Health & Family Healthy eating habits

Smoothies are currently raw oats (cholesterol reducing), greek yoghurt (unsweetened), banana & skim milk.
Cutting back on the amount of fruit that I'm eating.
Starting to get back on my bike (all too infrequently though).

 

* Reduced alcohol intake
* Eliminated all fruit juices, soft drinks, energy drinks, etc..
* Reduced pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, pastries. Often none of these things in a week. I don´t eat low carb though.
* Massively increased protein intake via whey protein shakes (controversial to some) and loads of chicken and tuna
* Increased veggies of all types, I´m a regular at the local verduleria. Broccoli almost every day in some curry dish usually. Limited fruit, bananas and avocados mainly.

 

What I have found works for me is not following any kind of restrictions. This fits in with my incredibly full on lifestyle too.

I don't count calories or portions or timing or even worry about whether a food is composed of protein or carbohydrates or fat. I eat real food (not out of packets but real meat and veg, avoid anything processed (cerials, pasta, white rice, bread etc....) and only eat when I'm hungry, it could be one meal a day or 2 or I may skip a day if I don't feel like eating - basic intuitve paleo eating or whatever you want to call it, but driven from within not by food addictions. I find that if I don't follow this and start eating refined food at times set by society, my energy levels plumit.

 

I stopped eating sugar, bread and dairy for 3 months and lost 1kg per week. I looked to skinny so got back on the wagon

 

Also noticing that when people say carbohydrates, they mean refined carbodydrstes carbs like bread.

I'm taking the scientific definition - meaning anything comprised mainly of a CHO chain.

Celery and spinach are carbs

I won't touch anything refined including refined protein or isolated chemical vitamins - humans stuff up anything they refine, there is nothing wrong with any component of food in its raw form, the refining process is what turns a healthy food into a junk food.

 

Nothing wrong with skinny, if the refined food is keeping your weight up artificially then you are naturally meant to be a slim person.

 

Re: Skinny. Compare yourself to people in other countries. Not to other people in Australia. Then, would you think you are still too skinny? Here, a bit fat/overweight is normal.

 

Best to not eat it at all but I do have a sweet tooth and conscious to keep it to a reasonable intake.

Im an ectomorph by nature so got that high bone to muscle ratio but 25 years + of weight training has tipped me towards an ecto/meso.

 

True - fat has become norm for Australians
I'm below 30th percentile, would not call myself skinny but small compared to the average Australian

You have a great physique Gockie

 

It was a bit of tongue and cheek and yep I have traveled thorough different parts of the third world and no how fortunate I am to have grown up in Australia.

 

Awww ta Xenia. Generally it's ok. I'd describe myself as athletic build rather than skinny.

Now post cruise I have just jumped on the scales and have 2.4kg of baggage to shift (I suspect all tummy fat!)....

I was trying to get the partner to do some jogging with me towards the end of the holiday but he just wouldn't...
Anyway, just got home now and will surely lose those kilos now that food is not so accessible and the meals are not so large.

 

Me too...travelled in rural southern China about 10 years ago, I saw all young people walking around or ride pushbikes (no cars) to do everything so they are very skinny. I'd see very old ladies constantly bent over working in the rice paddies and think to myself this is what they would have been doing their whole life. And that this could have been my life if I had grown up there and was older. I realise how lucky I am to have grown up here.

There are some active jobs i'd like, but being an old woman working in rice paddies is not one of them...

 

I'm the same, except eat a bit too much processed food sometimes.

What's up with portion sizing and meal timing?
We are not lab rats on some experiment.
Like you, I pretty much eat when I'm hungry and don't eat to a routine.
Enough to think about already without having to eat certain foods in certain quantities to a fixed schedule.

 

The Guardian has an interview with Anthony Warner, who blogs as Angry Chef.

He's very critical of non-traditional nutritional advice, and is critical of those who demonise sugar, or claim that there are no health risks to saturated fat.

The journalist sums up it as:

Warner's advice, boiled down, amounts to: eat a sensible and varied diet, not too much nor too little. If you have junk food every so often, don't feel guilty; if you're going full Morgan Spurlock, you're probably overdoing it. Eat fish, especially oily ones such as salmon and mackerel, when you can. Don't consume too much sugar, but equally don't believe people who tell you it's "toxic" and has "no nutritional value".

 

Excellent book.

 

Just watched this video on facebook.
https://video-syd2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v...=b7022002fa1431a6a341eb267d3ebde1&oe=597C3749

 

Anyone watched 'What the Health' or 'Food choices'?

