To not have a clue what a healthy diet is anymore?

[Insearchoffitness]

I grew up to believe that a healthy diet was essentially some type of low sugar cereal/porridge or eggs for breakfast, a sandwich on brown bread or a salad for lunch with some fruit and a homemade dinner with non processed meat/fish carbs and veg.

I also believed that a bit of freezer food, chocolate or a takeaway wasn't the work of the devil and was fine for a lazy weekend dinner once a week. Pretty much have your 5 a day at least and everything in moderation.

When I read on here I feel I'm in a parallel universe. Someone was criticising weetabix with banana as being too high in sugar, there's low carbs, ketosis, zero sugar, people claiming fruit has too much sugar. Someone on tv the other day was slagging off butter saying they'd never eat butter.

Or calling white bread junk food!

tbf I call it junk but not because it's bad food. It's just because it's pretty bad bread

I felt like shite when I ate low carb.

Now I eat a high carb vegan diet and have never felt better .

MN is very fucked up when it comes to food and weight (I say this from the overweight / overeater perspective)

But as an aside bananas are a very carb dense fruit and not recommended for diabetics for example (so it fits that someone would mention it on a thread given MN is very anti carbs!)

I don't think it matters too much what you eat, as long as the quantities aren't excessive and that the food isn't processed.

Once you start reading the ridiculous ingredients and additives that have to be put into processed food to make it palatable and to keep it "fresh" (!) it starts to lose its appeal. When you then factor in the cost of it compared to cooking from fresh, and realise that with a bit of organisation you can often make the same thing in more or less the same time then you start to realise how the big food companies have fooled us for years. Nothing wrong with a processed ready meal/pizza once in a while, but know what you are putting in your body, and taking out of your bank account.

I'm not knocking anyone if they find a certain diet works for them, vegan, low carb or whatever. I mean the chances are different diets do suit different people better.

It just confuses me, sometimes I feel if I listened to everyone I'd eat nothing at all.

I've seen people on here in the past being told they shouldn't feed their child sandwiches, even healthy ones like a chicken salad sandwich.

Or for example I'm sure that there was a school someone on here said that their child's school had banned cheese.

Then on the other hand you'll get people saying their kids live on crisps, coke and cake and they're absolutely fine.

I think we all know what a healthy, balanced diet is really, It's just that the people who shout about food tend to be the ones who either bake like demons all week or carve sculptures from a lone radiccio leaf and call it dinner.

Lots of veg, some fruit, whole grain or slow release carbs, lean protein and small amounts of richer protein (cheese, oily fish) with the occasional treat thrown in.

I have a BMI of 22 (have had my whole adult life) and I eat: carbs, sugar, full fat everything.

I just don't eat too much of it.

That's really all there is to it to be honest.

I don’t think it’s just on here, society is pretty screwed at the moment regarding obesity and people are constantly finding new “cures” to tackle it.

OP, my diet is pretty much exactly as you describe. So is that of my teenagers, given that I've been feeding them since they were babies.

I am active and have a BMI of around 19. I'd say my body is quite happy with it.

It was me who commented on the weetabix with banana, because someone said that was better than a bowl of Coco Pops as it had less sugar - I was pointing out that in fact, the Weetabix and banana has MORE sugar. Clearly a banana is a better food, so my point was basically that demonising food because of sugar isn’t helpful, and also that jumping to conclusions about what foods contain what amount of sugar is not great because everything does, more or less. Nothing to do with food orthorexia.

Like I said, if you can eat small quantities of sugar and carbs and get no cravings/maintain a healthy weight then that’s brilliant!!! You are probably insulin sensitive. The problem is obesity is starting to become a huge problem alongside diabetes and a myriad of other health complications and those people need to be able to adopt a way of eating that allows them to lose weight and heal their body. That’s why many people go low carb. It stops food cravings, helps you lose weight and improves your health into the bargain. There’s nothing not to like.

I am another who eats carbs at basically every meal (today: toast for breakfast, spanish omelette and salad for lunch, biscuits and beef jerky for snacks, and I'm making pea risotto for dinner) and have a BMI of 19. I also run a fair bit.

