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!!

Just noticed Xenia's typo

"Yes. You just need to read the ingredients which in the case of Weatabix includes sugar. Products without ingredients tend to be the ones best for you"

Completely agree, products without any ingredients would indeed be very slimming-if a little light on taste and nutrients!

I really like Special K-I eat it because I like the taste, not because I believe it's any better at helping me slim than anything else. But I didn't realise that cereals were quite so awfully bad for you, I thought they were healthy because of the added vitamins.

I totally get the logic though, of not eating 'beige food' or eating like we did 10,000 years ago, or eating low-carb. Whatever we call it, it seems to boil down to eating significantly less white, refined cereals and sugar and more 'brown stuff' (not chocolate cake).

And yes, when you think about it, if all these low-fat 'diet' foods worked, why are we still overweight as a nation? (not everyone is I know, but YKWIM)

I need to try this. I'm 5'2" and weight 14 stone, I've put on 4 stones in 5 years, yet I'm always 'watching what I eat' and buying low-fat versions of the things I think I can't have- I have big portions yet seem to get hungry easily, and am often tired and sluggish, esp. mid afternoon. I don't think I could cope with completely low-carb straightaway, so think I'll start with the 'don't eat white stuff' first, then go from there.

Neeed to go shopping tomorrow, will

Oops, didn't mean to post that half-finished line!

I like cereals too (the taste), it's a shame they are not good As I get older I'm trying to eat foods that are good for my skin's support network. If I ate cereal only I would be very thin but my face would look shite! Wasn't there a report recently about cereal leaching carcinogens from the cardboard boxes they are in?

Also completely agree with xenia about portion sizes.

ladyintheradiator you are forgetting the many properly qualified nutritionists who are registered and have degrees in nutrition. Im glad people are aware of the shonks but dont throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is a registration board for nutritionists - with the nutrition society.

I agree with Xenia that you should eat a portion of carbs, one of protein and one of veg, but portion size is the important thing. I think you should make realistic and healthy changes to your eating habits and keep them for life.

Anything extreme seems bad to me. I mean if you cut down on carbs too much, what happens when you "go back on them"? Wouldn't you just put on weight again?

I think there are healthy cereal choices out there, like Weetabix (even if it has a wee bit of added sugar and salt, it's not much) and Shredded Wheat, and porridge.

Obviously, if I was going to make a career of it I would get properly qualified! I would like to know more about it-I just feel sure that it is asking for trouble, later in life, if you DC is fed rice cakes (vile things!)and dried apricots and has a helicopter mother banning all sweets.
Food should enjoyable and not an issue.A lot of people seem to have a dysfunctional relationship with it and are passing it on to their DCs.
I agree with Xenia and portion size has a lot to do with it. I took DS to the States when he was 3yrs and their child portions were enormous-so much so that it put him off completely. It seems to be going the same way in UK. e.g. how could anyone eat a bucketful of popcorn in the cinema?!

Most British women eat heaps of carbs and hard any protein. They should as I say go for my thirds principle (and it's not mine, most healthy diets have the same) - a fist size of protein, fist size of better carb (brown if you want to call it that but certainly rough) and a fist of veg. That is a sustainable diet for life.

It is also not unlike the diet of plenty of nations who aren't fat - Japanese rice and fish and veg etc.

(I did mean ingredients. Avoid foods which have ingredients on them. What I mean by that is buy and eat whole foods. You don't get ingredients on the side of a real food carrot. I suppose you might on the side of a packet of salmon but it probably just says salmon so I'd count that as no ingredients.
So porridge oats may be fine (if you find milk okay for you) but loads of people load on the sugar on top, raisins, golden syrup and change the oats into something which is basically sugar and carb. You'd be better off with your eggs and brown toast with butter.

I agree entirely Xenia. It is a good way of putting it-avoid food with ingredients and you are half way there.

Actually if you look at the NDNS resullt (national dietary and nutrition survey) you will find that on average, British women from 18-64 eat 47.8% carbohydrate and 17.5% protein

Just for interest, the ratios for the NDS Japan for women were 16% protein 62 % carbohydrate and
22 % fat.

Well they certainly seem a lot better than looking in terms of weight than the average british woman so they're obviously getting something right.

As most people know a balanced diet is best which is what I was suggesting. Lots of British women eat a lot of carbs and I don't mean healthy stuff but donuts, packs of chocolate digestives, boxes of chocolates, lots of bowls of sugary cereals. If they ditched the junk and processed foods they'd feel a lot better.

I suspect portion size and type of protein/carbs consumed havemore to do with the longevity of the Japanese. Any evidence Onion you seem good at fishing these things out!

and by my calculation that make 35% of brtish womens diet fat which suspect s also part of the problem. And 35% of a portion twice the size is probably in reality 3-4 times more fat than Japanese women eat.

lol only because I just used the survey for a lecture I recently presented. If I find any I'll let you know but there is a new report that shows that the British life expectancy has increased even though we are fatter. Bonus.

This has been playing on my mind OP because I just can't stop thinking that if you are eating cereal AND toast for breakfast when you are trying to lose weight, what do you eat for breakfast normally?!

You would probably have been better off with the fry up if you had loads of tomatoes and muchrooms etc and less of the other stuff.

pl is right. The funny thing is that grilled bacon and your traditional boiled eggs tended to keep British women slimmer. Without doubt as we all know certain foods make you feel less hungry sooner and I do think we have a lot of anaemia and spots and bad hair often not helped by lack of fats and protein.

There was some sort of documentary last week about the 1970s, the unions and the winter of discontent. There was some footage of a british beach. Lots of white skinny bodies! Not one was when slightly overweight. Quite an eye opener for me - I was in my teens then and I hadn't been aware that things had changed so much. Just 30 years

Toothbrush diet??????

online- and how much protein and carbs is recommended for a woman of between 18-64 to eat with an average weight of 68kg?

I don't nkow if I can prove it but fro a personal point of view when I gave up junk food I lost a stone without trying and much more important was much happier and amazingly virtually stopped catching any germs ever (which given I used to have 5 or 6 colds a season lasting 2 - 3 weeks each was life changing). So even if I should be eating less fish and could eat processed foods I won't.

Ivy the normal recommendation is around 1g protein/kg body weight. This would, of course, be for a healthy individual with no medical concerns. For carbohydrate, Id be looking at weight, any requirement to lose weight and activity levels. If you did it on 50% carbohydrate then it would be 50% of estimated calorie requirements , which are individual. (for 2000 Kcal approx 250g)

A grilled breakfast with poached eggs and no sausages, plenty of mushrooms, beans and tomatoes, is one of the healthiest breakfasts you can eat and you will NOT be hungry before lunch.

Cereal leaves me scrounging bakeries.

my grandma used to give me cereal - for pudding.

And now I can't help thining that cereal is like cake or biscuits - it's a puddingy sort of food, a treat. It's not really real. I know it's easy to eat but I rarely let my kids have it for breakfast, they're more likely to get a ham sandwich if I'#m pushed for time.

I gave up most processed food 18 months ago-lost over 2 stone-haven't put it back on-feel a lot fitter and I haven't had a cold all winter. At the same time I started on more exercise. (I still like cereal for breakfast though, but I think it depends on which cereal, how much you have in a bowl and what you have with it)