Thanks so much for finding my blog and taking the time to write in.

Congratulations on trying out the Belly Fat Cure lifestyle. It’s been wonderful for me. In answer to your question, yes, it’s true you treat carb items with 5 grams or less as “freebies” and those from 6-20 grams as 1 carb serving. I get what you mean about the sauce being 1 gram per teaspoon but having more servings to be enough to to count it as a carb serving. Technically yes, I would say you should count it as a carb serving, but at the same time, is it something you could get away with using one or two teaspoons less of it so that you don’t have to count it at all? Jorge’s rule of thumb is on the freebies is generally no more than three servings of each freebies in any one day, a few of the freebies are completely unlimited.

Your question about marinating meats in a sauce is a very good question. I know that a lot of the sauce would be burned off in the cooking process, so that does create an interesting dilemma of should it be counted or not. I think in this case it’s probably safe to not count it providing it’s closer to zero grams of carbs than closer to the 5 grams as the cut off for the freebies. The reason I say this is that several of your other carb items you’ll be eating will not be exactly 20 or 40 grams, it creates a little room for letting the freebies slide since you’re supposed to count a food item with 15 grams of carbs as a 1 which leaves you with roughly 5 grams you’re over tracking. And by the same token, something that just barely pushes past 20 grams has to be counted as a 2, like something that has 23 grams of carbs is being tracked as if it had 40 grams. It gives you a little room to play with on questionable things like the marinade.

The thing to remember is that this shouldn’t be difficult. Don’t turn it into a carb negotiation by saying I’ll have this 23 gram item and count it as 2 and not count this 8 gram item at all because combined it’s still less than 40 grams. That just makes the program way too complicated. The key to the program is just being fair and honest with yourself and track it as best you can. If you’re having a lot of the sauce which is technically a freebie in a very small quantity but you’re having quite a bit more, than you may want to consider counting it. Just decide what feels right for you and don’t lose sleep over it. I know it’s all new to you at the moment, and you’re making a big shift in your diet to drop sugar and keep a better eye on carbs than you’ve probably done in the past (at least that was very true for me). You may find that you’re wanting a lot of the sauce as part of your weening process. My first couple of weeks I used a ton of Truvia packets to replace a lot of the sugar I had eliminated, but within a couple of weeks I was hardly using any. I’m still on my second box of 40 packets I’ve ever bought. I probably used 3/4 of the first box my first two weeks on the Belly Fat Cure alone. You may find eventually that you don’t even want or need the sauce at all down the road.

And most importantly don’t worry about “ruining” your efforts the first couple of weeks. You’re in the learning stage of the program, so its going to take a little bit of time to get used to the program. You figure out what you like and what you don’t and go from there. If you blow the 5/2 guideline for a meal just note what you did, and learn from it. You’ll eventually settle into a routine that you like and won’t have to worry about it.

I hope this helps and again congratulations on joining the Belly Fat Cure lifestyle. Please do feel free to shoot me another comment sometime to tell me about your progress.

Ryan

First and foremost, congratulations on your weight loss! You look fantastic!

Question, if you can answer it for me: Before the book comes out, which I plan on buying, I’ve started doing the 15/6 way of eating. I saw a young lady on youtube talking about the 15/6 way of eating, and she said to only count carbs as being one of your 6 if they contain 5-20 grams, and this does make sense to me but she also said if the item is under 5 grams you don’t have to count it as a carb at all. So…. if I’m eating a sauce that contains (0 sugar) and 1 gram of carbs per teaspoon, if I eat 5 teaspoons which would make the carb count up to 5, then I would count it as 1 carb for the day? I hope I am making sense. Also, I’ve been marinating some meat in a 0 sugar/low carb 1 per tsp sauce and using a BUNCH of the sauce to marinate the meat in and cook it in….how in the world would I know how much I’m actually taking in?? I’m scared of feeling deprived while eating this way; therefore, I’m trying to cook up some food and tasty foods. I’m worried that the sauce I’m using has “ruined” my efforts and my husband and I are only on week 1. Please help!

