Why We Eat (Too Much)

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

Has anyone come across this book? It's written by Dr Andrew Jenkinson, who is a bariatric surgeon in London. Basically, it's about how to lose weight by lowering your body's natural set weight point. This may take a long time but it's sustainable and doesn't fuck your metabolism.

The book goes into a lot of detail about the causes of obesity, because he says it's important to understand why people are getting fat in the Western world. It pretty much comes down to eating too much omega-6 fat and sugar. The overall volume of food people eat doesn't matter.

I'm trying to work out how you would cut that out practically and I wondered if anyone had tried it. It sounds like going lower carb but not low carb as in low carb diets. He suggests eating low-carb breakfasts and throwing out bread (and anything else baked). I eat toast for breakfast most days and sandwiches for lunch. I'm trying to work out practical alternatives that I actually like.

Porridge
Full fat unsweetened yoghurt
Bacon and eggs
Omelettes
Soup
Oatcakes and cheese
Salads

Other rules include no takeaways or fast food or crisps etc, and no snacks, mainly because most snack food is carb-based with vegetable oil in it.

And don't forget you can have lashings of butter on those new potatoes @Tinkling.

@Love51 yeah it’s all I’ve got in! Ocado are delivering tomorrow evening.

Probs best avoid too much butter lol, ended up having smoothie and a waffle with breakfast... oh and baked beams. Fully intended to just have scrambled eggs and bacon and then DH put an extra waffle in and then there was a perfect gap on the plate for beans...

I think chicken, pots and green beans sounds more yum than pizza

Am listening to Jenkinson's podcast at the minute. What I would love is for him to get the funding to prove his theory in real life. Say, for example, if a shop was set up that only stocked foods that are low carb and free from wheat and vegetable oils. A group of volunteers are allowed to eat whatever they want over a period of perhaps 3-4 months with the proviso that EVERYTHING they eat must come from the shop. Measure/weigh before and after and see the impact on their health and weight.

By the way, if you're reading this Dr. Jenkinson, I'm happy to volunteer

Me too!

Roast chicken again tonight - always a good option as there's only DH and me so the leftovers will do lunch and dinner tomorrow.

We had roast beef for dinner today so I snaffled a few slices to hide in the fridge for my lunch tomorrow.

Am planning scrambled egg with smoked salmon for my supper later... Can't wait 😋😋

Also had roast beef. I've saved mash, green veg, roast potatoes and some beef. Am going to make bubble and squeak I think.

I'm hoping to have lost a couple of lbs tomorrow. If I can lose weight eating what I have eaten this week I will be extremely happy. I've not felt deprived at all and have thoroughly enjoyed all I have eaten. Tho it's a learning curve as well. I don't think I need to eat as much as I am doing to stay full and avoid snacking.

I’m all set to start tomorrow. My menu plans for the week is this:

Breakfast will be either

• Porridge with chia seeds (these actually have a really good omega 3:6 ratio, better than most seeds)
• Poached eggs with buttered spinach

Lunches

• Sweet potato with tuna (I’ve bought sour cream in place of mayo)
• omelette
• Greek salad
• leftovers from the evening before

Dinners

• Green lentil and paneer curry
• Beef chilli
• Bavette steak with lemon chickpeas
• Salmon with pak choi and shiitake mushrooms
• Trout with horseradish (the sauce will be home made so fairly compliant) and spring greens cooked with garlic

That’s as far as I’ve got but I think it’s a good start. I cook all dinners from scratch anyway so it’s not too different.

Sounds lovely @BangingOn - I hadn’t thought of using sourcream instead of mayo, does it work well?

Cottage pie in the oven here. I used a stockpot stock cube which does have sunflower oil in but I didn’t have anything else to use and I reasoned that the amount in a big cottage pie that’ll do 4+ meals must be quite small.

Was thinking about how in the book he says that if farmers want to make their cattle fat they feed them a diet of grains & oils and yet we happily feed that to ourselves and wonder why we put on weight!

