A lot of women ask me how to control bloat. Our weight can fluctuate 5 lbs either way, on a daily basis. It is discouraging to weigh yourself and see that you are up 3 lbs when you have been working out like crazy and eating a healthy diet.
The way to control bloat is to watch your refined carbs. One gram of starchy carbs holds four grams of water, which is one of the reasons I adhere to a lower carb diet. I mainly stay between 50-100 grams of carbs a day and I stay far away from anything starchy (rice, bread of any kind, potatoes, etc. Oh yeah and SUGAR!). I do eat Fiber One every morning but the amount of fiber in that cereal lowers the the amount of carbs that you count toward your daily total. I'm sure you have heard the phrase 'impact carbs'. The amount of impact carbs in any given food is grams of total carbs - grams of fiber. For example a serving on Fiber One is 1/2 cup. It contains 25 grams of carbs and 14 grams of fiber. 25 - 14 = 11 grams of impact carbs.
Here is my nutrition intake for 2/25/11:
On this particular day I took my kids out for lunch so it shows what you can do if you do the same thing.
Breakfast
Muscle Milk Protein Bar
Snack
100 calorie pack of almonds
2 ounces of cheddar cheese
Lunch
Triple stack hamburger
3 pieces of American cheese
1/2 a hamburger bun
Snack
2 chicken thighs (just the meat from a teriyaki place that I had left over from the day before)
Dinner
2 fried chicken wings
1/4 cup rice
1 Bourbon and soda
Total calories: 2,277
Total carbs : 57 grms
Total Protein: 176
I am not suggesting that you eat the way that I do. A couple people commented on the fact that I eat no fruit and almost no vegetables. That's true. I do try to get more leafy greens in my diet on a daily basis. I manage to do that about three times a week in the form of spinach, broccoli and lettuce. Yes, you should eat vegetables but I do suggest that you are careful with how much fruit you eat. Research shows that the body still recognizes fruit as sugar.
