Trying To Eat Healthy

[Wonderwall]

I've been pretty fortunate weight wise. As well as being active at work , and playing a fair bit of sport, I have been able to pretty much eat what and when I want (within reason of course).  While the pounds slowly over the years added up, the last couple of years ( as I charge towards the big five zero) my belly has became , let's say " more cuddly!" 

So at the turn of the year I decided to up my exercise and watch what I eat. 

While burning the calories is in my control , finding out what I'm putting in is a bit of a minefield!!  So much confusing information out there. 

Reading labels on food , telling you how much fat , sugar , etc is all given via different weights. It's a bit like buying in sterling, dollars, yen and fag coupons all at the same time . For example , I thought honey was a "super food" Well apparently not in some quarters, while another site will tell you it's all good.Low fat yogurt has lots of sugar so is probably worse than full fat, again , so some say.  Nipping into the shops for a few provisions for lunch is no longer a two minute task 

Some articles even question the benefit of fruit, FRUIT!!!!!! What's the world coming to 

Of course , they ALL agree that alcohol is a huge factor and should be avoided. Well, they would , wouldn't they 

Anyone else confused, do you feel my pain , or am I just a grumpy old man , who is in need of crisps, peanuts, chocolate and a big fry up

 folk 

[ChrisB]

Summer is on it's way, always easier to be good then. Very hard to fancy a salad when it is blowing a near gale and wind chill = -6C.

I always relish my first really good salad when I actually am fully sick of puds and caseroles and roasts.

[Gracie]

I agree with you Neil, it's a minefield if we believed everything the so called experts say we would live on lettuce leaves. I personally believe a little bit of what you fancy does you good, the more we deny ourselves cakes and bacon sarnies etc, the more we crave them

The 80/20 rule works for me, eat healthy 80% of the time, the other 20% will allow the odd bit of bacon or cake

Wine however, comes from grapes, grapes are fruit, therefore wine is good for you, a couple of glasses goes towards your five a day, that's what I believe and I won't be having my mind changed by a ruddy so called expert any time soon 

Grace

 

[riyadhcrew]

Got a large glass of red in front of me now Grace.

[Gracie]

The secret to enjoying a good wine is to open the bottle and allow it to breath, if it doesn't look like it's breathing, give it mouth to mouth  I might just put the kids to bed and join you, Eric

Grace

[Hockham Admiral]

It's the first day of Lent today and I've promised to cut out my half of beer a day until the end of it.    

[NorfolkNog]

Just now, Hockham Admiral said:

It's the first day of Lent today and I've promised to cut out my half of beer a day until the end of it.    

As long as you enjoy the other five and a half no problem John! 

[Hockham Admiral]

Sorry, Howard, I was using the unit of gallons................     

[vanessan]

If we listened to the so-called "experts", we would be changing our eating habits every five minutes! A long time ago my husband and myself decided that moderation in all food and drink would be our mantra, it seems to work as neither of us is overweight despite slowing down as we get older. Walking our two dogs gives us the much needed  excercise. 

My grandmother was told to lose weight many, many years ago. She did something like Gracie's 80/20%. She ate extremely carefully Monday to Friday but at weekends she enjoyed that little bit extra. Well, sometimes it was more than just a little bit! But it worked, she lost a lot of weight over a period of time and I think that's the way to do it rather than these crash diets.  everyone!

   

[Chelsea14Ian]

Good advice,try to add lots of fruit and vegetables. Cut down on fats.Where possible use olive oil and or oil seed rape.Both of which very good for you.Fish salmon,baked or grilled.Walk sometimes instead  of  the  car or bus.

Yes Treat yourself  at the weekends  high days and holidays.

[TheQ]

You can say anything is healthy  or unhealthy.

There are many reports that olive oil shoud be avoided, (especially if cooking)

A packet of Crisps has more vitamin C than an apple ( but less than an orange).

