Conference rocks::weight_control

Few things...

1 - "good for you ceral" such as shredded wheat and bran flakes is higher
in fiber.  Fiber helps make you feel fuller, is good for your digestion and
metabolism, and hundreds of other things that are good for your body, or
so say the "experts".

2 - sugar cereal is higher in simple carbohydrates (sugars) and lower in
complex carbohydrates (starches).  Simple carbohydrates burn faster, giving
you a short burst of energy and leaving you feeling tired and hungry
afterwards.  Complex carbohydrates are metabolized more slowly, giving
you a more steady energy flow.  

For me, eating sweet things makes it harder to stick to my diet, because
I get hungrier and have more cravings.

3 - I make no claims to the accuracy of this (frankly, I'm sceptical) but
I have heard some people claim that minerals and vitamins you get from
*adding* them are not as good for you as ones you get naturally from food -
so although the nutrition make look the same, you get more benefit from 
the "natural" cereal.

4 - Sugar rots your teeth! :-)

5 - just think of those horrible sugar-cereal ads they play on saturday morning
television...do you really want to support those? :-) :-)

	Right on Diana!  Especially #2.  The nutritional guidelines
	I was taught during AFAA certification training indicated
	that 65% of you total caloric intake should be carbos,
	with 95% of THOSE being Complex (grains, vegetables) and
	only 5% being simple (sugar, honey, corn syrup, *ose).

	Also, just saw this last week, but many of the cereals made
	to appeal to children that claim to be made of "oats" are
	highly processed, so the intrinsic nutritional value of the
	food has been removed.  One of the cereals that was used
	as an example was Honey Nut Cheerio's ( :-( :-( ) and 
	even regular Cheerio's.  What to buy instead ?  Natural
	"cheerios" from Health food store...

	Karen

    I've wondered the same thing more than once....
    Believe me....if they we're "equal"...I'd much rather eat COCO PUFFS
    rather than puffed wheat!

    Another reason not to eat highly sugared cereals....
    
    Eating sugar raises insulin levels.....insulin interferes with fat
    metabolism.
    
    

Okay, are there any good for you cereals that taste good?

My regulars are Raisin Bran, Cracklin Oat Bran, Crispix, Chexs, Apple Cinnamon
Cheerios and Frosted Mini-wheats.  Are any of these okay for a diet?

I hate wheat cereals so I can't switch to those.

Thanks,

Debbi

    re .-1
    
    How about plain Cheerios?  YOu say you hate wheat cereals, but Frosted
    Mini Wheats is one of the cereals you eat.  ??  Or do you just hate any
    cereals that aren't sugary?  If so, you may find that any non-sugary
    cereal doesn't taste good.  But you may also find, as I have, that if
    you force yourself to eat them a few times, you start tasting the
    cereal instead of the sugar, and they are good tasting on their own!
    
    good luck.

    The trouble with cereal and diets (or at least WW) is that a serving is
    so small.  For instance, a woman on WW typically doesn't want to use
    up more than 1 Bread for breakfast (only get 3 per day).  1 Bread's
    worth of most cereals looks *small*.
    
    When I'm looking for a high-volume serving, I've had Kix.  Though
    nutritionally, it's only around 25% of most of the vitamins/minerals.
    1 Bread's worth fills a bowl reasonably.
    
    --Sharon
    
    

	I'd cut the cracklin' oat bran.  Unless they've recently changed, it's
	rather high in fat for a cereal.

	I like Kenmei Rice Bran with Raisins (you can add your own
	raisins, it's cheaper!).  I also use regular Cheerio's and
	at a little sugar myself.  At least I can control it that way.

	Karen

I don't eat sugar (meaning, I don't eat products with sugar as a main 
ingredient, ie: higher than fourth on the ingredient list) so it is
very hard for me to find cereals, but it can be done.

Puffed rice and wheat are both high-volume (which I like, as sharon said)
and are nice as they contain *nothing* except rice and wheat. You can
add sugar or sweetener as you wish (or, better yet, fruit.)  Quaker makes
these, so do some store brans.

Kellog's Nutrigrain has no sugar, but some versions of it have nuts, which
are higher in fat that you might want to do.  But they are good and 
wheat-free.  I like it a lot, but it suffers from the lo-volume problem
Sharon was talking about.

Grape-nuts are also no-sugar, but they are so dense (low volume) that I
only use them for adding to other things (like yogurt and fruit) and not
as regular cold cereal.

Shredded wheat is low sugar, but frosted mini-wheats are *high* sugar,
almost as bad as eating Cap'n Crunch!  Chex is reasonably low sugar (although
I can't eat it), as are corn flakes, etc.

There is also a few brands of "health food" cereals that are fruit juice
sweetened - some are good, some aren't.  Look in the health food isles
rather than the cereal isle.

Good luck!

D!

    Extra fiber all bran is my regular.  I eat it with plain yogurt and
    fruit.  Add a little nutrisweet and some pure vanilla, and it's my
    breakfast food of choice.  This cereal is already sweetened a little
    with nutrisweet.  From the labels I've read, it's the lowest calorie
    (50), highest fiber (14g) ceral going.

    I usually have my cereal with a container of one of the non-fat,
    fruited, Nutrasweet-ed yogurt (Yoplait light or Dannon lite) on it, 
    so it almost doesn't matter what the cereal is. I usually switch 
    off between Special K and Total. 
    
    My apologies to the non-US noters who probably have no idea what 
    I'm talking about.
    
    Amy

    >it almost doesn't matter what the cereal is
    
    Why?  Are you referring to the taste or the nutritional quality?
    
    When eating cereal with yogurt I prefer hard crunch stuff like granola
    or grape-nuts, because of the texture.  But whether I use milk or
    yogurt, I still avoid sugary processed cereals.
    
    D!

    my system will not tolerate much in the way of fiber so my cereal is
    Rice Chexs or Special K both of which contain sugar however, I need the
    carbs and so far the amount of sugar is not setting me up for sugar
    cravings.
    marie