For BG dietary fanatics, a question..

[Hyan]

It's odd how, at least for me, after eating healthy for some time when I decide to eat highly processed/fast foods for a change they make me feel like shit afterwards. It's like poison in a form of a burger.

I've found broccoli + cauliflower + butter cheese fried on a pan to be an excellent combination. None of them taste good by themselves, but together it is a godly mix (at least when you start getting used to it, heh). Add some meat, fish or chicken to go with it + random vegetables and I could eat that for weeks.

[Velgadess]

I'm easing myself into it. I've started tracking my calories, using an iPhone app, but not changing my diet yet. I still eat burgers and pizza, but only up to my goal calories. So far, the biggest change is mostly just stopping eating when I'm satisfied, rather than when I'm done. Plus, I've been having to make strategic choices of how to spend my calorie allotment, based on most filling for fewest calories, which naturally cuts out things like fries, chips and soda. Not worth it if I only get so many calories in the day. I haven't still felt hungry at the end of the day, despite the lowered calories and the workouts, so it's not so bad.

After a while of doing this, I'll start substituting healthier things in for those calories. But I just don't think I could honestly commit to it if I just all of a sudden starting eating all my calories in broccoli, oats and skinless grilled chicken breast instead of my usual diet.

same for me. I've been going for a while now. tracking calories and eating healthier. I was able to go cold turkey on soda pop. haven't had the stuff since Dec. 2009.

[shaddix]

Counting calories is much more beneficial when you're trying to overeat rather than just maintain or lose weight. Changing the content of what you eat is much more beneficial than decreasing calories if you're trying to lose. You can in fact eat more calories of a higher quality diet and end up burning more fat than if you ate less calories of a lower quality one. Granted the difference that can be made up is not phenomenal, but for example if you were to eat 1600 calories of pizza compared to 1800 calories of red meat, milk, and vegetables, you will make a bigger difference in your body composition with 1800 calories.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

do you think frozen brocolli chunks can do any justice? lol it would be a good way for me to get more veggies in

I'm quoting this b/c I'm wondering if anyone has tried it. After reading the post prior to this, that was my first thought.

[Tekoa]

My current bane when it has come to re-establishing a proper eating routine has been alcohol. I don't drink at all during the week. On the weekend though, it has been difficult for me not to indulge (i.e. get ripped) with friends and knock back a number of beers or mixed drinks (rum and diet coke). I know that I need to avoid diet sodas as well as regular soda since there are dietary issues with diet soda too. Am I just going to have to cut out alcohol consumption cold turkey (or at least reduce to casual one drink max) in order to really start on a weight loss plan that includes exercising and better eating?

[shaddix]

http://www.leangains.com/2010/07/tru...nd-muscle.html

Apply this method exactly as I have laid it out. If you've paid attention, you'll understand the rationale behind it. I've tested this on myself and on numerous clients. Rest assured that I'm not testing out some large-scale bizarre experiment here.

The rules are as follows:

* For this day, restrict your intake of dietary fat to 0.3 g/kg body weight (or as close to this figure as possible).

* Limit carbs to 1.5 g/kg body weight. Get all carbs from veggies and the tag-along carbs in some protein sources. You'll also want to limit carbohydrate-rich alcohol sources such as drinks made with fruit juices and beer. A 33 cl/12 fl oz of beer contains about 12 g carbs, while a regular Cosmopolitan is about 13 g.

* Good choices of alcohol include dry wines which are very low carb, clocking in at about 0.5-1 g per glass (4 fl oz/115ml). Sweet wines are much higher at 4-6 g per glass. Cognac, gin, rum, scotch, tequila, vodka and whiskey are all basically zero carbs. Dry wines and spirits is what you should be drinking, ideally. Take them straight or mixed with diet soda. (No need to be super-neurotic about this stuff. Drinks should be enjoyed after all. Just be aware that there are better and worse choices out there).

