UKC

Don't work!

There have been many heated discussions over the years about dietary stuff on here. There are always people who maintain that it is simple calories in must be smaller than calories out, it doesn't matter what the calories are etc. 

I have been sure for a long time that is not the case, I know that processed sugars are awful for me. 

I have also been watching studies on gut microbiome with interest. 

This podcast is really interesting. They still have questions to answer and admit that at this stage it is a small study, but the quality of diet and level of processed foods seems to be very important. 

Worth a watch while you eat your kimchi! (And seriously, I don't like fermented foods, any suggestions for something nice that is fermented??)

youtube.com/watch?v=HtKlDR5S_aE&

Not watched it yet, as an hour is a lot of free time for me to find., but the Zoe group are fairly logically organised. Yet they complained that I did not have enough variance in my diet of (I assume) fruits. Yet they did not take into account, that I am pre-diabetic, and should not eat many of the fruits that are available.

My problem is likely that I have gained fat again around the abdominal region, due to too much work, eating late, and going off course with my diet over Christmas. So tonight, I am trying to get back into the swing of my diet, by missing my evening meal. ( poss a variant on the 5-2 diet).

If I can be strict over the next couple of months, then I gain ground again, (better controlling the glucose levels). I also need less work, and to get out on the hills more.

Yes, it is a bit long. The first bit (I think around 8 mins) is the guy sharing his background of why he got interested in this, so you could skip forward a bit. I watched it while working in the kitchen.

They mentioned fruit, but not specifically in the case of pre+/ diabetes. But basically their take was that fruit is good, but whole fruit, not juice etc. They reckon the fibre in fruit slows down the sugar absorbtion. Their take was that it is the quality of most carbs that are the biggest problem. 

So this is pretty much exactly what they were talking about, being strict isn't sustainable. We need to feel satiated, so we need to eat lots of veg, whole grains, fats etc, and add in fermented foods (which is the bit I am not keen on!). The reason "diets" don't work, is that being hungry is not sustainable.

The thing they didn't pick up on is the psychological side to eating. I eat chocolate because I like it! Sometimes also because I am bored! I found in the past when I cut out processed sugar entirely, it was hard for a couple of weeks and then got easier. However, then I get complacent and think that a wee bit won't do any harm, it's someone's birthday and there's cake etc....and I go back to old habits alarmingly quickly. Our culture does make it hard.

Thats very true. Our culture makes it extremely hard. The acceptance of highly processed and high sugar foods is almost total, making ‘the norm’ basically a bad diet leading to a reliance on medication in later life. Another worrying factor is the knowledge that it is actually not good for us, yet its ignored because it ‘tastes’ SO good’.

We also, as a rule, eat way too much, way too often. Couple that with the generally poor diet plus lack of exercise and there you have it, an unfit, overweight society that is almost completely accepted as normal. The sight of overweight people is so common place now we hardly bat an eye, yet the association with weight and diabetes and various other forms of ill health is plainly obvious. 

We could all do with skipping meals, eating less carbs and cutting out processed foods and sugars wherever possible, and that includes some of the sweeter fruits, and in periods of less exercise, eat less food. Its really simple. 

The new year seems like a good place to start a new diet, but it has to be sustainable and taken slowly, dry January for example, cutting out the daily alcohol intake, and then adjustments to other aspects of diet can go a long way to making wholesale changes of habits that can lead to a much healthier diet in the long run. 

Yes, and also the myths surrounding what is and isn't good making things worse. The classic being things labeled as "low fat", which are almost always awful for us! Highly processed and with added sugar and salt to create taste.

So this is the point of the video, we shouldn't be skipping meals or cutting out carbs. We should be eating the right carbs. So whole grains, beans, veg etc are all carbs which are high in fibre and satiate us. Their big focus is on the quality of the ingredients, and not feeling hungry. They don't seem to think that sweeter fruits are a problem, but we should have it in fruit from, not juice or otherwise processed. 

Indeed, the sustainability of it seems to be the biggest thing. 

Protein could be the best. Half the calories of fat and essential for building and maintaining lean mass.

I managed to do without an evening meal last night, which is always good on the following morning, as I can eat a little more porridge (I feel). I find it easier to miss a meal altogether, than to try to eat a small meal all the time. So I favour the idea of the 5-2 diet (missing a meal out on 2 days out of a week).

