Why We Eat (Too Much) Thread 4

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

Hi to all regulars and lurkers!

Here's the 4th thread, based on the ideas in Dr Andrew Jenkinson's book. We've seen some amazing losses on these threads, and the benefits for me can be summed up as 'no counting, no starving'.
We don't count calories, and if we're hungry we eat. We're focused on quality.

General eating principles:

No sugar
No wheat (which reduces unhealthy carbs)
No ultra processed foods, and in particular no processed/ultra refined oils
Honourable mention to tipping the balance of omega 3 and 6, but that’s mostly achieved by doing the above.

His principles also include trying to sleep more and reduce stress, and take regular (moderate) exercise.

If any of this sounds promising, please feel free to ask questions and come and join in!

Thanks @Styletryle ! I'm really pleased, in particular with how effortless it has been.

If you've got bread to use up you could just eat it- the whole thing about this WOE is that you are not expected to do it perfectly all the time. It is supposed to be realistic, and therefore sustainable. So you might need to experiment a bit to find out what 'on plan' breakfasts will work best for you, but don't fret if you are 'off plan' sometimes until you do that.

Does anyone else feel much more in tune with their body? I feel like giving up sugar has allowed me to hear what my body actually wants. Before, if I listened, it would be all "I want sugar" but now without cravings for sweet things it's like I can listen and trust what my body is telling me. So I can eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm full, have a snack if I need one, but really feel like I'm meeting my body's needs rather than it's addictions.

I really want to make this work, but am currently hamstrung by being unable to cook. DH is managing house / cooking / DC / dog / FT job while I am on crutches and meant to be staying off my foot. He is relying on instameals due to timing issues, which is almost certainly undermining me at every turn.

I'm trying to build a bank of things I can batch prep to shove in the oven / microwave / slow cooker that will fit this WOE. Do you think that might work?

@IWillWashTheGreenWillow what about ordering lots of those steam fresh veg packets and then you could have the same main part of the meal that everyone is having (chicken, meatballs etc) and one or two of those?
I eat cheese and full fat yoghurt daily which helps keep me on track. Things like baby bell are already portioned and keep me full. Any use?

Wow - that does sound like a challenge, @IWillWashTheGreenWillow! How long are you on crutches for? Adding some veg sounds like a good idea.

Back to school time here, which always feels good for new beginnings and resolutions! I'm definitely ready to launch into this properly. I already feel a bit lighter and less bloaty. I bought a couple of clothes this week and had to get the size down in one of them.

I have been having carb free breakfasts for ages, you just get used to it. boiled eggs and tomatoes, omelette with mushroom, onion and spinach or yogurt and berries. Bit of fat, bit of protein, some sort of veg or fruit and it keeps me going till lunch.

left over lentils with Salmon for lunch today - not too bad. The family are due to have fajitas tonight - do you cook this and replace your wraps with anything? I used to replace with Freekah but I have the feeling that because that is wheat I need to find something else. Or just have the filling on its own maybe.

@SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun I haven't done it myself, but some people replace wraps with giant lettuce leaves. You could also just have the meat and add grated cheese/ sour cream/ crunchy veg?
I usually have one wholemeal wrap and a salad with mine.

Thanks @Neeko and @lazylinguist those veg pods sounds like a really good idea. I'm on crutches until at least 15 September, when I get the straigtening wire removed from my toe. At that point, I have no idea if I become instant mobile again or what.

@SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun, in the past I've made small "wraps" of melted cheese to make pseudo-taco. Grate cheese onto a baking tray in a circle, stick in the oven until melted and slightly browned, hang over a wooden spoon handle like a giant brandy snap to make a taco shape. Or put over a muffin tin / sandwich tin to create more of an edible bowl.

SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun, in the past I've made small "wraps" of melted cheese to make pseudo-taco. Grate cheese onto a baking tray in a circle, stick in the oven until melted and slightly browned, hang over a wooden spoon handle like a giant brandy snap to make a taco shape. Or put over a muffin tin / sandwich tin to create more of an edible bowl.

Now there's an idea!

@PattiRandall yes that really rings true for me too about being able to listen to my body and trust what I hear.

Evening everyone. Back to school day here as well and have had a good week so far. Obviously after the bank holiday 😄.

Tuesday was naice sausage, mash and veg. Last night shepherds pie. Salad for lunch today. Yesterday I had a couple of leftover sausages and Tuesday I think I had rye ryvita with phili and beetroot.

Feeling good for being back in the vibe. Not weighing in til next week tho due to over indulgence this weekend.

I've just run the principles past dp. He had cooked a delicious lentil casserole for dinner!

For us it's the snacking and particularly the crisps (for me) and chocolate (for him) that we need to sort out

Porridge we like for breakfast but dp loves his toast every morning and that will need to go!

Hi everyone, I’m thinking of starting this. I have found the threads useful for ideas. The book is a bit less clear than is ideal but I am working through it and the science is interesting.

I have a long history of yo yo dieting. Most success has been with keto but for a long time. I don’t seem to be able to stick to anything. Even so I find the lure of really low carb hard to resist! So this might be a more sensible, slower and hopefully sustainable way.

I forgot to say I have a lot of weight to lose. But I do like weight lifting so that’s a plus.

I'm on chapter nine of the book and it's really interesting.

