotten back into it. Sara Lee has an awesome low-carb bread called "Delightful" that we love, we still eat it. Good luck! I wish we could get back into the low-carb life, we really did like it!

I too have problems with starches and this is not easy. I cannot have even the lo-carb breads, brown rice or w/w breads. I sometimes can have bread made from spelt, but I have to make that myself. I don't use splenda because it is sugar "cleaned" with bleach, and stevia and honey still have carbs. I have gone to veggies and fruit with cheese. Ease up on your protein and that may also help. I try to have 3 days out of the week with no meat. When I do the salad route (or as my husband says "grazing") I can have limited starch serving 1 - 2x a month. I save those for when we go out or have someone over. Because we all are different, make up some menus for a week with some lo-carb ideas listed here and a week with nothing but fruits and veggies: note how you feel after each meal and adjust what you eat accordingly. I pray you have more success than I!

My husband does south beach and he loves bread, too, so I'm always on the look out for new recipes. I found this one for lo-carb "corn" bread (my husband loves cornbread) and I it was really pretty good. It's a little heavier than your regular corn bread, but it was great. Also, you can look around their site to find other recipes. Good luck!

http://www.lowcarbluxury.com/recipes/recipe-bread03.html

P.

C.,

You don't have to go without bread. Just change from white flour to whole grains. I think they taste better! And whole grains are good at stabilizing blood sugar. You can also get whole grain pastas, and use brown rice instead of white.

A friend of mine buys whole grain spelt flour at Albertsons and says there's a great recipe on the back of the package that she uses. And she's on a no-carb diet.

Hope this helps.
A. S.

If your pre diabetic, that dosnt mean you need to cut carbs completely, its just a diet that the doctor suggest to diabetic patients. Its very hard to stick to, I would suggest changing white bread to whole wheat, or low carb bread you can buy, you can also buy low carb chips. This diet messes with your blood sugar and its fine if you stick with it expecially in your condition, but.... you will gain 2x more wieght back whe you stop, even if its not for diet purposed, but for health reasons. You can search the web and get recipies, just put in low carb diet recipies, or go to barnes and nobles and get a recipe book. I dont believe in that diet, if you have to take a vitamin supplement to make up for you lack of nutrition, then its not good. Stick with the basic food groups, the pyrimid, just cut back on the starches.

I am also carbohydrate intolerant (due to inability to digest carbohydrates and blood sugar issues) and I make the same meal for all of us and skip the starches myself. The meals usually consist of lean meats (generally baked or grilled) and then veggies. Then, the kids eat potatoes, rice or pasta along with that. I don't think you can just substitute even with whole grains as most grains will still impact your blood sugar. Here's some info on this topic from Dr. Mercola, who advocates a No-Grain diet: http://www.mercola.com/article/insulin.htm