* Eat as much protein as you want. Yes, that's right. Ad libitum. Due to the limit on dietary fat, you need to get your protein from lean sources. Protein sources such as low fat cottage cheese, protein powder, chicken, turkey, tuna, pork and egg whites are good sources of protein this day.

* For effective fat loss, this should be limited to one evening per week. Apply the protocol and you will lose fat on a weekly basis as long as your diet is on point for the rest of the week.

Basically, the nutritional strategy I have outlined here is all about focusing on substrates that are least likely to cause net synthesis of fat during hypercaloric conditions. Alcohol and protein, your main macronutrients this day, are extremely poor precursors for de novo lipogenesis. Alcohol suppresses fat oxidation, but by depriving yourself of dietary fat during alcohol consumption, you won't be storing anything. Nor will protein cause any measurable de novo lipogenesis. High protein intake will also compensate for the weak effect of alcohol on satiety and make you less likely to blow your diet when you're drinking.

By the way, a nice bonus after a night of drinking is that it effectively rids you of water retention. You may experience the "whoosh"-effect, which I've talked about in my two-part series about water retention. That in itself can be motivating for folks who've been experiencing a plateau in their weight loss.

Apply this with good judgement and don't go out and do something stupid now. Remember, this a short-term strategy for those that want to be able to drink freely* without significantly impacting fat loss progress or causing unwanted fat gain. It's not something I encourage people to do on a daily basis, but it's one of the strategies that I apply for maintaining low body fat for myself and my clients.

[Tristam]

Probably tangential to the topic just a bit, but at the NIH there's a guy who does mathematical modeling of biological systems and one of the goals of his lab is to provide universal models of weight loss that incorporate activity, body mass, and other parameters so that people can maintain realistic weights and help get quantitative feedback about lifestyle changes in addition to the change on the scale. One of the big take home messages is that X kcal doesn't mean that you lose Y pounds instantly. So the scale can be misleading, as lots of times you really are just measuring changes in water weight over short periods.

As it turns out, for long term weight loss, counting calories isn't necessarily as effective as changing what you eat, but it all depends on so many factors that are impossible to summarize briefly. For instance, when a tax on soda was being proposed in congress, it was calculated that the tax would result in a 30 kcal/day change in eating habits in the population, resulting in some level of weight loss based on translating X calories to Y pounds. What the head of this lab (Kevin Hall) showed was that the time to realize the loss in weight according to that simplistic calculation was much longer than most think, actually something on the order of decades, basically making no difference in weight over someone's life.

Anyways, I'm not sure how useful the current iteration of his model is, but it's a cool thing (I think...?) to follow and I imagine it can only get more accurate. His model can be run in excel from here if anyone wants to incorporate it into a weight loss/maintenance program (I honestly haven't even given it a try, but I'd be interested to see if anyone else finds it helpful):

http://www2.niddk.nih.gov/NIDDKLabs/...llAJCN2008.htm

and the paper which introduces the model is here if anyone's deeply interested in the research:

http://www.ajcn.org/content/88/6/1495.long

Another thing that I got from seeing him give a talk one time is that by and large anyone eating a typical western diet is lacking for almost nothing in terms of nutrients. We eat so much more, and have so many more options available than people did even in the 60s. Really the key to eating is to make sure you know what you need in terms of raw energy and when you eat to try to make sure the calories you are getting incorporate those other things that a body needs rather than just being "empty calories" like soda. Of course, if you're very active, sometimes those empty calories are helpful, like just before and just after a workout so your body is efficiently burning fuel and not chewing up protein, but for that sort of advice one probably should to a sport-specific forum.

[Brutala]

You say that the point of this thread isn't to count calories/fat and just eat well but I think this needs to be posted regardless.

I always knew sugar was poison but didn't know why exactly. It turns out honey is basically the same; wiki says most honeys are 38% fructose. Motherfucker!

[shaddix]

I always knew sugar was poison but didn't know why exactly. It turns out honey is basically the same; wiki says most honeys are 38% fructose. Motherfucker!

about lustig:
http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/0...tose-alarmism/

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/0...armism-debate/