Thread: Carb Blockers

I went to my cardiologists for my yearly tune up and she noticed that I'd lost weight. She asked me what I was doing and I told her I was on Atkins. She said oh good, that's a good diet.

She then told me that I should drop by Walgreen's and pick up some the the Walgreen brand of carb blockers. It's called Starch Catcher Phase 2. She had a bottle of it in her office and she showed it to me so I'd know what to buy. She said it works, is safe, and she recommends that her patients use it as a diet aid.

She said that she found that it helped her patients that needed to loose weight to stick to the diet. It lets them have a piece of bread or maybe a serving of rice or noodles without totally blowing their diet and setting off cravings. But absolutely no sugar!

She said to take two tablets 30 minutes before a meal if you have to be away from home and don't have a lot of control over what there is to eat, try to eat as reasonably as possible and the pills will absorb the rest.

She said that she had been using it herself and that it had really helped her stick to the diet when she was sure she would have never made it without it.

I got some and tried it. I ate a hamburger for supper on a full size hamburger bun and it didn't trigger any cravings. Normally if I had eaten something like that I would have been snacking for the rest of the evening. Nothing, not even the slightest twinge of a cab craving.

I don't think it should be used as a way to cheat all the time but this will be a valuable tool to help keep me cravings free those times when we go out with our friends and everyone wants to go eat pizza. I'll be able to go along and have fun without worrying about it or trying to make up stupid excuses as to why I can't come.

I don't have any interest in them myself, for the reasons Terra mentioned.

But (so far anyway ) we all have the right to choose to eat any way we want and experience whatever consequences - good or ill - result from those choices.

I admit that I don't understand why anyone should have to make up stupid excuses when friends want to go for pizza. Why not try the truth? In those situations I generally say something like, "You know I don't eat that s***, How about we pick a place that serves pizza AND wings, so I can enjoy some some hot wings & celery and you guys can scarf pizza to your heart's content." Turns out there are a number of pizza places that serve wings, even right here in Hooterville.

Just a thought.

I wouldn't use them all the time, although the way my doctor talked I think she does.

But I think that it's important not to get into the habit of eating a bunch of junk all the time. I don't see any harm in using them on special occasions or when you are having a major craving for a particular food that you love but that's real carby.

I know when I'm going to use mine. My best friend and I are dieting together and once a week on Friday night we have a cheat day. We go out to eat and have whatever we want and then we go to a movie.

I've been loosing weight just fine without the carb blockers and still having my cheat day once a week, so I figure that the carb blockers on cheat day couldn't hurt.

A couple of other considerations:

1) There is absolutely no way to tell exactly how much of the starch ingested may be blocked by any amount/variety of carb blocker, so in a way you may be playing carb roulette. That's ok, if that's your game.

2) There is some evidence that the more an individual uses a carb blocker, the less effective it can become.

Using a carb blocker is a choice, but please make an informed one, including checking all the other ingredients that tend to come in the various varieties of carb blockers.

I'm not 100% against them. However, for myself, I don't wish to foster any more "getting away with" something mentality in my life. If I've made a decision to eat some potato; I'll decide how much potato to eat, I'll enjoy it, and I'll take the consequences.

I bought a bottle of these a couple months back. The seal is still intact. I didn't get them for myself as much as my DH, because his thought process on this WOE is different from mine - he fully INTENDS to eat certain things on rare occasion - such as tonight, he wants SUSHI and he means the kind with RICE! So I think he will try out the carb blockers.

As for me, I honestly don't have any desire to eat the rice, so I'll have sashimi and last time they were happy to make me a spicy tuna handroll without the rice - worked great, tasted fine!

If I ever find myself faced with meat and mashed potatoes on my plate at someone else's house, however, I would try these!

I'm pleased that I've just totally lost my taste for starchy stuff in general though.

Char

BettyR
04-01-04, 06:59 AM
Meggmoon-
Well, to tell you the truth, it depends on what I eat that day. If I eat some bread or maybe some potatoes,no I don't feel bad. But if I load up on sugary foods that day, yes.

Last week my friend needed to pick up a few things at Walmart while we were out and she picked up a bag of Reeses peanut butter eggs. It was a 12 ounce bag of eggs and we ate the whole thing.

I felt like I had a hangover the next day. It took me two days to recover from that cheat day. I'll never do that again.

I hold my carbs down to 20g during the week and then eat something on our Friday cheat day that I'd been craving during the week.

If I'd been dreaming about a good loaf of bread we'll go to this little bakery/sandwich shop near my home and have a bowl of their wonderful homemade soup in a bread bowl. They serve their soups in these little bread bowls and arrange the bread they pulled out of the bowls around the outside to eat with your soup.

