BG Health: Eating Right Edition

[Yuri-G]

I'm currently working on a long-overdue overhaul of my entire diet (I used to subsist almost entirely on fast food and frozen meals). I'm not trying to follow a fad diet or count calories; I'm just trying to make a habit of eating healthy. I've done a lot of research and come up with the following list of healthy foods, but I'm also wondering what healthy foods the posters of BG like to eat. Entire healthy meals are even better, please feel free to suggest some of your favorites!

Food categories for healthy eating:
- Lean Meats: tuna, salmon (wild-caught), lean beef, chicken, turkey, "turkey" meats (turkey bacon, turkey sausage, etc.), lean pork (ham and bacon gtfo)
- Eggs!
- Low-fat dairy: reduced fat cheese, greek yogurt, cottage cheese
- Whole grains: quinoa, whole grain breads and pastas, brown rice, whole oats
- Beans and legumes: black beans, kidney beans, walnuts, almonds, lentils (I think they fit in this category?)
- Vegetables: broccoli, tomatoes, brussel sprouts, spinach, sweet potatoes, carrots, and more. there aren't a ton of vegetables that are really bad for you as far as I can tell (although corn gets a bad rap)
- Fruits: berries, apples, citrus (especially grapefruit), and bananas are the four I see listed most often
- Chiles and/or anything containing capsaicin (spicy food burns fat. go figure)
- Coffee and/or green tea

I'm trying to cut body fat a lot and add a bit more muscle, so I'm focusing mostly on foods that are high in protein while maintaining a decent intake of complex carbohydrates and healthy fats. I'm also bent on avoiding saturated fats and refined sugars like the plague they are (although Sunday is my cheat day).

Any feedback and/or food suggestions are welcome. And please, I didn't make this thread just for my own good - feel free to share your own thoughts, struggles, experiences, and ideas for eating healthy!

Edit: Just realized, if a mod wants to merge this into the BG Fitness thread, please feel free. I swear I scanned three times and somehow missed that!

[Mazmaz]

You have mostly the right idea. This is the video I like to link often, it's pretty hard to eat everything she says, but I try my best (still haven't figured out how to eat seaweed though):

[Milkster]

Please do not merge this in the fitness thread, it'll only cause clutter and get lost eventually. We need to make a new one of those anyways.

Edit: Forgot not.

[Tyche]

The fitness thread moves quick, it's huge, and isn't specifically diet-centric. Diet and fitness can be separate. It should stand on it's own.

[BaneTheBrawler]

With Crohn's what I eat has a HUGE impact on my quality of life. As such, by sheer process of "that makes my guts bleed" elimination, I've been forced to adopt a healthier diet. Unfortunately, I don't really have any cooking skills, my house is cluttered (which makes cooking awkward) and I'm kinda lazy anyway, especially since eating isn't really a positive experience for me, even if it doesn't bother me. So I've developed a diet of easy-to-make foods, although it's kinda tailored to me... and I need to gain weight/not have diarrhea, so it's probably not going to work for weight loss... and some might not be healthy at all.

Salmon Fillets: They come frozen, individually packaged. Best done with a broiler, but I'm too lazy/unskilled for that, so I nuke them! It actually works pretty well. Nuke at 50% for ~3 minutes, butter/season (I prefer Lemon juice), nuke for another 1-3 minutes, again at 50%.
Pasta: The type of pasta affects how you cook it, but essentially boil water for varying times/at varying heat settings. For serving: Olive Oil + Parmesan on the pasta; Mozarella melted over the top; the standard sauces (Ragu, alfredo, etc)
Eggs: Scrambled. Hit the breakfast button on my microwave, stir, add cheddar cheese, hit breakfast button again. I forget how long it actually nukes it for.
Yogurt: Activia, has probiotics. Seems to help, tastes good.

That's the main stuff I've been eating lately, but I'll post more if I think of it.

[RKenshin]

One of the most important diet aspects that hasn't been mentioned much yet: what you drink.

Can't be said enough. Many people can find themselves losing weight by simply reining in the amount of calories they're drinking.

I remember a Mayo clinic article reporting that the average overweight American drinks about 1/4th of their daily calories, which is absolutely insane when you think about it. At three meals a day, that means you're having nearly an entire meals worth of calories in just soda/coffee/sugar-drinks/etc. Not to mention the other downsides of heavy-calorie drinks, that typically involve tons of sugar and resulting unbalanced insulin levels (with near-no nutritional value).

It's by far the easiest thing to change too, as unlike some healthy food dieting plans that can be more expensive and difficult to keep in supply/prepare than cheap/unhealthy food, drinking healthy is easy and will save you money. Water is far cheaper (if not practically free) than anything else you can drink, is everywhere (unless you live in Mexico), and of course simple. Even Green Tea is incredibly cheap at a typical range of ~$0.05-$0.15 per tea bag.

