Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,806 Year: 3,063/9,624 Month: 908/1,588 Week: 91/223 Day: 2/17 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   More on Diet and Carbohydrates
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 181 of 243 (766264)
08-15-2015 10:04 PM


I never had the idea that you couldn't lose weight on a low-fat diet, I just appreciated how fast I personally could lose when I put the "white" foods (in Omni's grandmother's terms) out of my diet and didn't restrict the natural fats I love. Also appreciated the fact that low fat dieting had come to involve the substitution of bad carbs and I'd seen someone GAIN weight by eating a very low fat but high carb diet.
I'm facing the fact that I have to diet again now and the idea of eating LEAN meat is the hardest part of my doctor's idea of how to go about it. I can't do it that way. I can personally do a lot better if I just chuck the pasta and bread.
But there's always that problem of finding a diet you can live with permanently and I do get carb cravings.
Calories do count in the end as the articles say. I know someone who weighed over three hundred pounds in her twenties and lost it all and kept it off for the rest of her life by weighing her food and counting calories every day. Her daughter inherited her metabolism and went through the exact same history. Both are now at their ideal weight and both very pretty women, but they will only stay that way if they continue to weigh their food every day. I don't know what difference they make between carbs and fat but I suspect it's just a normal balance of both and it's the calorie count that matters.
What I'd like to know is why I was always on the skinny side until my late teens from eating my Mom's cooking which didn't restrict fats OR carbs and why a person couldn't just live happily that way through life. I do know I started gaining weight when I lived with relatives who ate a much richer diet, and I think it was the increased sugar that was the problem in that case. Went back to being skinny through my twenties, gained some when I had my daughter (very clearly from following health guru Adele Davis' requirements), but didn't have a real problem until my forties when restricting fat was supposed to be the key to weight loss. Now I don't think I even know what normal eating is any more.
But I do know I can lose if I cut the carbs so that's my plan for the next few months.

Replies to this message:
 Message 182 by Coyote, posted 08-15-2015 11:20 PM Faith has replied
 Message 184 by Percy, posted 08-16-2015 8:01 AM Faith has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2105 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 182 of 243 (766270)
08-15-2015 11:20 PM
Reply to: Message 181 by Faith
08-15-2015 10:04 PM


On diets
Here's a thing to try, which worked for me:
Do either bacon or sausages for breakfast. No toast, no muffins, no sugar in the beverage--just four or five slices of a good thick bacon or maybe eight sausages.
Then, no snacks, no lunch, no nothing until dinner.
Dinner--either a nice fatty steak wrapped in mushrooms or onions or some such, or a huge salad smothered in blue cheese dressing. And of course your favorite adult beverage.
Give that a try for two weeks and see what you get. No guarantees, as we're all different, but that general regime about five or six days a week dropped me from 190 lbs to under 165, and still dropping slowly.
(The other day or two it is out for breakfast, with a big omelet including cheese, mushrooms, and bacon, along with country potatoes. Yum!)

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein
How can I possibly put a new idea into your heads, if I do not first remove your delusions?--Robert A. Heinlein
It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers
If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle
If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1
"Multiculturalism" demands that the US be tolerant of everything except its own past, culture, traditions, and identity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 181 by Faith, posted 08-15-2015 10:04 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 183 by Faith, posted 08-16-2015 12:08 AM Coyote has seen this message but not replied
 Message 185 by Percy, posted 08-16-2015 8:08 AM Coyote has seen this message but not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 183 of 243 (766273)
08-16-2015 12:08 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by Coyote
08-15-2015 11:20 PM


