Diet Advice!

[lupo pazzesco]

Ok, going to chime in here with what's helped me in the last year. I've lost about 50 lbs by not looking at it as a diet. It's a lifestyle change. One of the biggest things is to remind yourself that this is YOUR body. You shower daily, get haircuts, etc to take care and maintain the outside of it, why then fill it with junk and ignore taking care of and maintaining the inside? The two do kind of go hand in hand.

Simple enough to start with - drink more water. If you don't like plain water, throw in a few slices of citrus fruit or (and my favorite, just cuz I love to eat them) some cucumber slices. Get some fizzy water and berries and it's pretty tasty.

This site has also proven invaluable. Completely free to join. It's a site that lets you track calories you take in, calories you burn, set goals, etc. They have a recipe site, hundreds of forums and communities to provide support and quick 10 minute workout videos, too. A lot of the time, the excuse of being too busy to exercise comes up because people don't want to spend an hour or more at the gym. Got 10 minutes? DO something that gets the heart rate up and moving! Baby steps.

The nutrition tracker on the site has helped me the most. Before I ever set a concrete goal, I just tracked what I ate and it's an eye opener, really. I eat pretty healthy, always have, but the sheer quantities amazed me sometimes.

So, lifestyle change, not diet. And Whiskey is right, don't beat yourself up for eating ice cream, it's not a cardinal sin. You're only human. Humans make mistakes, and besides cutting out all food that's considered unhealthy is in itself unhealthy in the long run and can lead to binge eating. I know that if i cut sweets or salty snacks out of my diet completely for a lengthy period of time, I end up gorging on them later and completely destroying all of the good work I'd been doing. Guess what? Today I had two chocolate chip cookies with lunch. (GASP!!!!)

am I beating myself up over it? Nope. Yes, that's an extra amount of calories, but I felt better for it in a way, because I know I'm not depriving myself of treats and still taking care of myself with a healthy lunch (salsa chicken with black beans over brown rice, tomato and cucumber salad, and an apple with iced tea) Changing your mindset will ultimately change a lot of the other problems perceive when it comes to weight loss or getting into better shape.

And for those of you who love ice cream, have you ever tried running a frozen banana through the food processor? Seriously, slice up a banana, freeze it, then run the frozen chunks in a food processor (NOT a blender. Blenders cause...unfortunate incidents, shall we say). The end result is a dessert that has the texture of soft serve ice cream. Banana ice cream. I drizzle a little caramel sauce, or fudge sauce over it and it is SO good. I highly recommend it.

Well, think I've babble enough here. Hope this proved helpful.

[BookstoreEscapee]

So, lifestyle change, not diet. And Whiskey is right, don't beat yourself up for eating ice cream, it's not a cardinal sin.

I'd venture to say it's a necessity

And for those of you who love ice cream, have you ever tried running a frozen banana through the food processor?

Sometimes I just cut a banana into chunks and drizzle with chocolate syrup (I'm partial to Hershey's Special Dark syrup). Also good with fresh raspberries (and if you're goofy like me, you carefully fill each raspberry with a drop of syrup; it's fun and it takes longer to eat that way ).

I don't actually own a food processor, or a real blender, for that matter (I have a stick blender, which works for some things). I don't have a lot of room in my kitchen so I haven't bought some of the gadgets I'd like to have. I should get them anyway and clear off a bookshelf or something to store them.

[Whiskey]

Indulgence is a necessary part of a healthy diet. Just don't go off the rails. I get a piece of tiramisu bi-weekly.

I'm not big on sweets in general though. I eat, maybe, a pint of ice cream a year. I don't think I've had a cookie in six months.

[Seshat]

Eh. some change is better than none, right?

Yes!

In fact, here's my #1 lesson: make one change at a time.

Pick one thing to change. Work on it until it's habit, and a normal part of your life. Then - and only then - pick another thing to change. Over time, this will improve your eating and exercise habits until you're in the healthiest 10% of the population, lifestyle wise.

So any change is better than none.


