Wait a minute..no carbs means..NO BEER!

STOP THE INSANITY!!!

It means no alcohol of any kind! *wails*

Miso soup.
Fish.
Vegetable stew - carrots, onions, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, lots of herbs & seasonings, served on beanshoots, instead of spaghetti.
This.
This.

Fish, of course! I'm just not really into fish, and forget to lean on it.

Your recipies sound delicious, Jan! I'll have to try both.

Oh, and I can't have anything fermented, so things like miso and soy sauce are out, too.

For health reasons, I'm not eating a damn thing 'til March, no matter what anyone says. I hate eating anymore, and I don't know why. Eating feels like a function of my gluttony, not the other way around. Did I mention everything tastes like cardboard these days?

Do stuff with portobello mushrooms, roasted garlic, and roasted fennel bulbs. You can't have figs and dates? But they're SO good with nuts. Evil fux, what kinda cox design a diet without fruit? That eats the devil's dick.

Good luck!

Make a noodleless tuna casserole, with lots of celery, onions and baked cheddar!

Lox and cream cheese lettuce wraps!

Chowder! Clam, Smoked Oyster?

Frittatas of all sorts: florentine, black olive and carmelized onion... I envy you all the fatty things you get to cling to!!

I don't eat beef or pork. Romaine (or other green or red lettuce), mayo, turkey bacon, water chestnuts, green onions.

Oh yeah, pickles are great too but you have to read the labels to make sure there's no HFCS in the juice.

And bunches of omelettes.

Hmmm... what I ate tonight should work: Coconut chicken soup. You could probably make it regular Thai style, but since I can't get some key ingredients, I pan fried boneless chicken breasts (I made half for supper yesterday - the other half went for the soup today) and browned them in Teriyaki sauce then chopped/shredded the cooked chicken, chopped one onion, one green pepper, one red pepper, garlic and ginger and sauteed the veggies in the chicken pan (to deglaze) while I heated enough water to cover three smallish diced potatoes (you'd leave out this ingredient). After the vegetables were well wilted, I added them, plus the chicken to the water, added pepper and salt, and let it all cook a bit before adding a can of coconut milk and simmering. At the end I tossed in a bunch of chopped Italian flatleaf parsley. It was quite yum.

Other ideas... pig out on sauteed portobello mushrooms! Or grill/broil them stuffed with crab and parmesan cheese! Yay! Also, homemade cream of mushroom soup!

Avocado salad! Avocado everything! Cheese, cheese, cheese! Egg salad. Deviled eggs.

Sashimi.

Grilled Salmon With Jalapeno Butter

Gumbo!!! All kinds - great for autumn.

Seared Tuna with Soy Wasabi Glaze

Roasted vegetables are a great autumn dish. I generally chunk up some butternut squash (can you have squash?), red onion, red pepper, carrots, fennel, mushrooms, add some peeled whole garlic cloves, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic, put in a ~300 oven for an hour or so, stirring from time to time. Very yummy, and you can do a big batch and reheat leftovers as desired.

mmmmm sashimi

Yum, thanks, guys!

I am trying this too. I might be a bit peculiar in that I don't mind eating more or less the same thing everyday, and I don't need fancy cooked meals. Simple foods are fine with me. Also, how low sugar do you really need to go? Can you allow yourself some fruit?

Note: I'm also trying the shangri-la diet stuff, and taking a tablespoon of flax oil mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

breakfast:
a can of sardines in olive oil or water
a tomato
some leaves of lettuce
maybe a banana or apple
coffee (black... yuck)

lunch:
boiled egg
banana or apple
cottage cheese
sometimes coffee

dinner:
whatever is around: turkey burgers, steak, cheese, yogurt (unsweetened) with fruit. I also allow myself more leeway with dinner since therre's food around that the rest of the family is eating. I just try not to hit the bread/potatoes/cookies too hard.

Make sure you get enough fiber. I didn't for a few days and ran into problems. I'll also give myself some carbs if I need them: a little bread or a little potatoes or a little more fruit. I figure I'm doing good if I just eat a lot less of it than I used to. I haven't been super-consistent with this, but hope to be doing better real soon now. Don't take this as advice, it's just what I'm trying

Oops sorry, you said fruit was forbidden, so forget what I said about that. I want to ask why no fruit, but that would be prying...

Specklet my sweet, can you have squash? 'Cause if you can have squash you can have spaghetti squash! Also, eggplant parmigiana! Hope your health issues clear up.

DarkForest, it's an anti-Candida diet, and the natural sugars in fruit encourage it.

Eggplant parmigiana, though, that I can do!

Uh, by "it" I mean encourage the Candida, not the diet.

Man, I'm tired.

After taking a look at a couple of Candida diet webpages, I realize vinegars and mushrooms are out, so--modify or ignore my previous entry. One thing I thought of, though, was beans (if you like them) -- refried beans with a little melted cheese over them, or cannellini beans stewed in olive oil with garlic and kale, or lentil soup with a ham hock.

Is wild rice OK? (One website seemed to indicate so.) That would be a wonderful starchy-type side to have with dishes where you might typically have bread or potatoes or regular rice.

Good luck, specklet - we're starting our 3rd week of Atkins Induction, so far so good. Vegetables and soup really help. Good luck!

Specklet — You should get one of the South Beach Diet pocket books with the list of good/bad foods for each phase and good/bad carbs. The first Phase of South Beach, 2 weeks, you aren't allowed any sugar of any kind, including fructose (fruit sugars), maltose (malt sugars, like in beer) or anything else. I find it is a good guidebook to keep when I'm grocery shopping so I don't accidentally buy something I shouldn't eat.

You can also google for South Beach Phase 1 recipes for some good options.

You'd be surprised at the things that contain sugar. For example, many DIET salad dressing have both sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

You said no red meat but I really like pork loin, which is very, very lean and not exactly red meat. Since nuts are okay, you can have a good brand of peanut butter with no sugar added as a snack.

I also recently found a really good recipe for pasta-free eggplant lasagna (the eggplant takes the place of the pasta). I'll email it to you if you want. Plus there was an AskMe question a while back about pasta replacements that talked a lot about spaghetti squash, one of my faves.

For breakfast I always make sure I have hard boiled eggs ready in the fridge each morning. Very filling and full of protein. I also eat a lot of fish.

Good luck!

If you mean a truly no-carb diet then you cannot have vegetables, nuts or seeds either. If you mean a severely-limited carb diet, you must completely avoid many varieties of plant matter, and eat what you can have in quite small quantities (we're talking 1/4 cup portions here). The exception is celery; you can pretty much eat all of that that you can stand, which isn't much by the end of day 2.

The list you give above reads more like a heart-healthy diet.

Drat, I always think of something else just when I hit Post. Is there a word for that?

Anyway, I found confirmation yesterday of something I long suspected. Skimping on a grocery budget for a diet is a prescription for failure. Instead, buy the very best of the foods you are allowed. Buy fresh herbs and toss out that dried junk. Avoid canned fish, especially if the fresh fish section will steam your purchase. Don't keep leftovers; either fix smaller portions or be prepared to toss out a lot of food.

I think you get the idea. Have fun!