"Diet" in general...

[TheCG]

I use "diet" in the context of "my daily diet", not the "I need to lose weight" kind of diet.

 

I'm on meds right now that are an appetite suppressant. I'm trying to make sure that I'm eating enough and the right things to stay healthy and quit losing weight, but realized...I have no good concept of what a healthy diet actually is. I've lost about 30 pounds in 5 or 6 months. I'm about to buy new clothes as none of mine fit, but don't want to have to get new ones again in a month, so I'm trying to figure out what I should be eating. I know we have some people on here who have experience and knowledge regarding nutrition.

 

I've been told that something like the 3rd stage of the South Beach Diet is a good guide as that's the stage where people maintain their weight instead of still dropping and it has a good focus on good fats & good carbs instead of trying to nix them completely. Has anyone here looked into this diet? Is there any reason I should NOT use it as a guide? Does anyone have a better recommendation?

[westbrook]

add a can of Insure to your diet or some weight gain protein drink will also help.

 

I have #10 cans of protein powder with all the daily requirements in storage, then all I need to do is add calories.

 

If I had your problem... Ice cream!!! chocolate ice cream!!! oh... chunky monkey ice cream!!!! ok, well you did say healthy! there is lots of deliciousness in ice cream! I wonder if there is a Vitamin Ice Cream like the Vitamin Chocolate? probably.

 

take your vitamines!

[Leah]

I posted on this thread... http://www.mrssurvival.com/forums/ubbthrea...ge=1#Post137442

about the diet hubby and I are on.

It mentions not only the numbers for calories and such but also the 3 servings of dairy, and 5-8 servings of fruit and veg we need to eat every day. It might help to see what our doctor considered to be a healthy way of eating.

[TheCG]

Leah, was the number of calories and everything on that designed so you would lose weight? According to the calculations I did with that, I should only be eating 1050 calories a day and that seems even lower than what I'm eating now.

[Leah]

Right. If you got 1050 as your figure to lose weight, then I figure it at 1850 calories, 246 grams carbs, 140 protein and 40 grams fat to maintain it. Does that sound about right?

You want to normalize your weight, not stuff in empty calories and gain fat. That will just mess up insulin levels...

 

Good carbs are whole grain flours, not white flour; potatoes, yams, brown rice not white... Since you have little appetite, you want to concentrate on nutrient dense foods - power bars, etc. Perhaps juice shakes with a protein powder? (You can buy the powders at grocery stores - no need to pay big money.) They can be put next to you and sipped during the day like many people drink coffee.

Check out some of the body building sites, they have diets that will give you nutrients to build up your body. (It's been quite some time since I've needed to build up...)

[Darlene]

People are not overweight from eating good foods...they are overweight from eating the wrong foods, or too much of some things. Weight management is a balance.

 

My dear mother has been seriously overweight for 30+ years. Last year, the Lord laid on my heart to cook for her every single day. The deal was, she could eat anything she wanted during the day till dinner time, and then at dinner time I would bring her dinner plus desert and then that was all she could eat till the next day.

 

I cooked some incredibly gourmet meals with her PLUS dessert every single night. After 30 days, she lost 12 lbs and continued to lose while she stayed on this style of eating.

 

The catch was, I cooked everything from scratch, ground my own grains, used fresh everything...even the oatmeal cookies that I made her for dessert were made from home ground grains and home flaked oats.

 

I personally, and this is just a personal thing from watching someone suffer for so many years, is that I hate diets. They're an instant set up to me..."i can't have this, i can't have that, etc"...I truly believe with all my heart if people would eat along the lines of what I did with my mother, that they would overall be much healthier and the weight would naturally come off. I'm about to work with someone around here where I live now, and do the same thing with them. Do some of this type cooking, letting them eat the breads and such that produce a well rounded diet.

 

Don't mind me...I'm sensitive about this topic cause my heart hurts for my mom.

[blestmomof4]

I agree with you Darlene. It is so much easier to eat all the prepared foods at the store with our busy lifestyles. Unfortunately I really believe our health is suffering from it.

 

I went to the Dr. on Tuesday. My blood pressure was way too high (put me on meds.), he ordered me a blood glucose monitor for hypoglycemia, I am heavier than I've ever been, and feel just tired all the time.

