by Barbara Berkeley, MD
As those of you who routinely read this blog know, I spend a great deal of my time advising people to get rid of the carbs in their diet. Not all the carbs, but specifically sugars, grains and grain based products. When I suggest this to patients at our first meeting, I am met with blank stares or with outright resistance. I expect this. The idea of vastly curbing carbohydrates is overwhelming to most American eaters. But I also know that a great many of those who follow the advice to quit carbs will eventually report an indifference to them. It is almost as if these foods recede into the background, or go from hugely important to minimally so. It is hard to imagine this happening with foods other than carbs. Quitting meat, chicken, fish or vegetables seems much less onerous from the outset. Approximately 7.3 million Americans are vegetarian. While giving up starch and sugar is viewed as "extreme", removing the entire food group consisting of animal products is a well accepted dietary strategy. This is because most people don’t feel that they simply can’t live without animal protein. They do, on the other hand, feel like life will be impossibly bleak without a bagel, bowl of pasta, or a chocolate chip cookie.
I would submit that substances that people "can't live without" take on a dysmorphism or type of inflated distortion. This makes these substances seem much larger than they really are. We are all familiar with this distortion in people with addictions. While an occasional cigarette might mean nothing to one person, it has an intense and driving importance for another who is hooked on nicotine. Alcoholics feel that they cannot live without alcohol and drug addicts can't imagine surviving without drugs. I believe that this same dysmorpism holds true for sugars and starches. A clue to the fact that we view S Foods dysmorphically is the fact that we feel the urge to consume them multiple times each day. While many of us could easily go days without a fruit or a vegetable, few of us can go days without sweets, bread or potatoes.
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her friends the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion stood trembling before the great and powerful wizard whose voice shook the very foundations of his palace. As we all know, however, that wizard turned out to be nothing more than a snake oil salesman working some dials behind a curtain. It’s the same with modern carbs. Getting them out of your life allows you to pull the curtain and see them for what they really are. In a short time, those great big influences shrink to normal size and when they normalize it is much easier to simply ignore them.
How is it done? Here are some of the ways in which I have greatly decreased my own exposure to carbs:
When I eat breakfast out, I order a small applesauce instead of the potatoes and toast that usually come with eggs.
Instead of eating sandwiches or wraps, I take out the middle and eat whatever is in the center. I always ask for extra slices of tomato and a slice of onion if they have it. Or I order a tuna salad, egg salad or chicken salad plate with plenty of vegetables on it.
I love bagel and lox, but guess what? I have found that this dish tastes just the same without the bagel. I just put a shmear of cream cheese on the side, and eat the lox covered with tomato, onion and some capers. Great!
I eat ice cream pretty much every evening, but alternate between sugar free and diet varieties. I also only eat ice creams that come in single wrapped servings like pops or bars. I found that taking servings out of a tub meant eating more than I intended.
My standard dinner is a huge plate filled with salad, steamed vegetables, salsa, sliced fruit, a little cranberry sauce, and some kind of chicken, meat or fish. I eat practically no red meat. I don’t have a problem with red meat itself, I am just suspicious of the way we feed cattle so I personally avoid it.
Here are the S Foods I continue to eat: I use our practice's Optifast bars as snacks (20g carbs) here and there. I have skim milk in my breakfast mocha. I eat a lot of grapes, which are pretty sugary. I eat a diet ice cream every day. I often have a small side of cranberry sauce (which contains HFCS) with dinner. If I use applesauce, I get a no-sugar-added variety.
My excluded foods (except for an extremely occasional exception) are bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, things made with flour, cookies, muffins, bagels, crackers, chips, cereal, popcorn and any dessert other than those mentioned in my S Food list.
Carbs used to be enormous in my life, close to a raison d’etre. Ten years ago I couldn’t imagine a life without candy, cookies, bread or pasta. For me, a diet was eating a baked potato with sour cream for lunch. French fries and hash browns were my drug. Bread was my foundation. Chocolate cookies and candies were the friends that comforted me.
But here I am and those carbs have gone away. I remain at normal weight and I really love the way I eat. If you have not tried getting rid of the carbs, including those whole grain products, please humor me. Once you have moved on and they are far down the road, they look a whole lot less important. And you know what? They really are.