[tommytwotone]

i love carbs

This is definitely my biggest dietary problem, though fortunately my speedy metabolism (for the moment) means I don't bulk up much.

Been struggling a bit to eat sensibly while trying to control my spending - most of the cheap delights I've been consuming over the last month or so have involved cheap stodge and a lack of fresh veg (pasta, jacket potatoes, beans on toast, cottage pie etc...), think I need to have a bit of a rethink.

[SA Chris]

Don't dismiss good frozen veg - cheap, easy to prepare and often in a better state than some fresh stuff.

[tommytwotone]

Good point - and frozen peas can double as a handy ice pack for mashed up shoulder / elbow...bonus!

Oh, and here's the link to the low-gi veggie cookbook I borrowed from the library a while back - some good stuff in there: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Low-GI-Vegetarian-Cookbook/dp/0340923113/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235570741&sr=8-1

[slackline]

Diets are a waste of time ultimately.  All this "paleo" diet shit is rubbish.

In evolutionary terms, humans have evolved just the same as many other animals, in so much as a limiting factor in the survival of an individual (and in turn the expansion of the population) is determined, as Malthus posited and Darwin developed, by the availability of resources.  Thus, most early humans lived off of what they could scrape together.  Yet when there was a glut of food (e.g. a particularly good season which meant there was lots of fruit/veg and with a bit of time lag animals that were hunted), then an evolutionary stable strategy (coined by Maynard-Smith and developed by many, including John Nash) is to deposit as much fat as possible when there is such a glut, as it benefits the individual when things then get a bit more frugal in winter/next year/a few years down the line.

Switch forward a few milenia and we are now masters of our world and can produce an excess of food.  The consequence is that people have a tendency to over-eat, and the direct consequence of this is that the excess calorific intake gets deposited as fat in anticipation of times when there is less food available.  But there is no such time, so people keep on over-eating and depositing/retaining the excess as fat.

As stated above its a relatively simple equation of calories in v's calories out.  Individuals differ in their basal metabolic rate but once thats accounted for its simply a case of whether you exceed your basal requirements in terms of calories in comparison to your calorific expenditure.

[Jaspersharpe]

It may be rubbish from a historical / geographical / anthropological point of view but if it works, it works.

Fortunately I don't have to worry about any of this shit anyway. What food group does the Sainsbury's cherry bakewell fall into as i just ate four of em?

[SA Chris]

wabohydrates.

[Bubba]

I've recently been living on Dahls.

Ok, there's a fair bit of oil in them as a base (fry up the spices, garlic and onion to start) but then the rest is just a load of lentils, veg and sometimes fish.

Still quite high carb as I bung a load of potatoes in to many of them - should probably cut this down.

I'm not really losing weight as I'm being a total lazy twat recently (trying to earn cash!) but I do feel a hell of a lot healthier. They are also cheap, filling and very very tasty

One thing has always puzzled me about so many people advocating porridge - isn't porridge actually quite high fat for a cereal? I was checking packets and seeing a figure close to 10% fat 

[slackline]

It may be rubbish from a historical / geographical / anthropological point of view but if it works, it works.

I agree if it works it works, but trying to dress things up with pseudo-scientific bullshit justification is just a waste of time.  Understand systems for what they are and how they work.  I read that "paleo" diet link and thought to myself "what a load of whitewash", in essence what its getting at is true in so much as people of that time had limited resources in terms of food, but it neglected to suggest (and this is where what I'm positing falls down as there is no hard evidence to support it*) that had Paleo/Neolitihic man had access to a glut of food they would have gorged on it for as long as possible and deposited the excess as fat, and that we are lumbered with our evolutionary history and have the same propensity, and that is the crux of the issue.

Ultimately the same end result of the "paleo" diet could be achieved as effectively if you just counted the calories you are taking in against the calories you're expending, as that is all the "diet" is achieving by forcing you to exclude food that has a high-calorific content (or is of such consistency in terms of carbs/protein/fat that your body deposits it as fat over processing it), thus reducing your intake of calories whilst your expenditure remains the same (unless you're exercising above what you would normally do at the same time as being on the diet).

