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Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet

Serendipity

Do you believe in Serendipity? That’s a “lucky accident”, something unexpected that happens that is really beneficial. That happened to me a few weeks ago. I had a few minutes to wait for a train and I wandered over to the free books area of my local railway station.

In among donated Reader’s Digest, thrillers, travel and romances, I found a book whose title immediately caught my eye – “The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet“. So why did it immediately call to me? Because over 20 years ago, when I tried my most successful diet ever – the Atkins diet – that book included the term “carbohydrate addict”, with a description of what that might be and at that time, I reckoned that description might apply to me. Fast forward 20 years or more and I am now trying to find a diet I can stay on, that is, a diet on which I reach a reasonable weight and that I can stay on for the rest of my life. I thought I might try the Atkins diet again, although that doesn’t always suit our family meals, as my husband cannot eat the foods I need and vice versa. It is doable, with some juggling but then I found this book, for free, sitting waiting for me to take it home and read it!

Sick Of Yo Yo Dieting

I have reached a stage of my life where I do not want to keep losing weight with great difficulty only to start putting it back on again as soon as I stop the diet. Something happens and I want to lose weight, whether it’s a party, a holiday, a wedding invite or even a health scare, I find a diet and lose weight and then immediately I stop the diet, I put it all straight back on again.

Apart from the Atkins diet I have never yet found a diet that helps me lose weight that I keep off for life, without feeling half starved and ravenous most of the time. And even with that, it only takes one slip, to start putting weight back on or feeling ravenous. So when I found the book, I read it through quickly to see whether it would suit me and also fit into our family mealtimes without too much difficulty. The book was published in 1991, so I was quite surprised I had never heard of the diet previously but to mangle a Chinese proverb, “When the dieter is ready, the right diet will appear.” I was ready for a diet that I could live the rest of my life with. Was this the one?

Carbohydrate Addict

The book asks some questions to let you know whether or not you might be a carbohydrate addict. Some of these questions were on the lines of:

Do you gain weight easily, and if you lose any, do you gain it back?

I thought that was true of most people who diet, but maybe not?

Do you have a hard time stopping if you start to eat bread, pasta, or sweets?

Now, this was definitely me. I dare not eat a slice of bread or toast, one slice is never enough, even if it’s shortly before dinner. It just makes me feel hungrier and hungrier.

are you hungrier if you have some carbohydrates to eat before your lunch or dinner than you would be if you had had nothing at all, or maybe just a tea or coffee?

Yes, I have often found I can go all day if I have nothing at all to eat and that’s actually easier than having just something, if it is a carbohydrate item.

Would you rather have a plain meal that included a dessert than a gourmet meal with no dessert?

Again, that is definitely me. I would rather have soup and a dessert than a real gourmet meal.

There are a lot more questions and adding up the points you get for these answers tells you whether you could be a carbohydrate addict and whether it is mild, medium or severe.

Not Lack Of Will Power

Maybe you have found the same? People who do not need to diet think that it’s just lack of will power that you can’t stay at a reasonable weight. The comments I got from friends the other day, when I said I was on a diet (again) were on the lines of “Could you not just eat 2 meals a day?” or “When I was working, I just used to have an apple and a pear for lunch.” The carbohydrate addicts diet book says that carbohydrate addicts have a different body metabolism from others. It’s not their fault, it’s the way they were born! Now that makes me feel good.

I Can Have It Tonight

Another Point I liked from the book said that, I could have anything I wanted provided I waited til my “Reward Meal” and ate it within 60 minutes.

Manage Your Insulin

The book is really about finding a way to manage your insulin. Having read it through, I found that it said I could use the diet to manage cravings and that being on it and sticking to what it said would mean that I wouldn’t crave food all the time, even just after I had eaten. I was astounded – didn’t everyone have cravings to eat, even after a big meal, especially for dessert?

Got Started

I got the book on 17th January, read it right through and started on The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet on Saturday 18th January 2020. I had a few things I needed to alter in my eating.

