<p>Bread- I could sit down and eat the entire package of Trader Joe’s Naan bread, it is a trigger for me, I don’t buy it.</p>
<p>I buy WASA thin & crispy sesame crackers, 2 = 70 cal, they are decent sized though thin, have protein, and work well in hummus and other dips.</p>
<p>I agree with the other posters who said you have to really find what works for you, for a taste of sweet, I need to keep around something that is okay, not something amazing or I will want the entire box/bag/batch. </p>
<p>In that same vein I learned that for me I need to skip meals and simply graze all day. That is how my body works best, with little bits often; a full meal shuts down my brain whilst I digest and gives me a stomach ache, a few years ago life was such that I did not eat dinner with the family and realised I had always done that to be polite, but I generally did not want it. Now I eat tiny amounts every few hours and try to stop by 8PM!</p>
<p>I have low BP so I eat/need more sodium than the average person and also prefer to eat less of the real thing (butter/sugar/etc) than the substitutes and with lifelong low cholesterol, eat eggs when I want. But I rarely eat meat, just not into it, so I am always looking for protein in other ways, but I drink milk and eat cheese and nuts. All of which others are avoiding, but perhaps they are eating the meat I am skipping. It’s important to know your body’s weakness and strength and play to those, it’s important to know what will work for you, what you can life without, what you have to have in order to be content with the lifetstyle and not give up the “diet” and regain the weight.</p>
<p>Trader Joe’s corn & chile tomato-less salsa mixed with some TJ’s Israeli couscous is a great snack for me, some carb, some real strong spices, some corn. I find when I need to lose a few pounds, I really hit produce produce produce, I don’t worry about fruit = sugar or corn = starch, I just hit produce.</p>
<p>Another nod to hummus, laughing cow light cheese wedges, etc. I leave the container of the laughing cow in my desk and eat it at ambient temp, I have not had it go bad an it is a nice mild taste, a pleasing texture, exactly 35 calories plus the intricacy of opening each wedge adds to the delay and satisfaction of eating it, in the same way that getting X crackers out of the bag adds to the ritual versus eating out of the box.</p>
<p>Also, a simple vegetable like mushrooms or zucchini sauteed in a wee bit of butter and garlic can be a lunch or dinner for me.</p>
<p>I am quite intense about paying attention to my eating on normal days, use the MyPlate Calorie Counter to track it, which helps avoid eating things I don’t want to see on my screen!</p>
<p>One sweet taste that is fun is a chewable vitamin C</p>
I have absolutely no problem asking a restaurant to not serve me the potatoes, roll, or whatever. I’m not going to sit there and be tortured.</p>