To think I eat healthily? My DH doesn't!

[Virtualcareerchanger]

I think I eat a well balanced healthy diet. Me and DH are trying to get fit and I said I don't need to change what I eat I just need to start exercising, however my DH disagrees and thinks we need to cut out carbs as carbs are sugar. He said he thinks we eat too much carbs and dairy. I thought I would bring this to the mumsnet aibu jury. Here is what I have eaten (and DH) over the last two days. Am I being unreasonable to think this is fine for someone trying to eat healthily?

Day 1
Breakfast: porridge oats made with semi skimmed milk a teaspoon of honey and 3 tablespoons of blueberries
Lunch: cheese salad sandwich on wholemeal bread with a scraping of vitalight spread, a raw carrot and an apple
Snack: a banana
Dinner: salmon, sweet potato and brocoli

Day 2
Breakfast: porridge oats with semi skimmed milk a teaspoon of honey and 3 tablespoons of raspberries
Lunch: tin of carrot and butterbean soup, a wholemeal roll with a scraping of vitalight spread, an orange
Snack: raisins and almonds
Dinner: homemade Thai chicken curry with rice

Your diet looks okay to me and if you are feeling healthy on it then it obviously suits you.

My husband lost a significant amount of weight by simply cutting milk from his diet. Milk has a lot of naturally ocurring hormones in it which can in some people encourage the laying down of body fat.

If you are flabby and don't do exercise then I think you might benefit from a muscle building type exercise which has the positive effects of increasing your metabolism and fitness and strength and tones muscles which reduces flab and gives your body a more streamlined look.

You will probably find you need more calories rather than fewer if you increase your exercise levels though and you will gain weight if you increase muscle tissue but you might get thinner in places or stay the same just not be wobbly because muscle weighs much more than fat.

You should literally measure your improvement by how you look and feel rather than go by what the scales say.

I reccommend Strong Women Stay Slim by Miriam E. Nelson PhD for a very sensible regime to follow that is based on proper scientific research and is doable without being in any way faddish or difficult.

www.amazon.co.uk/Strong-Women-Stay-Miriam-Nelson/dp/0553379453

FindoGask I was writing something on the subject of brown fat as this post came up 😬.

There are many tests I can run, one that I use a lot is checking for T3 in relation to thyroid hormone and I also use a Cortisol test to measure stress and its impact on your body. There are literally hundreds though, many tests you can get privately but not in the NHS and I use the same labs as the private companies. I will always encourage as much testing as possible through the GP in the first instance though.

Are wraps better than bread then? Why is that?

Why are wraps better than bread?

Well, they might be better, or might not be, depending on what your aims are, in swapping typical bread for a wrap.

Wraps might be lower carb and higher protein per portion than bread, but that will depend on the brands you are using. Wraps typically don't have yeast in them, and bread usually does, some people will feel better avoiding yeast products.

Dh and I don't bother with the sandwich or wrap part - lettuce leaves (Romaine usually) are great for fajitas etc, and we use partitioned salad boxes with a fork in the lid for packed lunches (salad, olives, cheese, chorizo, some tomato etc, no bread needed!).

Oh, just about less 'bready' I suppose as long as you put lots of filling in but I would try to move away from bread in general.

Alternate weeks.....your meal plan then his?

A dietitian is more qualified than a "nutritionist" but there doesn't seem to be any on here

Different qualifications but by no means more, what gave you that impression? We train for the same length of time but may take a different view on the research available.

I don't think you're eating unhealthily but there is room to eat more healthily. And definitely exercise.
As someone else said 'low' carb is not 'no' carb, so you can follow meals that DH is doing as there are still carbs in them, just not your obvious ones like rice/bread/pasta. Starchy veg are carbs, fruit are carbs (sugar but with vitamins and fibre).

I would reduce obvious carbs slightly and increase veg, protein and good fats.
On one nutrition course I learnt that you should combine your carbs with a protein or a fat. So if you were to snack on an apple, have some cottage cheese or chicken with it. Sounds odd, but the science behind it is- all carbs start breaking down in the mouth even complex carbs, so you then have a massive sugar hit into your blood stream, then your body thinks it's too much, goes to store it, takes too much as it doesn't know when the good times will end, and then your sugar levels end up dipping. If you mix it up with fat or protein, your body takes longer to break everything down.
I think 50g (don't quote me) is the max amount of carb you should take in in one go due to the above reaction. So you could still eat a small amount of brown rice without your blood sugars going wild.
And my Italian friend also confirmed what someone else said, they don't eat loads of pasta/pizza. She said if you were on a diet, you'd eat pasta once a week. We tried to tell her about the uk 'government' recommended low fat, high carb diet and she was horrified and didn't quite get it!

I read 'Fat around the middle' by Marilyn Grenville. She talks a lot about stress, and how it makes your body mobilise your fat ready for the 'fight or flight' response and if we then don't use the fat it is stored around your middle where it's more dangerous than around your thighs. So she recommends less caffeine, less sugar and more good fats.
I also read Michael mosely blood sugar diet. You may not need to lose weight so you can ignore his v low cal diet but it's a good read about how the body works and you can incorporate maintaining your weight with some of the receipes so as to meet your DHs ideas as well. I like to find receipes that fit with what I can take to work or if I'm working from home.

