to think this food isn't unhealthy?!

[OkMaybeNot]

I'm doing intermittent fasting and trying to watch what I eat, and I don't know whether it's because when you're on a diet you notice these things more, but I've been seeing people in groups I'm in refer to meals like a jacket potato with beans and a salad, or shepherd's pie, or a stew as 'indulgent comfort food' lately.

AIBU to think there's nothing particularly indulgent or unhealthy about a jacket potato?

When I make jacket potato I add a lot of butter and salt, a lot. Then I top it with a mixture or smoked haddock, double cream, mustard and parsley. It's very indulgent! A microwaved one without butter and just half a tin of beans and a bit of salad? Not indulgent and a bit crap! I consider shepherds pie to be comfort food more than an indulgence because it's then kind of food my grandma would make me when I was ill.

MsJudgemental

i've never done keto, my friend has. She lost loads of weight, and then she started eating carbs again and put it all back on. IMO its not viable long term at all.

IF will be easier to stick to if you don't eat carbs, simply because you'll be keeping your blood sugars stable.

It’s all about balancing it out - calories and nutrition . I don’t regard Jacket beans and cheese as unhealthy - hell I lived on it as a student but it is also comfort food in my opinion

One large potato contains 283 calories according to Google. I would say that's actually quite low calories for the deliciousness/fillingness payout

Half a tin of beans is 163 calories

Together thanks 450kcal. That's not high calories and for me would keep my full till my next meal. Even if you add 100kcal of butter it's still only 550. Easily fits into a 1400kcal meal plan, or even a 1200kcal meal plan especially if IF and on 2 meals a day.

IF will be easier to stick to if you don't eat carbs, simply because you'll be keeping your blood sugars stable

give over. Its easier to stick to a diet where you can eat what you want, rather than a diet with zero carbs.

Its incredibly hard to stick to a no carb diet, if you actually like carbs.

I have been doing IF and eating carbs and i havent found it hard at all.

Potatoes and beans are calorie dense, they're not 'unhealthy' but not the kind of food you eat to lose weight.

Of course you can eat them lose weight. You can lose weight on a diet of pizza as long as you only eat small amounts.

But MsJudgemental what happens when you start eating carbs again? Or are you giving them up forever?

Is that not a bit shit. To give up something you love forever?

I’ve lost nearly 3 stone by IF, and haven’t low carbed at all. I’ve just eaten less of what I normally eat, less frequently. I did cut out fizzy drinks and alcohol and cut down very much on sugary things, but I still ate bread, pasta and potatoes.

Admittedly it’s taken 7 months to lose 3 stone so I’m not doing it really fast.

Jacket potato with beans is a perfectly healthy meal and has plenty of iron which the average woman doesn’t get enough of.

As a rule of thumb, the closer you get to something in its ‘natural’ state, the healthier it is. So a baked potato is good. A factory produced slimming shake with a shelf life of six months is not.

I actually read a study that showed people who eat bread are more likely to stick to their diets long term than people who cut out bread. And will lose equal amounts of weight when both on the same calories. (I know this is just bread not carbs but still)

If you aren't enjoying your food, and if you are cutting out foods you love completely then you aren't going to stick to your diet long term.

Keto is a load of crap if you are too evangelical about it and exist on chicken and leaves you just pile the weight you lose back on.

Stew is healthy - it's meat and vegetables - no processed crap.

Yes, the whole attraction of IF is that you can largely continue to eat what you like. The 'weight loss' aspect comes from the fact you are unlikely to pack the same amount of calories as normal into much less eating time (and there are other health benefits to the fasting side of things unrelated to weight loss). For me, I only eat between 12-8, so that means lunch and dinner, no breakfast, no mid-morning snack and no snacking after dinner. Weight loss tends to be a bit slower if you aren't particularly calorie counting or doing something else in conjunction, but that's a bad thing as it tends to be much more sustainable than diets where you cut out whole food groups(or survive on shakes etc., as those aren't lifestyle changes, they're short-term solutions, and once the weight is loss and the person tries to go back to a normal life, it doesn't really work out.

Even when I do hit my goal (dratted baby weight) I'll continue doing IF, maybe slightly more relaxed at weekends and not quite as rigidly, simply because it's been an easy lifestyle chance that has meant I keep enjoying the food that I enjoy, I just delay my enjoyment of it, I don't deny myself. The denying is what is the struggle.

Keto is an eating disorder thinly disguised as “healthy eating”.

If you're low-carbing or low GI-ing then a jacket potato isn't ideal.

*that's NOT a bad thing

magicians OP isnt doing either of those things, she is intermittent fasting!

They say it's 'indulgent comfort food' which IMO is different from unhealthy.

Comfort food for me is stodge which a jacket potato with (cheesy) beans absolutely is.

Baby yy I understand that but presumably the people who OP is quoting are low-carbing or low-GIing. Otherwise they wouldn't have made the comments they did.

Jacket potatoes and stews are fine, something being 'comforting' doesn't make it bad. Something like bowl of lentil, roast pepper and tomato soup is also 'comforting' and with smoked paprika or whatever can taste quite 'indulgent'.

Do what works for you. I'm doing somewhat half-arsed IF at the moment, have been steadily losing about half a kilo a week since the start of the year. Apart from eating no breakfast or lunch on two days a week, we've stopped having 'white carbs' (or brownish ones) with dinner. So, we might have a beef casserole with a pile of broccoli but no spuds, or curry with just a samosa or bhaji not rice or naan, again with a lot of green veg. Filling , nutritious and 'comforting'. This feels sustainable to me and DH.

Not unhealthy, no, but if you're doing 5:2 for example, you're using up your whole daily calorie allowance in one meal, whereas most people prefer two lower-calorie meals. That'd be my feedback. But nothing wrong with it in itself if it works for you.

maybe magicians but the foods still arent unhealthy, just not ideal for their specific diet.

I can eat a small jacket potato, half a can of tuna with a tsp of mayo and a plateful of lovely salad at 1pm and be full until 6.

Low carb is a miserable existance imo.

Baby I didn't say they were unhealthy. The people quoted didn't say they were unhealthy. The only person who used the word unhealthy was the OP.
I said they weren't ideal on a low-carb or low-GI diet - that is true. I didn't comment on the health or otherwise of those diets.