Peanut Butter made me gain 2 pounds?

[Georgiana]

Originally Posted by sooner_orlater

I had my sister hide the peanut butter in a place "that I would never find it in a million years". It's just the weirdest thing. I am a person who would only eat a sweet every other week before Atkins and now I'm just craving it all the time!

Did you add any new food recently? Or are you eating more of a certain food than you did when you started Atkins? It could be a food in your menu that is causing these cravings. Or, as you said, TOM... But if you really need something sweet (to the point where you either have that or jump off Atkins), try to find some Atkins-friendly substitute for it. If you check the "Food and Recipes" forum, you'll find a lot of tried and tested recipes.

[sooner_orlater]

Originally Posted by not2late

Dr. Atkins wrote that aspartame was off the sweetener list because it stopped weight loss or it slowed weight loss. You have to consider, if aspartame's stalling property was really insignificant (1 in 10), Dr. Atkins wouldn't have taken it off this acceptable sweetener list. When I was a newbie, I remember the mods and old-timers saying it was more like 25% were affected by aspartame, which is quite different than the 1% being quoted now.

By the way, which thread did you read?

I'm a member of 4 different low carb forums and got confused. It wasn't this board but another but this was the thread
Is sugarless Jello (swetened with Aspartame) OK in the induction phase? : ASDLC Forum : Active Low-Carber Forums

And with a percentage of 25% that's still 75% who wouldn't have any adverse effects..

[sooner_orlater]

Originally Posted by Georgiana

Did you add any new food recently? Or are you eating more of a certain food than you did when you started Atkins? It could be a food in your menu that is causing these cravings. Or, as you said, TOM... But if you really need something sweet (to the point where you either have that or jump off Atkins), try to find some Atkins-friendly substitute for it. If you check the "Food and Recipes" forum, you'll find a lot of tried and tested recipes.

Thank you so much for the suggestions, that TOM is over now and thankfuly (!) my cravings are done. I think I might take the suggestion and have some hot tea with splenda.

[not2late]

Originally Posted by sooner_orlater

I had my sister hide the peanut butter in a place "that I would never find it in a million years". It's just the weirdest thing. I am a person who would only eat a sweet every other week before Atkins and now I'm just craving it all the time! It was just regular peanut butter and I didn't even use a spoon. I wasn't planning on eating a lot so I just stuck my finger in. Once turned to twice, then three times, then four. So it was actually probably less than 4 tablespoons, which was 2 servings. I'm back to just plain water. I really hate it. There is this woman on youtube losing crazy weight an she drinks large amounts of flavored water everyday and I figured I would see if I could still lose weight. I guess I have my answer. It probably is water weight, but I appreciate everything you all have told me and will cut out both temptations. I'll also read more about OWL, I don't know too much about it because I saw myself at Induction for months because I have SO MUCH weight to lose.

There's two main reasons why you crave foods:

1. blood sugar instability: on Atkins this means there is something you are eating that is destabilizing your blood sugar.

2. you aren't eating enough food, so you are hungry.

So review your menues----the amounts you are eating and the ingredients to the foods you are eating. ValidRouge stalled for months until she learned the "sugar free" ice tea she was drinking contained high fructose corn syrup! Try to figure out if the addition of any food/beverage coincided with your cravings.

And again, consider OWL. IF you are beginning to crave foods and cave into your cravings, then you are probably getting bored with your Induction food choices. So moving to OWL will be the better choice than the craving-caving-restarting cycle.

[liv]

maybe the sweetened water triggered your peanut urges.
I keep peanut butter under lock these days. Wicked stuff
Work on water. It is good for your body.
I really second the tea suggestion. Some really good ones out there.

[Aways2Go]

For what it's worth, I lost steadily for weeks on induction, then stopped abruptly and sat at the same weight for a few weeks. During that time, I had also started having a few "treats" (diet jello, diet tea mix) daily that had aspartame in them. By the end of the second week I was very frustrated. (I wasn't aware at the time that aspartame was not allowed and known to stall/stop weight loss).

Maybe it was just a natural pause in weight loss after having lost for several weeks steadily, but I cut out the aspartame items totally and then lost 8 pounds over the next week.

I know that for myself, I won't be experimenting with aspartame again until I get significantly closer to my goal weight than I am now, LOL!

Good luck!

[liv]

And if anyone wanted their anti sweetener stand reiforced Here is a recent article telling us that sweetener are really no better than sugars

Artificial sweeteners 'do nothing to help weight loss' - Telegraph

[mission to lose]

There are certain foods that I can not just have "a little bit" of. And those foods just not be in my house. Me and Peanut butter...If I don't touch it, I am ok, but If I have just one spoonful, forget it it...I can't stop!

[IrishIrish]

One of the problems is that unless you are actually measuring out peanut butter, most people can't actually estimate a tablespoonful from a "heaping tablespoonful". Yes, I'm picturing myself with the tablespoon and plunging it into the peanut butter jar and licking the spoon clean.

Part of why we suggest that people follow Atkins as intended and not cheat is that OWL gives us those opportunities to see what foods and in what quantities are stallers or triggers for us. For me, I've never had just a few spoonfuls of peanut butter so I avoid it.