Health / Food / Blood Pressure (merged)

Peter wrote:

Is there a reference for that?

Pretty much the result of nutrition advisors who all told us the same thing, as well as many discussions and stuff I read about it, all go the same direction.

e.g: Men are very often advised to use low carb diets which include lots of protein such as meat, eggs, milk e.t.c while women get advised to go vegetarian or vegan as much as possible. That is what I was told almost every time I had a diet counceling after looking at bloodwork and other factors. My wife instead was told to go vegetarian and to eat nuts and basically become a human squirrel as well as eat pasta and potatoes.

So the advice we got was almost totally diametrically opposite, which makes eating together next to impossible. Consequently, when I was alone for a few weeks, I would do strict low carb and slim down, when together it would mean eat separately, which is not what can practically be achieved.

MANY people I’ve talked to say that for them that was the worst of all. They are capable of keeping a diet or chang their habits as long as they are alone, within the family, with opposing advice, it fell apart within days. Moreover, with kids, neither low carb nor pure veg is good for their growth, but balanced diet.

I find all this a bit bizarre, that men and women need different diets. I’m firmly convinced that the only thing that works is to eat less. Eating healthy probably helps and is a good idea anyway. Low carb / high carb / low whatever/ bananas and watermelon, whatever, is nonsense (imho). The sole exception is the Atkins diet, which indeed works if (a) you eat strictly zero carbs, not so much as a breadcrumb and (b) you don’t mind doing violence to your liver.

I’ve successfully lost weight twice now – though I could do with losing plenty more – by going on a <1000 kcal/day diet, no alcohol at least during the week, and light “Mediterranean” style meals – fish, veggies.

Just read a news item somewhere about a woman who lost 60 lbs using the “Mediterranean diet”. I don’t really know what one of those is, but seeing as we can see the Med from our dining table I figure we stand a chance.

johnh wrote:

I’m firmly convinced that the only thing that works is to eat less.

Indeed.

Every time you eat, put the normal amount of normal food on your plate as you normally would. Then remove a third of it and only eat what’s left. Do that every time and cut any drinking of alcohol in half. Exercise a bit more if you can, walking will do and 7,000 steps a day or more is good. I believe you will then start to lose weight. The excuses and painful rationalizations are much more complicated than the solution.

Food is great but we were programmed to survive in a world where it is scarce, in which we walk a lot and in which we should eat as much food as comes our way. Not following that instinct to eat is nowadays the only thing that will stop us from having long term heath issues. Reproduction is much the same BTW, but on a societal scale.

Atkins? It’s gonna be Keto next

Same thing. They both depend on a biochemical quirk that the central chemical cycle in the liver – Kreb’s Cycle – only works if there is some raw carbo input. Otherwise it blocks at a certain point, leaving a residue of unprocessable ketone. Hence one of the names. People who do it have an unmistakeable acetone smell. Heaven only knows what else it does to you, but it doesn’t actually kill you. But the tiniest amount of carb – “oh, one cookie won’t hurt” – defeats it completely. A friend of mine used it regularly back in the 70s before anyone had heard of it.

we walk a lot

Flying is pretty good exercise. Today I took my plane to another airport for some mx. The amount of walking about you do at airports got me 5000 steps right there. With other incidental walking about I’m at over 7000 today, having done no “exercise” whatsoever.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

As a family we try to spend some time together and part of that is to eat together. So we enjoy a meal a day where everyone pretty much eats the same.

You don’t have to eat the same amount though. Let the teenager who is eating like a horse have a big plate, and then those who don’t have those calorific requriements have smaller plates. Same food, different quantity.

@Silvaire

remove a third of it and only eat what’s left. Do that every time and cut any drinking of alcohol in half. Exercise a bit more if you can

Great plan. Really. I’ll start tomorrow. Ok, day after

I lost about 9 Kg last year following my own advice… but have gained about half of that back. I’d like to lose it again before my next Euro motorcycle trip in June.