Why We Eat (Too Much) Thread 5

[TheLeadbetterLife]

Happy New Year regulars, lurkers and newcomers!

Welcome to thread 5 of discussion, encouragement and advice inspired by the book Why We Eat (Too Much), by Dr Andrew Jenkinson.

The basic principles of this "diet" (it's not one in the traditional sense, as it's meant to be a permanent set of changes), are as follows:

• cut out ultra-processed food
• massively reduce sugar, carbs, refined flours and wheat
• eat a wide variety of vegetables, whole grains and fruit
• eat full fat dairy and other healthy fats like extra virgin olive oil
• improve the ratio of omega 3 to 6 by eating greens, fish, eggs and grass-fed meat, and cutting out ultra-refined seed oils

Important lifestyle changes include getting plenty of rest, relaxation and sleep, as well as taking a moderate amount of exercise (or more, if you like that sort of thing).

You don't need to count calories (in fact, you shouldn't), though it may help to count carbs or glycemic load, at least to begin with, until you get the hang of it.

Some of us share recipes by following each other on Copy Me That - www.copymethat.com/recipebox/the-leadbetter-life/6661160/

As well as the book mentioned in the title, the principles are similar to those espoused by the likes of Rangan Chatterjee, Robert Lustig, Tim Spector and Michael Mosley.

There are many successes on this thread, and the main thing is that we are aiming to make permanent, sustainable changes to adjust our weight set-points downwards.

Join us!

I am glad you had a shift downwards after all your hard work Words. And Very wise to work with what you've got instead of working against it.

I did loose another pound so that's 4 pounds in about 3 weeks. If that keeps up I will loose 3 stone in a year. I did have some pizza last night but eating bread once a fortnight makes it sustainable! Steak with mushrooms in stilton cream for tonight. Followed by a gin night which might do dome damage

Next week will be hard as it's half-term and I will struggle to get to the gym, also it's my son's birthday so eating out at least twice. I will have to plan in as much as I can.

I still haven't finished the book, but I am finding it interesting, I have downloaded one of Tim Spector's (and reserved the other at the library) so I have plenty of reading material lined up.

I'm trying to start adopting the principles now.

Have been having a lunch of Spinach and Rocket leaves with tomatoes, a pepper, a poached or boiled egg and some chicken this week. Dressing has been a drizzle of garlic infused olive oil.

I don't always have breakfast but I have had either Greek yogurt or a bit of cheese. We have porridge in if I want something more filling, and I am not averse to left over dinner for breakfast!

Dinners haven't really been on plan every day as I had stuff to use up, but it was nice to know that my homemade chilli is on plan and I can even have some brown rice with it.

I am going to try to limit pasta to a maximum of once a week (and I already use wholemeal). It is easy enough to ditch bread and pastry at home but it will be more difficult when I am out. Suggestions for dealing with Cafes and Pubs are most welcome, DH loves a cafe stop when we are out!

Oh and I have a special treat afternoon tea next weekend which will be totally off plan, but I'll try to make sure the rest of the week is good to limit the damage.

DH is NOT helping matters

OMG angel ! Shall we share the one on the left?

Jesus - which Tim Spector is it? I've just started Spoonfed and it's fascinating stuff.

No breakfast, then bacon and scrambled egg with roasted toms, then a small slice of cheese and blueberry chutney ( no sugar, home made) for brunch. Felt a bit dizzy ( still adjusting to time restricted eating). so also had a spoonful of Greek yog and raspberries with a drizzle of honey.

Dinner chez words is a red wine game stew( recipe for that and the chutney on copy me that ) with kale and broccoli. And mash, obviously.

Was beginning to worry I wouldn't be able to get the car out as it's snowed very heavily here, but temperatures have risen and mostly just slush now. Hope everyone ok weather-wise.

Steak with a stilton, cream and mushrooms for tea. Carby peas but better than chips! Also a glass of red 😋

@Words

OMG angel ! Shall we share the one on the left?

Jesus - which Tim Spector is it? I've just started Spoonfed and it's fascinating stuff.

No breakfast, then bacon and scrambled egg with roasted toms, then a small slice of cheese and blueberry chutney ( no sugar, home made) for brunch. Felt a bit dizzy ( still adjusting to time restricted eating). so also had a spoonful of Greek yog and raspberries with a drizzle of honey.

Dinner chez words is a red wine game stew( recipe for that and the chutney on copy me that ) with kale and broccoli. And mash, obviously.

Was beginning to worry I wouldn't be able to get the car out as it's snowed very heavily here, but temperatures have risen and mostly just slush now. Hope everyone ok weather-wise.

@Words we would have to, they are huge and even weigh a ton!!! No one could manage a full one and I say that as someone not shy of a slice of cake!!

Can't believe I've found this thread, I finished the book a couple of weeks ago so am slowly starting to change habits. I'm exactly the same as the previous poster, I've 1.5 stone to lose so have decided I'll be eating healthier if nothing else.

I've cut bread and pasta (I normally eat ALOT of bread) and haven't found that part differcult. Family are enjoying the marge replacement with the butter as well.

Welcome @BadSpellaSpellaSpella. Yes, the opportunity to have butter, lard and cheese without worrying is the best thing about this diet.

Our chickens are laying like gangbusters at the moment, so I made a load of devilled eggs for snacking, and we had a courgette and Emmental omelette for dinner.

By way of a Saturday night dessert I made warm chocolate puddings by thickening a cream and dark chocolate ganache with egg and a teaspoon of cornflour. I added half a teaspoon of sugar (between two of us) and a little cinnamon and chilli for an Aztec flavour.

