Tag Archives: eating

Diet means go hungry

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I was talking to someone about dieting a few days back. Something they said brought back memories of where I was for many years. I was explaining that dieting really means going hungry. If you are never hungry, you can not expect to lose any meaningful amount of weight. Dieting and hunger go together. Feeling hungry is one of our bodies attention getters. The discussion had been going on for about fifteen minutes and I was talking about my experiences.

I reminded them as you are dieting to lose weight, you will become hungry. Dieting in essence is a well planned form of long term starvation. Feeling hungry is not an unbearable all consuming feeling, but it is powerful feeling never the less. For the first few weeks it can be bothersome, but after a time it is just a feeling our body is giving off. It is best to accept the idea that you are going to feel hungry.

When you eat is very important. Generally you wish to follow that old adage, eat breakfast like a King or Queen, lunch like a Prince or Princess, and dinner like a pauper. In simple terms this means eating most of your daily calorie intake early in the day so your body has food energy available. This helps your body to burn up those calories before you burn up your day and end up in advanced relaxing positions before bed.

get_thinIf you do not wake up hungry, you are not dieting. If you do not wake up hungry, you ate too much the evening before. Your morning schedule should be defined by your appetite as you diet. You can not expect to lose any weight of you do not wake up hungry in the morning. If you are seriously dieting, you may find yourself waking before your alarm in the morning. There is nothing abnormal about it, as it is your body’s natural response to being underfed.

Some people have trouble limiting their last meal to a sensible portion. I am raising my hand here as one of those people. A good solution to this is to eat your last meal earlier in the evening. No matter what your diet plan is you should never be eating your last meal within a few hours of going to sleep.

Your body barely has time to do anything with the food you ate, let alone use any of the energy you will consume. Energy consumed and not used is energy stored and that really gets in the way of a successful diet. Eating is the way we bring energy into our body.

What was the comment that brought back so many memories? I heard another person say, “I can’t eat any less!”

I think that is a common handicapping statement for anyone who is more than a few pounds overweight. I am sure many people share this sentiment with everyone else who wants to diet and does not know how. We generally feel as if we are not eating that much food to start with. I know I didn’t think I ate much each day, and if I added up what I thought were all the calories I consumed in a day, I would feel I was not consuming that many calories.

Perhaps in general I would eat reasonably well. What I failed to do was account for those times when I ate more of the wrong foods than the right foods. Those days when without thinking about it, when the day is one continuous grazing session. I never really felt full, nor hungry, I would just feel like eating.

Those are days that hurt good diets. The second problem I had was I really did not relate portion size and what the food was to how many calories it contained. The biggest miss with this problem is fat calories. A cup of rice and a cup of macaroni and cheese are not even in the same arena when it comes to calorie counting. Neither is two slices of bread when weighed against a slice of chocolate cake. Substituting food by guess is not a successful diet aid.

To help you with diet success, as you weigh out portions and measure foods, pay close attention to what the thin people around you eat. Pay special attention to how often and how much. I found I can live on less. I can survive on what the thin people in my life eat in the same amounts. If you want to be a thinner person, you have to act like one when it comes to meals.

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Eating with Celiacs, For The Gluten Intolerant

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It has been four months now since I have been eating a Celiac or wheat gluten free diet. If you are not sure what that means, my understanding is Celiac is intolerance for wheat type gluten. This type of gluten is found in Wheat, Barley, and Rye for starters and perhaps a few lesser known grains too. Anything with malt or malt extract is code for gluten. Modified something you do not understand exactly what it is, is a phrase to be wary of. In my earlier Celiac post, I went over some of the symptoms that have been experienced both by myself and others.

It seems a Celiac diet is generally misunderstood, I read and have been told following a gluten free diet is a poor lifestyle choice which is simply not true. Lots of people around the world live quite happily on a gluten free diet. I suggest a lot of thought on going on a Celiac diet just for fun. It is a very restrictive diet if you are not adventurous. Eliminating gluten from your diet is no small undertaking.

After eliminating all the common places gluten sources exist in the average diet, there are other places gluten lurks. It is important to read each and every food label every time you shop because gluten lurks in almost every food you can imagine, from ice cream, to protein powders, some peanut butter, vitamins, and some medicines. What may be free of gluten this time, may have gluten in it the next time because the manufacturing of the product changed.

cel 2A Celiac diet properly undertaken is very healthy and nutritious. A Celiac diet done wrong can also turn into a monster. If you are not open to trying new foods, food combinations, and tastes, the Celiac diet is very expensive and fairly bland. Trying to eat the same type of foods you always ate such as different forms of breads and pasta’s will send the cost of eating into the upper limits. If a loaf of bread used to cost you $2.50, you can now plan on paying two to three times or more for bread that never quite matches your memories.

