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So...after my last visit to ER with some whalloping pain and ringing ears, got some good meds, started exercising properly, but now the diet is killing me. ;) I only weigh twenty more pounds than I did when I was 18 and I was in shape then, but the doc seems to think I can benefit from eating rice cakes and sawdust.
Or are rice cakes made from sawdust?
First off, let me 'splain some things. Until this "diet" was enforced, there was no margarine in my fridge. I prefer real butter. No 2% milk, I like good old vitamin D. Crisco? What is that stuff? I buy lard in a bucket. Biscuits need lard or they just aren't biscuits. Don't get me started on canned biscuits, biscuits simply should never be in a can. Speaking of biscuits, I don't make biscuits unless I make sausage gravy. And since there's biscuits and gravy, there has to be some thick-sliced bacon and some brown eggs over easy.
You need to cook a lot of bacon if you like green beans because you cannot make green beans without adding, you got it, bacon grease.
I never bought low-fat, reduced calorie, sugar-free, low carb, "lite" anything.
Now I'm cooking with some calorie-free, non-stick whatzit spray that smells like a mild paint thinner. No butter at all. Not even margarine on a baked potato. Supposed to use low-fat cottage cheese. And I like cottage cheese, cooked in lasagna with 4 other cheeses, or smothered with cling peaches in heavy syrup... Can't fry the spuds either, even if I wanted to use that weird Crisco stuff.
I can have all the boiled or steamed veggies I care to eat, as long as I don't put any butter on them. Red meat, sure twice a week, as long as it is grilled, which is fine, but they want it to be well-done too. I like my steaks mooing. Eat more seafood he says. Sure thing. I love fish and shrimp. What's that? Shrimp. Nope. Shrimp raises the old blood pressure. Besides, if I'm not having it with cocktail sauce, I'd want to saute it in butter...
I'm allowed to eat all the oatmeal I want to eat. So I've been having oatmeal for breakfast. I feed oats to my horses. Today, while I was watching the horses eat, I felt bad about their grass, oats, low-corn, bran diet. So I gave them some jelly donuts. :)
Treat your diet as a challenge. I had to change my diet (and my drinking habits) a few years ago after I got diagnosed as diabetic. I took the attitude that I'd spent half a century having fun eating and drinking in one way, and now I was going to have fun eating and drinking in another. And so that's what I did.
Always treat a constraint as a means to inspire you to new and original ways of doing things. Otherwise, as life changes, you'll just end up as a grumpy old man, complaining that things aren't what they used to be. and that would be a loss for all of us, not just you ;)
So I gave them some jelly donuts.
LMAO
I'm with TheDoctor on this one, so no sympathy here DG ;-)
You need to learn how to cook. You don't need food drenched in bacon fat or butter to taste good. Sure, that makes it easier, but it's not critical.
I think you'll also find that your sense of taste changes and adapts also - mine did....
TJ
Look in your yellow pages and see if you can't find a spice market. Second best will be an ethnic market. If neither of those are avaliable, go online and find a place that sells herbs and spices. Buy several kinds of herbs and spices. I learned by going country by country. Italy herbs and spices first, because it was most familier to me. Now I can cook Indian, Italian, Thai, Chinese, French and some Japanese off the top of my head.
Anyway, buy several kinds of spices and herb and go home and cook. Never buy herbs and spices from your grocery store (Old herbs and spices do not taste anywhere near as good and the grocery store only has old stuff). Never follow the recipe when it comes to herbs and spices. Flavor your food to your taste, not to the recipe as recipes are written for middle of the road.
Cooking classes.
While my cooking isn't bad, it also isn't very interesting. I'm hoping that when I have a few spare minutes this spring, I can find a good set of cooking classes to take - to learn how to make food a bit more interesting.
You're always into learning new things - maybe something like that would grab your interest, too.
But there are a few things which IMO taste great and are good for you, such as garlic, onions, basil, lentils, ginger, lemons, spinach, yoghurt to name but a few. I would hate to eat rice cakes and cottage cheese.
I must admit though, like Lawman, most of my cooking starts with a good slug of olive oil. But it's a good fat, right?
But it's a good fat, right?
It's mostly unsaturated fat which is a necessary element of a healthy diet.
But it does also contain saturated fat and like anything else it's all about quantity - you don't want to eat too much of it. It's high in calories, which means cholesterol and putting on weight......
But yeah, it's better than bacon fat ;-)
You might want to check out Sesame oil, which is even better for you (lots of vitamin E which breaks down cholesterol - i.e. can actually lower it) and I think tastes great.
Walnut oil apparently is also a good healthy alternative if you're not allergic to nuts....