Those lunch-time  have done me the world of good!

* That said it still seems reasonably valid to me, and there are studies of animals in ecological systems to suggest that when there is a glut of food the individuals (and therefore the populations that they constitute) take advantage of the glut, gorge themselves, reproduce etc. etc. etc.

[magpie]

mags - i love carbs and couldn't imagine anything worse than an atkins/paleo style diet - think I was just trying to say that, that type of diet does seem to suit some people (and they wax all lyrical bout it).

I think we're probably saying the same thing in a different way    I agree the diets can work - for pretty much anyone that can stick to the plan - but I don't think people realise how much of a temporary fix they are, you're screwed once you go back to eating the good stuff again.  

[JonI]

What you're forgetting slackers is how a person's diet affects a their appetite.  Obviously in order to lose weight you need to consume less calories than you lose.  But there are hard ways and easy ways to reduce the amount you eat.
Think about it; if you ate 1700 calories of junk food a day you would still lose weight if you remained reasonably active, but you'd be starving for most of the time, and more likely to go off the wagon.  Eating less processed food and simple carbs allows you to reduce your calorie intake without feeling so hungry, which is why I think that the paleo diet and things like that are so successful.
Like Jasper said: if it works, it works.  You can come up with a theory about it later!

[slackline]

What you're forgetting slackers is how a person's diet affects a their appetite.  Obviously in order to lose weight you need to consume less calories than you lose.  But there are hard ways and easy ways to reduce the amount you eat.
Think about it; if you ate 1700 calories of junk food a day you would still lose weight if you remained reasonably active, but you'd be starving for most of the time, and more likely to go off the wagon.  Eating less processed food and simple carbs allows you to reduce your calorie intake without feeling so hungry, which is why I think that the paleo diet and things like that are so successful.
Like Jasper said: if it works, it works.  You can come up with a theory about it later!

Thats the wrong way round.  Appetite affects the diet, not vice versa as you're proposing. scrubbed this out as after cogitating on what I wrote below its basically a circular argument, diet/appetite are inextricably linked.

What I think you're getting at is that the stomach is of a finite size, and once full, a "signal" is sent to the brain by the stomach to say "Things are getting pretty cramped in here, best stop shovelling stuff down your gullet"*.  Now its clearly obvious that if something that takes up a lot of space but has low calorific content (e.g. cous-cous) is eaten then overall you will feel full with less calorie intake, and you then go about your normal life expending said calories.  Contrast this to eating a gorgeous curry cooked in lashings of Ghee and you might feel full at the point at which the same volume of food has been imbibed, but per unit weight you have ingested more calories, and in order to budge them you're going to have to do more activity than you normally would to shift those calories.

This still boils down to calories in/out though.  Whether you feel satiated is a separate matter and one that can be addressed by your choice of food type (or pure will-power alone!).

* This is why eating slowly is a good thing, pausing every so often when you're eating and not shoveling food down your neck as quickly as possible in a race to clear your plate first, it allows your body time to realise when its full, and prevents you from over-eating.  Yet another symptom of modern society where time is of the essence and things must be rushed.

[tommytwotone]

I've recently been living on Dahls.

Ok, there's a fair bit of oil in them as a base (fry up the spices, garlic and onion to start) but then the rest is just a load of lentils, veg and sometimes fish.

I hope you've got a strong air freshner inside the cab of your lorry!

 

[Bubba]

After a while of having the most disgusting arse around, my guts have now settled down and got used to their new farty diet

[lagerstarfish]

Whether you feel satiated is a separate matter and one that can be addressed by your choice of food type

...which is exactly what the paleobollox diet does for me

[shark]

What I think you're getting at is that the stomach is of a finite size, and once full, a "signal" is sent to the brain by the stomach to say "Things are getting pretty cramped in here, best stop shovelling stuff down your gullet"*. 

