The low-carb-low-sugar life
March 18, 2019
Going gluten free was WAY easier than this latest iteration of eating of cutting out sugar and way down on carbs. We searched out a few GF substitutes for my usual favorites and called it a day.
Cutting out sugar and drastically reducing carbs is a lot harder.
I started this journey last year and after six weeks of experimenting with a gluten free diet, I wasn’t getting concrete results. If gluten was my problem, cutting it out should have definitively decreased pain. Instead, it seemed, mmm, iffy. I sort of hurt less, but it was really hard to quantify. When my friend separately suggested I give her no-sugar thing a try, I figured it was worth a try too because really, why not? It couldn’t hurt. Besides, as my doctor said: whatever the reason, reducing processed sugars is always a good thing.
We started with increasing vegetable intake on the theory that would be better than starting by taking all the tasty foods away and languishing with boiled eggs and cheese left on the menu. Not that I’d ever turn my nose up at cheese, I love it, I could eat it at every meal. (I probably shouldn’t.)
As we made the changeover, the results were almost immediate. I had my first low-pain day in years. Then another. I literally had trouble identifying what I felt was different because it was an absence of teeth-clenching pain.
Confusingly, this was also one of the biggest disappointments – realizing that this works. It’s not that I wasn’t grateful and over the moon for an improvement in my health, of course I was! I was practically clicking my heels (carefully, that ankle is still doing that weird twitch): I could take care of my child, work all day, run the household, care for our dogs, and still walk upright at the end of the day. I’m usually completely drained at the end of the day.
I was grateful and perplexed and happy.
But it was much tougher than I expected to give up all the delicious goodies in life: no more candy, no more (overly sweet) delicious beverage traditions (bye once a year Thanksgiving chai from Starbucks), no more massive piles of carbs: GF pasta, rice noodles, egg noodles, potatoes in all the forms I love so well. I didn’t eat them daily but I ate them every week. It has been tough turning to the pantry and seeing an X over each beloved food. Going gluten free had still left me options – potatoes and rice. But now I’ve lost both of them too and it’s made this much tougher.
The second disappointment was that this wasn’t a miracle cure. A few months in, I was struggling with the reality that this has a massive impact but it still won’t all go away. I am having the worst trouble accepting that I still have to be mindful of my energy stores.
When I’m completely and totally stretched to my absolute limit, when my body is down to the last dregs, I accept there’s no way that I can do more. But when things are a little better, like now when our diet changes seem to be working and giving me a little bit of relief, my psyche grabs hold of that and starts pushing me to do more more more! It’s not as if I’ve achieved miraculous results and have oodles of energy. I just have miraculous seeming limited pain relief, energy is a whole other beast. So even just two backslide meals will wreck me. One weekend, it went so badly that I had to take two hour naps both days. My child was stopping by my office as I drooped over the keyboard, to send me to bed. I was very disappointed in myself.
Searching for replacement recipes seemed easy at first but that’s because I always dive into new recipes with gusto. The results weren’t always desirable. Example: I tried turnips instead of potatoes in the pot roast: gross.
Some foods were great and easy, like salads, but we got tired of salads after the fourth week of it. Then I wasn’t getting enough to eat because I was so wary of eating the wrong things and that brings out a whole other problem.
It took a while for me to find any kind of groove and experimenting with new recipes or altering old ones to make them suitable. I’m still working on it. I’ve stopped trying to make old carb-fest standbys work. Baked pastas are out, so I need a good use for those canned artichoke hearts I’ve stocked up on. Instead I’m trying to take acceptable ingredients and make something delicious with them.
Meals and foods that are working for this diet:
- Lettuce wraps filled with Costco rotisserie chicken plus cheese. (JB heartily approved and even requested)
- Ham, cheese, and cucumber rolls. (JB approved) I even tried them with tofu which is really weird with cheese but not terrible. Probably wouldn’t do that again though.