Anyway, here's my goal conditions:

Exercise:
* Any varied exercise set that brings you to a sweat, at a minimum of 30 minutes, twice or 3 times a week. (For cardiovascular benefit)
* Any range of exercises that covers the majority of the body's muscles, and brings you to a level of strength that you can conveniently and easily do everything you want to do.
* Core exercises (abdominal aka 'corset' muscles, and spinal muscles) such that your guts are held in healthily, and your spine is supported properly.

You'll notice that the goals are fairly vague there. For me, the strength level I want to achieve is the ability to annually or twice-annually prune my garden, and dig over a vegetable garden. I should be able to do that without running out of the strength to do it, though I expect to be sweating and drinking a lot of water while I do it.

Once you've achieved your desired strength, you'll need to keep it up. Two or three sessions of whatever-exercise a week should enable you to maintain it. Gym work of whatever sort is an easy way to quantify the level of exercise you'll need to maintain the goal - but gardening is just as valid an exercise, as is playing frisbee or flying kites or playing on a kid's climbing frame.



Diet - Treats:
* It's okay to eat treats.
* As your diet improves, your idea of what a 'treat' is will change. Your tastes will change - some of your now-favourite foods may taste too fatty, or too sugary-sweet. So don't fret over 'mistakes'. Just let the 'mistake' pass and continue as if you hadn't made it.
* When eating a treat, stop when you stop enjoying it, or after one serving, whichever comes sooner. You can always put the rest away for later.
* Eat your treats consciously. Make a point of savouring them, enjoying them, tasting them with your whole self.
* If you're not interested in doing that, ask yourself why you want it. You may be after comfort. You may be bored. You may be feeling emotional in some other way. Consider coming up with a method of handling comfort/boredom/anger/etc in a way that has fewer long-term consequences.


Diet - general:
* Gradually work towards most of your liquids being tisanes (herbal teas), water, or liquids from soups and casseroles. Broths are fine, if you prefer savoury hot liquids, but a full-on soup with veggie bits is better for you than a strained broth.
Milk is good, but an adult only needs about two serves of dairy a day; so milk shouldn't be your major liquid. (If you do heavy physical work, go ahead and have more.)
* Eat all the wholegrains you want. Wholemeal bread, wholegrain bread, wholemeal pasta, breakfast cereals with no added sugar and wholegrain as the major ingredient (especially if it's the only ingredient), porridge from rolled oats, anything of that sort. If it's a whole grain, eat it. Have some with every meal and every snack, if you want to. If not, try to have at least three hefty serves a day. (Two slices of bread, or one bowl of cereal/porridge, is a serve.)
* Eat two or three serves of fruit a day. (One apple, one banana, a handful of berries, etc.) Culinary fruits are the sweet ones. Botanical fruits (such as pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber and squashes) that aren't inherently sweet can be treated as vegetables.
* Eat as many vegetables as you want, at least three serves a day.
* Eat fruits and vegetables of many different colours. You should have at least three different colours a day, and try to cover the whole greengrocer's store, colourwise, in the course of a week. This will help ensure you get the full range of nutrients.
* Eat each part of plants over the course of a week. Seeds (nuts, grains, legumes), seed pods (fruits, green beans, zucchini, cucumber, chilis/peppers), flowers (cauliflower, broccoli), stems (celery, rhubarb, asparagus, cauliflower stem, broccoli stem), leaves (any of the leafy stuff) and roots (all the tubers: potato, swede, turnip, carrot, parsnip). This will also help ensure you get the full range of nutrients.
(Note: do NOT try to eat each part of the same plant! In some plants, the bits we don't eat are actually poisonous!)
* Eat two or three serves of dairy a day, depending on your need for calcium and your preferences. One serve is a glass of milk, the cheese on a cheese sandwich, or a 'single serving' tub of yoghurt. As an alternative, eat something which provides equivalent calcium.
* Eat one or two eggs, or a palm-sized piece of lean meat or fish (the size of your palm is a good guide based on your natural build), each day.
* As an alternative to the eggs and meat, eat a mix of legumes and grains - this provides a natural equivalent of whole protein. Dhal (Indian-from-India lentil stew) with rice is VERY yummy. Nachos, tacos or tortillas with frijoles is another option, as is pea soup or a pea-based stew with whole-wheat bread. Hummus and turkish flatbreads is another option. You can see the range here!
* If you eat that wide variety of vegetables and the lean meat, you'll inherently get most of the fats and oils you need. If you're going vegan, please see a dietitian at least once to determine the things you'll have to be careful to include.
* When cooking, try to use oils and sweeteners which contain micronutrients. Olive oil is one good choice, honey is a good sweetener. Use as little as possible.
* Make liberal use of herbs and spices, and make liberal use of strongly flavoured fruits and veg like lemons, onions, garlic, peaches and oranges. Duck au l'orange is jussst fine as the meat part of a meal!
* Be imaginative. Cook a zucchini, stick it in a blender, and use the blended zucchini as a sauce.