My theory is that this is a fairly acceptable pudding, since it's no more chocolate than we normally have after dinner, I've just melted it with cream. Am I way off in my thinking?

Welcome bad !

Leadbetter that sounds delicious and am sure is fine plan-wise.

My game stew was really really good, though needed much longer in the oven than the recipe said, perhaps because it was in an old cast iron casserole which takes a while to heat through. There are also a few editing glitches in the instructions but easy to work out if you read it through first.
Loads for the freezer as made full quantity:

https://www.copymethat.com/r/JwK7sH16p/how-to-cook-the-perfect-game-stew-and-pi/

Wordy Dog cut her paw pad slightly yesterday then got road salt in it, so no long walk today - not that it would have been much fun anyway as snow is now replaced with torrential rain.

I have aubergine, sweet potato and celeriac to use up somehow in the next day or two. I am thinking some sort of cheesy tomatoey thing with the aubergine, and maybe roasted chunks of sweet potato?

Hello I am trying to get back on the bandwagon

This might sound like a ridiculous question

What do you have instead of wheat/ flour?

So instead of bread
Instead of crackers

Is gluten free enough or should they be gone all together?

Hi @houserenohelp, welcome back!
Gluten free isn't ok, in fact it's often worse because sugar is added. The idea is to cut out all products made with refined flour.
I don't eat anything in place of bread and crackers, I just have soup on its own, cheese and salad, it oatcakes and rice cakes could be used as a substitute.

@houserenohelp hi!

@Words posted a really useful pdf in the last thread, which was a draft of a book by Dr Robert Lustig.

In the introduction he writes about an education programme for American children about diet and nutrition, in which he teaches them that dessert is okay, but you should only have one a day. The thing is, he says, dessert could be one cookie, or a small pudding, or it could be a glass of wine, a piece of bread, a portion of pasta or potatoes. Because all of those things are metabolically dessert.

I’ve tried to adopt this principle since I read that - one dessert a day. Most days for me that is a little bit of dark chocolate. On special occasions I might go nuts and have bread, wine, potatoes and pudding, but that’s very rare.

So I don’t eat bread and crackers most of the time. They’re treats.

[quote TheLeadbetterLife]@houserenohelp hi!

@Words posted a really useful pdf in the last thread, which was a draft of a book by Dr Robert Lustig.

In the introduction he writes about an education programme for American children about diet and nutrition, in which he teaches them that dessert is okay, but you should only have one a day. The thing is, he says, dessert could be one cookie, or a small pudding, or it could be a glass of wine, a piece of bread, a portion of pasta or potatoes. Because all of those things are metabolically dessert.

I’ve tried to adopt this principle since I read that - one dessert a day. Most days for me that is a little bit of dark chocolate. On special occasions I might go nuts and have bread, wine, potatoes and pudding, but that’s very rare.

So I don’t eat bread and crackers most of the time. They’re treats.[/quote]
Can we not have potatoes?

We can have anything, but Jenkinson recommends gradually reducing carbs down to less than 100g, or even 80g, per day. Personally I prefer to have those carbs in the form of oats and nuts, but sometimes I have potatoes.

Here's the link:

robertlustig.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Fat-Chance-Cookbook_Eat-REAL-Download.pdf

@angeltattoo

DH is NOT helping matters

That is not helpful of him!

Though interestingly I looked at that picture and thought 'nah...'

I don't never want dessert these days but mostly I don't. As leadbetter said earlier, your taste buds can adapt.

Needs some inspro

What are your favourite meals for this WOE

@houserenohelp I made a really delicious soup yesterday, it was whole chicken thighs, skin side down in a dry saucepan over low-medium heat to release the fat from the skins. Lid on or it spits everywhere & it's an excellent test of the smoke alarm. While they were doing that, I cut up a load of vegetables - leek, celery, a carrot, mushrooms... lots of vegetables all low-ish carb, I think the highest carb thing was the carrot. Took the thighs out of the pan onto a plate when they were no longer pink & discarded the skin (which was pretty crispy by this point). Chucked all the veg in & the skinned chicken thighs, left the bones in for flavour. Added some dried sage, rosemary & a bay leaf. Enough water to generously cover & brought it to the boil, then let it simmer until the veg were cooked. I added some more veg towards the end (cavolo nero). Salt & pepper to taste. It was delicious.

@words I have spoonfed and diet myth to read, one is from the library the other was 99p on Google books.

We eat a lot of curries with rice, Asian food, and grilled meat (normally with fries and salad).

When alone I have a grilled vegetables concoction I love; grilled asparagus, onions and peppers with tomato passata, olives and melted goat cheese.

I also did an awesome cauliflower cheese the other day with more cheese than cauliflower.

Cheese omelette is a go-to for lunch, also crispy bacon with avocado, black pepper and lemon juice.

Does anyone else find that honey is basically fine? I have a lot on my morning yoghurt and it never seems to cause me a problem (whereas a relatively small daily amount of chocolate causes trouble within a few days).

What do you mean by fine Aria? There are very few foods that cause me a problem in the sense of indigestion or bloating.

Roasted garlic gives me gas, and if I eat a lot of bread I get water retention, but otherwise I have no immediate problems as such. I just have to assume that eating sugar is going to lead to insulin rises and therefore weight gain, so I don’t eat honey (sadly, because in the old days there was nothing I loved more than buttered toast with honey).

@TheLeadbetterLife I mean it doesn't seem to affect my weight.

Normally if a food is causing me to gain weight it happens fairly quickly so I can generally tell.

That's also what I mean when I say rice is fine for me but I have to ration potato.