I know there are a lot of fad diets and then there is calorie counting as a more science based approach. I myself do calorie counting and follow a strict diet in order to avoid overeating. How do you eat all day, you follow a system?
Eat a variety of foods and eat what makes your body feel good. Eat an amount that maintains your healthy weight. But the most important part is finding the motivation to control your intake.
Also meditate to cultivate awareness of how your body feels. Especially if you’re a man because culturally (and possibly biologically) men tend to be cut off from their feelings.
💯 I’m closing in on 40m and I’d be in a world of pain if I hadn’t started listening to my body. I had a “bad back” and got sucked into going to a chiropractor for years. One day I realized they weren’t going to fix anything and it was up to me to figure out why I hurt and make it better. I’m largely pain free now, because I started taking the time to listen instead of “just power through it”.
I also lost 70lbs and have maintained a healthy weight for a decade without a “diet”, aside from what I said in my original post. Shit food made me feel like shit, but I didn’t want to listen…
I maximize fiber and protein and don’t really count calories. Most americans do not get enough fiber so metamucil can be very powerful. I will go out of my way to eat filling, low calorie foods. Apples, celery, and the not so occasional pickle.
I’ve found this about myself after extensive trial and even more extensive error:
My body seems to use up potassium fast when I’m stressed. No idea why. But taking potassium seems to help me recover when I’m feeling burnt out (I have an HPA axis problem so my stress response isn’t normal)
Low carb diet (under ~125 grams per day) makes me functional in a way antidepressants, adderall, modafinil, tony robbins, ayahuasca, zen training, therapy, etc never could. I’ve never done keto but low carb is incredible for me
I have no sense of thirst so keeping a nalgene bottle nearby helps me a lot (the 1-liter capacity is important for tracking my water intake, and this is why the new 828-ml standard for sports drinks pisses me off)
Wheat gives me systematic inflammation, resulting in miserable outlook on life for about three days. It’s dose-dependent. I can have a piece of toast and be fine but if I eat half a loaf of bread, then I hate everyone and everything the next couple days
One of the things I’ve personally struggled with is how much these conversations and resources are focused on how to lose weight or not gain weight. But there are some of us who have various disabilities and conditions that make getting up to a healthy weight incredibly difficult. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to increase my calorie intake without resorting to simple sugars and carbs as my job has gotten somewhat out of hand. I may go to 4 meals a day? I kind of hate eating so it probably won’t work.
I have MCAS and wasn’t diagnosed until my mid thirties. Lowest I weighed myself at was 138lbs at 6’4” tall. You could see when I needed to pee I was so skinny. Mosquitoes stopped biting me. I hit 170lbs at 12 years old, got sick and then hit it again at 32. I weighed myself at 213 last week so I’m officially more than half again what I used to weigh. I look and feel so much better it’s kind of crazy.
I’d be happy to answer any questions people in similar situations may have. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve tried ask people about this topic and have been simply laughed at. Or put down by comments belittling it as a problem and expressing jealousy. That said, my advice may not be useful to a plurality of people.
Learn about food on a biochemical level to some degree. Find out what makes a complete protein. Figure out your circadian rhythm and good times of day for you to eat. Pay attention to the amounts of what you’re putting in your body and adjust accordingly.
Pay attention to your cravings. If you’re craving potato chips try to think about what it is in them that you are actually looking for(salt) and address that specific craving with a healthier option if required. It takes some trial and error but one can train themselves to crave components over foods. Do you want cake or do you want that mouthfeel? Or the fat? Or the sweetness?(a big revelation for me is that I rarely crave sugar, I actually want the comfort food aspect of sweetness which is much easier to address is a healthy way) Also learn when to ignore your body and when it is lying to you. A good place to start on this front is that you are thirsty for water(specifically water) right now. There’s a sort of evolutionary drive to restrict our water intake to the bare minimum because clean water is expensive typically and prepared beverages were often safer. Where one has potable water flowing from taps this efficiency bias becomes a lie and you should really just drink more water.
Cook from scratch if you have the space. It’s a lot to learn and I was very lucky to grow up in a household that provided this focus. Don’t learn to cook unhealthy things. It’s much easier to not buy a deep frier and never learn to deep fry foods than it is to avoid the temptation of delicious fried goods every day. The crucible for me on this is that I’m terrible at making eggs but amazing at pancakes and I found a lesson in my breakfast. If you learn to make tea biscuits or scones vs cookies then you’ve limited what level of trash you can feed yourself.
If you can’t cook at home or don’t have the time find good restaurants or how to shop differently. Pad Thai from a takeaway is just as fast and cheap but can be significantly better than a Big Mac or pizza. Bag of greens or head of lettuce, Fresh bread, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cheese and a rotisserie chicken or chunk of salami(pate or Creton is great too) makes a delicious meal that will keep for a day or two without refrigeration and is reasonably healthy. Makes a 5$/meal if you’re careful with the meat and cheese. This is one of my preferred road trip foods because you get to try different bakeries and cheeses and meats along your route.
People talk a lot of about rice and beans being a healthy cheap staple and I always like to point out peanut butter and jam sandwich’s fall into a similar category. It makes a complete protein, if you’re able to add cows milk it’s a good boost of vitamin d, complex and simple sugars in the jam satisfy cravings and give longer term energy, fat in the peanut oil, etc etc. It’s also very cheap and low entry investment. Under 10$ for starting with big jars of peanut butter and a loaf of bread that gives you 2-3 days of food and another 2$ or so every 2-3 days until the jam runs out. No learning or equipment required. Houseless friendly. Wide cultural acceptance. Good for hanger.
