Eating healthier.

willhub

willhub

willhub

Caporegime
Joined
3 Jan 2006
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Location
Chadderton, Oldham
Hi.

So at the moment in terms of lunch at work, I make my own sarnies, usually wholemeal bread, pesto, cheese, Bavarian ham, hommous.

But I tend to have chocolate from Tesco and most days get a large mocha with peppermint as well which adds up.

I thought about ditching that which costs £2.75 for the Starbucks every day and instead get a whole punnet or Strawberries or blue berries.

I'd eat the whole lot, but is that not bad for you?

Fruit is sugar, and won't eating 550g of Strawberries a day end up rotting my teeth to nothing and causing problems?

I have quite a big appetite and am basically trying to eat healthier but I always get sucked in by the junk food in Tesco and the offers going on.
 
Cut out the Starbucks first, you'll cut down on sugar an save a fortune, make it a weekly treat of you can't go without but it really adds up daily.
 
All carbohydrates get broken down into sugars eventually, some quicker than others (which is largely irrelevant unless you're diabetic/sedentary-obsese), some have more vitamins/minerals than others, some are denser per gram than others.

550g of strawberries is around 182 cals, which is broken down into close to 4g protein, 44g carbs and a bit under 2g fat. That's probably far less than most of the things Starbucks offers (I'm too lazy to look up the nutrition for your beverage of choice, but remember some of their stuff is insanely calorie dense), plus a chocolate bar. It probably has more micronutrients as well.
 
What do you have for breakfast? Sounds like you need some meals that will keep you fuller for longer. Slow releasing energy etc.

Porridge for breakfast
Banana/fruit for elevenses
Salad with brown rice/bulgar wheat/couscous/mixed beans/lentils/pulses and shredded roast chicken

I generally buy a whole chicken and roast it Sunday. Shred it to bits and cook some bulgar wheat and boil eggs for the week. Then every night I just need to chop up toms/cucumber/lettuce/beetroot/radish/whatever and add it all together. Very easy and with good protein like roast chicken and a boiled egg, with the bulgar wheat you should be less hungry in the afternoon. Sandwiches are nice, but rubbish at keeping you full through the afternoon.
 
Would bulgar wheat and boiled eggs last over the week?

How much of each ingredient do you need for the week?
 
my girlfriends into healthy. shes cutting out wheat and glutton as her newest fad
 
Sounds retarded unless she has an actual intolerance - large reproducible studies have yet to show non-celiacs have any adverse affects eating gluten or health benefits avoiding it. Bet she doesn't even know what gluten even is.
 
willhub said:
Hi.



I thought about ditching that which costs £2.75 for the Starbucks every day and instead get a whole punnet or Strawberries or blue berries.

I'd eat the whole lot, but is that not bad for you?

Fruit is sugar, and won't eating 550g of Strawberries a day end up rotting my teeth to nothing and causing problems?
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Yes, half a kilo of strawberries is quite a lot of sugar. The sugar in fruit is fructose which is problematic as it can only be metabolised into fat by the liver. This is why its GI rating is so low for a sugar and people think this is a good thing.

Fruit is beneficial because it contains fibre which slows the absorption rate of the fructose. Eating 3-4 portions of different fruit throughout the day is optimum, scoffing a **** load, drinking juice or making a smoothie isn't.
 
willhub said:
Would bulgar wheat and boiled eggs last over the week?

How much of each ingredient do you need for the week?
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We cook a 1kg chicken and get 4 days leftovers out of it, for the two of us. My girlfriend doesn't bother with bulgar wheat, so I usually cook about 75g (one portion) and make that last for the 4 days too. It's more of an addition to the salad for a bit of carbs. Its fine in an airtight tupperware. Boiled eggs are good in the fridge for a week or so, just leave them unpeeled until the night before. I have one a day.
 
some people worry so much about what they eat its actually as bad as eating the unhealthy food in the first place.

:D
 
Somnambulist said:
Sounds retarded unless she has an actual intolerance - large reproducible studies have yet to show non-celiacs have any adverse affects eating gluten or health benefits avoiding it. Bet she doesn't even know what gluten even is.
Click to expand...

she reads a lot of those womens health books. gives her strange ideas!
 
Go for a little of both say ~150grams each, blueberries and chocolate are both good antioxidants.

Tohrazer said:
i've been eating porridge for breakfast recently, it keeps me pretty full for a decent while
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Wish it worked for me, I can cram porridge down my throat til I can't physically stand any more and less than an hour later could do it all over again (5' 11 and ~11 stone). My metabolism is crazy.
 
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Protein and complex carbs are a great way of keeping you full - proteins and fats satiate the appetite really well. Sweets get processed very quickly (I won't bore you with the science), hence the crash you get after them and the fact they don't keep you full.

Eating healthier is easy, the first thing you have to do is accept it. Then you have to remove the poor food choices from your diet (like starbucks, and chocolate).

You can introduce them back in once in a while as a treat once you have got to the stage where you feel healthier.

If you're REALLY interested in benchmarking your health, you could get your doctor to do a full blood and health analysis, they'll measure all sorts of things and can help guide you as to where you're deficient in and what you're already doing well - but I accept that most people aren't able to do this.

Then start logging your food. All of it. Even every cup of water, tea, orange juice. Apps like MyFitnessPal work well for this. It takes a little effort to get set up, but in due course it becomes easier (especially with the bar code scanning facility - but that assumes you buy foods which come with barcode, which defeats the objective of eating healthily IMO :p).

Once you're aware of what you're eating (log this over a few weeks to get a fair average), you can then start to identify what you want/need to cut out and you can share it with us so we can tell you what is and isn't good.

Diet is not just about food, it's about lifestyle - it's quite something to turn around but entirely possible. :)
 
Have a salad with some lean protein instead of sandwiches.

Stick to the black coffee instead of the sugar and animal fat amalgamated frapp beverage.

Fruit is fine in moderation and mix it up.
 
Indeed a salad can be as interesting as you're willing to make it. My salad has no salad dressing, but I make it up to be around at least 1000 calories as I need them for my herculean physique, however, you can make an equivalently filling and nutritious salad for half of those calories easily.
 
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