Any Tips - UPF free diet?

[silkypyjamas]

I am currently reading 'Ultra Processed People' and realised that it might help tweak some bad habits I have formed in eating unhealthily and my weight creeping up during perimenopause.

Has anyone been following the principles and reducing or cutting out UPF's and have you got any experience of where it has helped reduce weight, increase energy or anything that is a negative or positive experience of following a more UPF free diet?

No, I put on weight 🫣

I haven't read the book, but I eat very little UPFs by nature (just never got into the habit), but when I eat a lot of UPFs I do feel bloated and sluggish, so there is that. However weight gain/loss is unrelated to processed food, it;s just that a lot of UPFs are quite palatable, but you equally can get fat eating a diet high in nuts and olive oil and lose weight eating twinkies (as someone did in a famous experiment).

I would separate weight loss and cleaning your diet if it was me.

I haven’t read the book either, but I eat a fairly UPF free diet, if you aren’t off on the more bonkers end of it, like you can’t eat natural yoghurt unless you milk the cows and make the yoghurt yourself.

I just eat mostly whole natural foods. Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese or porridge for breakfast with nuts and fruit of some variety. Lunch and dinner is often chicken or salmon or tofu, with cooked veg of some sort, plus a salad with lots of greens, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber.

Like I don’t not eat tofu because it’s a processed food or soy sauce or peanut butter or decent bread. But I don’t eat ready meals or fast food or pasta bake sauce. I eat whole foods as much as possible - but I will happily have a slice of cake at a cafe or a cream tea. I’m not twitchy about food. I just eat what I like, which happens to be largely proper food.

I have lost weight, but I wasn’t trying to and there are other factors at play that probably explain that (I eat smaller portions).

Thanks @OfKitten I am hoping it will encourage me to eat more fruit and veg but you are right that I need to still make sure I am not overeating the bad UPF free or low UPF foods or i will put on weight.

Oh dear sorry about that if it wasn't the outcome you wanted. I would be interested to know how closely you followed it and for how long. What were the swaps that you made to go UPF free?

I read this and it changed my life. I now eat very little UPF, make my own bread, granola and cook from scratch. I eat significantly more nuts, seeds and olive oil, lots of Greek yogurt, healthy protein and salads and I feel great. It was long change over a year but has been completely worth it for me. I am lucky that I have the resources and time to be able to do it, it’s definitely a more expensive and labour intensive way of living.

I'd aim to cut down, not cut out UPF entirely and do it over time so it's sustainable and doesn't become obsessive. With a bit of experimentation you'll work out what what you can easily substitute and which UPF foods make most difference. For our family Quorn is a huge convenience and using it occasionally means we're still only 5%-10% UPF. It's worth looking carefully at labels - some identical-looking products vary wildly in their ingredients. The OpenFoodFacts app is quite handy - scan barcodes for a red/yellow/green rating.

Finally, as you work out what you like it may be worth investing in gadgets to make home-made food easier. e.g. if you eat bread, a bread machine makes things a lot easier, not only for bread but pizza bases etc.

It is not necessarily about swaps. It is about understanding two things: it is not nutrition (not food, but food-like-substances), and the companies that produce it have one thing in mind- profit.
Eat for nutrition, you will be healthier and not be paying money to make yourself unhealthy and someone else rich.

Best wishes and good luck.

I think I got too excited with my bread maker and making the kids treats. I eat fairly low UPF any way so there wasn’t many other changes.

Looking at what we eat now in terms of UPF it’s things like stock pots, oyster and Oyster sauce as an ingredient inside a meal. Outside the house is different that’s only maybe two a month.

Thanks for the tips @UnaOfStormhold I have thought about the bread maker but I am also looking at local suppliers who bake bread without the additives, i've heard that sourdough is a a better option too. I will look at downloading the OpenFoodFacts app!

I bake my own sourdough and have had less bloating and digestive issues.

I'm not at all perfect at this but have reduced upfs significantly over the last 18 months to 2 years. I did have the main intention of losing weight, coupled with aiming for a longer, healthier life. In the first 6 months I only reduced upfs, started doing the 30 plants a week and hugely increasing my fibre intake. I lost absolutely no weight but I felt so much healthier. I used to be incredibly bloated and have really uncomfortable guts, to the point I hated working in the office because I was so self conscious of it. But this disappeared entirely.
I then started to calorie count alongside the rest of the diet changes, and that's when I lost weight. I've tried calorie counting before but never managed to stick to it, always found it so difficult to not cave in and binge after 5 days. But when I was eating really well, with a lot of beans and lentils in my diet, I found it so easy to eat a calorie reduction, and I felt great doing it. It's been slow going but I'm now a healthy weight and so much more confident in myself.
I'm not 100% perfect and eating out and socialising is what gets me. But now I really notice how bad I feel after a couple of days of eating out or upfs, which makes it easy to get back on the wagon because I want to feel good again.

I agree with the poster upthread who said it's probably best to separate changes in diet to losing weight, as it does not naturally follow - despite what is implied by followers - that a UPF diet will lead to weight loss.
To be frank, I think a lot of the UPF noise is really just a fad and will be with us until the next one comes along.
However, eating well and eating 'proper' foods is surely just common sense, regardless of your reason. I'm not sure we need a book to tell us that chicken and vegetables is better for us than a pot noodle. However, @Sajacas all food manufactures are businesses who have to make a profit, not just those producing UPFs, so I don't get your argument at all, sorry.
I can absolutely get on board with eating what used to be called wholefoods and cooking from scratch and think most of us do that anyway without making a song and dance about it.
What I really can't get on board with is stressing over minute traces of ingredients and making your own eg ketchup or buying much more expensive brands to avoid a minute percentage of an ingredient that has been deemed 'bad' by UPF devotees. If I am eating - as I am today - a curried chicken traybake using entirely lean meat, spices and vegetables, I am not going to get stressed about the tiny traces of 'bad things' in my flatbreads and go out to buy a pack with half as many for twice the price.
Nor am I going to embark of making everything from scratch as I am old enough to realise the novelty of that would wear off pretty quickly. This is the element of the UFP movement that is just a fad and will pass, the way fads always do.