No worries, I respond when I get a chance to, sometimes it might be quick, others it might be a couple of days. In this case, it was quick.

You’ll enjoy the book. I’m excited to finally have a copy of the finished book. I have a copy of the second draft of the book which is printed in black and white, so it’ll be nice to see it in full color.

I’m not a big fan of Buffalo sauce, so I don’t personally do buffalo wings. You could certainly do them on the program but they aren’t one of the best choices out there because they’re fried and the breadding adds to the carb count, but they would most likely be a better choice than the pizza. Check the nutritional information for where ever you get them to determine what the appropriate serving size is so you don’t exceed 5 grams of sugar or 2 carb servings for the meal. Fat is okay on the program, it’s just sugar and total carbs you have to worry about.

Ryan

Do you ever eat buffalo wings on BFC?? My husband orders pizza every Friday night and the only thing I can think of to feel “ok” with passing on the “za” is to eat buffalo wings?? Tons and tons of fat though! I could probably eat 10 too! I have my hearty midwest appetite to fulfill!

Thanks again!

Thank you so much for the comment!!

It’s okay about the sabotaging yourself, keep in mind you’re probably coming from a point where you were consuming huge quantities of sugar, and cutting down to 15 grams or less per day is a significant drop. So in the first couple of weeks it’s very hard to go cold turkey. In my first two weeks I did a lot of iced tea with truvia to replace the sodas, but then I tried the Lipton Carmel Vanilla flavor and that tea was so gross, I was immediately cured of doing lots of iced tea, and went to water. And then I discovered Zevia, which has allowed me to enjoy soda again, it has great flavor, and I still can’t believe it’s all natural and sugar free. I think it tastes better than the regular sodas I was replacing it with.

Yes, Halloween can be an issue since it’s one of those “candy” holidays but if you just make sure you have snacks that are okay on the program, such as handfuls of nuts, string cheese, even small 1 oz. bags of chips you can make it through without picking up the candy. And of course, there’s always the option of getting some of the sugar free chocolates that are out there. Every once in a while I pick up one of the little bags of sugar free Hershey’s with caramel miniatures or the sugar free Reese’s Peanut Butter cup miniatures. They help sooth the sweet tooth without sabotaging your success.

I can understand the finances being an issue for not taking part in the 12 week coaching plan. It was one of the reasons why I didn’t initially sign up for it. For me it would just be a lot of the same information as I’ve already learned, just a little more updated and in a slicker presentation than when I first got the info. Plus I don’t have an extra $400 lying around to be spending on a program right now, this year has been a little rough financially. If I wasn’t offered the opportunity to join the 12 week program I would be outside on the sidelines too.

As for the complimentary download, I haven’t yet heard the download and am not sure how long it is. I’ll be submitting a receipt to get a copy of it soon, but essentially from my understanding of it, he explains the program so that you can get started on it right away without having to wait for the book to be released at the end of December to get the full benefit of it. Knowing Jorge, the audio will be loaded it great information and worth it.

I can understand the buying the book in “secret” to avoid disappointment. When I originally filled out the application to be in Jorge’s program it required photos in a swimsuit as part of the application. I so did not want to take those photos. I didn’t even want to be seen without a shirt on, and I was too embarrassed to ask for anyone to help me take the pictures so I set up a few empty boxes so I could put my camera on it to use the timer feature. I didn’t tell a soul I had submitted an application to the program. I only told a couple of people when I got accepted into the program, but mostly I just let people start to notice I was getting smaller and it will happen. Then it becomes a great motivator when people come up to you to tell you how good you look. You may not need the extra copies of the book right away, but once you start dropping pounds, people will be begging to know what you’re doing to lose weight. Then you’ll want to have the extra copies of the book to give away or sell.

Hope this helps.

Ryan