Re: On diets
Yes, I know that would take off the weight for me and I'd already taken your recommendations under advisement, especially the Cobb salad. Watch the ingredients in store-bought salad dressing though, especially the creamy types. Do you make your own? Oddly enough, I couldn't find blue cheese at the store I frequent, but I only looked once and didn't try the deli yet.
However, I can't eat JUST the meat for breakfast, at least not every day, it works better for me with eggs and maybe a slice of tomato, and have you noticed that store-bought sausages have loads of sugar in them? Can't do it. I have bought plain ground pork and made my own sausage patties to freeze (internet has many recipes), but that's a project I'm not always up to.
Omelets are good though. Have you ever tried "Joe's Special" -- crumbly browned hamburger mixed with eggs and onions and spinach and herbs. That's a good low-carb meal for breakfast or any time.
Yeah I love those country potatoes too, but those are gone gone gone for the next few months.
I don't have a problem skipping lunch, usually do only two meals a day anyway, but I need veggies with that steak. A four-ounce New York steak with a mountain of asparagus is my ideal dinner plate.
Something like this is what I expect to be doing over the next few months anyway, and I could lose weight on it for sure.
But you know what? I don't even care that I'm fat, or I wouldn't if it was just about looks. The problem comes in when my doctor threatens to up my blood pressure medication or I get too high a reading on the blood sugar monitor. Well, face it. it's not comfortable either, and I remember that wonderful LIGHT feeling when I've lost weight, how happy my feet were too; that's another reason to take it off. I don't even fit right in the driver's seat of my car any more. Clothes are getting tight, the usual problems. Sigh.
One thing that I hope will help is that I got this wonderful new toy, a new juicer. I love veggie juices but my old juicer had too many bad habits, like skittering around the counter so the pulp made a mess everywhere instead of going neatly into the pulp container; like spitting juice at me so I had to tape some plastic wrap over the spout; like having a small chute so I had to cut up the veggies. The new one, a Breville Juice Fountain, is a monster machine, had no idea it would be so big and heavy, but it has none of those problems: the pulp container is attached so it can't move anywhere if the machine skitters, the chute will take a whole apple or tomato or cucumber, even a whole bunch of celery, and it comes with its own quart-sized juice container that has a guard on it to prevent the juice from spitting. I haven't set it up yet but I know it's going to be fun and I'm counting on the juices to improve energy and help with the weight loss.
Now, if the world manages not to implode in the next few months or they don't come to my door and arrest me for refusing to accept gay marriage, I may lose some weight and even get healthy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by Coyote, posted 08-15-2015 11:20 PM Coyote has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 184 of 243 (766282)
08-16-2015 8:01 AM
Reply to: Message 181 by Faith
08-15-2015 10:04 PM


Faith writes:
I'm facing the fact that I have to diet again now and the idea of eating LEAN meat is the hardest part of my doctor's idea of how to go about it. I can't do it that way. I can personally do a lot better if I just chuck the pasta and bread.
I wish it were possible around here to buy non-lean meat. 40 years ago it was easy to buy a cheap cut of meat with plenty of fat. Since I liked fat marbled in with my meat it made no sense to pay for leaner cuts, plus as a student I couldn't afford it anyway. Now even the cheap cuts are lean and expensive.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 181 by Faith, posted 08-15-2015 10:04 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 187 by Faith, posted 08-16-2015 8:55 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 185 of 243 (766283)
08-16-2015 8:08 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by Coyote
08-15-2015 11:20 PM


Re: On diets
I try to avoid combining fat and carbs in the same meal. There's something about the combination that is very bad for weight control for me. My worse food ever? Chinese fried rice. The white rice is a refined carbohydrate, and everything else they put in it is full of fat. It's also one of my favorite foods.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by Coyote, posted 08-15-2015 11:20 PM Coyote has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 186 by Faith, posted 08-16-2015 8:53 AM Percy has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 186 of 243 (766284)
08-16-2015 8:53 AM
Reply to: Message 185 by Percy
08-16-2015 8:08 AM


Re: On diets
Yet the Chinese aren't known for being obese.
Second thought: Maybe they don't eat fried rice, maybe that's one of those recipes they invented for Americans.
I think you're right about the combination problem. Does it really work to split carbs and fats between meals though?
Potatoes with butter or gravy, breaded meats, also often with gravy, biscuits and gravy, deep fried thickly breaded chicken, Fettuccine Alfredo, Eggs Benedict, think of all that good stuff SOME people can eat without gaining weight. Sigh.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 185 by Percy, posted 08-16-2015 8:08 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 188 by Percy, posted 08-16-2015 9:21 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 187 of 243 (766285)
08-16-2015 8:55 AM
Reply to: Message 184 by Percy
08-16-2015 8:01 AM


