The weight/eat right/ whatever thread

[the_lone_bard]

So, since the DB chat, and the moonbase just devolved into like, an hour and a half of talking about this and people were REALLY into it, let's start a thread.


Picking up from what I just checked using my room-mates bottle of cola:
If you're trying to replace soda, use Cordial. 2ltrs of cordial makes 10ltrs of drink. It contains 16g of sugar.
1.25ltrs of cola has 27g of sugar.

That's 216g of sugar for 10 ltrs of cola, or 16g for 10 ltrs of cordial. That alone is saving 200g of sugar.


Now for my problem, as a kid, my parents only fed me fast food. So I NEVER had vegetables, and rarely had fruit. So even though I like the taste of some vegetables, I can barely eat them for a minute before my brain just starts throwing a fit. The idea I've come up with is that I'm slowly eating more and more fruits that I'd never eaten, because my brain doesn't flip out as much and I'm hoping it will get to a point where it doesn't flip out over vegetables.

[Kapol]

Lone Bard, I mentioned I have a similar problem. They read off about how I just can't really eat fruits and veggies and just gag and nearly throw up and didn't seem to believe it. But it's the truth. I am going to try to get better about it though. I just know it's an issue I've had since I was a kid. It's why I hate Taco Bell. But that's another stories.

But I'm going to try to get better about it. I'm wondering if it's just something with my body. Because, while I'm not small, I'm not as huge as I should be. I eat A LOT. It's likely because I only eat a few times a day.

In other news, I am trying to lose weight. But the worry there is that I'll go into the rebound phase after I lose some weight and, therefore, I'll end up worse then I started.

[JustAName]

Devolved? You mean E-volved!

The challenge I'm facing lately is uni dining halls, where they'll have pre-made meals, and a lot of the time it's cream/butter-rich pasta. Which is delicious, but I don't eat vegetables very much. Now, I've never been very healthy, but I look in shape so I've never been that bothered much. I still look fine, but I feel awful, so I'm going to start trying to eat salads. I guess. Bleck.

[Jamfalcon]

It's been a very strange hour, but quite interesting.

As I said on the chat, I lost about 30 pounds in a handful of months by cutting out cheese as a snack (I still eat it in meals) and cutting down on portion sizes.

My biggest dietary issue is variety — I was incredibly picky as a kid, and I'm still getting over some of those prejudices. I don't enjoy cooking (or rather, and I don't like spending time on it), so I have a pretty limited selection of meals that I eat.

Kapol: is it the texture or flavour of fruits and vegetables that's a problem for you? Figuring out a solution for one would be quite different from the other.

Fayili: I find salads really help with stomach troubles. I try to have a bowl of lettuce with a bit of dressing every day, and it alleviates a lot of uncomfortableness I used to have.

[Avistew]

I find that what you eat as a kid does affect your diet immensely. When I was a kid, we always had very complete meals with lots of vegetables, and I love most vegetables. We also ate a lot of variety so I am used to eating new things.

Of course what you eat as a kid doesn't decide everything: I ate meat twice a day as a kid and I'm a vegetarian now.

About the soda, it's weird, when I'm in France I wouldn't conceive of drinking anything other than water. When I'm in the US there is soda everywhere and so I drink it, and it goes really fast. I only drink diet, though, because my boyfriend is diabetic.

What I have noticed, and a friend from Britain who also lives in the US and goes back and forth has confirmed, is the added fat and sugar in US food. Similarly, when Sean went to France he said that for the first week everything in France tasted bland. Then it started tasting delicious, and when he got back to the US everything tasted disgusting, way too sweet, fat, salty or all three.

This is my experience. I find fruit to be sweet, I find everything sweeter than that to be too sweet. The idea of putting sugar on fruit makes me gag. But when I spend long enough in the US (or Canada, it was the same in Canada), I start getting used to how sweet things is, and to things having less of a real taste and more of a "adds-on" taste.

Anyways, my point is that I think your body can be conditioned to some extent, and your tastes can change, but it might be made harder or easier by your environment.

[Serendipony]

If anyone needs something to incentivise exercising I would highly recommend this Ios/Android app https://www.zombiesrungame.com/ .
Pretty much turns walking/running into a story based RPG; you listen to your music and pick up random supplies now and then, which you use to level up parts of your base.
In between songs you will also hear mission statements which delve into an awesome story. And the unique style in which they tell it can really get you invested.
Game of the year in my mind

[Sieg Reyu]

If you hate drinking water, get a water purifier. It makes water so much tastier. I hate the taste of tap, and bottled water, when it doesn't taste the same, costs way too much. So yeah. Do that.

[the_lone_bard]

My problem with water was that i was ok with thw tastw, but just didnt drink much, and without realising it id get dehydrated... Cordial solves that though.