I eat oranges as is, without squeezing them, and actually enjoy eating them that way, sucking on the halved oranges, then inverting to eat the flesh from the pith, until clear of all fibres. So that slows down the input of sugar into the blood.

Bananas, I love, but they are too sugary. So I eat on average, one every 7-10 days.

I scored the highest possible on the Zoe survey about fibre, as I eat lots of green vegetables, and find that they fill me up more, so that, hopefully I don't eat as much in the way of carbohydrate.

Strangely, I find that if I have salad as a starter, then I am inclined to eat more afterwards, than I would have, had I had no salad at all. I'm not sure what the explanation is.

My big weakness at the moment is mixed herbal teas (Not fruit teas as they are definitely sugary), and I'm not sure how much glucose or fructose they provide. So I'm trying to cut down on them too.

I wonder how that works for people who are on the edge of renal failure? More protein, means more bi-products to get rid of via the kidneys, and the greater likelihood of them building up in the blood due to dysfunction of the kidneys.

I was surprised that this guy kind of skipped over protein a bit. He basically said that generally people easily get enough protein anyway without thinking about it. 

I did see (maybe a Michael Moseley programme?) where he looked at protein shakes etc and basically concluded that our body actually just passes excess protein rather than using it, so the shakes and powders are just expensive piss. I know you are referring to foods rather than powers and shakes, but it seems like you maybe don't derive a lot of benefit maybe from eating more protein specifically. 

Also, many proteins are fats. Fish and nuts, for example are full of both. 

So oats were something he mentioned on quality of carbs. Instant oats being bad because they are highly processed, but whole oats being good because they are whole.

Aren't all veg carbs? But it's back to the quality of the carbs, they are unprocessed carbs so good for you.

That is strange! Adding seeds, nuts or olive oil to it might help? Although, if you don't care much for salad then maybe it doesn't matter?

Well the main thing is that there is a lot of water in cabbage and the like, so greater volume in the stomach, to shut my appetite goblin up...

Proportional to your diet this one. If you have a typical omnivorous western diet, then you have no shortage of protein. If you are vegan/vegetarian (I am the latter) you probably need to make a conscious effort to get enough into your diet - not that this has to mean necking protein shakes 24/7.

In reply to Shani:

I don't think anyone is suggesting that you shouldn't eat enough protein, but rather the impression I got from his comment was that he thought people tend to get enough anyway. I presume when they do their studies, people keep food diaries so I guess that is where they get this from. I'm only guessing, he kind of skimmed over it briefly. 

My point was more that there doesn't seem to be any point in over doing protein, as far as I can tell. 

I presume vegans need to think a bit more about protein intake, but I wouldn't have thought an issue for vegetarians? Plenty of protein in dairy, eggs, lentils, chickpeas, rice, and loads of other things. I guess it just depends how varied your diet is?

I recently lost around 15kg in weight by over hauling my diet. I minimised intake of processed carbs mainly but also reduced other processed foods, treats & alcohol. All my life I've only happily lost weight when I cut down on carbs although this might not be the case for everyone. So we have huge salads for lunch & then fish / lentils / beans / quorn with vegetables in the evening, sometimes a slice of toast or a jacket potato. The main thing is what I would describe as large portions of vegetables and salads to fill up on. Still have the odd biscuit or ice cream or whatever but not very often.

I actually started this by downloading the (free) NHS weight loss app and following it. Calorie counting led me into it naturally and 18 months later it feels normal now.

I have most success following maffetone ideas, dropping processed carbs etc.

Loads of veg (no potatoes or similar) protein and fats and a small amount of good carbs

That I can lose weight and not feel hungry is the bit that works for me.

The loss of chocolate was a big problem initially, but now I can barely eat it, as it too sickly. The scary bit, is how quickly I can get back the sugar addiction. 

"Jesse's Diets" on "The Fast Show" . Not for the faint-hearted!

Dunno. Hard enough to work out what's healthy sometimes when you don't have complications.

“This week I will be mostly eating........”