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I have lost weight at the same time as cutting out most UPFs. I did a lot of other things too. 8 hour eating window, salad before dinner, high protein breakfast, low carbs, make my own sourdough, make homemade ferments, reduced sugar, given up caffeine, eat Greek yogurt or kefir yogurt, no crisps, very few biscuits/cakes, eat legumes. I have no idea what did or did not help with the weight loss. I have also managed to mostly be free of CF/ME. I walk a lot and exercise lightly with weights.

Or eating just what used to be called 'food' 🤣

I think you just have to go back to basics and eat what your granny ate. No need for anything fancy, just buy meat / fish / fruit / veg / grains. Pure butter, yoghurt, milk and cream not alternatives. Even for chocolate, I choose the ones with minimal ingredients. I do bake my own cakes / biscuits, partly because I like them better than shop bought and it means they are self limiting in quantity. I freeze a lot of food so I don't have to cook daily, including individual slices of cake! If I don't fancy cooking, I turn to eggs or jacket potatoes rather than ready meals.
Pizza dough is really simple in a stand mixer. I don't eat an awful lot of bread anyway but if I do, it's from the bakers or I just choose one with the shortest ingredients list. No bread maker needed.

There's no need to be evangelical, IMO, just seasonal, ordinary cooking.

But for weight loss, calorie counting is really the only route.

I read the same book about 2 years ago and it has had a huge, positive impact on what we eat as a family. I'm not "evangelical" about it, we still have stock cubes, ketchup and squash in the house and the occasional biscuit.

If making something from scratch, make double and freeze. If you have children, I've found them slower to adapt but they are! My eldest is pretty happy with a mostly upf free diet, doesn't even like squash or fish fingers. My youngest had needed repeated, low stress exposure to actual chicken that isn't in a nugget 🤣

@Tryingnottobeamouse the bloated feeling resonates with me, for me it was hormonal/monthly cycle water retention (I was told) since my cycle has changed I dont get that painful feeling but still feel bloated after meals. I am hoping by cutting out processed bread and other things it will help.

Is the meno belly a thing or just another tactic to get us to spend a lot on supplements? maybe another thread!

@Katypp i'm with you on the home-made mayo and sauces I can't be arsed and keeping it to a minimum is what ill do but I struggle to eat salad without a dressing so I might just use an olive oil and lemon recipe.

Fads come and go but I have been trying to be as UPF free as possible for a week now and its just the same as when I tried 'clean eating' years ago and need to make the effort to cook from scratch as my mum always did.

@Theyreeatingthedogs this is my aim to get more active (again) and cut out the biscuits and crisps - hopefully with home cooked meals i'll drop some pounds.

@Chewbecca back to basics is the key - although the book is interesting reading. i want to find a decent cookbook now and experiment more. Eggs are definitely my go-to and home cooked chips are so much nicer than frozen

Thanks for all your comments, its inspiring me to keep going with the book (can get tedious in parts) and hopefully change my thinking. Key points are don't treat it as a new religion.. make home cooked meals and batch cook/freeze but don't worry about using UPF ingredients in small doses but don't overeat either on UPF-free foods.

Great to hear that it changed your eating habits and your children have adapted. Your post has triggered a childhood memory being the only one left at the dinner table with my veg getting cold being told to finish it or no dessert. Nothing was fast convenience food in my house in the 70/80s growing up makes me appreciate the effort my late mum went to even more now.

Why put "UPF free" in diet when actual aim is "cutting down"

@lljkk a good point but I think for me its trying something that I want to see if it helps with other things eg. feeling bloated, increasing energy and ultimately leading to a bit of weight-loss. I have used weightwatchers and other principles to shift a few pounds but relied still on the calorie counting and ready meals rather than nutrition. UPF's and the effect they have on the metabolism has been an interesting part of looking at changing diet habits for me. Cutting down of course on cakes & biscuits but that's also a part of the UPF world I want to try and avoid.

I understand that replacing shop bought cakes and bread with home-made isn't really the answer to losing weight if you're scoffing the lot in one go!

Another tip is to give yourself chance to like the food too! I hated nuts and dried fruit as a snack, but with time and trying it a few times, I've found it's okay actually. This week I've started eating radishes in salads which I didn't think I liked. My palate has adapted as well as the kids'!

eat real foods, mostly plants, not too much

This is the non UPF mantra I think.

I agree that I wont sweat it with ketchup but I do make my own mayo and salad dressings

For salad dressing I literally mostly just drizzle some evoo and some sort of vinegar and a pinch of salt over my salad, it really doesn't need to be processed or any effort. If I want something fancier, I might shake it in a jar with mustard, garlic or other flavourings.
Again though, plenty more calories v a diet dressing from a bottle!

Oh yes radishes! my mum always put them and spring onions in salads. I was thinking of making my own houmous. Nuts I need to eat in moderation as I love them.

Had to google Evoo but sounds easy and adding vinegar & mustard sounds like a plan. I am going to Italy soon so will be easier to stick to salads and unprocessed fresh pasta...in moderation (I need to remind myself when I am glugging prosecco!)