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.

@Jellytot844

You only lose weight in a calorie deficit. Actually quite hard to get 2000 calories a day when you cut out an entire food group, unless you were drinking pints of cream, which I doubt. Veg have very little calories but great for volume and fibre which make you feel full.

Where did anyone say that low carbing is about cutting out an entire food group? It's low carb not no carb - and the carbs will come from vegetables, salad and some fruits.

It's funny, though, how people are quite prepared to tell others to cut out the fat - why isn't that seen as silly?!

Well yes - it burns dietary fat. If you are not eating carbs, it can’t burn carbs. Dietary fat is not stored body fat. Your body will burn body fat if you’re in a calorie deficit, that’s it.

If you switch your body to burning fat, rather than carbs, which is what happens when you cut carbs down and go into ketosis, you will be burning stored body fat. Nothing to do with a calorie deficit.

Keto or carb flu is a temporary state, while your body is transitioning from burning carbs to burning fat.

BIWI I wouldn’t bother. Low carb finds you I find when the time is right.

If anyone is still reading this thread and has health niggles that just won’t go away please consider lowering your carbs for three weeks and seeing if it helps. It’s not difficult and doesn’t have to be super strict.

So glad I have never bought into any of the 'regimes' (a nice French way of saying it, they don't mess about).

Also rather partial to sliced banana on weetabix. because (dare I say it?), it tastes nice.

See what I mean?

Low carb/no carb/keto. So bloody confusing.

What confuses me even more is that people advocate low carb, which I thought just meant cutting out rice, bread, pasta, potatoes and eating vegetables, fruit, protein and dairy.

But then you can people saying that many fruits and vegetables are high carb.

Also rather partial to sliced banana on weetabix. because (dare I say it?), it tastes nice.

I've always thought I was doing right by having a bowl of porridge and a banana.

I try to mix it up with an omelette some days so I'm getting a bit of everything.

Many fruits and vegetables are high in carbs, so pick the ones that aren’t. I just can’t see the drama! 🤷‍♀️

And that dairy is high carb too. You can have cream but everything else is too high in lactose.

@insearchoffitness

It sounds like you are doing it right ignore the extremists! If you are at a healthy weight then crack on x

@SerenDippitty

And that dairy is high carb too. You can have cream but everything else is too high in lactose.

Well that’s simply not true. Skimmed milk is not recommended because it has more impact on insulin that whole milk. Full fat dairy is absolutely fine.

I honestly think most of us are singing from the same hymn sheet we are just disagreeing about the small print. Don’t eat processed foods, avoid sugar and foods that spike insulin, avoid industrial seed oils and try and eat foods high in omega 6. Don’t snack, don’t drink caffeine or alcohol to excess and if you can fit in some periods of fasting and vigorous HIIT exercise per week then great!!!! Is anyone on here arguing against that?

*high in omega 3

I think we have lost touch with a more traditional pattern of eating. Historically people ate local and in season veg/herbs/fruit, a small amount of meat (because it was expensive or had to be hunted for) and fish if they could fish it, alongside starchy foods like rice, barley, oats, wheat, corn products, rye, tubers like potato and yams, and a small amount of fat. Usually with eggs, dairy and/or soy products. Every time we have tried to manufacture foods to feed people it has gone wrong in some way. Like Niacin deficiency in America in the 1930s and the obesity epidemic now, people aren't hungry they are nutritionally deficient. Any diet that relies on chemical ingredients, heavily manufactured/processed products, lots of air miles and leaves you at risk of nutritional deficiencies so popping vitamin pills to make up the difference, is not a healthy diet. It doesn't matter if that's eating breakfast cereal or a Keto shake for breakfast.

I also listened to a really interesting podcast recently where they were discussing eating high energy autumnal foods in preparation for winter, but for us winter never comes. It was fascinating to think of foods like acorns that are hoarded over autumn to feed animals during hibernation or times when food is scarce. It would have been the same for us. Many people would die of famine if the crops didn’t grow due to bad weather, hence why we have harvest festival and periods of celebration over winter.

No one in the past has ever eaten like we do now. Even the bloody scavenger animals in cities are having an obesity epidemic due to consuming large amount of discarded take away food.

No one is saying a serving of weetabix and sliced banana is terribly unhealthy. I imagine what’s probably been said is that it’s also not as healthy as you might expect. Bananas have been grown so there’s pretty much only one variety now, and that’s a super sweet version. Most fruit are now super sweet varieties as that’s what customers want. They don’t want their fruit to be hard and bitter. In the same ways that pugs used to have noses they could breathe out of, years of selective breeding have now produced an animal with a flat face and a myriad of health issues. The same has happened to our food. So we need to be mindful of that.

