to wonder how the hell she stays so slim??

[SequinsAndSparkles]

My BIL is engaged to a spanish woman, and we spent the weekend at MIL's, all of us together.

She is very slim, I'd guess a size 6/8. Her skin is glowing and she is stunning, yet her diet perplexes me?

On the first morning, we were all having breakfast, MIL made a fry up for everyone, but I am on a diet so I had special K and some toast. SIL prepared her own breakfast (they are currently staying at MILs while they have some work done on their house), and she had some kind of cheese, can't remember what she said it was, about 10 olives and a slice of ham! Yet she said that my breakfast of Special K and toast was stodgy and apparently English women have 'very strange ideas about nutrition'.

For lunch, she had a chicken salad, but it involved lots of extra virgin olive oil, all over the peppers and a big dollop of salsa. And then for dinner she had chicken smeared in pesto, with green beans in salt, more salsa and a slice of cheese.

How is she so slim??

I didn't have a particuarly healthy weekend in the end, we ended up having a takeaway on the Saturday evening, and SIL wouldn't eat any of it, she wasn't rude, she politely declined but I just find it hypocrytical that she eats all this fatty stuff and made the comment about England having strange ideas about nutrition when I was eating Special K and toast!!

Sequins - some people, apparently, find that diet drinks can stall them. There's a school of thought that artificial sweeteners can provoke the same insulin response as sugar - although this is disputed too. Difficult to find a definitive view on this one.

Try it and see what happens for you.

rickymmumy, dont know what you are talking about there, my wife is Asturian like aurynne is, and the Asturian diet has always been full of red and white meet. Asturian beef is famous and all the pig products are traditional from the villages.

Asturians eat incredibly well, while it may not be healthy (lots of meet and cholesterol) it is natural, unprocessed food that fills you up. People by the coast and middle class people eat fish, as good fish is expensive.

Pelisa, we live in Malaga now, yes Andalucian kids are fatter, think it is because traditionally they were very poor and their grandparents feed them to death as they remember being hungry. The poorer the family, the fatter the kids are nowadays.

Saying that, as 30 year olds we dont know one fat person our age in Spain, where probably half our friends in the UK were overweight, but this could be a generation thing. I remember at uni in the UK there werent hardly any overweight people when I was there, but when I went to visit my brother 5 years later, it was incredible how things had changed.

In terms of those people on here who are British and used to live in Spain. British people dont integrate, the good restaurants here only Spaniards go to, British people dont know what the good shops, markets and restaurants are because they dont advertise in English. Sad but true (:

Total is good for yoghurt but don't but the low-fat version. Many of the supermarket ownbrands are good but check for the sugar content as some are higher than others. Agree re Lidl's = lovely stuff!

Sequins - please don't drink diet coke every day, it's full of damaging stuff. I occasionally crack and have one myself, I must admit, but I think they are really bad for you, because of the sweeteners.

Plus, any stimulant will make you crave more stimulant - more caffeine, more alcohol, more nicotine, more sugar - if those things figure in your diet.

Don't agree Mijas at all!!

We lived in Spain for five years, I learnt Spanish, as did DH (and Catalan) - worked for a spanish company, had spanish friends & colleagues, gave birth in teh spanish health system, and DD would have gone ot a spanish (catalan) school if we had stayed there! Most of my foreign friends did the same.

It might be true what you say for English people in the south on the coast but is not true for the majority of english people I met in BCN.

staranise, that could be true. We lived in BCN for 2 years, but only met 1 British couple (we didnt actively go seeking "expats"). They didnt speak Spanish or Catalan, but that is a small sample of one.

Here in the South it feels like Britain has dumped the inhabitants of the whole country's council estates!

DON'T DRINK DIET COKE!!! It's so bad for you.

Having said that, if I'm going out to get slaughtered for a few drinks with friends in London we stick to vodka and diet coke because the calories are so much less than wine and it doesnt give me a hangover.

Sorry as a British person on here who lived in Spain I don't agree with you either, mijas! I speak pretty fluent Spanish and didn't live in a touristy area of Spain at all. I have a very good idea of what real Spanish people really ate where I lived.

And the statistics I have stated are for the whole of Spain, not just Andalucia. So what's going wrong with the Spanish diet? What are Spanish parents doing to their kids if they are so healthy?

place marking

Tyler80 "low fat" yoghurts are not necessairly arsed about with. Anything that is under 3% fat can be labeled as low fat even if it is not reduced fat (which has to be a % of fat below the standard product).