Obviously if something doesn't work for you, then you don't need to carry it on but things like bolognese sauce with courgetti instead of spaghetti is a good compromise, you can have spaghetti sometimes, or half and half.
But really OP- where's the cake and wine?

pickachew

You may buy 70 p oats but many people pay £1 for one serving with oats possibly added to sugar in a bowl that you just add water.

It's big business to take oats for 70p and add a profit margin of 300% and sugar is cheap, so add lots of that, a bit of fancy packaging and tell everyone it's oats then preach it's healthy

& Bob's your uncle

The nutritionist I consulted seems to be much more knowledgeable than the hospital dieticians I've encountered.

I don't find that to be a healthy diet at all; I used to, and struggled to lose weight for years as a result. Now I'd bin the 'spread', the fruit, and go for whole rather than semi milk. Would also have cheese salad rather than a cheese salad sandwich (same thing, no bread - he's right about the carbs ;) ) and try not to rely on porridge so much.

Would also have cheese salad rather than a cheese salad sandwich (same thing, no bread - he's right about the carbs ;) )

Um no- not really. You've just created a lower calorie meal by substituting salad for bread. Not rocket science

And I'm yet to meet anyone who got fat because they ate too much fruit.

Following on: I've stopped having bread with salad to cut the carbs, just didn't need it, but being retired think it's easier to cut back. In childhood there were no snacks between meals so I don't find that difficult either.

Medical/health advice changes regularly. The nature of research means that any conclusion must be general because we're all so incredibly different.

My lunch includes a handful of salty crisps. Two years ago I was taken to A&E dehydrated so put on saline drips for 24hours. Whatever the government advice is I need more salt.

I'd like to make a comment about bread; a PP mentioned artisan bread with slow rise – sourdough. Fermenting dough produces lactic acid bacteria which reduces the speed at which food raises blood glucose levels - its glycaemic response. However, modern (supermarket) bread is made in an hour, the opposite of healthy.

There are about twenty different vitamins and minerals in whole wheat – turning that into white flour means a massive reduction in them all, for example magnesium is reduced by 84%, potassium and sodium by 77%.

I won't bore you with all the long names of various, enzymes, additives and 'improvers' that are also added, but you can see why I avoid white supermarket bread.

The Chorleywood bread process - yup - not good.

Yes, a low glycaemic index 'diet' would be a good compromise. So, boiled potatoes instead of mashed or baked, long grain brown basmati rice instead of white rice and small amounts of protein with every meal to help keep your blood sugar levels nice and even.

Just chipping in to say that Sandyrose's recommendations are exactly those of a dietitian friend to whom I posed the question in the OP.

Your diet looks very good - we can always be picky and suggest improvement, but essentially you are eating well.
If you are a slightly flabby size 10 you just need to start exercising in order to tone up a bit. And do some cardio to get your heart pumping

Thank you Mathanxiety - I'm glad my 4 year of gruelling studies count for something

As for supermarket bread...yes, the fact is that it contains various chemicals to make it quick to make, nice and fluffy but also to give it a longer shelf life. Ever wondered why homabaked bread is nothing like Hovis? Artisan bread is better for you due to the additives and also the type of wheat used. It may seem expensive but actually, I personally distrust cheap foods - it's usually cheap for a reason. Just look at the price of a chicken in the supermarket.

Sandyrose, exactly! Cheap food is usually cheap because it's stuffed full of additives, preservatives and filler carbs.
Caveats, that's not true of cheap, seasonally available fresh produce (raw ingredients).

In many ways of course, that cheap food is very very expensive in the long run!

Getting rid of the bread and going for cheese salad doesnt automatically create a lower calorie meal. Back in the bad old days I would've done that maybe in an effort to cut down on calories, but thesedays I heap on the cheese which knocks bread into a cocked hat for cals and still lose weight. Where the calories come from is really important, and since I dropped the simplistic 'eat less move more' type of mantra I've finally got a handle on my weight.

re: fruit - fruit itself might not make you fat, but it is very sugary and will cause hunger for something more substantial after that sugar is quickly processed. I barely eat any fruit thesedays and don't suffer for it, it keeps my appetite down.

also agree on the point about salt above!

Sounds boring to me!

Diabetes and heart disease is also quite boring. The standard western diet will get you there, eventually.

I'm a foodie and eat extremely well. I eat the right things most of the time, but I'm not extremely strict about it. Having fantastic hair, skin, and energy makes that little bit of extra effort worth it. Also not ever having to watch your weight or worry about calories etc is liberating...I'm the same weight I was 20 years ago and that is completely effortless, I'm never hungry or counting calories and I'm not a gym bunny. There have been times when I've eaten 'like everybody else' and quite quickly that muffin top starts to appear.

I guess it comes down to your own priorities.

The standard western diet will get you there, eventually

Yup, no-one gets out alive anyway.