Diet - stocking the fridge and pantry:
* Tinned chickpeas can be mashed to make hummus. Keep a couple of tins. Add some tahini and a sprinkling of flaxseeds to add micronutrients. A squirt of lemon juice gives it zip. Serve with flatbreads, or as a dip with cut up veggies.
* Frozen veggies are cheaper than fresh, and are already chopped up. Our OT at the course I did assured me that their dietitian had confirmed that they have more micronutrients than 'fresh' veg that had been warehoused, trucked, warehoused again, trucked again, and finally shelved for sale.
* In-season veg, preferably bought from a small greengrocer who goes to the farmer's market himself to stock stuff, is better than supermarket veg. In some cases, the local grocer is also cheaper, or is happy to make up a 'family pack' for you at a discount if you order in advance.
* Only buy one unfamiliar fruit or veg at a time. Too many can make you feel overwhelmed. Unless you're a culinarily adventurous sort, then do as you will.
* Buy mostly meats with the fat already removed, unless your butcher charges more for such meat. If they do, trim the meat before you put it in the freezer. Leave one day's meat out at a time. Package the meat into one-meal packages - one palm-sized piece per day per person. (For roasts or casseroles that are intended to be multiple meals, still keep that rule in mind.)
* Keep an array of dried legumes, grains etc in the pantry. Such as often sold as 'soup mix' and the like in the section of the grocery store where 'advanced cooking stuff' tends to be. Baking goods, spices, herbs and the like. When you put your casserole meat or soup meat out to thaw, take one of these packages out and put it in a covered bowl of water to soften. When making up the casserole or soup or stew, rinse the softened legumes, grains or whatever then put them in with the meat.
* When you buy meat for casseroling, stewing, or making soup, also buy a turnip, a parsnip and a swede. (One of each is enough for a household-sized stew.) Peel them, chop them into chunks about half an inch a side, and drop them in about a third of the way through the stewing process. Add potatoes, carrots and other slow-cooking veg at the same time. Add faster-cooking veg when the stew is almost done. (Note: this makes a European-type stew/soup/etc. I have no idea how turnips would go in miso or pho!)
* Steal liberally from all the world's cuisines. The same set of veggies and the same cut of meat taste very different served as pho, European type casserole, Indian samosa, hamburgers, kebab and morrocan tagine-style.
Of course, noone said you had to use the same veggies and cut of meat, either.
* If your cooking tastes good to your family, it's good enough.

*** Remember to make your changes gradually ***


If all this doesn't work:
Be patient. This is a long-term plan. Your first two weeks or so after each change you may (or may not) lose water weight.
You may lose fat weight, then put on muscle weight - if your scales report no change but your clothes (or measurements) do, then that's okay. Especially if you put on bulk around major muscles, such as the upper arms, around the chest and back, the butt muscles, the thigh muscles. Have a neutral observer assess you.

If that doesn't seem to be the case, then you're one of the small percentage of the population that has some really unusual condition, and you may need the help of a dietitian, physiotherapist, endocrinologist, and/or other specialists.
Go see a doctor, taking with you a food and exercise diary of a typical two weeks.

