The Diet Thread

Same here in Liverpool, people drive everywhere, i drive but i also go mountain bike riding which keeps me slim. Anyone else go mountain bike riding?

Never been mountain bike riding. I occasionally ride a bike, but prefer to walk.

I'm afraid of water, but I do think swimming is a great way to keep in shape. All limbs are in constant motion & no pressure on the old joints.

Quick bump.

I'm a few weeks away from the three year anniversary of starting this diet. I gained a little back this past summer, though that was largely planned given how many things I did last year (it was a hell of a year), and the fact that I'd really pushed myself, maybe a little too much, in the spring. Still ended up a little higher than expected, though, and it's been harder than expected losing it again.

But I'm pretty sure I'm through the hard part again. I'm about 182 as of this morning. Only thing I still worry about is that it seems if I'm not losing, I'm gaining, so I'm hoping 2018 is the year I can find a good equilibrium, and just maintain something. My personality isn't conducive to it, so this probably still means some kind of cheat day schedule, but I think that can work.

Gonna take another crack at mixing in more regular weight lifting, too: did a fair bit last year, but faded as the summer went on and I've found it difficult to start again. Discipline with eating comes a lot easier, for whatever reason.

Walking is what keeps me very slim. Don’t know how to drive so pretty much walk everywhere, including a daily walk of about 2 hours. When I stopped drinking weight fell off & when I became a vegetarian, more weight dropped off. Always amazed how sedentary people are in Connecticut. Almost unheard of for them to lose the car keys for a day.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Did you do a set schedule or get it in where you fit it in when time allowed?

General schedule with occasional exceptions based on time, IE: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, or something like that. Stuck to it pretty well for months, but it was pretty exhausting with all the aerobic stuff (softball, walking the dog twice a day) and occasionally tough to get it done while still excluding days with games and practices (and weekends, for logistical reasons).

Just a few more days!

One thing I've had ridiculous success with lately is, instead of having chicken and carrots for dinner (there's some honey sauce involved, but just to keep it interesting), I've started just eating scrambled eggs (5-6), usually with some raw carrots. Pretty sure it's fewer calories, and it's surprisingly filling.

For a pretty long stretch now I've been eating between 1,000 and 1,500 calories a day, and it's kind of shocking that I've been able to do this without being particularly hungry (sometimes not at all most of the day). Kinda feels like at some point my body just flipped the switch and said "okay, guess we're burning those fat stores" and stopped "bothering" me about the caloric deficit. Dunno! I will say it seems fairly reliant on me not doing much weightlifting or exerting myself too much (though I'm still walking ~2 miles a day), but it's still pretty encouraging.

5-6 eggs a day? I rename you









In all seriousness that's a lot of eggs each day, and a hell of a lot of fat. I think you'd be better off with the skinless chicken, a lean piece of steak or a tin of tuna. You also need some variety or you'll get bored with that pretty fast. Are you on a low carb high protein diet, Yods?

I very well might get bored, though I can pretty easily switch back to chicken (I plan to go back and forth eventually). I have a weird ability to eat the same thing over and over each day, though, if I like it enough.

I'm not really specifically on a low carb/high protein diet. I mostly started that way, but after awhile just paid more attention to calories. But there's obviously, in practice, a lot of similarity, since protein does a lot more to manage appetite than carbs, at least for me.

Yep six eggs a day is rather a lot, 1-2 eggs is perfectly healthy though and they are not full of the 'bad' fats/'bad' LDL as they like to say. But at least Yoda has it in scrambled egg form and not say in a fry up.

Saying that, I should take my own advice, I have 3-4 eggs a day for lunch.

Normal size portion of chicken would actually be less calories than 5 or 6 eggs Yods - each egg would be circa 90-100 cals.

I do love a perfectly boiled egg. Infact I think today's brunch will involve just that. I have been known to get a craving for a boiled or poached egg that has been like a kick in the stomach from a mule. I think it's the only food craving that does that - it seriously almost knocks me over when that happens..

5-6 eggs in one sitting I could only do if they were fresh bantam or quail eggs. Not jumbo killer chicken sized eggs.

And yes, I egg yolk can have 5-10 grams of fat so 6 is really pushing your daily intake. Have you tried 6 eggs but only a few yolks, Yods? Not quite a white egg omelette, and man, I'd be screaming out for greens and maybe sweet potato if you're just having carrot. Does Mrs Yods have to eat that as well?

Little story about egg yolk disposal - a hard core body builder mate years ago would only have 1 yolk to every 3-4 eggs (stripping for comps he'd have no egg yolks) and would innocently dump the unused yolks down the sink. Months or even years (I cant remember which) after he started this fun lifestyle his kitchen sink acted like a live volcano. I find this story very hard to believe and think his outrageous embellishment probably had something to do with the *cough* supplements he was getting from a friendly russian veterinarian, but he sure seemed to believe it and I've never forgotten it.