 

I told him I knew I needed to loose weight and that I knew with weight loss and a diet change it would help all of my problems. He agreed. He wants me to see a nutritionist but I know that the one here recommends alot of processed diet foods. I want new recipes, that use natural, fresh, real foods that my whole family will enjoy.

 

I have a book by Sharon Broer/Dr. Ted Broer called Healthy Country Cooking which is really good. She has another book , Train Up Your Children in the Way They Should Eat which is also full of information. I enjoy her books, her husbands-Dr. Ted Broer, and Dr. Don Colberts books. They all are biblically based with natural, organic foods. I just need to spend alot more time in the kitchen working on new recipes.

 

 

Have a Blessed Day,

B.B.

 

 

[Maineiac]

My Dear Old Aunt Claudia had a "Holiday Diet". Her theory was that any food eaten during a national holiday of the country it originated from had zero calories. She kept up on Italian holidays and though chocolate came from the Americas she counted it as a Swiss product and watched the Swiss holidays. That woman could eat and she hardly threw a shadow she was so thin. Some have all the luck. The farmer's wife in the American Gothic painting remind me of her.

I burn mine off with work around here. I gained some during my last year of doing nothing, but as of the last few months the hard work of catching up on work projects and getting ready for the next winter has me out of the sweats and back in my jeans.

[mommato3boys]

I agree with Darlene on this. She is so right diet is not something you do to loose weight (I need to a some myself) but diet is a way of life. Believe it or not but the Food Pyramid is a good model to use. Stay away from fast food, and eats lots of veggies, and grains and you should do just fine. OH and portion size (that's my problem) If you have problems judging how much is one serving then use a measuring cup. Most servings are 1/2 and meat is usually 2-3 oz.

[Deb2of9]

I agree that portion size is one of my biggest problems. I know how to measure it, but it looks so small, that I add to it anyway. I know I shouldn't but I do. I have recently read a book on the glycemic index diet. They mentioned in there that one of the mistakes we make when we are eating is the propotions that we eat of the different types of food. They said that the typical plate is at it's worse half meat and a fourth starch and a forth veggies. The average may be a third given to each. What we should be doing is to fill our plate so that half or more is veggies and then the rest of the plate is divided between starch and meat. They also advocate eating the right startches ( whole grains not processed) and making sure you avoid most of the processed foods. They don't say stay completely away from them, but that they should be more like an occaisional treat while your regular diet is mostly from scratch. I have not started that diet although I planned on it. It seems to be a good way to eat balanced and according to them it will help those who are under weight and those who are over weight to balance out to a correct weight as it is our poor eating habits that make us over weight and underweight as well as cause or complicate so many health issues. The principle is to keep your insulin level balanced which they believe will avoid a lot of the health problems we find.

 

I admit, I got the book as a diet book. I don't really believe in diets because they don't work. They may take off the weight, but we always fall back into our old bad eating habits. I was looking for a plan to lose weight while changing my eating habits. I just haven't started because a lot of the things they suggest are not the things I eat. I want to incorporate it into my diet gradually so it would be normal for me. Just as I am adding things to my diet as I buy them for my food storage so that I will know how to prepare them and have them as a normal part of my diet. The thing is alot of the things the book tells me would fit right in with a good food storage plan. I will have to look closer at it again.

 

One of my biggest problems with changes in how we eat is resistence from my family. I need to find good recipes to help them to enjoy food that is better for them and maybe miss some of the other things less. Already have my daughter eating more nuts and fruits. It was just green apples, tangelos or oranges at Christmas and canned peaches or pinapples. Oh and kiwi. She wouldn't eat fruit. Now she wants grapes all the time. That is a fruit I can easily grow myself once I have the space. Now if I can jsut get her away from half the processed food she "has to have or she will die". Actually, since she is one who wants to learn to make things "the old fashioned way" ( and not just food), I think she will become an easier sell. I might be harder because of the convience of the other foods we shouldn't be eating.

[Leah]

We divide plates in 5 - 1 section meat or protein source, 1 starch, the others fruit and veg. In hard times, it will be 1 meat or protein source, 2 starch, 2 fruit and veg (or whatever is most plentiful at the time.)

Just now, we are eating a great many eggs, apples, zuchini, and plums, because we have a large amount of each of them.