TJ
/was on a diet, should get back to it and lose another 40 pounds.
was on a diet, should get back to it and lose another 40 pounds
If a diet is something you think you "should get back to" then it's never going to work. You resent every mouthful of it, like digitalhost does. Eventually you fail.
Go off on a culinary adventure instead. Hopefully you had fun putting the pounds on. Now have fun getting them off.
(BTW, weight is not necessarily unhealthy. If you exercise and turn your fat into muscle, then your weight goes up not down).
Ahh, but I do know how to cook. Cajun, Southern, Tex-Mex, French. Cooking really isn't the issue, although I do plan on taking some more cooking classes as Hawkgirl suggested. When there's a family get-together, I'm the one that does the cooking. The simple fact is that I like rich foods. Doesn't matter how you dress up tofu, it is still tofu. I'd rather have my homemade cheesecake. ;) I'd rather have fried chicken than a grilled, boneless chicken breast.
If you go to a 5 star French resaurant, I guarantee you the chef is cooking with real butter and he's not worried about the cholestrol level. Nope, cooking isn't the issue.
As mentioned, herbs and spices are your new friend.
TJ
I'd rather have fried chicken than a grilled, boneless chicken breast.
Thighs, legs or quarters are much better in flavour, almost regardless of how you cook them. Are you allowed these portions? If so, just don't chew the fat (literally).
Try Ostrich...
Try Turkey (if you must..).
Try finding a dozen ways of doing something with those healthy vegetables. Try finding the most exotic options in ranges of foods that are availale to you...
As has been said, the challenge is for you to make food interesting...
Syzygy
need I say more?
Seriously DG - sorry to hear you had to visit the Doc. Glad to hear you're still kickin'
I'd rather have fried chicken than a grilled, boneless chicken breast.
There are dozens of things that you can do to chicken to make it taste better than fried.
You don't need bacon fat to make things taste good, and your diet doesn't need to consist of sawdust cakes and tofu.
I suggest watching the food channel for some inspiration :), or since you are obviously familiar with the internet, look up some recipes and techniques.
In retrospect he was right, I think.
I'm quite happy to eat when I'm hungry. I'm just not hungry very often. What bothers me most about eating is the time it takes. I'd rather be living my life or working or studying or going out with friends or drinking. Even now I have to read something when I'm eating or watch the news or something otherwise I just feel like I'm wasting part of my life.
I used to live with an Italian (a chef, no less!) who was horrified how disinterested I was in food.
I'll make one exception actually: muesli and orange juice and real coffee in the morning is a genuine pleasure.
That takes us back to sawdust, doesn't it? >;->
But I'd still rather have my fried chicken than some "amazing" tofu dish...
Yeah. And I can see why Salt is something that needs reduction. Maybe you need to take a break from curing your meats for a while. Although, I admire the Hell outta the fact that not only can you cure, but more so that you were terribly fortunate to have purchased a piece of property with a Smoke House attached. AWwwwwsoome!
Oh, my god! I think my Grandparent's homestead was about the last root cellar I've seen, let along a whole free-standing smoke house....
Anyway, your other option is most likely medications buddy, so get with the program.
Hey, you are not the only one with similar afflictions, right? Why not we post some healthy menus? Say, on a weekly basis where we ( of similar fates ) can share health smart ideas, try 'em out and let folks know what's what. Might be helpful to us all.
Added:
And I mean that Multi-Nationally too. Lots of great foods out there.
`<{:,)
That was years ago. I was much bigger back then. And I felt horrible.
Today, I eat lots of fruit, veggies and fish. And wash it down with TONS of water. That and red wine. I have never felt better, lighter and more agile in my entire life. (And about 50 pounds lighter.)
And at the risk of taking this in a completely unappealing direction for a moment, the "elimination" process is absolutely effortless and trouble-free. (The body often has a tough time digesting some of the fatty foods that we love to consume.) It's amazing what a person gets used to over the years.
This doesn't mean that you can't eat tasty stuff! Last night, I was at Taps Brewery for some Fijian Mahi Mahi, rice pilaf and veggies. And of course, a bottle of Pinot Noir.
Bottom line, eating healthy was the best choice I've made in my life. (Well... that and learning some search engine stuff. :)
Me like. Can be justified as belonging in water cooler for internet topics by helping us to stay around the water cooler longer. Healthy cuisines from around the world would be welcome. Just keep 'em "Rachel Ray" simple.
I can't imagine living on the second type of diet you describe... The first diet you described above (my diet), OMG, that made me drow, I feel like going to get some grub right now...
Thank god we only have a history of cancer in my family, no heart problems ;).
Make (and buy some while yours are in the making) some herb-infused olive oils. Get a few 'misto' type oil sprayers (one for each flavor). When eating steamed veggies, give 'em a spray of some flavored olive oil.
Low-sodium soy sauce is your friend.