[Whiskey]

Thanks for making the post I was too lazy to make Seshat

Also, legal disclaimer of some sort that all advice given here should be run by your physician and consult them before beginning any diet or exercise routine.

Also, spices are a one-time expensive purchase but worth it. I worship my spice rack. They last forever if you dont have a sensitive palate (6 months and they start to go stale, but eh I never really notice)

[TelephoneAngel]

Ok, going to chime in here with what's helped me in the last year. I've lost about 50 lbs by not looking at it as a diet. Simple enough to start with - drink more water. If you don't like plain water, throw in a few slices of citrus fruit or (and my favorite, just cuz I love to eat them) some cucumber slices. And for those of you who love ice cream, have you ever tried running a frozen banana through the food processor? Seriously, slice up a banana, freeze it, then run the frozen chunks in a food processor (NOT a blender. Blenders cause...unfortunate incidents, shall we say). The end result is a dessert that has the texture of soft serve ice cream. Banana ice cream. I drizzle a little caramel sauce, or fudge sauce over it and it is SO good. I highly recommend it.

Well, think I've babble enough here. Hope this proved helpful.

It has, thank you, great tips, I shall try them.

[TelephoneAngel]

And thank you Seshat for that long post with lots of good advice, I shall need to reread it a few times I think

ok, so,

olives - good, bad?Too much salt? I eat lots of them

[Seshat]

olives, fresh, unsalted: Good.

Olives, preserved: depends on the preservatives, and what else you eat.

How much salt you need depends on your personal biochemistry, and is a 'per day' thing, not a 'per food' thing. You can have terribly salty anchovies or olives or peanuts or whatever else, as long as you don't exceed your personal salt limit for the day. So if everything else is unsalted, you're fine!

Take the national guidelines (available from most health departments, most doctor's offices, etc) for your country as a rough guide. Talk with your doctor for a guide that's closer to your personal biochemistry.

I can tell that I'm doing fine, for instance, because when my family doctor does a bloodwork test, I have healthier markers than last time. Ditto for my blood pressure, which he checks every so often.
My clothes tend to get looser around the waist (where I carry fat), and tighter around the biceps/triceps, across the shoulders, or down the thighs (where I carry muscle). I can walk further each month than I used to, with less heart & breathing stress. Except for last month, when I had a nasssty and extended flu!

Anyway, to answer the original question:

Olives are FULL of good micro and macronutrients. They do have a great deal of oil - they're an oily fruit, like avocados - but it's a healthy oil.

Because they're so oily, and tend to be preserved with salt, have them in moderation. Go ahead and have a handful a day, but don't snack on them mindlessly.

Eating mindlessly should probably be avoided, but for those for whom it's a way of life, try air-popped or (lightly) oil-popped popcorn, wholegrain (and preferably unsalted) snacks, or one of the non-sweet and non-oily fruits or vegetables. Carrot sticks are common, so's celery sticks (yuck!). Mixed salad greens would be fantastic (not just iceberg lettuce, but a mix of leafy veg).

No food is purely 'good' or 'bad'. Try to get out of that mindset. Foods are all good - even refined sugar - but some should be had in small amounts, and others can be had in large amounts.

[AccountingDrone]

- Always factored a yummy, useless treat into my daily calories.

My diabetic nutritionist scheduled in 180 calories per day of *random* whatever I want. When I asked her if I could grab a spoon and dig into a bag of sugar, she said it was for whatever. I use it for a glass of red wine typically [for the various phyto nutrients in it]

Oddly enough, some days I can find it difficult to make the whole 1800 calories per day, my go to snack tends to be the cut up raw veggies in the fridge I keep pre-prepped [sometimes I do it myself, sometimes we get lazy and buy the veggie platter] If I nosh on lots of celery and romaine and cuke sticks, it is almost into negative calories. I am one of the 'Atkids' that gets around 30 grams of fiber a day without the starchy carbs.

