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!

Morning, just catching up on posts. DP been poorly with covid so not had much spare time.

Thanks for the oat cake recommendations! @Words I like cooking and baking but I might try the Tesco ones suggested by @TooExtraImmatureCheddar to get an idea of how they're supposed to turn out first.
Yesterday was another good day, bits are starting to click into place. I'm avoiding the scales for now though.
Hope everyone gets to enjoy the nice weather this weekend!

Great to hear some new and much needed advice and recipes on here, thanks everyone.

Well done on your losses, @Words.

I'm having homemade veggie kedgeree for lunch, made with brown rice. Delish!

Weather is glorious here, so a second walk is on the cards.

@Words glad to hear you're heading downwards again!

I've followed theleadbetter life on Copymethat! How do we offer up a recipe to share?
Or do we just follow everyone who follows leadbetter?

Morning @picklemewalnuts. We all follow each other, it it's also good to set up your own account, v easy to do.

Then you find your online recipe, and on my iPad, I click the square with upward arrow symbol to open it in safari, then click that symbol again which will bring up a list of apps,. Choose the Copy me That app and it will appear on your account. Then you just have to confirm the details ( it will strip away the annoying bloggy type stuff ) and that's it!

Made date slice with oats yesterday to take away with me. Soaked the dates in cinnamon tea and drastically reduced the sugar content:

www.copymethat.com/r/prrnSnanx/super-easy-sticky-date-oat-slices/

It's a fabulous resource to keep all your online finds together.

Those date slices sound delicious @Words I think I'm due for a baking session. I'm nearly out of crackers so first thing will be oatcakes (I looked at the recipe, it seems straightforward!) but the slices sound like a nice treat.
I've had a mostly terribly off plan weekend but enjoyed every moment, lots of eating out which can be difficult. I'm ready for tomorrow though with my lunch prepared (vegetable and butterbean soup) and something mince based for dinner.

Good morning everyone! Looking forward to a relatively less busy work week, DP in tbe office a couple of days and no INSET days!

This month is flying by, but I'm so enjoying this WOE and am curious to see what the scales say on 1 April.

Weather is glorious here, so will walking at lunchtime.

I’ve been weighing daily and the trend is definitely downwards - I’ve lost 2lbs in 2 weeks of good focus, despite birthday cake and ice cream consumption in that time. I’m nearly back to my October weight before I fell off the wagon - only a pound to go! Then I can start making proper progress.

Loving your news, @TooExtraImmatureCheddar, well done!

Well done cheddar!

I'm paying attention to carbs, so have looked back at the book. He says to start with a glycemic load of 100 and aim to reduce. Have you found a good glycemic load calculator? The one I started with was glitchy. It's a bit of a pain, in comparison with just calculating grams of carbs!

I'm pleased, I don't seem to have put any on after my week away when I ate very well indeed (if not on plan)!

It really bodes well for being slightly more relaxed!

I've ordered all my usual dairy products in full fat this week. I tried full fat plain yogurt on holiday- I don't think I've ever had it before. It's a revelation. Delicious in its own right, no need to add flavourings.

I'm assuming sweeteners are a no no, though I didn't see that in the book, yet.

@picklemewalnuts

Well done cheddar!

I'm paying attention to carbs, so have looked back at the book. He says to start with a glycemic load of 100 and aim to reduce. Have you found a good glycemic load calculator? The one I started with was glitchy. It's a bit of a pain, in comparison with just calculating grams of carbs!

The way I read that section of the book is to stay under 100 grams of carbs but others may be along to put me right.

No to sweeteners, picklemewalnuts. You can have honey because it's natural, though, or fruit.

I don't count carbs - I am still eating potatoes/rice/sweet potatoes, but not wheat/sugar. Or at least not 95% of the time!

Oh great. Perhaps I'll just aim to reduce carbs, starting with bread/cracker type stuff and pasta, then rice, then oats, then fruit and potato. May not need to get that far down the list. The whole glycemic load thing sounds far too hard.

Cake and sugary things are essentially off, but ok as a treat when we're off plan?

I'll miss sweeteners. I've a major diet cola habit, and have a thing with jelly crystals and grapes that stops me eating naughtier foods! I'll have to tackle that later, when I've started eating other tasty things instead!

I know i have asked before but I am struggling to know what to eat!