I was using Golden Linseed to keep me “regular“. This was not mentioned in the book, nor on the list of “allowed” foods for the daily “complementary meals” (CMs). No problem, I just moved my linseed intake to dinner time, when I was allowed my “Reward Meal” (RM) at which I could eat anything I wanted provided it was all taken within 60 minutes of starting (no snacking).
Complementary Meals must be “normal” sized portions, with no carbohydrates. That was not a real problem, I was already eating an omelette for breakfast. I just needed to make it a 2-egg omelette instead of 3 eggs! I also made it a cheese omelette, with 1 ounce of grated hard cheese.
I generally kept hard boiled eggs in the fridge in case I got hungry during the day but no snacking was allowed, so I used those up in an allowed CM at lunchtime over a couple of days. I was worried that I would get really ravenous but no, right from the start, just as it said, the cravings disappeared. Those cravings for bread and butter and thick honey, right before dinner were gone! I was astounded. While I might feel hungry just before my evening meal, I now found that I was not ravenous, nor overwhelmingly desperate for something, anything to eat right before my dinner. I now began to understand why my friends could say “why not just eat 2 meals a day” or “I just have an apple of pear for my lunch”. A carbohydrate addict cannot do that and people whose bodies don’t work that way do not understand the cravings for carbohydrate that mean you just want more and more! They were gone!

Losing Weight

The diet suggested that a loss of between one half and one pound a week was best and that taking your AVERAGE weight over the week was important. I would have loved to lose more but losing anything and keeping it off would be a bonus, so I decided to stick with it. After all, if I had 26 pounds to lose, that would be 26 weeks, which is 6 months. It sounds like a long time but I didn’t have a particular event I was aiming for and I wanted to KEEP weight off. It seemed to me that taking up a diet I could STICK to long term would be of more value than losing weight quickly then putting it straight back on again, which had happened with the other diets, when I stopped them. The diet plan has several variations depending on whether you want to lose weight or stay the same and which variation of the plan you followed the previous week.

February Update

At February 21st, 5 weeks after starting the CAD diet, I have lost 2 Kilograms since I started, that is about 4 and a half pounds.

Not a huge amount but the recommended amount. I have not felt ravenous and I have felt satisfied by my complementary meals. I have really enjoyed my reward meals, yet I wasn’t desperate to eat them. I have been eating what might be considered two meals at one sitting for my reward meal. The first being the same meal as anyone else in the house, including fish fingers and chips, sausages and beans or a roast chicken dinner, though very often I do not eat potatoes or rice. Once that is over, I have eaten a large bowl of green soup, with golden linseed in it, then to follow, a bowl of plain yogurt, which I love, for dessert. By the time I have finished all that, I am extremely full. Sometimes, I have a spoonful of cream cheese or slices of hard cheese if I have any room!

I have not felt ravenous and I have lost weight. As the reward meal can contain any food I like (provided it is eaten within 60 minutes of starting), I feel I have a balanced diet, as I eat a great many vegetables, good amounts of protein and fat and get plenty of nourishing chicken broth, with yogurt and cheese. I could eat fruit if I wished but vegetables also have plenty of vitamin C.

It Fits With Family Meals

Many other diets require the whole family to go on them or for the dieter to eat separate or weighed out portions. This diet fits right in with whatever anyone else is eating for their main meal. With an omelette for breakfast and an evening meal of anything I want to look forward to every day, I do not feel deprived and the diet is managing my cravings, so I do not feel ravenous.

More Information

If you are interested in trying this diet, then you can get the book on The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet and there are plenty of recipes available too from a cook book for the diet.

Specific Carbohydrate Diet – Breakfast

Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Sufferers from inflammatory bowel diseases, such as IBD, IBS, Celiac disease, Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, etc., have often been told they will “need to eat a bland diet from now on, with no fiber, etc”. Sufferers have also been told that what they eat makes no difference to the course of the disease.

Those who suffer from any of these diseases may try eating bland diets but what is a bland diet and does it really help to alleviate the problems that people with Crohns and Ulcerative Colitis, etc experience? One sufferer was told that he must eat pasta and mashed potato, no fiber of any kind, no fruit, etc. Others have been told to stay off spices. Some people are also allergic to, or suffer from food intolerances with milk or gluten (bread).

Desperate For Help

One mother was desperate to help her 4 year old child, suffering from chronic Ulcerative Colitis. Most doctors could not help, they learned nothing about nutrition in medical school and many still do not, even these days. Finally, she found Dr. Sydney Haas who had been successfully treating people with Celiac disease and he was able to help her child through changing her diet. The mother was Elaine Gottschall and she went on to fully research the whole area of inflammatory bowel disease, working closely with Dr. Haas and gaining a degree and a masters degree in subjects related to the area. Elaine wrote a book, “Breaking The Vicious Cycle” which has has been through 18 reprints and which has helped countless sufferers from inflammatory bowel disease to live much improved lives. If you want to know more about helping relieve the kinds of problems such as gas, inflammation, pain, bleeding and diarrhea, that people with IBD, etc., experience, then read the book.