Develop (if you don't already have one) a taste for sushi.
Also, a taste for indian curries... it's all olive oil and herbs/spices, but some of the most flavorful food you'll ever find.
I feel a sense of dread, reading your post... I took my blood pressure at the store the other day. I fear if I don't develop an understanding of the word "moderation" very quickly, I'll end up under the same doctors' orders you got.
But still... margarine and Crisco will never be my friends.
Just keep your portions reasonable and get some exercise in every day (walk, ride a bike, play tennis, go swimming, etc.) That's all there is to being fit and healthy.
If you follow the popular idea that eating healthy means cutting out fat, eating lots of fruits and vegetables, etc. I can gaurantee what will happen to you:
You will stick to the diet for a while (maybe a few weeks, maybe a month or so) but eventually the deprivation will get to you and you'll go back to eating what you used to eat. But this time you'll eat WAY more because you'll tell yourself that you're going to go back on your diet in a few days so you better eat all you can now.
This cycle will continue - but each time the problem will magnify. This is the primary reason why Americans are getting fatter and fatter each year. They have learned to think of some foods as 'bad' and deprive themselves from eating them. But sooner or later they will give in and eat that food, and then they will feel guilty and eat all the foods they said they wouldn't eat.
People who are 'naturally' thin don't avoid certain foods. They eat what they want until they are satisfied. They listen to their bodies and eat what they crave. Sometimes it's grease laden bacon, sometimes it's a healthy sandwich.
Your body is an incredible machine. It can regulate itself with amazing precision and will tell you exactly what it needs. Listen to your hunger (not doctors, books, or the media) to decide what to eat. When you are eating, pay attention to what you are doing and how you are feeling. Don't read the paper, watch TV, etc. while you are eating. Just sit there and think about the food and how it tastes and what you think of it. You'll eat WAY less without feeling hungry or deprived.
>Healthy cuisines from around the world would be welcome.
Great idea. At my last ever stint in employment some years ago, I was working with people from around the globe, so I organized a "World Food Day" once a month where we all brought a plate of food from our country/cuisine of origin/interest for a communal meal. Worked a treat, great team builder, even got management enthused.
I guess here we would have to use our imaginary taste buds.
We already have the Friday Word Game, Gizmo on Saturday, hows about the "Hump Day Menu?"
Onya
Woz
I am at this moment eating some red lentil soup.
2 shallots browned in olive oil.
2 tomatoes skinned and chopped
2 red peppers charred over flame, skinned and chopped.
1 cup red lentils.
2 cups vegetable stock.
Cumin, ground coriander, allspice.
Cook about half an hour and blend to smooth consistency.
It tastes good, is filling, and healthy I think.
Side note - I also have a gastric bypass which makes soups an easy meal choice.
It's impossible to know what constitutes a healthy diet by reading the popular press, where the reporters are untrained, the study du jour is never put into perspective, and the research itself is often tainted by bias or poor methodology. Even government recommendations are influenced by industry pressure and many are of them are just arbitrary numbers rather than being based on science (such as the maximum percentage of fat you should eat, or how much calcium you should consume).
Among the popular misconceptions are that: prepackaged low-fat cookies and snacks are much healthier than the regular kind, drinking more milk protects against bone loss, and that chicken is much healthier than red meat. These are all the result of the recommendations being based on assumptions, not real science.
The way around this is to look at the actual research and see what that actually tells us. It's just like WebmasterWorld -- it's filled with conflicting advice and opinions (especially where Google is concerned) but if you read long enough you can start to get a feel for who really knows their stuff vs. those who are misguided, or worse, just guessing.
In any field, it's results that matter. For heart disease, I put my money on Dr. Dean Ornish, who is the only researcher to date to successfully reverse heart disease. Other doctors can talk all they want but until their patients enjoy the same kind of success that his have then it's not very compelling to me. The bulk of his approach is simple: you eat whole, unprocessed foods like vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains, while avoiding packaged foods, processed foods, added fat of any kind, and most animal foods. I've been eating this way for nearly twenty years and the last time I checked my blood pressure was 110/80 and my cholesterol was 130. I don't think I have hereditary protection either, since one grandfather died in his mid-60's of a heart attack and I don't know what happened to the other one.
It's very true that you have to enjoy what you eat or for many people it wouldn't be worth it. Who wants to live longer if you just have that many more years of being unsatisfied by what you're eating? Of course the trick is to find foods that fit in with your healthy lifestyle which you like, and it's not as hard as it sounds. Plus, I think the longer you do it the more you appreciate healthy foods. I hated it at first and wasn't sure I could stick with it. Now I love what I eat -- especially because I can eat twice as much food as I did before since it's all low-calorie.
[edited by: pmac at 4:18 pm (utc) on Dec. 17, 2004]