When I have eaten less for a while on trips or whatever it feels like your stomach shrinks and it doesn't take much to make you feel full. 

[slackline]

Whether you feel satiated is a separate matter and one that can be addressed by your choice of food type

...which is exactly what the paleobollox diet does for me

Exactly, but it doesn't need dressing up under the pretence of some pseudo-science (although I'm probably ignoring the fact that someone is trying to make some money out of selling a book on the subject, so they need to sex it up in some manner to get those people who think gullible has been removed from the dictionary to part with their hard-earned readies).

[Jaspersharpe]

When I have eaten less for a while on trips or whatever it feels like your stomach shrinks and it doesn't take much to make you feel full. 

Recreational drug use is another way of losing weight but perhaps not the most conducive to a fit and healthy lifestyle.

[shark]

When I have eaten less for a while on trips or whatever it feels like your stomach shrinks and it doesn't take much to make you feel full. 

Recreational drug use is another way of losing weight but perhaps not the most conducive to a fit and healthy lifestyle.

I wasn't advocating undereating but pointing ouit that the 'finite' size of the stomach that Slack-line referred to can change - or at least it seems to.

[slackline]

When I have eaten less for a while on trips or whatever it feels like your stomach shrinks and it doesn't take much to make you feel full. 

Recreational drug use is another way of losing weight but perhaps not the most conducive to a fit and healthy lifestyle.

I wasn't advocating undereating but pointing ouit that the 'finite' size of the stomach that Slack-line referred to can change - or at least it seems to.

This is why precisely "diets" don't work, but a change in life-style does, as the later induces a long-term change in your physiology/metabolism, whereas a diet is a short-term solution that when finished results in the pounds piling back on as Magpie has pointed out.

That said a theres nothing wrong with a good dose of acid/shrooms every now and again (helps re-affirm your place in the cosmos, man) and they are far more effective when taken on an empty stomach

[JonI]

Fair enough slackers, I thought you were saying the diet was bollocks, not just the theory behind it!  That's certainly possible, and it would be good to see more empirical research in nutrition on a par with what's done in medicine.  It would also make it harder for people to make money calling themselves nutritionists, despite no qualifications whatsoever...

Sorry, this has been a bit off topic - more of a "are diets effective" thread.  My tip is to eat a few portions of oily fish a week, or to take fish oil tablets now and then.  Since I started doing this my fingers seem to be much less stiff in the morning after a hard session.  

[Jaspersharpe]

It was just a lame "trips" gag. 

[Johnny Brown]

I can't believe Jim's thread has spawned four pages of sound advice. I can just picture him sprawled on the sofa, chubby fingers scrolling over the trackpad, bottle of real ale clutched in his other hand and face smeared with doughnut grease, thinking 'So I can't just take a pill? Well fuck that Kes.'

[r-man]

* This is why eating slowly is a good thing, pausing every so often when you're eating and not shoveling food down your neck as quickly as possible in a race to clear your plate first, it allows your body time to realise when its full, and prevents you from over-eating.  Yet another symptom of modern society where time is of the essence and things must be rushed.

Eh what? When I shovel my food down it's not because of socio-economic pressures, it's because I'm bloody hungry and my instincts are kicking in.

[slackline]

* This is why eating slowly is a good thing, pausing every so often when you're eating and not shoveling food down your neck as quickly as possible in a race to clear your plate first, it allows your body time to realise when its full, and prevents you from over-eating.  Yet another symptom of modern society where time is of the essence and things must be rushed.

Eh what? When I shovel my food down it's not because of socio-economic pressures, it's because I'm bloody hungry and my instincts are kicking in.

I was referring to a different subset of society, such as these fine young man...

[Bubba]

One thing has always puzzled me about so many people advocating porridge - isn't porridge actually quite high fat for a cereal? I was checking packets and seeing a figure close to 10% fat 

Can somebody give me the lowdown on porridge then? Is it really that great?