[AdmiralMemo]

Funnily, I like water that has an iron taste to it. Is that healthy?

[Metcarfre]

Probably just minerals, likely fine.

Yeah, I don't really drink soda anymore. I switched to sparkling water and will squeeze some lemon or preferably lime juice in for taste - 0 cals.

If you're interested in eating healthier, the #1 thing I recommend doing is starting a food log. Just write down everything you eat and drink. You can do it in hard copy or use something like http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ (which also has an app) to log intake. You don't have to worry about cutting calories or anything at this point - just make an honest record of what you're eating.

The advantage of the website/app is it tracks macronutrients and vitamins. Are you getting enough vitamin A, C, D, iron? Protein? Too much sodium?

I've been trying to track consistently there for a couple weeks now. Follow me! The only thing that really works that I've seen for losing weight is to maintain a steady, slow caloric deficit - eating less than you are using. Since I need to lose weight to be a healthier, more trim me, I am operating at about ~300 calorie/day deficit.

Some things that help me are; coffee (appetite suppressant), water (sometimes you're just thirsty), low-density snacks with OK "macros" (carb/fat/protein levels) - roasted chick peas, popcorn, cut veggies and hummus. The nice thing about veggies is they're generally very low-cal.

If you really don't like veggies, try learning to cook and prepare them differently. One thing I like to do is roast or grill vegetables like peppers, zuchinni (courgette), eggplant, onions, etc. Grilling and roasting both release sugars from the veg and carmelize them, lending a nice sweet and smoky flavour.

The other thing you can do is sneak veg in. Chop them up fine and stir-fry them, or mince them with ground beef for chili/tacos.

Really, knowing how to cook is a key here.

[empath]

Oh, yeah - MFP has been a *HUGE* help to zyxst in her weight loss; it gives one visible, concrete reminders and targets to help visualize one's diet and plan out meals ("let's see, if I have {this} for lunch that'll leave me with only this many calories if I want to keep to my daily budget...but if I have {that}, I'll have enough left over so I can have some of {those} for supper...")

And yeah, there's no substitute for just simply following energy in < energy out; you CAN exercise more - and might find you'll HAVE to eat more if you start an exercise program (and yet will still lose weight) - but at some point you gotta at least *track* what you eat.

MFP or similar sites are great for setting YOUR goals - if you only want to lose one kg a month, cool. At the very least, try using it to log what you eat for a three or four weeks, just to get some background numbers to examine your current diet and what you might be able to change that'd help with what you're striving for while still being fairly unobtrusive and easy to stick to.

As for fruits and veggies? met has some great ideas, there. But remember, you can always start REALLY, REALLY small and work up in tiny steps. Maybe eat a single pea with a meal, then keep that going for a week or two until you just become 'familiarized' to that, and sneak in another one, etc. It might take you a couple of years, but you could very well 'wean yourself onto vegetables' like that. Heck, if it takes a decade, so what?

Or even maybe eating something essentially BAD FOR YOU...as a first step: maybe cut fresh carrots, with gooey, fattening, chocolate dipping sauce; again start small and work up to a 'serving', and then start to cut back on the sauce - pour out a little bit less for the same amount of carrots for a week, then repeat, etc. etc. until you've cut out the dipping sauce?

Oh, and while the site itself is great, I'll throw a cautionary note out about MFP's forums (or the same for any open discussion medium involving this subject). It can be great - zyxst has gotten a lot of great ideas and OODLES of support and encouragement from total strangers there...but she's also gotten a lot of garbage, misinformation, junk 'science', and even valid ideas that are just incomprehensibly described/explained to the point of them being nothing more than a source of frustration. YMMV, and at least go into it with your eyes open and your 'Inner Skeptic' on duty.

And that brings me to my biggest point: different methods work for different people - Mother Nature loves to vary her designs - so remember that almost any plan or strategy or tip that someone else offers might not work for you...but even then something else will.

"Remember, I'm pulling for ya. We're all in this together!" - Red Green

[Dubious_wolf]

Speaking of eating right. TURKEY DAY!
GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE! .

[Avistew]

I used myfitness pal for a few months, too. Mostly to try and eat balanced food on a budget, but when I was in France it was really helpful to make sure I got enough food into me (sometimes I would eat 600 or 800 calories for the whole day. I didn't feel hungrier or less full than when I ate double that), and once I got back to the US it was helpful the other way around (somehow I could eat way too much and not notice).

I think there is a huge range in the calorie content of food, which, duh, everyone knows already, but seeing it written can really help. Of course calories aren't the most important part, I think what matters the most is the type of food you eat. I think if you realise you've only eaten 800 calories that day and you're supposed to have, say, 1,800 or so, eating a thousand worth of ice-cream is NOT going to be healthy.

