Pick Your Poison!

[jenninca]

In reading through threads over the past few days, I'm noticing that everyone seems to have a weakness--some food that tests your weight-loss resolve more than others.

I think it's really interesting how people's tastes are different. For instance, some people love french fries. I really don't care for the things. Others are addicted to cookies, while I can pass them by without a second thought. However, put a bowl of candy in front of me and I pretty much can't resist. Same goes for popcorn. Those are my biggest weakness foods.

I'm trying to get myself to eat less candy, especially now that all those tempting bags of Halloween candy are out there. IT'S HARD! I can make a pretty-much-healthy popcorn, so I'm not so concerned about cutting down on that.

What are your weaknesses? How do you keep yourself from gorging on them?

Cindy

[quasar]

I pretty much just answered this in the candy thread, but I'll summarize again:

I like crunchy and to a lesser degree salty things I can hold. I try to keep animal crackers at work which most of the time are appealing enough, but sometimes I find it is the salt I crave.

With candy, I can conveniently ignore unopened bags but once it's open it's gone. So I like halloween time because I can get mini-portions of lots of different candy and eat less candy (having one or two mini-portions of skittles beats an individual serving bag certainly beats a big bag).

Janice

[taurusmoon]

My problem is with creamy stuff.

Ice cream, soft baked goods, chocolate. It's a texture thing.

I can easily go without thinking about the salties, and the crunchies. But, the creamies? Oh dear.

Sara

[lynnzop[$]]

Give me popcorn or give me death.

I absolutely love popcorn...any way it's made. When I was single, I would eat it for dinner. Now that I have a husband and kids, I can't count it as a vegetable (IT'S CORN, FOR GOD'S SAKE!)

Luckily, MOST popcorn is high in fibre and low in calories. I especially like it with butter, garlic salt and Parmesean cheese.

How do I keep from gorging on it? I don't. BUT I only make it once a week, and then use a minimum of butter and cheese (use some Molly McButter for flavor). Then I eat the whole dang thing. If kids or hubby is up, I MIGHT share some.

Lynn
(Wiping the drool off her chin, thinking tonite might just be the night for popcorn)

[cyndilouwhoo]

Butter. Butter is my downfall. It is the road to hell for me. If I eat butter I seem to give myself permission to go whole hog. It is the gateway to diet ruin. I can't eat it because I have no control over it. It controls me.

So I just no longer put it on anything. I have become a slave to the "I can't believe it's not butter" stuff.

So that's how I deal with it. Total deprivation.

Surprisingly I don't mind it that much.

Same thing with my second favorite thing--salt.

Ugh. I was terrible. Salting everything even before tasting it. It was disgusting.

Now I only eat butter and salt that is contained in (not on) the foods I eat. No more buttered rolls, no more lobster with drawn butter. No pizza with salt.

Isn't that pathetic?

Cyndi

Who isn't advocating the elimination of your food downfalls. It's just something that works for me, in spite of the fact that it isn't necessarily a realistic way to deal with food

Baked potatoes and potato soup. Carbs through the roof.

Also, chocolate, but a mix blessing of a stressed-out-stomach prevents me from eating most of those empty calories or starches.

Also switching to vodka for my main drinking poison. I can pretend that it's healthier. Can't drink wine. Can't stand the stuff. Won't even get the "health" benefits of wine. Shucky darn.

As for real poison, I'd love to poison all of my former bosses and tyrants back at work. I guess hate and rancor is a poison of the mind, and it's taking a long time to chelate from my soul. JJFC I want this Atlanta stuff to happen NOW RIGHT F- NOW.

[AmyLEnsor]

I've had this discussion with people on my weight loss loop. I really try to examine what it is that drives me to snack, why some snack foods are so good that I can't stop eating them. Others aren't that compelling, but I find I will eat more than I want of them too once I start. I wonder if I am a carb addict, if it is a blood sugar thing, a psychological thing or what.

I've figured out a common connection between the foods I really want to scarf down and those I can take or leave: salt and fat.

tortilla chips with guacamole or salsa and sour cream: very likely to overeat. Well, OK, I make a meal of them and forget about the nice vegetables I'm supposed to be eating.

baked tortilla chips with salsa: I can control my portion

potato chips and sour cream based onion dip: don't even go there. I only eat these on special occasions and even then I feel guilty.

regular pretzels: yes, I will eat them and maybe more than I should since they are salty, crunchy and have a good flavor.

honey mustard pretzel bites, or peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets from Trader Joe's: I eat way too many! Although I definitely reach a saturation point fairly quickly with the peanut butter pretzels because of the fat in the peanut butter. But I'm finding I'm eating a serving and a half before that happens (about 16 nuggets)

Chex Mix, Doo Dads or Ghardettos snack-ens: it must be the combination of flavor enhancers and fat because I keep eating them. I almost never buy these anymore.

grain sweetened semi sweet chocolate chips from the health food store: not too sweet, good for chocolate but I don't feel the need to get another handful

regular sugar sweetened semi-sweet chocolate chips: the taste of the sugar keeps me coming back. I don't think it is a blood sugar thing, I really think it is the way the sugar tastes.

Pringles, Cheetos, other starchy, salty, fatty snacks: don't even want them in the house--goes along with regular potato chips and dip. I do buy the veggie booty every now and again because it is low in fat and I figure the kale and spinach powder that cover them is good for me (ha ha). I'm thinking the corn and rice puffs do a number on my blood sugar level, however.

Sweet Tarts: yep, I like those too and find once I start eating them, I usually want more than one little package of three. So I have 5 little packages of three.

Popcorn either popped in oil or air popped with butter, salt and some other flavoring: yummy and addictive

air popped popcorn with no salt or butter added: yuck

frozen corn cooked, put in a big bowl with salt and pepper added: yum, as good as popcorn, especially with a little butter

yellow squash with a little butter (or flax seed oil) and salt: yum!

[hypotenuse]

Cheese. Anything cheesy...

And if it doesn't originally come with cheese, I'll think of a way to add it in.

Spegetti, anything Italian really. Baked potatoes. Soup. Love beer-cheese soup. And French Onion Soup. And Baked Potato Soup.....

Omlettes. Cheese bisquits...

Why do you think I'm always inviting myself to fondue night?

Just love that cheese.

Lynne

PS - How could I forget cheesecake?? New York cheesecake, Amereto cheesecake, turtle cheesecake.....

[AmyLEnsor]

No pizza with salt.

Isn't that pathetic?[/b]

Well, as long as you have ketchup to dip it in...

I am a big salter too, and it is the one habit I just can't seem to break. But I notice that sometimes of the month I really crave salt, and other times I am sensitive to it and don't like it. So I just try to follow my body's signals.

When I was pregnant, I craved tomato juice and baked potatoes (maybe for the vitamin C? don't quite know). I drank V-8 and tomato juice by the gallons, but I didn't want all the sodium so I tried the low and reduced sodium varieties. I notice that they have quite a bit of potassium in them. Tomato juice is a good source of potassium anyway, but I think the producers actually used a potassium salt in the reduced sodium variety to give it a little more salt flavor. The amount of potassium was higer in the reduced sodium kind than in the regular kind. One day after having quite a bit of the reduced sodium tomato juice, I was feeling light headed and having a real salt craving. I was starting to feel sick, so I poured myself a glass of V-8 juice and salted it up. Then I made myself some reduced sodium tomato soup and added a bunch of salt to it. After I was done with my little sodium orgy, I felt much better. I'm thinking that I messed up my potassium/sodium balance. After that I cut back on the tomato juice big time!