Low UPF diet - to think the experts weren’t lying?

Are you talking about a whole food keto or low carb diet...I agree with that you don't need to count calories.

But, if your sole focus is no upfs and that's it...then there are plenty of no upf carb heavy things you can eat that will stop you losing weight. I mean home made chips made from just potato and fried in animal fat are no upf but would make me put on weight

I've lost weight purely by calorie counting whilst still eating all kinds of stuff (bread, chocolate, ready meals) and drinking alcohol and diet coke.

I set myself a target based on my activity levels and stuck to it. In 2019 I went from being 65kg to 52kg and kept it off until 2020 when the world stopped. I ate too much, drank too much and didn't really exercise so I went back up to 60kg.

2022 I knuckled down, dropped the calories, upped the exercise and I'm down to 54/55kg. I go up when I don't track my calories because I simply eat too much. When I need to lose I retrack and I start to lose.

I'm not sure I'll ever be 50kg again like I was early 2020 but I'm choosing to eat more now because I need the calories for long distance running. I can no longer survive on 1300 calories anymore which is how I ended up getting to 50kg.

I'm not saying we shouldn't all make better choices, I'm just saying it isn't just UPF that makes people (me) fat.

Why be so rude?

All I have done is précis what the study did and showed.

You may have evidence to support your argument, but this study is not it, and to refer to it as though it is, is disingenuous.

I am slim, and always have been slim. If I eat less, I get skinny. So your jibe is meaningless.

This absolutely sums it up.

I never gave my children snacks. Other mums couldn’t leave the house without a bloody fruit winder and a packet of fake lentil puffs “in case they get tired and hungry”.

I find this argument incredibly obtuse and stupid and I’m very tired of explaining this on MN (as are others who actually understand the way metabolism works).

Literally can’t be bothered. Work it out for yourself, or continue thinking you can get and stay slim by calorie counting and see what happens :)

Its probably one of the largest contributors combined with a new narrative (not sure where it came from) that constant snacking is what people should to do 'regulate their blood sugars' and what that caused is people eating constantly and panicking when hungry. There is an insistence that its not good to feel hunger. You see it with children, people insisting that children have to eat all the live long day. This isnt necessary

We also eat on the go, we also eat too big size portions. We also gave up smoking as a nation, by and large. We are not an active society any more compared to years ago when a larger proportion of the population had manual labour jobs, we dont have a huge amount of industry anymore

We are essentially becoming like labradors that are never walked. Always on the look out for food, eating without thought, not getting exercise.

In terms of weight I think portion size is the main factor. I watched on YouTube recently a cooking video from the 1970s. They made an omelette and used six eggs and said how should cut it into quarters and everyone gets a quarter with some salad. If I served up a quarter of an omelette to my DH and DC, they'd be up in arms!

You protest too much. In the history of human cuisine UPFs are extremely recent, and research into their impact even more recent. Do you think it’s just a coincidence that we all got way fatter in the last half century?

I live in a tourist destination, well known for some of the best restaurants and food places in the UK. I often see huge food waste and cant work it out, unsure if the profit therefore is on the drink or something else.

@NattyTurtle59 i posted a picture of a cooked breakfast my oh made me a few years back. Only comments I got was that it was small and stingey. It wasn’t. It’s just that there wasn’t 3 sausages and 2 hash browns and a Lake of baked beans. I think it was when I was trying to lose weight that I realised how far my judgement of portion size was skewed. The portion size for cheese was the size of the piece I’d cut off and pop in my mouth to even the block up!

Oh forget that, I found it. https://dom-pubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dom.15922

It shows that people over-eat on junk food when it’s available.

The participants were provided with >5000 calories of macro-nutrient-equivalent food per day, but they ate as much or as little of it as they wanted.

This does not mean that if you eat 1500 calories of junk/“UPF”you’ll put on more weight than if you eat 1500 of wholefoods.

No, i live in quite a touristy place though so they probably want to maximise £££s. I can well imagine though as portions i agree are huge most places now.

Really, youve never been to a cafe where they have these mammoth cakes the size of a door step, they're all locally made, a slice is enough to feed about 4 people, jacket potatoes the size of someones head with mountains of filling, of various wonderful types, sandwiches which are huge and often come with chips.

Thats just cafes, restaurants are similar, everything accompanied with large amounts of rice, potatoes, lots of bread etc. Home made. We were in a pub the other day, fresh cooked home made food, Im always looking at what everyone else is having, table opposite had the pie, again a doorstep wedge, the other person had the lemon sole, it was enormous with lots of potatoes, sauce etc. Marvellous but massive. Not complaining at all but its a fact that the portion sizes are no way comparable to what they were many years ago.

Do you have a link for the study please?

I've never been to a cafe that makes fresh food that serves huge portions, aside from a full English i suppose. I've been to plenty of eateries that serve plates of processed crap mind. Fair play to them if they can afford to do so with fresh ingredients at what is presumably a reasonable price if people are buying it.

I'm talking about cafes where they bake their own goods - nothing to do with UPFs being cheaper.

Portion sizes are part of the same beast imo, invariably it's because UPFs are cheaper and can be stored for longer so they can buy in bulk. It's all gross really, people's gluttony is big business and even with WLI (which for the record i think for those who genuinely need them are amazing and life changing so not a criticism of them) lots of people on social media show their what they eat in a day and its processed crap, just less of it. Especially with restricting calories their bodies must be screaming for ample nutrition.

Absolutely this, portion sizes are mad.

But you'll get shouted at on this site for saying that.

Another thing which leads to people getting bigger is simply that people eat more. When I was young I would go to a cafe and there were single sandwiches, with simple fillings - egg, salmon, ham and mustard, cheese and pineapple etc., and slices, muffins, and scones were small. Now the sandwiches come in packs of two, stuffed with fillings, and the slices, muffins and scones are huge. Not everything can be blamed on UPFs.

Its a complete myth that if you scratch cook and dont eat UPFs you dont crave more food than you need. Ive got two cakes in the oven, they're not technically for me, although I will be part of those eating it. I will really struggle to resist. I made a dip earlier, that again isnt strictly for me, Ive eaten quite a lot of it already, its irresistible.

Interesting- I love chocolate and had quite a bit after dinner tonight after eating fairly healthily with few upfs for the rest of the day.
DH is not all that bothered by chocolate but likes strong and bitter tastes that I can't tolerate (olives, capers, anchovies, mustard etc - although onviously not after dinner!! ) maybe that's a similar trait?
DS still has chocolate from Christmas!

I would agree with this. I'm not bothered about sweet things but my OH absolutely goes nuts for chocolate and could eat it by the shed load. We cook all our meals from scratch! I did a DNA test a while back and part of it included traits and mine came back as low tolerance to sweet tastes and high tolerance to bitter tastes (I love all things bitter actually). I think it's in your make up if you crave sweet things.

Could someone please advise me as an alternative to upf bread? I'm wheat intolerant so haven't actually ate it for 20 years but I do buy it for the kids. I know it's bad but I don't know what the alternatives are? Is sourdough from the supermarket bad too? We don't live near a bakers and the kids don't eat it enough to warrant buy it anyway but they do like a slice of bread and butter and sometimes it helps to fill them up. I'd love to have an alternative and they won't eat wraps (maybe a texture thing?) All advice welcome!

Crosta & mollica wraps are good. All their stuff is food like ingredients!

Yes, those of us who were around many decades ago can all testify that there were overweight people, and they got overweight by eating good wholesome food - just lots of it!

I know a family similar to yours, the mother was an excellent cook and baker and the whole family were very large.