You can find marbled beef where I live but now that's what's terribly expensive. But a lower grade of New York steak is still good and you can get it with a thick rind of fat on it. And there's always leaving the skin on the chicken.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 184 by Percy, posted 08-16-2015 8:01 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 188 of 243 (766286)
08-16-2015 9:21 AM
Reply to: Message 186 by Faith
08-16-2015 8:53 AM


Re: On diets
Faith writes:
Potatoes with butter or gravy, breaded meats, also often with gravy, biscuits and gravy, deep fried thickly breaded chicken, Fettuccine Alfredo, Eggs Benedict, think of all that good stuff SOME people can eat without gaining weight. Sigh.
This is from the introduction to the The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz:
quote:
I remember the day I stopped worrying about eating fat. It was long before I started porting over thousands of scientific studies and conducting hundreds of interviews to write this book. Like most Americans, I was following the low-fat advice set forth by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its food pyramid, and when the Mediterranean diet was introduced int he 1990s, I added olive oil and extra servings of fish while cutting back further on red meat. In following these guidelines, I was convinced that I was doing the best I could for my heart and my waistline, since official sources have been telling us for years that the optimal diet emphasizes lean meats, fruits, vegetables, and grains and that the healthiest fats come from vegetable oils. Avoiding the saturated fats found in animal foods, especially, seemed like the most obvious measure a person could take for good health.
Then, around 2000, I moved to New York City and started writing a restaurant review column for a small paper. It didn't have a budget to pay for meals, so I usually ate whatever the chef decided to send out to me. Suddenly I was eating gigantic meals with foods that I would have never before allowed to pass my lips: pt, beef of every cut prepared in every imaginable way, cream sauces, cream soups, foie gras—all the foods I had avoided my entire life.
Eating these rich, earthy dishes was a revelation. They were complex and remarkably satisfying. I ate with abandon. And yet, bizarrely, I found myself losing weight. In fact, I soon lost the 10 pounds that had dogged me for years, and my doctor told me that my cholesterol numbers were fine.
Of course, she was a younger person then. The same diet would likely not prove as effective for an older person.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 186 by Faith, posted 08-16-2015 8:53 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 189 by Faith, posted 08-16-2015 10:05 AM Percy has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 189 of 243 (766289)
08-16-2015 10:05 AM
Reply to: Message 188 by Percy
08-16-2015 9:21 AM


Re: On diets
Her list doesn't mention carbs but I guess we can read them into it.
Why should aging make us fat? It didn't make either of my parents fat. Not sure why not but it didn't.
My sister stays slim by being a fanatical watcher of her diet, but my brother and I both put on weight just by eating what we like.
Aunts and uncles on both sides of the family didn't put on weight as they aged either. Well, three of my eight paternal aunts acquired thicker waists but the other five stayed thin as a rail and none of the men gained an ounce. All the women made it into their eighties, a couple to ninety, the men to seventies and early eighties.
I don't get it. Should I blame the lousy USDA advice for my problems? I'd like to.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 188 by Percy, posted 08-16-2015 9:21 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 190 by Percy, posted 08-16-2015 12:50 PM Faith has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 190 of 243 (766293)
08-16-2015 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 189 by Faith
08-16-2015 10:05 AM