I try to eat 80% to 90% minimally processed foods, and the rest is “fun” food. This is what makes me feel good and keeps me from putting on weight. If I consume too much processed stuff I feel like garbage - I’ll feel tired, get headaches, and feel achey (shit just hits you harder when you’re older).
Minimally processed is stuff like oatmeal, fruit, veggies, lean meats, beans, and rice. I try to eat some fermented stuff every day if I can, usually in the form of fermented dill pickles or kimchi. I try to vary my foods as much as I can, since variety is good for your gut microbiome.
I eat oats too, have you heard of the rumor that oats bind vitamins/minerals and thus you eat a a healthy breakfast with oats and fruit but the oats suck up all the nutrients and you get nothing out of it? I am not sure why but i think they claimed there was some binding agent in oats, like some chemical compound.
Can you find that claim in a reputable scientific study or at least a reputable journal (not an anti-carb paleo or keto blog)? I’d like to know more, but I can’t find anything that isn’t woo science.
While they contain phytic acid, I don’t know if they contain enough quantity to counteract all the veggie/fruit nutrients you eat with it.
That article indicates that isolated phytates resulted in reduced absorption of calcium, iron, and zinc, but no significant effect was found when consumed in a matrix. Furthermore, phytate-containing grains tended to contain other compounds such as fermentable fiber that increased the bioavailability of those minerals, resulting in very little effect. So if that’s the only evidence we have to go by, it doesn’t sound like oatmeal is going to prevent you from absorbing the nutrients from fruits and veggies you eat with it, nor does if have any affect on the other nutritional benefits derived from oats.
You’re probably thinking of phytic acid. While it is present in raw oats, cooking it breaks it down. Most oats you buy from the store have been steamed, so it’s even already cooked before you do anything with it. Cooking breaks down a lot of these types of compounds.
Well, in terms of weight control I gamed the system by staying underweight when young (often very unhealthily and anxiously so) so that middle age weight gain got me to a healthy weight.
I can’t diet because of the early eating disorder, and can’t quite get to intuitive eating either. So as someone else mentioned, I do limit the hours I eat not what or how much.
Lots of beans and rice. Love cheese too. Meat & fruit every week but not every day. Grow some vegetables every season but not enough to rely on; but in fall & spring have fresh greens from the yard, and whatever else I can manage. Make sourdough bread each week. Junk food of choice is chips (both crisps and fries).
Would say a typical day is coffee around 10, a lunch of sandwich or leftovers around noon, a coffee at 1600, a supper around 20:00 because I cook after work and it’s hard to have it earlier. Supper of beans and rice and greens, or meat and rice and greens, or pasta or stir fry, but something creative at least a couple times a week (tonight was poblanos stuffed with black beans, greens, and cheese on a tomato/chipotle sauce). Supper the main meal, not my ideal but most important meal with family. On weekends a late brunch or lunch and meal at teatime only.
If I could have only one sort of meal forever? Beans, rice, and greens.
I just cut my intake in half at lunch and dinner. I find my body needs a decent breakfast with protein. Lunch can be whatever just cut in half and dinner needs to be a decent balance of protein, carbs/starch, and veggie. Oh and lots of water. I cut out the sugary drinks, took a month to wean me off but now I prefer no or low sugar drinks and feel a lot better.
Eh I had one for years then just took a pill and got rid of it. Hell, people intentionally infect themselves with tapeworms all the time as a way to lose weight.
I think that humans are, evolutionary, omnivores but with vegetarian food outweighting meat. Dairy came in later with the ability to domesticate animals and turning formerly non digestible food (grass) into milk and hence increasing the availability of food resources.
I would like to have a vegetarian diet for the most part and reduce meat intake to maybe twice a week. I prefer unprocessed meat (steak or chicken beast). But I was not able to find the muse to change my diet.
This is not driven by moral concerns. Eat or be eaten is something I, as a human somewhere at the top of the food chain, can live with. I just feel like meat is not as scarce as it should be and many people have lost the connection between meat consumption and the animal where the meat comes from.
I found out what generally makes me feel good day to day, then I decided to pretty much eat those same foods everyday. Downside is that it’s probably not as varied as the ideal diet, upside is that it’s standardized which makes planning what you’re going to eat easy. I’ve also found that I’m able to make more progress in the gym from a standardized diet.
I basically just eat whatever I feel like whenever I feel like it. Lots of meat and fat and salt. Seems to work great, I’m reasonably skinny and healthy. To the extent I’m not just getting randomly lucky I think I’ve stumbled into something in the Atkins diet genre, with unlimited calorie and nutrient dense foods not being an issue because they fill me up when I’ve had enough.
It’s your genetics. I’m the same way. Can eat basically anything. At my absolute heaviest I was 5’11 165lbs, which is heavier than I like to be. But I just cut out the 10 sodas I drank a day and lost the 10 lbs I wanted to in like a month.
I’ve been a vegetarian for about 20 years now. Other than that, I don’t actively restrict my diet as I never got close to being overweight. My main meals are mostly healthy I’d say, but I do probably consume too much sugar.
Regular food items, nothing in particular, though one thing you might notice is I usually skip breakfast. Most of the food are simple items, like raw fruits and vegetables. Not sure how else to describe it.
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