- Fried tofu cubes (JB approved)
- Surf and turf tacos: beef or turkey with shrimp and shiitake mushrooms. Topped with avocado, sour cream, cheese. (JB approved, even preferred as lettuce wraps)
- Thai one pot: ground pork, bell peppers, shredded bamboo shoots, rice. Topped with thinly sliced radishes and lime. (JB not approved)
- Mom’s dumplings: I’ve been craving these for 15 years! It’s not quite hers but it’s getting close. Ground pork, shiitake mushrooms, Chinese broccoli in high fiber wrappers. (JB approved)
- Pork roasts and chops: pan fried or baked with pesto. I bought 10 lbs of giant pork chops on sale at $1/lb, I’m still pretty smug about that.
- Stirfry: ground turkey, diced bell peppers, green beans, lots of minced garlic.
- Oven roasted broccoli with sea salt, onion, and garlic powder.
- Cauliflower pizza from Costco – I
might beam addicted. I eat more of these than I ever ate regular pizzas. - Brussels sprouts with bacon (JB approved)
- Chicken and chickpea or tofu masala.
With some creativity, maybe we can add back some old favorites like chicken or turkey pot pies, perhaps using flaxseed meal instead of flour for the roux.
Oh man, low carb/sugar and gluten free combined is not fun. I did that for 6 mo when pregnant with DC2 (I got a bit of a break on the carb second trimester and ate corn and potato products).
Chickpea flour was our roux go-to during DC2’s wheat allergy. Buckwheat also works.
Some of the places in your area will probably have gluten-free/low-carb dosas made from lentil flour. Pappadam is also good. Or if there’s a place to get the flour you can make them yourself. (Some places will use flours that are naturally gluten-free/low-carb and some won’t–so be careful.)
IIRC, Yucca is a good substitute for potato.
I can apparently cheat on the gluten a bit, but not the carbs. BAH.
I am so glad you found a diet that is actively helping reduce pain! I think starting with eating more vegetables is a smart way to approach it. I found carb reduction easiest when I had gobs of CSA veggies to down in a week. Have you established a line between what you consider too many vs. not too many carb foods?
It was the smart choice but it is still so difficult! I need a whole book of vegetable recipes to fix my mindset.
Augh! So many good things, goodbye! But I’m so happy you’ve nailed the diet culprit.
Over here I am now dairy and nut free (incl coconut which is technically a fruit?!) for as long as I’m BFing baby. It’s taken a while to figure out what’s causing his issues. But we got there in the end. So I’m basically eating all the carbs to try stay full, along with meat and eggs.
AUGH indeed! I am not taking this gracefully at all.
I’m glad you’ve figured out how to adjust for baby and I hope you can go back to the usual foods after you’re done BFing.
I’m with you. Except, I can’t eat much dairy, which creates so many complications. We’re trying to accommodate a keto diet for my husband’s food allergies, & it’s SO difficult to plan a meal. Plus, I’m feeding incredibly active teen/preteen boys, which further complicates everything.
I ate terribly this week (in the office late every night, so had to eat what was available) & I can tell a huge difference with the aches & pains. Need to get back with the program. I’ll share recipes as well that we are finding work well.
Oh, my current favorite (if you eat pork) is crockpot carnitas. It is incredibly easy, I make a batch that freezes for huge portions (e.g. 8 dinners x3 people, so 24 servings) & then we just defrost the day of & broil for 5 minutes to crisp up. We serve as a deconstructed taco as well, but one of the kids eats it as a taco. Picky youngest child won’t eat it, so he eats other stuff in a taco shell.
We do eat pork! I would love your recipe if you have a good one.
Your life sounds so busy that perhaps you don’t have time to read. I’m currently working through How Not to Diet by Michael Greger which looks at the science behind what we eat. I’m not going to lie, it’s a thick book, very science oriented and a slog to read. But it does provide a lot of information about how categories of food cause our bodies to react. You might find it of interest.