Can anyone critique my diet?

[dietmonkey]

I've been trying to lose weight, but also eat healthily as I am pre-diabetic. My son, who is vegan, thinks my diet is all wrong, but I don't! Here's what I'm eating daily:

Breakfast : small portion of mackerel, 1 hard boiled egg, small piece of chicken, 5 king prawns, salad leaves.

Mid am snack: strawberries, blueberries, grapes

Lunch : same as breakfast

Mid pm snack: more fruit

Dinner : chicken or salmon, plus veg, plus a carb of either potatoes/rice/pasta (small portions).

I think this is healthy! What do others think?

Looks okay to me, although hopefully you vary what you're eating but along the same lines. Sounds silly but are you getting enough calories? I know with weight loss calorie deficit is the aim but not getting enough can actually be counter productive. What does your son suggest you should be eating?

I eating 1200 cals a day, unless I have wine, which pushes it over. My son says I'm not getting enough fibre?

I wouldn't normally obsess, but really don't want diabetes!

Possibly too.much fruit? Your breakfast is a bit odd!

No one can give any substantial feedback based on one days diet. One week would be better imo

A few months ago, I’d have thought that was healthy too but now I’d be inclined to agree that it doesn’t look like you are getting enough fibre, and potentially your fruit snacks may be giving you glucose spikes (berries are good but grapes are bad I seem to remember).

DP has been diagnosed with pre diabetes so I started religiously logging my food (he eats similar) to understand how our sources of nutrients are made up and it has been enlightening. I use a free app called Chronometer to log my food and found I was very rarely eating 20g of fibre let alone 30g as recommended. I’ve added in 10g of chia seeds, 10g of psyllium husks, and 50g of Greek yoghurt and it gives 11g of fibre in 140 calories.

It would be better if you increased your intake of vegetables and had less fruit.
Vegetables, or a more substantial salad will give you fibre and fill you up, whereas fruit like grapes is quite high in sugar . And make sure that your carb portion is whole grain.

I think you need to reduce the fruit and eat your carbs at lunch. Do you really need all
those snacks? How old are you?

Overall it’s good but I think you need to add more variety to the salad (tomatoes / cucumber / peppers / sugar snaps / perhaps some mixed beans and seeds) and add some good fats, like avocado and olive oil. You could also swap a fairly sugar heavy fruit snack for a veg one like crudités and hummus.

I agree that you need more fibre, and if you're pre-diabetic cut out the fruit snacks (especially the sweet fruit like grapes).

If you increase your fibre with things like chia, flax, almonds (with the skin on), and lots of raw vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, celery, radish etc, they shouldn't spike your blood sugar.

Well presuming your son thinks it's wrong because you eat animal products? As it's certainly not unhealthy.

I'd hope you'd not eat the exact same thing every day obviously. If you feel satiated and well, and are losing weight slowly but surely, then just carry on doing what you're doing!

Don't listen to others dictating what you should or shouldn't eat. You know your own body and what you like.

There’s no need to be this nasty and rude.

1200 is too little for anyone except you're a toddler! You need to eat more otherwise you'll end up overeating because you'll be too hungry.

I think you are eating too much protein and not enough fibre or carbohydrate. I don't have a clue why society has decided to demonise carbs when we are designed to use them as our primary energy source. Also we don't really need to eat much protein, most people in the uk are eating too much protein and that is correlated with the rise in young people being diagnosed with bowel cancer.

The healthiest we as a nation were was during the second world war. Diets were made up of bread, potatoes, vegetables (seasonal), little fat and little meat or fish. It's how I eat usually, and it's cheap and healthy.

Avoid fruit before lunchtime and replace with almonds/cheese etc. These will keep blood sugar stable. Berries/apple for afternoon snack.

@dietmonkey your son is right regarding you needing more fiber. Add some cheese and nuts to your morning and evening snacks as well. Almond butter is a great option either with low carb fruit or some higher fat yoghurt. Also drop the grapes to just once or twice a week because they’re higher in sugar. Mango and pineapple are occasional treats for me.

I’m a Type 2 diabetic and have been living with it for 17 years. 🙂 For me it’s a combination of genetics, heavy stress, and lifestyle that triggered my diabetes.

Not much fibre. Can you add some beans/ pulses in? Or whole oats?

Have you looked into ZOE? It is expensive but will help you understand about how your body reacts to certain foods. Wearing a glucose monitor for 2 weeks was an eye opener.
You can get a free trial monitor here: https://www.freestyle.abbott/uk-en/home.html. If you don’t want to do ZOE itself.
There is also the glucose goddess - https://www.glucosegoddess.com/en-gb?srsltid=AfmBOoosMWEZi7HkgNCtTdgwCc8FM6NS86JcuuJbqXUB9R0-1SCB7eS0

I’m not talking to you.

Eating every couple of hours won't help your blood glucose either, can you try intermittent fasting? Even just cutting out the snacks would help though.

I recommend reading the Glucose Goddess book—the writing is terrible, but the tips (I refuse to call them hacks) are excellent, and it explains how and why you need to eat lots of fibre.

Thanks everyone! I actually bought nuts yesterday, as I read these would be good. I love nuts, but have often avoided them, as they are quite calorific. I'm 55 years old, if that matters. I have about 2 stone to lose. I'm trying to only eat things that a caveman could have eaten. I don't know if anyone remembers the caveman diet? It tends to mean you avoid eating crap.

Ditch the grapes they are mini sugar bombs. Switch to brown rice and pasta and sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes.
Consider adding a spoonful of Greek yoghurt to the berries and sprinkle with chia seeds (they are full of fibre).

I don't think there's much wrong per se, but the breakfast would be too much for me.

I have 1200 - 1500 calories a day and just have brunch or lunch and dinner some days.

I’d swap the quantity of fruit for nuts and high protein snacks. Have you ever looked at the Mediterranean diet? It’s full of really fresh, healthy foods which include chicken, fish and lots of veggies for fibre.

Nothing wrong with carbs at all, as long as they’re not empty! One of the reasons high protein is talked about a lot is because it often makes you feel fuller for longer, so can be a really useful way of overall reducing your calorie intake.

Cavemen would have mainly eaten berries and tubers.

And the reason I asked about age is simply because menopause changes everything. So what you did in your 30s may not work in your 50s.