When we eat sensibly like that no, I don't feel bad at all. I actually have found that I loose weight better when I up my carb intake once a week like that, as long as we don't go wild.god_still_rulz
(god_still_rulz@yahoo.com)
04-01-04, 11:48 AM
There was one time I considered buying the starch blockers and trying them but gave up the idea, because, in my own personal opinion, I felt it wasn't teaching me how to eat right. Just like with any other weight loss pills, I consider it a quick fix, and that's all. You're not learning how to control your portions, you're not learning how to limit your carbs or modify them (depending on what plan you are following) My other opinion - I think someone would be better off following CAD or CALP instead of taking the starch blockers since you can have more starch on those programs (a healthy balance, of course) I follow CAD on special occasions, and I've never seen my weight go up nor have I ever been given into cravings doing CAD on special occasions.

Sheyla
186/122/105 60.5 inches
Modified LC

Sheyla

The Lord their God shall save them on that day as the flock of his people. They shall sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown. How ATTRACTIVE and BEAUTIFUL they will be! Zechariah 9:16cgilson269
04-01-04, 12:35 PM
how do these "carb blockers" work anyway? seems silly to think that something could be "blocked" from your system ... ??
bizarre!

Atkins since 1/6/04
152/142/130
Road King Cole
(davidcole@vanguardms.com)
04-01-04, 12:57 PM
How do they work?

Check out this article:

http://www.zoneperfect.com/Site/content/qa_detail.asp?ID=5189

261/226/215?
Started Atkins on 6/12/03Charski
04-02-04, 06:59 PM
Just a follow-up - DH DID use the carb blockers on "sushi night" and did NOT note any carb cravings the next day - so maybe they helped.

Me, I ate the tuna poke salad - raw spiced tuna chopped and served over field greens with toasted sesame seeds and a nice little dressing - a bowl of miso soup, and a spicy tuna handroll. Also some nice hot sake and some hot green tea. I didn't miss, nor did I care to eat, the rice at all.

But hey, whatever works! DH doesn't plan to use them every day, or even every WEEK, but for the occasional planned indulgence of that sort, well, if it helps him - I'm glad for him....

Char

Being "over the hill" is much better than being under it....





BC
04-02-04, 08:13 PM
Char, your DH sounds like a common sense kinda guy for whom carb blockers might be an ok tool in the old tool belt. Me? I know they'd just turn into another "excuse." Know myself too well, LOL!

BC



172/108/108--5'2"
Zone since 4/98 Kristie_W
04-02-04, 08:18 PM
I haven't tried them, bought a bottle but haven't used it. On the label, it says for breads, pastas, potatoes, rice ect. My question on these things, what the heck, is ect.? And how will they actually work?

There was one before called "FAT BLOCKER" that claimed it would binde fat up so it wouldn't be digested. Maybe it's the same, but then again, maybe it's a cruel joke, lol. I don't want to take the chance. I would say I'd be a test mouse, and try for a week and take them then eat what they want, but I need to get paid first, I surely would still not be a little mouse, I'm trying too darn hard. (Send cash payments to me, ya never know, lol)

Kristie

While I wouldn't want to use a crutch like carb blockers to give myself an excuse to eat the wrong stuff, I can see times when something like this would be useful in a bind.

Today, I had to put my car in the shop and was at the mercy of the people giving me a ride home. For them, every Tuesday is Thai day for lunch. The Thai restaurant does a buffet for lunch so there isn't a chance to order things specially made to fit the low carb lifestyle.

I did pretty well. I picked up some cantelope and primarily stuck to dishes with lots of veggies, uncoated meats, and either clear or no sauces. I made one exception with a chicken dish that had a corn starch coating and, perhaps, some honey in the sauce. If so, it wasn't much sweetening because I've had no cravings for sugar or temptation to binge.

I wouldn't have minded, however, to have a carb blocker today. Still, I don't feel guilty about my little off-program dish, since I've been so good.

On the other hand, If I'd had that carb blocking crutch and gone nuts with fried rice, pasta dishes, spring rolls and these yummy little crab in a fried wonton thing, I'd have felt veeery guilty.

This thread is so appropriate because today I was standing in the health food shop considering exactly this. My concern is one cheat damages my success, and to be honest, those of you in the US having problems sticking to this WOE havent seen nothing yet! (There is no low carb products in NZ apart from low carb bars and a couple of backyard operations that supply sawdust virtually via mail). So basically when I go out for dinner, Im very limited. Last weekend I went to a friends chinese wedding, and as I dont eat ham, pork or bacon, Ive already got one battle (checking the meat type); checking the ingredients list even further is embarrassing (I feel like a food nazi) and there isnt any real prepared stuff to help me out. Argh! Im sick of every night because otherwise I starve..
And thats why Im considering the starch blockers - just the occasional buffer, maybe once every two or three months.