But also, I know that a lot of people who diet can get excessive and remove everything they think isn't "perfect" from their diet. And then they become malnourished, because you do need some fat in your diet, and some salt, and some nutrients other than salad. So something that tracks it can help you see if you're going too far one way or the other, and that's good.

Now I have a feel with how much I'm eating, so I haven't been tracking it anymore, but I probably will when I get back to France, just until I get into a rhythm again.

[SecretsOfMoon]

incezivy.. inzynti.. ynfynxoy.. hargbl..
That thing, is for pussies. Also I like to think that the slice of lemon in my whisky-and-coke counts towards the five-a-day bullshit standard, so I'm pretty much covered on that front.

To be fair, compared to the American average (which is somewhat silly, considering I live several thousand kilometres away from there), I eat outstandingly healthily, but mostly I just wanted to say that I love beer, especially a good, German wheat beer, or an English IPA or bitter. And on that note, this thread is now about beer, and things to eat with beer, such as bratwursten mitt sauerkraut.

[Metcarfre]

How exceedingly helpful

[Cybertrash]

Hey it's that guy again.

Anyway, I need to eat better, I probably eat way too much pasta and rice and bread n stuff... But I have no idea what to cook. Not eating meat seems to limit your choices, or my imagination just sucks.

[Metcarfre]

Tofu! Beans! Tempeh! Vegetablllllllleeees!!!

[Yaxley]

Alright, I'll throw in on this topic. Check out this book. It's called The 17 Day Diet, but it's really more like Learn How to Eat Better in Several Small Increments which, admittedly, is not as catchy.

In the first two weeks following this guy's advice, I ate more vegetables than I had in the preceding year. This should tell you something about my previous diet. In the three months since I started, I've dropped 45 pounds (which is not a humblebrag given that it's less than half of my desired goal). And really, it's not that hard. I'm barely exercising more than I used to, I never count calories, and I never feel like I'm starving myself. Yet I'm losing weight. Yes, I cook nearly every meal because I'm not eating prepared food anymore. But it's so worth it.

Also, I totally had a piece of pumpkin pie today, even though it's not on the list. Because this isn't actually a diet. It's a complete re-evaluation of the food you eat. So "cheating" once isn't going to wreck things, because it's not like I'm going to lose the weight I want to and then go back to my old habits. This has changed the way I think about what I eat.

Food for thought, pun intended.

[Metcarfre]

Losing 3.5 lbs a week is pretty close to being unhealthy, fwiw. Though that of course depends on your starting weight.

In the end, again, it's always going to be calories in < calories out. How to accomplish that will vary wildly for various people. Some count, some keto, some do small meals, some do leangains, some do binge/fast. If it works for you (and you are getting enough nutrients/not eating poorly), go for it.

I think Michael Pollan wrote it best: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly vegetables.

[Yaxley]

Because metcarfre is totally right, I should elaborate. I had/have quite a bit of weight to lose. Obviously that wouldn't be healthy in every situation.

[TheRocket]

My problem with that whole line of conversation is that all of a sudden! Everyone turned into licensed nutritionists. I'm wary of conversations like that because what works for one person, might not work for another, and the fact that so many fade diets and catch prases/words are thrown around.

Half the recipes or things that were being suggested - I would not put in my body.

[Yaxley]

Please note that I did not post any recipes. I posted a link to a book where a licensed medical doctor listed recipes. I followed those recipes. I lost weight. That is a thing that happened. I make no claims above and beyond that.

[King Kool]

I have this diet called "I'm Not Handsome, So I Might As Well Be Fat, Too, Because Sex Is Overrated, I Assume."

[tak197]

Funnily, I like water that has an iron taste to it. Is that healthy?

I'm not a professional, but to me, that sounds like it might have something to do with your mineral intake, like you developed a taste for that iron flavor because you don't get enough iron into your diet. I dunno, but I'd look into that with your doctor just to be sure.

My big issue with weight loss is something I have been vocal about on here for a while. I have been under treatment for Stage One Follicular Carcinoma of the Thyroid. This involved the COMPLETE REMOVAL of my thyroid. Now, if you go onto the Internet and look for symptoms of hypothyroidism (lack of thyroid function), one of the main ones you will see is weight gain and difficulty in weight loss. People who are hypothyroid still have a little thyroid function, whereas I have no thyroid whatsoever, so I have no thyroid function.

So needless to say, I am currently at 240lb, and I'd love to be below 200, closer to 185lb if possible. So that is 55 pounds of fat that I need to lose. But I have this massive roadblock of illness keeping me from moving very far from it.

[Dubious_wolf]

Tak do they give you drugs for thyroid simulation?