The best way to control blood sugar and carb cravings is with healthy fats
and frequent small meals that are a balance of protein and carbs. When you have a high-carb, high-sugar, low-fat meal
like a bagel and orange juice for example, your blood sugar skyrockets and then plummets. Then you get all hungry
and lethargic and have to find more carbs in order to even keep your eyes open. Bad news!
The protein and carb balanced meals that Body for Life recommends are 90%
of the equation when it comes to stabilizing blood sugar and controlling cravings. The problem doesn't magically go away the
first day though. You may have to tough it out for 2-3 days before you see a huge drop in carb cravings. You can speed up
the process by choosing more whole food carbs like beans, oats, corn, yams, apples, berries, cantaloupe, oranges. Avoid
things that can be trigger foods - bread, pasta, crackers, rice, cereal.
Once you feel like you're in control, you can put back a serving or two
of processed carbs, preferably early in the day like after your workout. That's when you can get away with a sandwich on wheat
bread, tuna on wheat crackers, pasta salad with chicken, cottage cheese and half a whole wheat bagel. Don't have processed
carbs more often than once or twice a day if you can help it. Some people start eating bread, pitas, tortillas, pasta, and
crackers six times a day and then they can't figure out why their pants are getting tighter. :-)
The other big secret weapon is flax oil. Taking 1 tbsp early in the day
will do wonders for your carb cravings, not to mention speeding up fat loss. You can hide it in a shake, make a salad dressing
with it, put it in a shot glass with grapefruit juice (disguises the taste), or you can just take a tablespoon straight and
drink water. The only thing you can't do is heat it or cook with it. That causes it to break down. The capsules are pretty
worthless because you have to take almost 14 at once to equal a tablespoon of oil. Barlean's is probably the best brand (cold-pressed,
express shipped, freshness dated). You can get it in the refrigerator section of most health food stores or order it online.
Here's their website:
Lots of good stuff to read in the Educational Literature section. I think
they have a store locator too.
Make sure you don't cut all the fat out of your diet. At least 20% of your
calories should be from fat. For me, that's NOT counting the flax oil. So you still need probably 5-7g of fat per meal. Try
a little olive oil to cook with, avocado with your chicken and salsa, slivered almonds on a salad, one egg yolk in your
egg white omelet, an occasional tablespoon of peanut butter in a protein shake or on an apple, fatty fish like salmon once
in a while.