It drives the diabetologist I go to insane that I have steadily been losing 5 lbs a month since getting neutered last August without dieting or exercising - yay for fixing the major metabolic frellup that was apparently causing my body to greedily hang onto every ounce of fat in my body

[Magpie]

Why do you feel youve screwed up? Whats wrong with enjoying a piece of cake?

Not in the "don't beat myself up if I screw up" sense, just the whole advice. I dropped about 20 kg (three-ish stone) without trying. It's the last couple of kilos that are difficult, and I don't have the motivation. It also doesn't help that I have some justification for calling my current weight healthy. (All those studies that say it's the lifestyle, not the weight? Great! I meet Health Canada guidelines for exercise, because that 60-90 minutes a day can be counted a minute at a time. I have a great waist-to-hip ratio, I have slightly more muscle than is likely accounted for in BMI calculations for women, I have a heavy build so I can carry the weight, and ethnically I'm expected to have somewhat more weight).

It took about a year to lose the babyweight, but that's normal as you're not supposed to lose huge amounts of weight at once.

It's also a really bad idea to lose too much while you're nursing . People who nurse for a long time really run into trouble keeping their weight up. (Some people who quit after a year do too, but that tends to involve small mothers and hungry babies).

Also, spices are a one-time expensive purchase but worth it. I worship my spice rack. They last forever if you dont have a sensitive palate (6 months and they start to go stale, but eh I never really notice)

Store extras in the freezer, especially if you get the really good ones to begin with. I have two sources of ground cardamom. One charges twice as much as the other. That is DEFINITELY staying in the freezer.

And regarding salt: if you're worried, cook your beans from scratch. Avoiding canned and otherwise preprocessed foods in general is good, but they all take a long time. Beans from scratch is fairly easy, especially if you have a slow cooker (put them to soak in the morning, drain and cook them in the evening, take them out cooked the next morning.)

[Whiskey]

* As your diet improves, your idea of what a 'treat' is will change. Your tastes will change - some of your now-favourite foods may taste too fatty, or too sugary-sweet. So don't fret over 'mistakes'. Just let the 'mistake' pass and continue as if you hadn't made it.

This is so true it hurts. I used to be able to eat a bag of cookies, or chips, or whatever. Now it makes me a bit ill to eat a bowl of ice cream.

My guilty pleasure is white rice with milk, white sugar and brown sugar.

[Seshat]

It drives the diabetologist I go to insane that I have steadily been losing 5 lbs a month since getting neutered last August without dieting or exercising - yay for fixing the major metabolic frellup that was apparently causing my body to greedily hang onto every ounce of fat in my body

Ooooooo!

Was that PCOS? And how thorough was the neutering?

Private message - or tell me I'm being nosy - if you like, but we do have several PCOS women on the board who'd love to know. Including me.

[TelephoneAngel]

Right now I'm drinking hot chocolate made with water and just a little milk.

[Whiskey]

Right now I'm drinking hot chocolate made with water and just a little milk.

If you work out a good amount, you could replace the water with whole milk guilt free. Whole milk has a crap ton of protein which you need if you work out. Im moderately lactose intolerant. If i drink above 1% I get sick. Anything below whole milk replaces the milkfat with sugar so its not even very good for you stupid guts.

I would be really interested in seeing you post a weeks worth of food/meals. not the emotion diary someone recommended, just what you ate, at what intervals, what amount, etc

[TelephoneAngel]

If you work out a good amount, you could replace the water with whole milk guilt free. Whole milk has a crap ton of protein which you need if you work out. Im moderately lactose intolerant. If i drink above 1% I get sick. Anything below whole milk replaces the milkfat with sugar so its not even very good for you
I would be really interested in seeing you post a weeks worth of food/meals. not the emotion diary someone recommended, just what you ate, at what intervals, what amount, etc

Interesting, I always drank less than whole milk as I thought it was more healthy, but boyfriend insists on whole milk, so that's what I use now.

Ok, I will try to post a diary in a few days time, it might be boring though but it would be interesting for me if you or someone could cast a eye over it.