Full fat milk is only 4% fat so yoghurt with less than 3% fat is not unreasonable. It doesn't mean its pumped with additives, just made from semi skimmed milk.

RE Spanish kids being the fatest in Europe there may be a link with lack of sleep. There is a corrolation between not sleeping enough and childhood obesity and Spanish children are notorious for lacking in sleep. The govenment even have TV adverts telling parents to put their kids to bed.

Petisa, the article you linked before said overweight kids in Spain were due to cheap "bolleria y chuches" i.e. processed sweets and pastries - and effected the very poorest kids as they are being overfed cr*p and watch too much TV

Idonothaveavisacard, I've never seen those government ads in the last 5 years of watching TV, though to be honest I dont watch much

I dont see that many fat kids around in Spain. There are none in our extended family. We go to the beach after work sometimes at the same time the schoolkids leave school and they all come to the beach to chat, play guitar and footy, and there is barely a fat kid between them. Though you see groups of Gypsy families and families who've come down from the villages where everyone is fat. I think it is a poverty issue, like it mainly is in the UK

I saw those ads!

I would agree that, purely anecdotally, British are more obese than SPanish. The Spanish diet is worsening however, thanks to the effects of globalisation (ie, more Macdonalds etc), just as the French and Italian is too. When we moved to BCN, there were no Starbucks, when we left, there were Starbucks everywhere, plus Subway etc.

Obesity is a poverty issue but I would bet that poor Spanish families eat better than poor English people.

No diet coke? Really? I don't drink alcohol though! Please don't tell me fizzy water is bad too!

This was a very good thread about eating habits until the generalisations about whole countries started, which I know I contributed to.

Picking on some very good points made, including Aurynne's, the more we deviate from food natural state the less nutrition we get for it. Also, I think there is a perception that eating healthily is more expensive and that money is an excuse not to eat better.

I think that it is possible to eat healthily on the cheap and there are some ideas on other threads spurred by this one. But I also think that we have to stop thinking that we should be able to get cheap food. Some food is expensive because it costs to produce and because producers need to be paid fairly. I know some families already go without luxuries but I get a feeling that sections of our society (not talking about UK specifically) will rather spend less in good food and more in the latest fashion. I don't think that's a good way to prioritise and a good lesson for the next generation.

amalur - agree, generalisation about countries is a bad idea. Sorry if I contributed to that.

The situation in Spain, and no doubt many other countries is the same as ours; too much processed rubbish and not enough time/knowledge to cook fresh food from scratch. We all have so much choice, if you have the time and inclination to think it through, you can make the right choices, but so many people aren't in a position to do that.

I think it's much more likely that obesity is caused by too much food rather than too little sleep!

Can anyone tell me why a fried egg is bad, but an omellete is good, even though as far as I can tell they are made by the same method, but one has intact yolk and the other does not?

Her diet is much better than special K and toast! Why don't you try eating 2 boiled aggs with one slice of lightly buttered wholemeal toast for you breakfast for a few days and see how that will reduce your hunger and cravings.

the OP knows that now!
While I have never tried Special K (doesn't appeal) I didn't think it was the deep fried mars bar sprinkled with cocaine that seems to be the opinion on this thread

the people who go on about "everything in moderation" actually mean everything in moderation as long as it's wholemeal rice, steamed fish and the bleeding eggs!

SPB I dont believe a fried egg is so bad. Its what it is taken with that increases the calories and fat. In fact, protien doesnt absorb fat that well so a fried egg would possible have about 1g fat added to it after light frying.

Stealth - no difference between omelette and fried egg when you are low carbing. Cook either with olive oil/groundnut oil.

There is s difference if you add milk to the omelette. (protein btw, above a typo)

Stealth, I really do mean everything in moderation, I have had a mars bar today and may even have white bread with my white pasta for dinner. In fact I love pasta sandwiches or chip butties. So long as you're not doing it every day I really don't see the problem.

who fries an omlette? Mind you a good non stick pan and a tiny smear of olive oil is a perfectly reasonable way to fry an egg I guess so not much differnce (I make omlette with water)

I had fish fingers and chips (home made by my mum from a real potato) yesterday. Vive la Moderation.