New Year Healthy Eating Thread 2015

[HëllaBubz]

I do same thing with carb up days. Works well.

Might have a few cookies, shapes, chips, choc bar etc. Just enough to boost the moral lol.

 

[seedling]

I work my kale in to cooked soups and stew recipes. It can be hard to digest when you are changing your diet if you eat it as a side dish. Having a portion of baby kale in a salad with other greens can work if you can handle raw greens.
It's a good idea to change incrementally to avoid major digestive upset. Cooked vegetables are easier to digest at first than raw. Go with the mix that suits you.
Kale is good chopped and added to sauteed onions and garlic if you like those. A little crumbled bacon adds flavor.

I eat very low carb and low dairy now and it works well for me. Corn chips with cheese are my indulgence. I eat mixed greens salad with cooked meat, shredded carrots maybe sliced turnip or whatever is in season. I like to use plain olive oil or sesame oil as a dressing and a good amount of it for the satisfying (good) fat calories. A friend sprinkles a little sea salt on his salads.
I also like any kind of hot meat over shredded carrots with olive oil or avocado. Easy and satisfying. There are many other vegetable choices that go well with meat and cheese (if you tolerate it) combinations.


The carbs and sugar are very addicting. It's hard to get rid of the craving if they play a big part of a diet. I had to "quit" sugar again since Christmas. I enjoyed more chocolate than usual and could feel the sugar thing creeping up on me. I've cut back gradually the last week and it's been manageable as far as the cravings.

I enjoy the carbs and sugar that I do eat and enjoy every bite. No guilt and shame :)

 

[Seagreen]

Has anyone given up sugar? I've been considering it. I wondered if anyone had found it beneficial.

 

[seedling]

I'm off the sugar. Eat a small piece of very dark chocolate most days. You lose your insulin resistance and then a little goes a long way.
I'm also off daily fruit - esp. dried fruit.
It's wonderful, I'm free of the craving cycle. Acupuncture helped me in the initial period of getting off it.

One chocolate out of a box at Christmas got me feeling really happy! I'm a caffeine lightweight too, so everyone's different.

 

[JustBe]

I heard on the news that sugar is more addictive than Cocaine!:woot:

 

[Seagreen]

@seedling do you think that consuming less sugar has influenced your energy or concentration in anyway?

 

[Deleted member 27340]

Quick reminder that eliminating gluten when you're not gluten intolerant/coeliac can result in nutrition deficiencies because of the great amounts of food containing gluten. Gluten free food is also more expensive, and the fiber and carbs you need from gluten-containing foods are important to your system.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Trauma I believe that's only possibility true if you're eating a diet high in processed foods. It's quite easy to get all the nutrients you need on a gluten free diet. We didn't evolve eating wheat. Gluten free processed foods can be more expensive but not always.

 

[Deleted member 27340]

Yeah, I know, it's fully possible and we did evolve eating veggies, fruits, meat, fish, berries, roots, etc. and then later on wheat and the other ones. But the amount of people who only change to gluten free without knowing anything about nutrition is way too high. Fibre deficiency is common.

You do have to be aware of what you eat. "Veggies" doesn't necessarily cover your need for supplemental food, you'll need fruit and berries, various roots are good too, to be able to be completely sure you've got everything covered. Usually following your cravings work fine, if you can learn what nutrient in whatever you're craving you need. If you crave sugary stuff, your blood sugar is low. Most people know that. But knowing that cravings for strawberries could mean low vitamin C, and then get strawberries or make sure to get vitamin C from other sources is a great skill that many people never learn, mainly because they don't need to.

While eliminating a certain type of food that covers such a great deal of a regular diet, one has to be careful. That's all, sorry if I sound rude or condescending.

 

[Friday]

I would be interested to know any good kale recipes..

For most of my dark greens... (Pretty much everything except collard greens, which need to boil with bacon -or similar smoked/salted meat- or to soak in salt water for a time)

- Wash thoroughly
- Flip leaf over and slice off thick center stalk
- Stack leaf halves
- Chop into apx 1-2cm strips
- Sauté on high/med high with olive oil, garlic, salt&pepper (or spice blend) for 3-7 minutes (bright green, soft but not translucent, in between wilted and mush. Will reduce down to apx 1/10th of their volume raw)
* The less you stir them about, the better they hold up. They need a bit of stirring, but not a lot. Also, season them towards the end, as salt early on will make them lose too much liquid and they end up boiling in their own juice, instead of sautéing cleanly.

Kale Chips
- As above...but do not salt at all, and instead of sautéing on high, start them high, then turn down to low and give a brief shake every 10min or so for about half an hour. Will completely dehydrate & crisp up in 20-30 minutes. Feel free at this point to salt & season at will. Eat like potato chips. Will keep for several days in sealed plastic.

 

[Friday]

I heard on the news that sugar is more addictive than Cocaine!:woot:

LOL... That would be because the brain only runs off glucose! Was working in the ER during the stupid Atkins craze when people were eliminating all carbs from their diets... And the brain cannot run off of ketones. So, naturally, we were having several people brought in each night experiencing delusions, seizures, and in some cases death.

Which is just a general good thing to know... When most people say "sugar" they mean processed sugar cane (or processed corn sugars, maple sugars, starchy grains or veggies, honey, whatever is used locally as the sweetener in most dishes)... But some people really do mean all sugars. No sucrose, glucose, fructose, lactose, galactose, etc. And then they start suffering from the whole loss of cognitive function, brain damage, seizures, & death thing. We absolutely, 100%, need sugars in our diet. It doesn't really matter so much where they come from, so much that they're present enough for our brain not to starve.

Ditto:
Carbs = Sugars
Lipids = Fats
Proteins = themselves! we don't have a nickname for proteins
Vitamins
Minerals

We need all 5 nutrient groups in our diet, and our specific dietary needs change depends not just on exercise & caloric needs... But also our age (children need a high fat diet for brain development, meanwhile adults need low fat for cardiovascular health), sex, other medical conditions, climate & geography (quirky fact: Oxygen is carcinogenic in a BIG way, because it has a free radical aka is radioactive. Vitamin C and other anti-oxidants bind the free radical, so we receive less cell damage from o2. People who live at sea level with higher oxygen levels? Need a lot more antioxidants in their system, because of the abundance of oxygen), activity types, activity levels, other medical conditions, etc. A whole, whole lot goes into what ideal nutrition "looks" like for each individual. What's healthy for one person can cause serious health problems in another.

This public service announcement has been brought to you from our sponsors: Captain Obvious, Yet again, science has proven that balance instead of extremism is best, and that people are different and have different needs, as well as "Why am I paying $3,000 to take this stupid class?... Gah. Right. Degree requirement. Dammit."

 

[JustBe]

I Love my Raw Honey, Agave and Whatever fresh fruits are in season.