 

a few things I've noticed personally:

1. changing anything overnight is always going to be difficult. I often hear people say "I must have breakfast / sugar / caffeine otherwise I cannot function" and they say how they suffered headaches, low energy etc etc. It's like going to the gym for the first time after a while. It's painful and uncomfortable. But I found that's to be expected. Your body WILL adjust - like everything else, it takes time. Persevere.

2. related to the above, I remember hearing/reading somewhere that your taste buds takes about 4 weeks to adjust and I've found that to be true. I used to always have sugar with coffee and tea. When I stopped it tasted disgusting. But now I can't imagine putting sugar in tea or coffee. I also used to drink soft drinks. Now it doesn't even tempt me. Again, give it at least 4 weeks.

3. it helps to have a goal or a buddy that you're doing any "change" with. Yes, it needs to be something that is sustainable long term but the early days are hard so any little motivation / help you get is useful. Once you've reached your goal (eg low carb for x weeks) then it's easier to adjust to a healthy balance (eg increase carbs but sticking to good carbs).

 

Just started a new diet - started smoking, bacon & egg rolls for brekkie, hot chips & pie or maccas/kfc for smoko, battered sav/potato cakes or counter meal at pub for lunch (& few beers), laksa/fried pork chop & rice/coconut curries or pizza.

I'll see the effect soon.

 

After seeing Simon's thread I've gone the opposite way to what others seem to have after seeing it, and I've completely cut out meat and dairy!

It's been a long time coming, but that thread was a bit of a catalyst for me, I saw the photo's of all the meat and dairy and just could not wrap my head around how a diet like that could possibly good for your body (despite what books there may be out there about it etc), so I opened my mind and set about reading and read, read and read and by the end was unable to justify that sort of diet to myself.

Anecdotally, I agree with what a lot of people find, that they lose weight in the short term, but a diet like that (to me) just isn't sustainable or healthy long term.

What I read (and watched) further re-inforced some of the things I have been thinking about of late. It's a long story but the short version is I got into running a little, and in doing so I got hooked on reading books about ultra endurance runners and a common thread was that tend to be vegans.

This coincided with a general decline in the amount of meat I was eating anyway, (not really by choice, I just sort of realized I wasn't really eating much of it anymore). This lead me to read a bit more.

I had also been wrangling with the ethical issues of eating animals, (now, don't get me wrong, I LOVED meat and was a massive meat & dairy fiend). My partner and I often talked about how the only true ethical way to butcher and eat and animal is to raise it yourself, give it a good life then humanely "kill" it, but I knew if we ever did that and I was actually able to end it's life there's no way I'd be able to stomach it after that so it made me feel like the ultimate hypocrite that i was fine with simply walking too the supermarket and picking up my nice , clean, shrink wrapped piece of meat.

After reading another book called The China Study, (the updated version), then cramming doco's on Netflix like Cowspiracy, What The Heath, Knives Over Forks, Fed Up and one or two other whose names escape me, and further reading of endurance athlete auto biographies like Scott Jurek and Rich Roll I decided I had to give a Whole Food, Plant Based lifestyle a go.

So, I have been meat free for 2 months, milk free for longer as I seemed to naturally go off milk a few months again anyway and I'm about 95% completely dairy free. Still working on that one as there's dairy snuck into a lot of things but I've consciously stopped eating cheese, butter etc.

It hasn't been difficult for me at all as I never ate anything processed anyway. Yesterday we made two massive vats of dinner, an awesome cauliflower & chickpea curry and a pinto bean chilli, full of fresh herbs spices and produce. it took an hour and 45 minutes all up and made 20 portions for the freezer. There's so much amazing, fresh, real food out there to not have to eat processed ready-meals or convenience stuff.

All I can see is I FEEL AMAZING. At 42 years of age I have more energy that I've ever had, I recover from workouts quicker, I'm never hungry and my mind is so much more alert.

Oh, and as for weight.... I was 87kg a few months ago. I plateaued now at 77kg and super lean (I'm almost 6' 2"). I truly feel awesome and I don't feel like I'm restricting myself in any way, in fact quite the opposite as I'm hunting out new and varied things to make with all the amazing fruits, veggies, beans and herbs and spices we have at our disposal.

I've no interest in getting into debate about animal welfare or ethics, I have made a personal choice based on what I have researched of late, all I'll say further on that is if you are remotely interested in what you are putting into your body, where it comes from and what it;'s doing to you and at what expense to the planet and the welfare of the animals we share it with, then at least watch Cowspiricy on Netlflix, or of you're a reader, grab the China Study (updated edition) by T Colin Campbell.

Lastly, before being blinded by "this report" and "that report" on this dietm and that diet, FOLLOW THE MONEY! Look back at the sources and see who commissioned the report and what their interests are before taking it as gospel, it's a rabbit hole once you open the door...