When I used to measure and monitor everything I was much more prone to binging if I felt I had already 'failed' during the day. I am very pleased to have got to a more moderate approach where I don't have so many negative associations with foods.

I agree OP. I think that is totally fine. I eat very similarly.

I definitely think that there is a lot of extreme now - there are some who have lost sight of portions and general understanding of how to eat. But there are some on mumsnet who are very extreme in the opposite direction in terms of what they do to maintain their weight.

I say this as someone who does exercise pretty much every day, even if just an hour's walk, but that is because I enjoy the endorphins and struggle not to feel like a caged animal in a desk job if I don't, rather than because I feel I need to burn every calorie I put into my body and have counted. I don't watch my weight, but I am grateful that I am naturally a bit twitchy and a real pacer, because it's a bit of a gift from a health point of view not to have to force myself to exercise and move around. I think that this is probably the biggest difference with the past - most people move less than previous generations and should probably move more. But good health doesn't need to be as extreme as a juice cleanse and an ironman.

It stops food cravings, helps you lose weight and improves your health into the bargain. There’s nothing not to like.

As someone who works with sufferers of eating disorders, there's plenty to not like.

I dabbled with with the Keto thing a few weeks back and it made me feel sick, indeed I actually threw up one day. And apparently this is all quite normal, it’s just the Keto flu and you’ve got to stick with it for a few weeks. But, frankly I just thought no.

Healthy portions as pp described above. And fruit is ok but actually eat more veg if you can. Cut out the crap like biscuits and cake. And move more.

Keto is seriously warped. I will die on that hill.

FrontToBackTree can you explain?

Don't forget it's also not about what but WHEN you eat it.

Justasecondnow

I've seen multiple sufferers of eating disorders at varying levels of severity whose disordered eating has been exacerbated by low carb ideals.

The fact of the matter is low carbing works because of calorie deficit. The same as every other diet on the planet. People like to think of it as a magic pill. It isn't. Sure, if you have type 2 diabetes then of course a low carb diet can reverse it. But so could losing weight in 6 million other ways.

If the only way you can control your eating is to cut out carbs, your problems are bigger than the carbs.

"or carve sculptures from a lone radiccio leaf and call it dinner."

Brilliant

The food on MN is bit like drinking.
It seems to be kind of all or nothing.

I do think there should be some warning for people with ED before they get onto the forum. There was a woman who's DH was obviously suffering from ED from what she described and she was worried. Someone chimed in that he is basically just doing intermittent fasting🤦

I don't get the carbs = evil thing. Italians must eat loads of carbs and their country is way down on the obesity list.

worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-obese-countries

When I was a kid in the 70s far fewer people were an unhealthy weight and we ate everything that has since been deemed "bad" at some point or another. I remember when eggs were the devil, now they are good.

I think portion size is probably key, along with steering clear of processed junk and ready meals.

I agree with you all.
I remember that my mum was always on a diet, throughout her adult life.
She ate little diet cubes, powdered shakes, cabbage soup or simply skip meals altogether then would binge when she couldn’t carry on.

It wasn’t until the 90s that doctors discovered that her plumpness was due to medication that she was on in the 70s ( that has since been banned plus steroids that she was taking for a back complaint.)
When she got to her early 70s she was warned about her cholesterol levels. She altered her diet accordingly but the levels didn’t get better.

One day she felt that she’d had enough of dieting and started to eat the skin on her beloved chicken and eat butter and put milk back in her diet as she discovered a love of porridge and generally ate whatever she wanted, in moderation. I think that was the key.
Her cholesterol levels plummeted.
She’s also lost nearly 4 stone.

Removing entire food groups for long periods of time is counterproductive.

Like lots of things it seems to be extremes. When I was a kid most adults were slim but they were not super toned, just average size really. Now there seems to be a size 8 or size 16 & little middle ground.

I just don’t understand how people can be distainful of low carb veggies, protein, healthy fats, berries and dairy with intermittent fasting thrown in. It’s so bloody healthy!!!! If you’re trying to go Keto by basically eating bacon and mayonnaise then you’re going to feel sick.