Re: On diets
Faith writes:
Why should aging make us fat?
If you're asking what are the physiological changes associated with aging that cause weight gain, I don't know. The tendency to lose muscle mass with increasing age is part of it, but I don't know why we lose muscle mass, though I know testosterone plays a role.
But if you're questioning whether people really tend to gain weight as they age, which I thought might be the case since you mentioned that aging didn't affect your parents in this way, then all I can say is that it doesn't happen to everyone. It's what happens to most people. I did see it mentioned somewhere that males tend to gain weight until around age 55, and that the problem lessens after that. But this isn't something I've investigated in any depth.
Should I blame the lousy USDA advice for my problems? I'd like to.
Some researchers think it possible that your dietary and weight history influences how diet and weight will affect you in the future. For example, if you gain 10 pounds and lose 10 pounds, you aren't any longer the same person you were before, because weight and diet changes influence your internal physiology.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 189 by Faith, posted 08-16-2015 10:05 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 191 by Faith, posted 08-16-2015 9:05 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 191 of 243 (766313)
08-16-2015 9:05 PM
Reply to: Message 190 by Percy
08-16-2015 12:50 PM


Re: On diets
It was really more of a rhetorical question, although the answer you gave is probably good. I can count seventeen people I'm directly related to in the previous generation on both sides of my family who DIDN'T gain weight with age, excepting four women who got thicker through the middle. Something changed between that generation and mine.
Although, come to think of it, I don't know in all cases but I think none of my multitudinous Canadian cousins have the problem I have with weight.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 190 by Percy, posted 08-16-2015 12:50 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 192 by RAZD, posted 08-17-2015 8:44 AM Faith has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 192 of 243 (766325)
08-17-2015 8:44 AM
Reply to: Message 191 by Faith
08-16-2015 9:05 PM


Re: On diets
... Something changed between that generation and mine.
Processed food and factory/chemical "food" ... HFCS and preservatives and artificial flavours ...
My grandfather's generation grew up on farms where they grew their own food and bought local produce that they didn't grow.
The interstate highway system ('60's) opened up shipping, technologies were developed to make food survive shipping, monocultures of shipping tolerant crops were developed, and the food giants like Monsanto began ...
We are lucky to be in an area with local farms growing organic crops, raising organic livestock, and so we are able to keep a lot of the chemical additives out of our diet. We pay more for it, and are happy to do so because the food tastes better.
Personally I think a lot of the obesity and increased incidence of diabetes and allergies can be traced back to the changes in the food provided by big ag and the big food companies.
/rant
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 191 by Faith, posted 08-16-2015 9:05 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 193 by Faith, posted 08-17-2015 10:38 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied
 Message 194 by nwr, posted 08-17-2015 11:20 AM RAZD has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 193 of 243 (766328)
08-17-2015 10:38 AM
Reply to: Message 192 by RAZD
08-17-2015 8:44 AM


Re: On diets
Personally I think a lot of the obesity and increased incidence of diabetes and allergies can be traced back to the changes in the food provided by big ag and the big food companies.
That's a persuasive point of view I think. The Canadian side of the family started out on my grandfather's homesteaded ranch where they raised their own meat and vegetables and canned it all to get through the winter. Very no-frills diet and completely natural and organic, nothing processed. That must have changed somewhat for the next generation, though they seem to be doing better than I am with weight issues.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 192 by RAZD, posted 08-17-2015 8:44 AM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


(2)
Message 194 of 243 (766331)
08-17-2015 11:20 AM
Reply to: Message 192 by RAZD
08-17-2015 8:44 AM


Re: On diets
Personally I think a lot of the obesity and increased incidence of diabetes and allergies can be traced back to the changes in the food provided by big ag and the big food companies.
It probably has more to do with the invention of the refrigerator and the television set.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

This message is a reply to:
 Message 192 by RAZD, posted 08-17-2015 8:44 AM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 195 by Faith, posted 08-17-2015 11:44 AM nwr has seen this message but not replied
 Message 196 by RAZD, posted 08-17-2015 4:05 PM nwr has seen this message but not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(2)
Message 195 of 243 (766335)
08-17-2015 11:44 AM
Reply to: Message 194 by nwr
08-17-2015 11:20 AM


Re: On diets
And fast food, and take-out food. I think we could make a long list of likely influences.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 194 by nwr, posted 08-17-2015 11:20 AM nwr has seen this message but not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024