Depends on what you count as enough. I think I've read that 1g per kilo of bodyweight is minimum. Whereas Dave Macloud does 2g. I thought I was eating a lot of protein but it was about 1.5g so not near DM but reasonable for the amount of climbing and training I do, eating meat, fish, eggs, dairy so getting all the essential aminos. I'd find it hard to eat more than the 2g. I can easily imagine somebody not eating enough if they're climbing and training hard.

Proteins aren't fats, but obviously you get fat with a lot of protein rich foods which is what I guess you mean. But that means a higher protein to fat ratio than just fat! Not that I have anything against fat, but I prefer saturated fats and olive oil to seed oils. Protein and fat are essential, carbs aren't. So carbs for me are all about the micros.

Yes, that’s my approach - count calories using My Fitness Pal and when I need to restrict my intake I’ll try to eat nutrient rich but calorie poor food like vegetables. I’m 6’ and 11st 1lb on average now but have been as heavy as 13st 6lb. 

I'd say that is exactly what they are suggesting on this video, but they also think we should add in fermented foods. Drop the bad carbs and eat so you feel full seem to be the big take homes from it I would say.

In reply to Shani:

I just did some googling and various muscle building/ men's health type pages came up. General opinion on these seems to be that the maximum a body use in one sitting is around 30g of protien (and for the purposes of this, I am going to assume they are talking male bodies, because they usually do! I have no idea if there is a difference in females). Obviously, this was a quick google search, so not sure of the source of these numbers!!  But if they are right, and if you are eating 3 meals a day, then no matter how much you eat, it seems that you will only actually use 30g of that. So yeah, plenty of protein rich foods are healthy and no harm in eating more of them, but no need to go out of your way to add more in for the sake of extra protein, because you will just pee it out!

when people quote that the average diet contains enough protein they are usually referring to FDA guidance of 50g per day and this is for survival or to prevent malnutrition.  

It is widely accepted now that increased protein consumption leads to an increase in muscle protein synthesis (MPS).  MPS is only triggered once a person consumes above 20g per sitting, so 3 eggs for breakfast wont trigger MPS.    

Plenty studies say that mps is often shortlived after training, depending on intensity of training(if you're not grafting it's obviously limited), not volume of protein consumed afterwards. To gain the most from training guides vary from 0.31 to 0.5g/kg of body mass of protein in a meal immediately after training. What you eat for breakfast the next day is largely irrelevant volume wise,  but ideally some food based protein from two different sources is best. Ie. Not just diary.

There will of course by masses of 'recommendations' mainly from supporters of protein drinks companies etc..  for the frequency and intensity most people train at they are literally pissing good money away on these. 

According to the media, we should all be eating gorse.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/10/protein-from-gorse-bush...

I think they got the idea from this paper, which makes really interesting reading:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2021.575056/full

Maybe not for this year's diet though. I've started with a dry January, and will be going onto the Michael Mosley Fast 800 diet (although I won't bother with signing up).

I’m not convinced about that. I think that people describe things eg a steak as protein and other things like bread as carbs. Very few thing are 100% anything, the most obvious exception being cooking oils which are nearly 100% fat. I’ve just looked on a packet of puffed wheat (which has 1 ingredient, i.e. wholewheat) and it says 14.5% protein, not including milk you may add. From what I can find on a quick internet trawl, steak, that king of proteins, has around 25-30% protein. All sorts of food have significant protein content. The best dietary advice is to eat as much variety of food as you can including as little highly processed food as you can. Even something as mundane as bread is important. I make all our bread so I know what goes into it. Not totally wholemeal flour, but largely. Includes some white flour with 10 added seeds. 30 grams of Linwood cold milled seeds etc, or pea flour, a good handful of chopped walnuts and another of toasted (for flavour) melon seeds. Most days a half or whole slice of that gets loaded with peanut butter. 
I must admit that I haven’t looked to find what recommended protein intake is these days. But I do remember years ago reading government published Manual of Nutrition which laid down the law on all sorts of food intakes. I lost confidence in that publication when I discovered how the figures were arrived at. Apparently the “scientists” involved assembled a cohort of healthy people (???) and asked them what they ate.  This became recommended intakes. I’m sure it’s not like that today, though.

Think about 55 Grammes of protein per day for average weight man. Four slices of wholemeal bread gives you about 25% of this amount. Seven pints of Guinness gives you another 25%.