Goodl luck with it and keep going!  I know what you meant about feeling better - it's great isn't it?

my favourite snacks are: a few nuts, some carrot or celery, cheese and crackers.  But i'm happy to say that the urge to have a snack fairly rare, and often depends where I am eg if doing housework around the kitchen then I'm more likely to want one, if I'm busy in my workroom then i don't even think about it.

Hang in there Camilla. I started my sugar free journey 7 weeks ago. I did not lose weight in the first 6 weeks but I definitely did not feel as bloated and I felt like I had lost some weight even though my scales showed that I just stayed the same. No loss but no gain either. Now I am happy to say I have lost weight in the last week and my appetite is definitely under control.

Hardly snacking at all and cravings have well and truly gone.

So good luck.

Lynn C

Nadine Tallon wrote:

Initially I thought it was all about eating all I could of the things I previously wasn't allowed on low-fat.  And I put on weight as I was pushing past my appetite control. 

But then I realised it still was about calories in and calories out.  And I used the sugar-free to be healthy and not hungry.  I listened out carefully for my appetite control, I wanted to eat veges and more protein.  And didn't eat within 3 hours of a previous meal.  Just had a drink of water and it seemed to top up my fullness (as it never had in my low-fat existence).

I find that the more protein, full fat dairy and veges I have, the less I eat.

Yes and yes again, Nadine, I find exactly the same as you. If I overeat on Carbs particularly, I put on weight. I would somehow kid myself it was alright to eat some of my husband's dextrose sweetened biscuits and I would be ok, but even though they aren't full of sugar, the sweetness in them still made me crave more. And if I ate a pasta dish, I found even savoury carbs would make me push past my appetite control. And like you, if I keep to savoury as much as possible and eat veges and protein, I find I don't have any cravings and can listen to the appetite control more easily.

For my mid afternoon snack, I often have an unsweetened cocoa with milk. It seems to satisfy on all levels, I suppose because of the seratonin. But after drinking it, I won't eat again till dinner time and again, the sticking to savoury protein and veges means I hardly think about food again till the following morning.

And for breakfast at the moment, bacon, eggs, mushrooms and a raw tomato are most satisfying. I will see how long before I get sick of them, but I have avocado and a slice of multi grain toast with a sprinkling of full fat cheese up my sleeve, Just a little bit of high fibre carb with vegetable and dairy.

Thank you so much for your comment, makes me feel much better, one can't always be sure what one is doing is the right thing. But it does seem to work for me.

cheers Freda

I've been sugar free for a little over 2 months, and I've lost around 6.5 kgs.  There have definitely been a few weeks where I haven't lost weight and it's seemed to go up a little, but overall it's going down.

I for one refuse to count calories, and ever since counting points on weight watchers approximately 14 years ago, I've refused to do any diet that includes weighing food or counting kilojoules or calories or whatever.  That being said, I have noticed there are quite a large number of people on these forums who need to do this for them to work out what they're doing, and that's their choice.

Since going sugar free, breakfast for me can be anything from scrambled eggs, omelettes, to porridge (with some frozen berries instead of sugar), toast with sugar free peanut butter, or more recently some cereals that I found that were sugar free.  Prior to going sugar free, I could never have started a morning with cereal because I would have been starving by 9am, but now I'm ok, and can definitely eat less for breakfast than I would have previously.  I have a coffee made on full milk after I get to work.

Morning tea is 1 piece of fruit and a cup of tea.

Lunch can be some type of protein with salad with home-made dressing (white or malt vinegar, olive oil, salad herbs, optional wholegrain mustard, lime or lemon juice), leftovers or ham, cheese, tomato and onion toasted sandwich on wholegrain bread.  If I know I'm having bread at lunch, I'll never have it in the morning.

I'm really bad at remembering afternoon tea, I did have mixed macadamia and cashew nuts on my desk for a while, but nothing currently.  If I get time, or need a pick me up through the afternoon slump I may have a cup of tea.

I find that if I snack when I get home, I can't eat dinner, so I rarely do this anymore.  Dinner is easy, because unless you live on premade sauces, most things can be made from scratch sugar free.  I could do anything from basic meat and steamed vegies (with a homemade cheese sauce if I want to dress it up) to a homemade indian curry, casserole, goulash, texan chillie beef etc.  Sometimes I'll get pizza for a treat, Pizza Capers have a nutritional guide online, and a lot of their pizzas are really low in sugar, I especially like their Alfunghi, but I do have to be careful because it can be easy to overeat on these.  Once I've eaten, I find I don't want anything again at all.

If I want something to drink other than coffee, tea, milk or water, I buy some mineral water and either drink it as is, or add some fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice.  I truly detest the aspartame flavour so diet softdrinks are definitely out for me, and research shows that it makes you crave carbs anyway.

I know my food isn't perfect, I should be squeezing 1 more piece of fruit in there somewhere, but I think overall it's pretty good.  Don't ask me how many calories it is :P.