@OhMyChrist2020 it’s not bad, clearly nothing is as good as mayo, but it works to moisten and bind food and is good with chillies and lime juice added too.

I think your reasoning on the stock is sound, I think we are so used to diets that are super strict and punish you with instant weight gain for a slight deviation that it’s hard to adjust to this. Ultimately we are aiming to reverse the omega 6 and 3 imbalance, which won’t be blown off track by a tiny bit of sunflower oil.

Place marking as this is all very interesting. And I need to find a way to ditch a couple of stones.

It feels a bit esoteric - "you will lose weight but don't try to lose weight and don't weigh yourself"!
I'm losing weight and not hungry do it is working! I've had a few more "off" meals this week but better than I was before I quit the white powder!

@HighlandCowbag, I am the same about not feeling deprived. I am feeling really satisfied after I eat and am not getting hungry between meals. I've actually had to think carefully about eating enough to make sure I'm not undereating on a couple of days as I don't want my body to think it's dieting and end up slowing my metabolism again.

I think what will be important is finding ways to make this style of eating very much a normal way of life so I don't have to think too hard about it.

@BangingOn, what way do you cook the sweet potato you have with your tuna?

Quite like the idea of sour cream to replace mayo, I could live with that swap I think!

@Tiredandbored I either bake it in the oven or zap it in the microwave, depending on how organised I am at thinking ahead for lunch. A small sweet potato cooks really quickly in the microwave.

Well it all went wrong today. Loads of chocolate, ganache, crisps I am now feeling sick and stupid. Back on it tomorrow.

You're not stupid. You're just human. One day off won't ruin things. Deciding you've blown it and eating all the 'wrong' stuff for several days might. Get back on the horse again tomorrow. No harm done.

@Tinkling

Well it all went wrong today. Loads of chocolate, ganache, crisps I am now feeling sick and stupid. Back on it tomorrow.

You'll be fine tomorrow. I always feel really sick after eating badly on a cheat day and am very pleased to get back to real food.

Yes that’s why I feel so dumb. I feel lightheaded, sick, jittery. Bloated too. I haven’t felt like this for 6 days. The key is to remember this next time I am considering eating crap! I never do.

@tinkling You are not stupid! All of us have lapses from time to time. The great thing about this plan is that lapses have no long-term impact at all - as soon as you go back on plan, everything is A1 fine again.

The aim of the plan is to reset your set weight point, which as long as you are generally staying on plan, will happen. Your weight loss is not a result of calorie/carb deprivation, but of your body gradually realising it doesn't need to be as heavy as it thought it did.

The plan is also a way of mentally re-educating yourself about food and mindful eating. Remember how you feel now and use it as a mindful eating tool in the future - if you are tempted to over- eat, 'fast forward' in your mind to this feeling to remind yourself that the short pleasure of eating more than you need is probably not worth the discomfort afterwards.

We cross-posted there so I see you are already planning to use it as a future tool which is great.

I haven’t got any scales and am debating whether to get some. I’ve been doing this 2 weeks and don’t feel I have lost any weight yet, but I guess it’s early days.

We had a picnic lunch and instead of a sandwich I made a potato, green bean & veg salad. It was tasty and I didn’t feel hungry afterwards.
For dinner DH had made fajitas - I had the veg, meat, rice, sour cream but avoided the wrap and tortilla chips so pleased about that.
Also M&S refried beans which I was worried about but actually checking the label they are fine apart from a bit of cornflour.

However I am still worried about whether this is going to work - I think I need to start exercising!

Hi everyone! I started this thread back in Sep and got very little response, so I was amazed to see it pop up today in Active. I tried to follow the principles until Dec started and I lost my way with daily mince pies. I definitely felt like I had lost weight and my jeans were looser, but I hadn’t weighed myself so I don’t know how much. I’m going to start again and rejoin this thread, if that’s ok. I’ve ordered scales so I can see if there’s any tangible progress (which I know isn’t recommended, but I need to know if it’s working!).

Mince pies are my undoing every single year.