The parts about heart disease and sugar are interesting.

I've had a slightly mad idea based on the part about Victorian eating habits.

I've made a list of all the foods they would have eaten in Victorian times and am going to try to eat them for a few weeks so things like watercress, seaweed, kippers, coffee, apples and vegetables. Not much poultry, but going to try a few bits of nose to tail eating like liver

DH thinks I'm bonkers!

@aria999
Thank you so much x

Finished the book in my Covid induced insomnia last night.
Now daily glycemic load, starting with 150 and hopefully reducing to around 80… is that correct or is it grams of carbs?
Get the EFA rebalance, reducing stress, more sleep, keeping muscles healthy and no calorie counting 😎😎😎

It is glycemic load that should be brought down to 80 but my impression is that he doesn't want to make this to0 hard in terms of lots of measuring. And in fact if you don't have any wheat, don't have carbs at breakfast and go for small portions of potatoes, lentils and maybe rice (is that ok?) with meals then the glycemic load will come down anyway. Who snacks on rice and potatoes between meals ? No crisps because they have vegetable oil on them.

An of course not refined sugar will help too!

I have been looking at the website and videos. Some really good summaries in there in written form on the what’s in the book page and in the videos on this link: www.whyweeattoomuch.co.uk/bbc-videos.html

I have also made myself a lentil concoction with onions, carrots, tomatoes, coconut oil and flaxseeds to have as my standard carbs with lunch. Hopefully as it is cooked in a batch it will be really easy to default to that instead of bread or pasta and I can have it with some sort of protein and salad maybe.

I've been following this for two weeks now
Have lost 6 ibs but I would say 3 of those were pure bloating so happy with the results anyway - I have a stone to lose so I won't have massive losses and will be happy with one a week from now.

I've read all the threads and they've been brilliant so thank you to everyone on here

For me it's become so easy not to have to think about it too much - I would say the thing that makes it work (so far) is that I can have oats/rice/rice cakes as I would have eaten them anyway and so essentially just cut out bread/pasta/sugar

I generally over the years eat quite well but past few years developed a sweet tooth so ice cream / magnums that would then trigger a binge of bread / toast. I would then fall into not eating (under the guise of fasting) then binge again it was very stressful and made me feel disgusted with myself.

I had terrible headaches for a couple of days then they went.

This woe seems to be so calm and peaceful for me. My bloating has gone and I'm not getting tiredness crashes after lunch. When I'm hungry it's a dull hunger that can wait not a famished eat everything in sight hunger. This means I am motivated to make a proper meal which I'll enjoy rather than feed the hunger immediately with crap.

Yesterday I went off it just to see what happened and I had bread and pasta and pizza - I felt absolutely rubbish and tired and swollen so it's given me complete desire to carry on.

It feels natural and eating cheese, butter and cream is weird as the food tastes so much nicer that I do then concentrate on it more and savour the tastes which leads to feeling more satiated as well.

I usually exercise a lot but haven't for a month or so due to holidays and stuff so will be interesting to see how it goes when I start to ramp that up as I actually do lose more weight when I don't exercise normally anyway - it's true for me exercise makes me put on weight.

Anyway I'd highly recommend this way of eating to anyone

I'm trying to combine this WoE with slimming world. It's an interesting experiment. Much of their food and advice revolves around UPF so I'm cooking recipes from scratch but making substitutions. They're obsessed with frylite but I'm using an olive oil spray to reduce the amount of oil but making sure it's good quality. Same with low fat bits and pieces, I'm making sure they've got natural fats etc.

What I do like about their approach is cooking from scratch and being able to eat as much veg as I like.

2 weeks in, 4 st to lose, weigh in this Wednesday!

Welcome to all the new posters. Ive been dping this woe for about 4 months now. Probably stick to it 80% of the time. Have completely given up bread, pasta and wheat apart from a very, very occasional slice of pizza. Cut out sugar as well apart from 1 treat a week, usually on a sunday. I do occasionally have wheat in the form of flour in homemade Yorkshire puddings or sauces but it's a very occasional sort of thing.

Have lost about 19lb so far, feel much healthier, less tummy issues and my creaky knees creak slightly less.

Have had a goodish weekend. Dh picked fish and chips up on friday. Obviously not ideal but a healthier takeaway than we would usually have. And I enjoyed it very much. Yesterday we had indian takeaway for dinner, which actually suits this woe as I know they use ghee to cook with and cook from scratch. No nan bread, just a poppadom. I had ham, cheese and eggs in the oven yesterday for lunch, was lush as usual.

Today I've had rye ryvitas with philly for lunch and having roast beef for dinner. Will probably have a pudding of some description as well but am OK with that.

Hi... been lurking and reading for a while as I think this approach is what I need for the long term / I'm currently low carving/ calorie counting to lose weight and I'm getting closer to target ~ 22 lbs gone and around 10 lbs to go...

I've read the book (skimmed a bit so I will go back and read again) and whilst I think I might have occasional blips it would be manageable for long term. I don't want to go keto as I also want to keep sweeteners to the minimum but I do want to be able to have the odd treat without thinking too hard.

I am interested in the Glycaemic load aspect but it does seem like effort to track that - can anyone recommend a straightforward app or similar?

Dr R is on Chris evens breakfast show at the moment