If you enjoy snacking on an occasional pretzel, cookie, or doughnut, get ready to pay much more for the pleasure. If you like pancakes or waffles guess what? The price of pancake mix and waffles goes up too. If you always wanted to expand what you eat, and you can get excited about new vegetables, and fruits, you will find life pretty exciting. You can practically start at one side of your favorite produce section and eat your way around to the other side.

If you are in the middle in your eating needs, you will find your food bill has gone up, and you may find yourself eating more of the types of foods that you previously ate less of. Going to a buffet for example where everyone can find something they want to eat, your choices once you leave the salad area becomes limited. Most thick soups are out, so is most chili, cheese, croutons, crackers, and everyone’s favorite – most of the desert section. You are left with vegetables and some of the meats. You can eat those meats which are not breaded, barbequed, or marinated with a soy based sauce, because they are likely to contain gluten.

On the bright side, I have noticed the taste of wheat in some food is obvious. The first bite often tells me if there is wheat hiding in the food somewhere. If I do not notice which has happened a few times, upset stomach of some form is not far away. Talk about negative reinforcement, it only needs to happen a few times before the awareness level and attention to what I am eating went way up.

Contrary to some of what I have read, being gluten free is not the end of the world. With some willingness to say goodbye to what your diet used to be and hello to the world of vegetables and fruits you never tasted before, a Celiac diet is healthy and can be quite reasonable both in taste and expense.

If you do have a gluten allergy, you will know generally within a few weeks because you should feel better, and not just different. In my case, it was only a few days before I started feeling a difference, and a few weeks before feeling healthier

An acquaintance mentioned many people have an allergy to many foods, but our bodies for the most part are able to handle the reaction without our even noticing. Again though that is conjecture and opinion, so take it with a grain of e-salt.

If you are serious about a celiac diet, or have health concerns, you need opinion and advice from a more informed source than myself. While I have done my reading and research, I am by no more than a beginning novice on Celiacs, and much of what I say may not be correct or correct for you. I have some small gluten tolerance, as some people do, so my thoughts and opinions may not be correct for you.

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Grease, sugar, and flour…learning how to eat correctly

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I started on a lifestyle change right before Christmas. I reached the point where I knew without a doubt that anything readily wrong with me was my fault, and if I did not change, I was not going to wake up healthier one morning. I thought about all the foods I eat that I knew I should not eat, and what they were doing to me. I had made the decision I was going to improve my eating habits, or I was going to die trying – hopefully a little literary extravagance in the expression. This time I was very serious, and I was going to make it work no matter what it took.

I started out well, at least I thought I was starting off well. I traded the man sized burgers, fries, and a coke for the woman sized portions, and the sugary soda for a diet soda. I added more vegetables to my meals. I ate a little less white foods, making up the difference in meats. Over the following two months I had lost about ten pounds. I lost that by eating little for dinner and waking up very hungry. Of course over the two months, I started making up for being hungry at night by eating more for breakfast.

It is really an interesting situation we Americans have ourselves in when it comes to eating. We generally eat more in some meals than we should be eating in a whole day. I won’t go on with what those meals are, other than to say they meet the taste requirements of the new American food groups are: grease, sugar, and flour. The more of these bad foods in combination the more we like them.

I used to work with a guy whose diet consisted of: Twinkies, canned vanilla pudding, and pop. That is all he ate every day. We all knew he was not going to live to long on a diet like that. We would talk about his poor diet while we ate burgers and fries. Later I worked with a woman who lived on toaster pastries and coffee. I was sure she was not going to make to another birthday. I thought these thoughts as I was giving up eating most pork, and all gravy – with a few exceptions of course.

Now it was my turn to really look at myself and help myself eat better. I thought maybe if I made sandwiches instead of burgers and had some corn chips, and diet coke my diet would be better. After a month of sandwiches, nothing had changed. Somehow my idea of eating better just was not working.

I did what I think I do best in these and similar situations. I decided I was suffering a case of wrong think. All I was really doing was substituting one poor food choice for another poor food choice. All the while thinking I was really changing my eating habits. All I was doing in reality was changing the composition of what I ate, while not changing what it was all made of. That was a hard pill to swallow, but it was better to admit I did not have a clue how to eat healthy, than to continue eating what I was eating. One meal out of the house I have always enjoyed was going to a salad bar. Watching other people at the salad bar, and their food choices started me down a whole new way of eating.

It is important to remember the idea that salad bar sounds healthy. Everyone there should be slim and trim, but they were not. Just like anywhere else, there was a mix of sizes. I grouped the people at the salad bars into two main groups. Those who were over weight, and those who were not. I started watching what the two groups ate for their meals. What I discovered really took me by surprise!

The more rotund people were eating about the same things I ate, a small plate of salad, followed by muffins, pastas, and ice cream with toppings. When I looked at the slim people they were eating salad, light soups, and one bread or muffin, and perhaps a small amount of ice cream for desert. What a difference in eating habits! I knew right then I needed to start eating like the slimmed down people were eating. I also knew I did not have a clue how to eat like they were throughout the day.