Don't have to necessarily only drink water either; plenty of options that aren't calorie/sugar-bombs.

[ronin sparthos]

Flavored seltzer has been my replacement for soda. By no means was it an easy conversion but yeah.. it passes and its cheap.

[BaneTheBrawler]

oh, yeah, drinks are just as important as food.

I've found Sobe to be good as far as healthy/not bothering me/staying hydrated, but the flavors are kinda... bleh.

My local water tastes bad, but I get these drink mixes. Kinda like kool-aid, only you don't add sugar. They come in boxes of little 20oz pouches. I use empty Sobe bottles. Throw a few ice cubes in, add water, dump in the mix, shake and enjoy.

[Stromgarde]

Getting one of those water cooler things with the 5 gallon reservoir was one of the best investments towards my health I ever made. I don't even keep soda around the apartment anymore, and here at least there are several local grocers where you can take your emptied bottles to refill.

[shaddix]

I'm also bent on avoiding saturated fats

There's no need for this modification, food is so much better with fat in it

[Tyrath]

I'm trying to cut down on soda and carbs in my diet currently. I've been living at home with my parents for a little while, and they make a lot of indian food and its generally carb heavy because it always has rice or indian nan bread thing. Trying to get more non traditional meals going on around here. I gained like 20 lbs since moving here. I think its the diet coupled with the lack of activity that living on a college campus brought automatically.

The soda part is going to be difficult, I've been going on like 5 cans of mountain dew a week, which I know is extremely unhealthy. My goal for now is to try to cut it down to 1 a week and then hopefully eventually cut it down altogether, but its so good >_<

[Tsuneo]

I drink diet soda to avoid the calories. I know about all the concerns for health issues, but I'm more in it for my appearance than health.

[Tyrath]

I drink soda for the taste, and I think diet stuff tastes like shit. So its either all of nothing as far as I'm concerned so i'm just gonna try to get off of it.

[Tsuneo]

Diet soda is an acquired taste. I prefer diet now to the real thing anyway, but if you can get rid of soda all together and just drink water, that's the healthiest option. I couldn't get rid of the soda, so I was left with acquiring the taste for diet.

[BaneTheBrawler]

I found Gatorade to be a decent substitute for soda as far as taste, but it's probably not much healthier. Lots of sugar. Still, it makes a good stepping-stone.

[RKenshin]

If you're going to force yourself into acquiring a taste for something unpleasant for the sake of diet/health, you might as well just go straight to water.

[Kalmado]

Water. Pop will eventually taste nasty after it washes out.

I agree and found out the same when I moved to FL. The heat was too much for a sugary drink. Even diet tasted nasty as I adopted drinking a ton of water.

My nemesis is coffee. I love the taste and love it with a good french vanilla or a cinnamon variation. Recently I looked at the ingredients on the label of the Coffemate after my wife was complaining about headaches and she noticed getting them after coffee. There is so much garbage in that creamer!

After a quick google search for recipes I've started making my own coffee creamer at home. I find myself using less creamer therefor spending less. Also, I think it tastes better.

http://deliciouslyorganic.net/homemade-coffee-creamer/

[Wulfgang]

Just remember that no matter what you eat, you still have to watch how much you eat. Water and sugar free Rockstar / Nos / Amp works for me; the only liquid calories I have these days are booze on the weekends and that is largely unavoidable being single in DC. Though, I'll probably find out in 10 years that pounding a large energy drink a day has turned my kidneys into alien amoebas.

I also rock a lot of Thai food; it's easy to talk about eating grilled chicken, legumes, etc. but eventually you need a few well-cooked real meals here and there (at least for me). Thai has a lot of solid options with light vinegar-based sauces and vegetables that will generally be pretty damn good for you outside of sodium.

[Kalmado]

Also, I recently watched on CNBC a special about grocery stores. A study found the average person buying average things (eggs, milk, etc etc) would only spend around $5 more a week shopping at Whole Foods versus your traditional store. That is to say, you are being price conscious and you aren't buying things like lobster tail or organic maple syrup. I personally think you would spend a little more, but for the quality of food you're getting I'll gladly spend $10 more a week. I just wish we had a Whole Foods in my town.

[bluefan]

Getting one of those water cooler things with the 5 gallon reservoir was one of the best investments towards my health I ever made. I don't even keep soda around the apartment anymore, and here at least there are several local grocers where you can take your emptied bottles to refill.

^

Tap waters fine where I am, but getting one of these was such a great investment.