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!!

Omelette with water .

I'm genuinely puzzled. How does that work? The only egg in water cooking methods I know are poached and boiled.

I don't fry omelettes, but I do put a little oil in the pan to stop it sticking. And add a splodge of double cream to the beaten eggs. Yum.

PS. I don't think there's any difference between an omelette and a fried egg. Except maybe that an omelette is more of a meal in itself so you'd just eat the egg and hopefully something healthy on/in it like spinach or mushrooms. Whereas a fried egg tends to be part of a big fried breakfast (which the serious Atkins/low carbers will tell you is all well and good, others will tell is a calorie/cholesterol disaster!).

But oil in a pan is frying isn't it . It's not deep fat frying but it's still frying.

lol no no not cooking omlette in water. I beat eggs with a touch of very cold water apparently its teh classic french way and makes the omelet light and fluffy. Eggs beaten with milk are scrambled eggs (IMVHO).

I always think of frying as making something crispy but no idea what the offical definition is. So I don;t count gently cooking an omelet as "frying" but jsut cooking.

"In Defence of Food" is now on my Kindle and looks very promising.

The preface of this edition makes the point that American / Western food habits are no longer confined to the U.S / U.K and are now a major problem throughout Europe.

I completely understand the poster who said that Spanish grandparents who can remember a food shortage overfeeding their GC.

I have spent YEARS and YEARS trying to get my Dad to help my children make healthy choices but he was an evacuee at age three and survived on sugar sandwiches when he could get them.

My Mum was raised in Ireland and had an absolutely perfect diet, organic meat and fish eaten sparingly, fresh fruit and vegetables, no crap but now that she is diabetic ALL she eats is plastic stuff full of aspartame because it is low in sugar

Neither of them could see that taking DD out when she was two for a few hours and giving her a Happy Meal and milkshake then bringing her back with a Double Decker, Galaxy bar, Kitkat, Mars Bar and a massive bag of crisps was a bit, er, much.

Thank you MmeLindt

Goodness, this has really evolved! I hadn't run away, I just went to sleep... these new Zealanders have the terrible habit of being 10-12 hours in front of Europeans :P

Spanish kids the fattest? Spain must have changed a lot since I left in 2003... I remember very, very few overweight children. My mum's a teacher and she may have one fat kid in every 2 or 3 classes. It may depend on the region, but I can tell you, not many fat kids in Asturias.

And who said Spanish people ate almost no fruit? We eat fruit several times a day, dessert is almost always fruit!

I think kellogs have done a wonderful job over the years of promoting a bag of sugar laiden cardboard pieces to make them look good. You see this woman in a red dress and have been given the speial that if you eat special k you to can look like the woman in the red dress.

if you keep telling people the same thing over and over again - there will be a few of your audience that will believe you.

Well done marketing at kellogs for fooling everyone for so long

I think it was someone on mn thread that said last year that special k have about the same sugar content as coco pops but from the marketing you would never think that - made me think and I checked it out on the side of the box- they where of course correct

Special K might have s similar carbohydrate amount but is made with added protein, so has a lower glycaemic index.

moresense - i am like you - love butter - only eat full fat foods (proper food imo) but do not snack or eat uggins biscuits

"I don't fry omelettes, but I do put a little oil in the pan to stop it sticking"

Yes, what is the difference - that is exactly how I fry an egg?
Good point though about ommelette being a meal whereas fried egg tends to be part of a fry up - as a vegi I hadn't thought of that

I am low carbing at the mo and a fried egg is definitely a meal for me now. I eat with a few cherry tomatoes and sometimes 2-3 pieces of streaky bacon (at teh weekends only). And that's it. No bread, no butter, no hash browns or mushrooms or beans or whatever.

no beans you mean pulses? lentils are an excellent source of protien and iron, kidneys beans and black beans for example have high levels of protien and vitamins etc - far more than the bacon -ditch the bacon and keep the beans

i am a slim, all what i do is wolk a lot, its not for excerice, but i like to go out wolking,i eat everything i like to, its not about me controling the amount that i want to eat, is my belly, its get full quike, so i eat from everything but not a lot as i cant take a lot, my friend all time think i am watching my weight, not at all, thats how i am. so dont try to flow someone else to get the same size, its just different from one to an other.

Ivykaty pulses have a high carbohydrate content

so what, they are good for you and have far more goodness than bacon or special k

The point is that the poster said she is "low carbing"

put in less if you wanna be thin

which poster? you have twice come along and stated about carbohydrates

er, freebuttonbee, the poster you suggested should have pulses

This is ridiculous! No one ever got fat from eating too many lentils, surely? Or too many apples?
Surely this is thinking too hard - everything in moderation, high fat/processed food once in a while, protein, carbs & vegetables to make up bulk of diet? Avoiding lentils is madness!
Now if I could only do it...

if any diet, low carb or whatever, suggests reducing the amount of lentils you consume, then it's faddy, IMO.

No, I dont agree with low carbohydrate diets. Just figuring the lady who was on a low catrb diet may not have been into the suggestion of adding beans and pulses to her plan lol

Id miss fruit big time

er there post is below yours about special k.

but it is low carb not no carb and things like beans and pulses would be complex carbohydrates in any case which would mean they would slowly into your blood stream which would be good, apart from the mineral, vitamins and fibre content