I found a book that promised to get me on the right track. The book suggested I would lose all the weight I wanted in the process, plus I would feel better each passing week. I had to ask myself, how many books make that promise? Well, when I went online to the bookstore, I found eighty-seven people gave this book an overall four point five stars on a five star scale. I thought conspiracy right away, what else could it be? There is no book that good. I read through some parts of it quickly and decided I liked what I read. It was straight forward, talked to me in a way I understood, and it made no frills attached sense. Except it was a vegetarian diet! A VEGETARIAN DIET! Who in the world ate like that? Obviously the authors and eighty-seven other people eat that way.

Thirty plus pounds later, I can attest to everything the book says is true, for me at least. Besides losing a lot of weight, I am still losing weight, and generally my health has improved more than I ever thought possible. I can’t say I am total vegetarian even though I ate tofu scrambled and spiced to look and almost taste like eggs today, along with a bowl of three bean chili and some bread that contains no grain, toast with almond butter, and an orange, all for breakfast! I still enjoy some chicken now and then, and I ate two pieces of beef, and two eggs, in the last month. Overall I can say I really enjoy the way I eat now, for no other reason than I am getting the results I want. I am also learning what it means to eat healthy, to eat right, and it feels so good!

I don’t have any intention of selling you on my new way of eating. Friends and family find it pretty bland, and can not believe I can eat the way I am learning to eat. For me it is the first of many baby steps as I learn how to eat right without following a manual of eating. What I am suggesting, is if you are willing to admit what you are doing in any area of your life is not working, there is hope and help waiting when you are ready to change. All you have to do is want to change bad enough that other things in your life become second to achieving your goal. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

That means you can do it too if you are willing to set aside what you think you know, and admit what you know does not work for you, whether it is eating, relationships, or life in general. Go to the book store, get on the net, or talk to people who seem to be doing it better than you do. When you want it bad enough, you will find a new way that works for you.

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Assembled food, Assembled family, Assembled life?

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Looking around my world these days I see an awfully large number of assemblers every where I go. I am starting to wonder, when I think about the average American family if we do not assemble it also. Perhaps mine is an isolated perception, and the rest of the country is more normal, I am not sure though.

My first observation of assembly happened at a Grocery store of all places. I happened to be in the bakery section early one morning picking up some bread. I noticed that most of the breads could be grouped into a few main groupings. First there is the old standby bread, soft and mushy white air bread. This is followed up with soft, and mostly white, wheat air bread. Finally there is an assortment of more diverse breads, some of which are actually quite different from the rest.

I have noticed that most of the wheat and white breads taste the same. If you look closely at the ingredients label, you may see some have raisin, or other (they do not use the word) coloring, to make the bread look more like wheat bread, so they technically dye white bread made out of  processed wheat – how convenient. More diverse breads are for the most part only diverse by what is added to them, not the basic bread itself, unless it is a sourdough, rye, or some such bread. The rest are the same basic dough with different seeds, and things added to them.

This brings me to the particular morning I mentioned above about assembly being everywhere. Cookies, and pastries made by the ‘bakery’ within the store all taste about the same. There were some boxes of commercial dough out in the customer area waiting to go into the ‘bakery’. The boxes of dough stated on the label, all the uses this particular batch of dough was good for.

Care to guess what it said on the dough box label? The label explained how different breads, cookies, pastries, doughnuts, etc, could be made from the same box of dough by adding different flavorings, and cooking methods. Now, I understand that dough is really just dough, but having made my living by cooking once upon a time, I know there should be some minor differences between each type of dough used in different bakery products.

For example, if I buy a chocolate cake doughnut, it should not have the same texture and flavor of a soft chocolate cookie, right? Wheat and white bread should have different tastes, and nutritional values? An apple turnover and a cherry strudel should have more differentiating them than the sugared fruit inside? I am afraid this is no longer the case if you are buying from a major grocery store. Everything is assembled with only a few variations from the main product.

Looking around, I noticed most places we eat are no longer restaurants, they are food assembly centers. Nothing is cooked from scratch at these places. All that is done is like the Value Added Reseller in the computer industry, a few modifications are made to the original product, and it is sold to you at a higher price. The ‘cook’ opens a plastic bag of something, heats it up, and feeds it to you in one or more forms.

It is not only happening in fast foods, but more upscale establishments too. Is your stuffed potato really stuffed, or was it assembled in a manufacturing plant somewhere? How about those vegetables, did they come from a fast frozen bag already flavored? How about your fish, wasn’t that caught and processed on a boat somewhere around the Arctic Circle? Your steak is probably the same way all they did here was add value by heating it for you.

Assembly is probably happening in more areas of my life than food. I would guess my company and the way it functions is an assembly too, made up of actual company people, supplemented by contract companies who hopefully offer a better service for less.

So what about American family’s of today? Is the typical American family, a real family any more, or is it an assembled product too?

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