Moral of the story - dump your unwanted egg yolks in the bin or hell, cook an extra yolks omelette for a needy person. Win Win.

An empty plastic water bottle and separating egg yolks is a lot of fun. But tried egg white omelettes and so on and not a fan at all. Boiled eggs however are lovely, not keen on poached eggs though - boiled, scrambled and omelette form for me.

Oh and boiled eggs in curry/curried eggs too, yum.

If you make an omelette using this type of thing, it is excellent & so convenient. 5-6 egg yolks per day is a lot.

Yeah, any time someone suggests something better I could be eating, I always wanna say "yeah, but I totally won't eat that. This is what I'm eating instead of total garbage." Anyway, it's not going to be an every day thing, I'm just in the stretch run.

What you're eating on a daily basis is no doubt better than a HUGE proportion of your population (same here) so if it works for you just go for it. Advice is free - take it or leave it. I just really crave a lot of greens at the moment plus after my dad boiled the arse out of carrots when we were kids I cant eat them cooked. Strangely enough he also used to boil the arse out of cabbage but when I read your bit about the chicken and carrot all I could think about was a big bowl of cooked chinese cabbage all shredded up with spices. You might hate cabbage so each to their own. It certainly took me a very long time to get over it. Bless my old man.

Brandon Routh did a Nerdist where he talked about the Bulletproof diet (basically paleo with coffee emulsified with butter). After the fact, it came off like he was pushing the program cuz they sell stuff.

I did take away an idea that kinda hearkens to what Mr. Green was talking about. It basically revolved around when you remove something from your diet, the body starts adjusting. You begin to program the body to crave what it eats.

I never planned to eliminate carbs, but the more I descend into the weightlifting rabbit hole, the more I begin to assume how little I really need them. Crave them will be address later. My rudimentary understanding is the body runs on fat and protein. We process fat for energy and protein to build. I was told stories of hardcore weightlifters consuming tubs of whipped cream. ??? Yeah, the perfect food. Fat energy for workouts and protein for repair.

Yada, ya, yaddy... I essentially have a Vega (on sale @ Costco right now) shake with blueberries and vegetable trimmings, and natural pb for breakfast, then cottage cheese and veg (raw carrot or broccoli ) and peanuts, measured to the daily calorie limit.

Ok, so who cares? I really don't get food cravings like I use to. When I eat, there is less of an emotional response and more like a refueling. People ask, "Don't you get tired of eating the same thing?" I counter with, "What did you put in your car the last time you filled it up, the time before that, the next time?"

I may come across like a full-blown crazy person, but sugar is dope. It reportedly triggers the same dopamine reactions in the brain as a narcotic. I love sugar. Sugar cereal, candy, Red Kool Aid, cake and cookies too. And I fell off the wagon this weekend. Fries, Krispy Kreme, MOVIE THEATER POPCORN!!!, milk duds. It was spectacular. And yes, I had a hangover of sorts the next day.

TLDR. I find that the longer I stick to a protein and veg diet, it gets easier and easier. Pretty sure it is a big help to my mentals as well.

I've never heard that from hardcore weightlifters but I have heard it from extreme sportsmen (travelling cross antarctic and high altitude mountaineers for example, because in those extreme environments the body starts consuming itself starting with fat before it moves onto organs). But your body building wont be doing that to your organs. I just posted as a random fact because I find it interesting and thought others would as well. I do remember talking to someone back in my weight training days about my diet. She looked at my diary and said zero fat would start affecting my organs if I didnt add fat to my diet, even just a tblsoon of olive oil a day. I was a bit extreme with my diet back then.

eta: she was/is a kinesiologist and the reason diet came up was because each time I had seen her for the prior month my gall bladder point on the body was out and she had to realign it (long story cut short) and she asked what kind of diet I had been living on. Your gall bladder needs a certain amount of fat to keep functioning according to her. So yeah, you need some fat.


Also interesting about sugar being dope. I dont have a sweet tooth but had a spell just before xmas on quite a bit of morphine. When I came off it I ws craving fruit and sweets - a lot for me. Maybe I was going for the 'high' (there's only a small high on hospital morphine though). I'll ask my nurse during the week.

I have a sister who is nurse practitioner and miles smarter than me, that I try to bounce things off. That said, she isn't a specialist. When I start scheduling my doctor appointments for the year, I'm going to add a visit to a nutritionist / dietician. I don't trust much stuff on the internet, when you look up one thing and get 5 different answers. I want to develop "the healthiest possible" weight gain diet in winter and best cutting diet for the warm weather.

If I ever get confused, I imagine what would I be eating if I was living wild. No processed grains and sugar, basically plants, nuts, and a bit of meat. I would like to cut out the meat and dairy, but it's too hard to get the protein from plants without a lot of starch. Vega is great, but it's not real food.

You seem very sensible, DD. In retrospect I should have seen a dietician, or atleast taken notice of the kinesiologist.