I live in the countryside in Norfolk , What's a Bus?

 Bacon rolls are now restricted to Sunday morning down at the sailing club when I'll burn them off.

 I've been on a diet for many years as a diabetic who's allergic to caffine. Unfortunately the many years of doing sport, has now caused pain from many joints, hence a reduction in activity. So it's ever more difficult to keep this waistline under control.

 

 Pancakes tonight, yes I know we are a day late, that was unavoidable, lemon juice and sugar subsitute

[ranworthbreeze]

4 hours ago, TheQ said:

You can say anything is healthy  or unhealthy.

There are many reports that olive oil shoud be avoided, (especially if cooking)

A packet of Crisps has more vitamin C than an apple ( but less than an orange).

I live in the countryside in Norfolk , What's a Bus?

 Bacon rolls are now restricted to Sunday morning down at the sailing club when I'll burn them off.

 I've been on a diet for many years as a diabetic who's allergic to caffine. Unfortunately the many years of doing sport, has now caused pain from many joints, hence a reduction in activity. So it's ever more difficult to keep this waistline under control.

 

 Pancakes tonight, yes I know we are a day late, that was unavoidable, lemon juice and sugar subsitute

We have been using the George Forman grill since they came out (now onto our third one), we also have a hot air fryer that uses less than half a teaspoon of olive oil that produces better tasting chips than the oven variety. If using frozen potato products then you do not have to use any oil. 

These days we only use the deep fat fryer for battered fish but more times, more times than not we cook fish in foil with seasoning and lime juice in the oven.

We forgo the pancakes yesterday and I made pasties, made with gluten free flour (not ideal) but Tan suffers with normal pastry.

Regards

Alan

[Wonderwall]

Every where I looked today, all I could see was people eating delicious looking cakes, , melt in the mouth chocolate or some fancy looking biscuits!!

Its a cruel world we live in 

What I have learnt is , when hungry and out with meal times, just get busy, it's all in the mind I tell you.........well that and your taste buds and belly!!!

Roll on Friday, not decided if my treat will be a bar of galaxy , or a sticky bun, oops , , I just dribbled on my iPad there 

[Gracie]

No, no, no Neil, Friday is fish and chip night, so much better for you than chocolate, fish is good for you and potatoes are vegetables, honestly you'll never lose that tummy at this rate  

I've seen your photos. if you've got a big tummy, I'm the Queen of England lol

Grace

[SteveO]

We seem to specialise in angst and denial of enjoyment in this country. It seems that for everything that gives pleasure, some stunted maggot of an "expert" will pop up with evidence that it causes you harm. I don't know what to believe about any of it but have come to the conclusion that the way forward is moderation in all things, plenty of food and veg and avoid faddy diets, over-processed foods and too much fried stuff and, above all, don't worry, enjoy life and be happy.

If it works, you live to a ripe old age. If it doesn't, at least you can say that the journey has been a pleasure.

Steve

[Chelsea14Ian]

Olive oil and oil seed rape.Both are very good for you.As for cooking oil seed rape.Both will cook at high temperatures. Extra  Virgin olive use for salads and dressing if you cook with olive oil use a lighter olive oil.It will save you money as well

[SteveO]

Of course when I said "plenty of food and veg", I intended to say "plenty of fruit and veg, but then you probably guessed that.

Steve

[Hockham Admiral]

Just now, SteveO said:

Of course when I said "plenty of food and veg", I intended to say "plenty of fruit and veg, but then you probably guessed that.

Steve

I absolute  must  agree with your original,  Steve!   

I do try to eat lots of veg with my meat but occasionally,  like last night, I succumb to Steak, mushrooms,  eggs and chips. Washed down with a large glug  of wine!   

[ranworthbreeze]

12 minutes ago, Hockham Admiral said:

I absolute  must  agree with your original,  Steve!   

I do try to eat lots of veg with my meat but occasionally,  like last night, I succumb to Steak, mushrooms,  eggs and chips. Washed down with a large glug  of wine!   

