Wednesday Question: What is your biggest hurdle in eating low-carb for life?

Dr. Pepper. Finding something I like to drink. I used to be a heavy drinker of soda, Dr. Pepper and Pepsi mostly, as well as fruit juice and Gatorade and had cut out most milk consumption. I'm apparently what's called a "super taster", so just switching to diet soda doesn't work for me. I can't stand the artificial sweetener taste in cola. (Or milk for that matter. Hood's Calorie Countdown milk was pretty awful to me.) Seem to tolerate the taste of artificial sweetener much better in tea and coffee. I've managed to replace the morning caffeine fix from cola with good coffee (Dunkin Donuts original) with some Splenda and half heavy cream, half half and half. Heavy cream only is a bit too 'heavy' tasting for me. I've replaced the evening sugar juice mostly with milk and now that I've thought about it, I'm going to have to go try some Dunkin Donuts decaf coffee. Coffee has so much more caffeine than cola does, I can't drink regular coffee at night if I want to sleep. Splenda sweetened tea or Koolaid works pretty well, but doesn't get made often enough. Right now I'm looking for a fruity protein drink to replace any lingering urge for Gatorade and get my protein intake up. I really like the low-carb Isopure RTDs. They are rather expensive though :( Around $4 a bottle for 20 ounce bottles by the dozen. Going to try Nectar next and probably some unflavored whey protein powders in tea and Koolaid. Fruit juice was easy to cut out, but I'm still fighting myself over that Dr. Pepper. So yeah, my biggest hurdle has been cutting the sugar water out of my diet.

Sorry if that was a long post. :)

Hey Ben - I can relate to that 100% - for years I was a huge Coke and Pepsi drinker. I couldn't stand the diet stuff - so when I first started low carb a number of years ago I went 'cold turkey' and just drank water for 3 weeks... It was pretty miserable but I got used to it (and for once I could actually sleep at night).

But then I had a stressful day at the office and was just like, "Screw it. I'll just have a Diet Coke.", and lo and behold 10 minutes later I felt AMAZING. Hah, so I've been fighting drinking too many since then. It may not taste like regular / high-test soda, but it certainly has the caffeine.

I wish I was a coffee drinker, but I've never really enjoyed the stuff - I fight an on and off battle with Diet Coke (Diet Pepsi tastes like death).

Let me know if you find anything good that gives you the caffiene boost and doesn't have brain-altering aspartame in it. I didn't think of Splenda KoolAid... Hmmm...

Also, its funny that you mention the Isopure RTDs - those are the clear bottles of colorful liquid, right? I just bought a big thing of their Low Carb Whey Protein Shake mix... never tried it. Hope it doesn't taste like chocolate flavored boot leather.

Yeah, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, and Diet Dr. Pepper are actually okay. I should go try the Diet Dr. Pepper at Sonic, which is one of my favorite places to get the regular stuff. Do you not have Diet Coke with Splenda where you are at?

Yeah, the Isopure RTDs are in glass bottles and otherwise look like normal colorful sports drinks to me. Many of the RTD flavors aren't available in the powder form, hence the moaning about the price.

If you could find a way you like to drink it, coffee is an amazing source of caffeine. It has about 100-150mg per 8 oz, whereas most colas only have 50-60mg per 12 oz. I brew it strong and then use about twice the amount of cream and sweetener that you are supposed to use.

Do you like the smell of coffee? I love the smell and it always bugged me that I didn't like the taste. I found coffeefool.com awhile ago and discovered my dislike of coffee might be due to over roasted beans. Discovered the Dunkin Donuts stuff before I got around to ordering from Coffee Fool. I use an old drip machine, and use about 1 rounded tablespoon per 8 oz of water. There are better machines, especially espresso type machines, but that gets into a level of minutiae I don't really care to go to yet.

There's something very decadent about strong coffee with lots of cream and sweetener. It get close to tasting like hot cocoa to me. It also doesn't seem to taste right cold, so keep it at least warm.

Ryan, yah, at the ice cream shop, I'd have just claimed lactose intolerance, and my diabetic condition requiring me to pass on the ice cream! It's become a habit now to tell these white lies when I must dine amongst the Standard American Diet adherents (which is 99.99% of everyone I come in contact with).

I suppose I am not lying too badly, eating Paleo/Primal does prevent diabetes, MS, Parkinsons, hypertension, inflammation, atherosclerosis, gout, arthritis, heart disease, Alzheimer's, obesity, allergies... man, when you look at it like that, I am saddened for the masses of ignorant grain/legume/carb/sugar fed people.

Its amazing. You can offer people a solution that has the potential of solving a vast majority of their ailments - and what do they say, "Hmmm, I heard about that. No thanks, people say its bad for me."

Grrr! Whats that old saying... "You can lead a horse to water...."
Heh. ;)

I'd say social friends/family "pressure" or lack of their understanding the bio-chem behind eating healthy is the ONLY hurdle I face. It is tough to live down the "low carb" label as mainstream media has it labeled as odd, unhealthy, and frankly it is very mis understood by the public at large. We all know this.

I label myself as having a gluten-intolerance/celiac issue, and that grains/legumes/soy give me allergic and gout/arthritic flare ups, GERD, etc. I also mention that I am pre-diabetic/borderline diabetic (and I am NOT) so I must really curb my carb/sugar intake drastically.

I mask my attention to proper nutrition (ie Paleo/Primal eating and exercise) as a "diet" that helps me beat/control diseases of the Standard American Diet (which it is). People sorta like to know you have a "problem" and it makes them feel a little bit guilty/sorry for me and let me eat my grain/bread/pasta/starch/gluten/sugar free way.

Isn't that f$%#ed up? But I found it reduces the defensive position and explaining away that falls on deaf ears anyway! You can see my progress here:

http://freetheanimal.com/2009/06/nothing-like-a-picture-reader-transformation.html

So I've done this, yet have to defend my food choices to hypertensive, diabetic, obese, inflamed, grain and starch/sugar fueled "normal" person?! So, I don't.

Tim, that is genius and hilarious at the same time. You're right to do it though, if you don't you end up having these weird defensive conversations with people who view your as some kind of backwards food terrorist.

I was with a group of people last Friday night out to dinner, they were friends in town visiting, and after dinner and some wine they really wanted to go to a local ice cream parlor near my house (Ben n Jerrys).

I tried to be good (and fit in with the group a bit, no need to be a martyr) and ordered some no sugar / Splenda ice cream in a cup. When I got it from the server girl she gave me a weird look and said, literally, "What. You can't eat sugar or something - are you, like, allergic?" (apparently its not a very popular flavor with the locals), "No, I just don't want to", I replied - to which I got a unamused shrug and college-girl eyeroll.

Love that before and after photo of you on freetheanimal.com by the way - you look so... ecstatic! :)

I miss all of it. So much I practically want to cry. After all, it is addictive.

I don't miss the way I felt or looked. AT ALL!

That's the biggest reason that I'm not as "tempted" anymore. I know where not-caring-about-what-consume gets me in the end (and its not pretty).

I don't even do much of the "fake" carb or artificially low-carb stuff because I feel like that's just one step away from total dietary Armageddon. :)

Being addicted to sugar, even if I do feel like crap after eating it.

I really miss Tortillas. It's just so convenient and un-messy to wrap things up.

I agree. Bread does make a nice "wrapper" so you don't have to get dirty.

I'll admit that I do miss ice cream. It doesn't help that there is a Ben n' Jerrys less than a block away. :)