Dark side of the… diet plan - how not to give up (part 2)
I have already posted few words about main possible obstacles of weight loss plan and something about alcohol in particular. Now I will try to say something more about other temptations which will be SWEETS.
The “No Sweets” Issue
Oh, that’s hard for me - you see alcohol is neutral, I like to have a glass of wine to dinner but I can manage, but sweets… chocolate… ice cream… stop stop stop - this is supposed to be MOTIVATIONAL area!
First of all I decided to be tough - it IS important to decide it, not to TRY but to say “I WILL”. (That’s one of the marketers trick - they say “imagine you TRY to do this with a competitive product and now imagine how you DO this with our one…”)
As I knew it will be hard I got some dark chocolate (over 70% of pure cocoa) and some sweeteners. Caution - as I started diet plan to improve my health I didn’t want to go for aspartame. Luckily we found Xylitol, natural sweetener made of plants. We got ours made of birch tree. It is really great stuff BUT with one condition - it is few times more expensive than sugar. But we decided that we can not go to the theater but health is more important.
Maybe few words of xylitol - it is natural and it HELPS for health, there are even medical usages of it. It has glicemic index GI=8! And it helps to keep glucose in your blood on the safe levels. (But if you are a dog owner be cautions - as chocolate is BAD for dogs, so is xylitol - it can be dangerous for a pet.) So just to quote Wikipedia a little:
“Xylitol is a “toothfriendly” sugar. In addition to not encouraging tooth decay (by replacing dietary sugars), xylitol may actively aid in repairing minor cavities caused by dental caries.”
“Xylitol also appears to have potential as a treatment for osteoporosis.”
“Xylitol is not only safe for pregnant and nursing women, but studies show that regular use significantly reduces the probability of transmitting the Mutans Streptococci bacteria from mother to child during the first two years of life by as much as 80%.”
We use it to make some sweet desserts, hot chocolate and with tea or coffee. It doesn’t change the taste of food in a way that artificial sweeteners does. So except for the price I love it! 
But this is only one part of sweet-war. The other part is that this diet plan - South Beach - REALLY helps with need for sweets. After first two weeks even without fruits eating a small piece of marzipan (REAL small) was great and… that was it - I just felt I cannot eat more of it - it was too sweet. Gone were the times of eating half of a box in a single sitting. And that is true winning - after 9 weeks of this diet I still sometimes eat something sweet but quantities are MUCH smaller that even 3 months ago, just before starting it. And “greed for sweet” is less and less. At last!
But it all comes again to this - YOU must decide that you will DO it. Not “try”, not “maybe”, not “we’ll see”. I don’t want to quote some sports commercials here but… the hell just do it! And when you will see true weight loss… gee THAT’S SWEET!
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Filed under: Diet motivation
This is the best post I ever read, I will bookmark this, thx!
Yeah, i found that xylitol helped me stay on my diet