Hi John,

It would work for me, less the mushrooms, or Tan could have mine, she usually does. We are awful when out passing food from plate to plate and sharing different sweets.

Regards

Alan

[TheQ]

Well last night I went out to a leaving work dinner (he had been there 38 years).

Later this month I have the Horning Sailing club rigging out dinner and then

The  Snowflake Sailing Club, End of season dinner and prize giving.....

 

 

Still struggling to keep to a diet...

 

 

[Springsong]

I am now an insulin dependant diabetic so I am having to read labels with far more attention than ever I used to.

There is the first problem, they are so damned small as to be very nearly unreadable. When I do read one I realise why.  Very basically if it is not home cooked or produced it is going to have too much sugar, so shop bought (baked) bread is out even seeded brown loaves.

Exercise. I am finding it increasingly difficult to walk any distance or stand for any length of time, so I have taken up swimming or rather floating on my back, I have a shower leg which I thought would double up for swimming, no it is far too buoyant so I have to take it off and wear a buoyancy aid which of course prevents me from swimming on my front, hence the floating around.

Some of you may know of my predilection for Vodka, interestingly my diabetic nurse said this was not a problem as long as I used the low whatever mixers.  come the boating season I WILL be testing her theories.  

Food labelling has got to improve not only in size but also made user friendly 1oo grams per 300 gram portion means what exactly, nothing to a Luddite like myself  "educated" pre decimal changeover.

Apologies for a rambling rant. . 

[grendel]

my dad carries a magnifying glass and gets it out and reads labels on tins etc, no matter how long it takes (a good job he is retired and not in a hurry) as for 100g  of 300g means that 1/3 of it is probably bad for you. you should be able to take some sugar, its just a matter of balancing the extra sugar with extra insulin, if you ajust your sugar intake to a certain level try and keep it the same, then you can compensate with extra insulin, I have a similar juggling act with my warfarin and greens.

[ginbottle]

On 1 March 2017 at 6:30 PM, ranworthbreeze said:

We forgo the pancakes yesterday and I made pasties, made with gluten free flour (not ideal) but Tan suffers with normal pastry.

Isn't it strange, the number of people (myself included) who are gluten intolerant? All the larger supermarkets now stock a range of gluten free products, so it must be a huge and growing problem! What is being added to wheat these days and why? When did 'they' decide it was ok to add whatever it is, without any warnings to us unsuspecting consumers?

 I am so relieved that gin is gluten free!

[Timbo]

On 3/3/2017 at 9:53 AM, springsong said:

Some of you may know of my predilection for Vodka, interestingly my diabetic nurse said this was not a problem as long as I used the low whatever mixers.  come the boating season I WILL be testing her theories. 

OK Barry got the first chuckle this morning. Where have I heard something similar before? Oh yeah...Uncle Albert. 'Most of the sugar turns to alcohol' indeed! 

I'm a member of a disability swimming club Barry.  I sorted out the 'shower leg' of one of our members who had a similar problem to yourself with his leg being too buoyant. He too found it almost impossible to swim on his front as the leg was effectively pushing his head underwater. I drilled some 5mm holes into the leg in pairs. It took quite a bit of experimentation but in the end we found with eight or ten holes the right amount of water in the leg which eventually balanced him out. Now I don't understand the physics of this but...we found that if we countersunk or beveled the holes water wouldn't rush into the leg all at once. Having said that it wouldn't rush out either.

The only problem now is that we cannot determine whether the air bubbles rising from around him is his leg or his personal methane powered Jacuzzi.Well, other than his cheesy grin.

[Timbo]

Edited to add: One of the young ladies also had a similar problem but wouldn't let us drill holes in her leg. Instead her Dad made some Velcro straps that contained weights that can be fastened to her leg in various locations until the leg is balanced. Far more elegant solution...and probably works better than ours!