NOT A Bland Diet

The recommended “bland” diet actually comprised the very foods that, according to Elaine Gottschall’s book, were CAUSING the bowel problems. Foods like bread, potatoes, pasta, sweet potatoes, cakes, cookies and anything with sugar or flour, etc are not allowed on this diet. Yet you can happily eat most fruit and many vegetables, along with meat, fish and eggs, to provide a balanced, healthy, nutritious diet. And if you want a bit of sweet stuff, honey is allowed!

For those suffering badly from any of these diseases, an initial food of carrot soup prepared in a particular way is very helpful, followed a short while later (a few days) with a special 24 hour yogurt made at home, usually in a yogurt maker.

Recipe And Meal Plan

Breakfast

So what can you eat for breakfast? No problem. How about scrambled eggs? (NO MILK). Melt a bit of butter in a saucepan, add your mixed eggs and cook to your preferred consistency. If you cannot take butter, you can scramble the eggs without, provided you take care and keep stirring. There’s also poached egg on spinach or a boiled egg. Remember, no toast, unless you make up some special almond flour bread from one of the recipes in the book “Breaking The Vicious Cycle“, by Elaine Gottschall.

Alternatively, what about a banana? Make sure there are brown spots on the skin. This means the carbohydrate in the banana has changed to the easily digestible form.

If your insides are very painful or you have a lot of symptoms, try mashing the banana before eating. Once the symptoms have subsided, you could also add dates and grapes to make a super-healthy, filling breakfast. You could even add a special almond and honey muffin.

The picture shows a honey, almond and coconut muffin but these should only be eaten after all diarrhea has stopped. Until then, eat the honey almond muffins made with the recipe in the book “Breaking The Vicious Cycle“.

Another possibility is a bowl of the 24 hour yogurt with stewed fruit. This can also be a delicious dessert. Pears, eating apples or plums are all delicious when stewed in a little water (no sugar). If you need more sweetness, drizzle some honey on top of the yogurt and stewed fruit – delightful.

SCD Diet – Dinner – Ground Beef in A Tomato And Vegetable Sauce

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What About Dinner?

Here’s an easy, tasty, nutritious dinner, that’s easy to make and budget-friendly. It’s based on ground beef, vegetables and sieved tomatoes (passata). To ensure that it is SCD friendly, check the jar of passata to ensure no sugar has been added. Alternatively, use a can or two of whole tomatoes instead of passata and whizz it in the blender for a few seconds.

For full information on using the SCD diet to help alleviate symptoms of IBS, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, etc, and to check up which foods are SCD legal, read the original book “Breaking The Vicious Cycle” by Elaine Gottschall.

Recipe – feeds 4 – 6

Ingredients

1/2 a carrot, cleaned and chopped finely
1/2 a red pepper chopped finely
1 onion skinned and chopped finely
3 – 5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped finely – optional
1 root of turmeric, chopped finely – optional
6 mushrooms, sliced thinly
1/4 zucchini sliced
butter for frying
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon dried mixed herbs (optional)
1 large jar of passata (check there is no added sugar) or 2 tins of whole plum tomatoes, blended
1.5 pounds ground beef

Method

Put the ground beef into a frying pan or large saucepan and fry gently, until browned and cooked, turning it over and breaking up any large pieces, so it is evenly cooked and crumbly and any moisture has boiled off.
In another saucepan, melt some butter and add the carrot. Fry gently, turning well until it is softened. This releases the special flavor. Add the onion, garlic and turmeric and continue frying gently. Add salt and pepper to your taste. Add the mushrooms and zucchini and fry gently until they are cooked. Add the dried mixed herbs if using.
Add the browned ground beef to the vegetable mixture. Stir well.
Add the passata or blended whole canned tomatoes to the mixture and heat, stirring until the whole mixture is thoroughly heated through.
Serve immediately if wished, with side vegetables, such as broccoli and brussels sprouts, for instance.
I like to make it early in the day and allow it to sit until evening or even next day. This allows the flavors to blend and mellow.

Feeding The Family

If someone drops by unexpectedly and you haven’t enough to feed everyone, you can quickly fry up extra carrot, onion, mushrooms and zucchini in a pan and add to the mixture, to stretch it out. Usually, you do not need to add extra passata or blended tomatoes.

Losing Weight

Many people who stick to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet find that they lose weight, especially round the middle. The diet is very healthy and nutritious and as you cannot eat snacks such as candy, cakes, cookies, chips, etc., the weight stays off. It’s not a problem either, as this diet is one on which you seldom feel hungry, so there is no temptation to snack.

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