Right last ill say on this but @BIWI id never advocate cutting fats either! I eat everything and just keep an eye on my weight. Calories in v calories out, cravings are what low carb helps with. Yes you will burn body fat if you are in a calorie deficit. No you will not if you are in a calorie surplus or maintenance. Nothing to do with where your calories come from. BUT what your calories are made of impacts your hunger/cravings hormones. Some find set rules help them as they don't need to track but ultimately if you lose weight you're in a calorie deficit. Science.

OP your diet is perfectly healthy. If your weight is fine and you're getting a good amount of micronutrients from fruit and veg and not regularly eating processed foods youre grand.

@justanotherneighinparadise

Exactly! Carrots used to be purple to start with!

Jelly my issue with calories in, calories out, end of story is it is only part of the puzzle. For someone who is very overweight cutting calories alone will lead to weight loss for sure. The problem is if you stick to a calorie controlled diet and their weight comes down they’ll get to a point where their metabolism slows and the calories need to be dropped. Fine, all good. Then they lose more weight and start to plateau and the metabolism slows again and calories need to be dropped again. So you can end up with people trying to exist on a tiny amount of calories each day which is unsustainable long term. This is often why the diet fails. People are hungry, pissed off with what they’re eating and they’re weight loss stalls.

The absolute beauty of low carb alongside intermittent fasting is your metabolism does not slow down alongside your weight loss. Your lean muscle mass does not decrease. You can eat wonderful, delicious satiating food. You can eat until you’re full and then you leave a period of time where you don’t eat and your body digests and repairs. You don’t eat because you’re not hungry, you don’t want to eat, your stomach doesn’t growl, you have loads of energy, your mood lifts, your anxiety clears.

Totally agree, low carb done right is a great way to lose weight! Lots of veg and proteins. No pastries/cakes etc. I just dispute people saying low carb puts your body in a magic body fat burning state, its just another way to obtain a calorie deficit!

I definitely agree they count as I tried Atkins a couple of times in my life and both times i gorged on bacon and eggs and cream etc, felt fucking awful and didn’t lose weight. So I know an average weight person cannot stuff high fat food in a day and think it’s going to lead to weight loss. It’s a starting point if you’re very overweight, but not the magic bullet if your already a healthy weight but want to get leaner.

Also on this subject I always find is very interesting that most of the noisiest proponents of calories in, calories out tend to be male muscle honed gum bunnies with absolutely zero understanding of the metabolism of a peri/menopausal or post menopausal female. Low carb with fasting is absolutely amazing for this difficult group that the gym bunnies think are just weak willed annoyances as their dogma fails to work with them. Of course if you have lots of muscle mass you can eat differently. If you’re eating carbs and using them for energy who's going to argue. Rural areas of China still eat white rice as their main source of food and have no weight issues. It’s because they are using that food for energy, day in and day out. Most of us, particularly during lockdown have been sedentary. We are not using this fuel for energy, our bodies are dutifully storing it for our winter that never comes.

Low carb/no carb/keto. So bloody confusing.

But OP - those are all weight loss plans. That's not the same as a long term healthy diet. Some people may stick to them long term if it works for them. But for most of us, plenty of veg and lean protein, some complex carbs and fruits, small amounts of 'good' fats from oils, nuts and cheeses and the occasional treat is the long term, balanced solution.

@Jellytot844

But this

I just dispute people saying low carb puts your body in a magic body fat burning state, its just another way to obtain a calorie deficit!

is wrong! It does put your body in a fat-burning state - I'm at a loss to know why you would dispute this?

I have a feeling jelly was trying to say you can lose weight without being in ketosis by eating at a calorie deficit.

[quote Wavescrashingonthebeach]@justanotherneighinparadise

You also linked to a charlatan calling themself The Diet Doctor whose aim is to sell you a potentially harmful keto diet. Read the list of side effects on his own front page and he even says it's likely you will suffer an 'induction flu'. Surely a healthy diet regimen makes you feel better not worse?

He has cherry picked a load of supporting studies and you could literally argue anything you wanted off biased studies.

Numerous reputable sources debunking Diet Doctor and people of similar ilk.

Try harder next time [/quote]
Not really sure why you could call him a charlatan

I'd also be interested (genuinely) in reading those reputable sources.