Breakfast porridge or scrambled eggs

Lunch - eggs if not for breakie/ soup/ rice cake and peanut butter

Dinner - tends to be something with a jacket Pot or stew/curry and rice or fish veg and potatoes

I feel abit overwhelmed tbh but saying that def have less hunger when i stick to plan

Was away so harder to stick to it but avoided bread still my packed lunch was boiled eggs

@houserenohelp that all sounds good! If you go back and look at the first post on this thread there's a really handy breakdown.

I think the big 3 are:

No processed food.
No sugar.
No wheat.

My plan today is:

Rice cakes (100% rice) with cheese or butter.
Homemade soup - usually with 3 or 4 tins of pulses added to bulk it up.
Veggie curry, possibly with brown rice, or a bowl of natural yoghurt with a banana, raspberries and blueberries.

I know people use a recipe sharer here, but I can't remember the link!

I usually skip breakfast but have something like omelette/salad/oatcakes and cheese for lunch, sometimes risotto or fry-up. Dinner can be almost anything - I don't often cook pasta so it's been reasonably easy to focus on rice or potato-based meals. Last night I had pork belly strips, small baked potatoes, cabbalo nero and a homemade sticky soy and honey sauce, and it was completely delicious. I just left the sugar out of the sauce recipe. And lunch was prawn cocktail - Marie Rose sauce made from mayo, tomato puree and smoked paprika. Not homemade mayo, though, my culinary skills don't stretch that far!

@picklemewalnuts

I think the issue with sweeteners is twofold. Firstly, they tend to go hand in hand with spooky, UPF type things. I would put soft drinks in that category, as they're full of weird ingredients (including salt apparently, which is why they don't quench your thirst. The high sugar content is there to disguise the taste of the salt!). Secondly, I avoid them because even if the calorie intake is zero, it's still feeding a sweet tooth, when a better strategy is to try to adjust your taste buds so that you don't want so much sweet stuff.

Honey, fruit etc can be counted as part of the glycemic load / carb allowance.

@TooExtraImmatureCheddar

Try Delia's quick blender mayonnaise, it's a doddle. I don't have the patience to make proper mayonnaise (or any of the egg-based emulsions like hollandaise), but the blender one works every time. I make it with extra virgin olive oil and I love the strong flavour, though it probably takes a bit of getting used to.

@houserenohelp

I know i have asked before but I am struggling to know what to eat!

Breakfast porridge or scrambled eggs

Lunch - eggs if not for breakie/ soup/ rice cake and peanut butter

Dinner - tends to be something with a jacket Pot or stew/curry and rice or fish veg and potatoes

I feel abit overwhelmed tbh but saying that def have less hunger when i stick to plan

Was away so harder to stick to it but avoided bread still my packed lunch was boiled eggs

Ok so to give you an idea this is what I have

Breakfast none most days but occasionally I have some plain full fat Greek yogurt or a couple of slices of cheese, or cheese on a ryvita mid morning or mid afternoon if I am peckish.

Lunch - salad, spinach, watercress, rocket, tomatoes, pepper, celery, a boiled egg, a couple of slices of chicken, a drizzle of olive oil either chilli or garlic infused. Some days I add a bit of cheese or have cheese instead of the chicken. Alternatively omelette or leftovers from the night before. I try to keep this low carb so I can have my carbs at dinner time.

Dinner - last night homemade chilli con carne with brown rice. Chicken curry with brown rice is a common dinner too. Tonight Indonesian beef tray bake which is ready made, there is a bit of cornflour in the sauce sachet but it is pretty small so I am not going to stress about it, I will do some extra veg and a baked potato with it.

Later this week I will probably have chicken and veg traybake one day, and homemade jambalaya (with brown rice) another day, then stuffed peppers (mince beef and brown rice in tomato sauce topped with cheese).

Breakfast today, a cube of cheese.
Lunch two ryvita, another cube of cheese, and some fruit salad.
(It was a busy unplanned morning and there's nothing in the fridge!)

Dinner will be a traybake. Veg and potatoes roast in a pan alongside good quality sausages. Chicken works well, too. Coat the chicken with Mayo and spices so it doesn't dry out- yum.

Yesterday's Dinner was chicken curry made with tinned tomatoes, tikka paste, onions and cauliflower. It should have cream/yogurt but I've run out, so it will be creamed coconut and some milk powder. And a small serving of rice.

I've been eating a lot of omelettes. Whisk up the eggs, pour in the pan, then when nearly cooked full with spinach/rocket or similar. Takes 5 mins, and feels quite indulgent especially if you add cheese! I like mushrooms and blue cheese in the middle, too.

I've had overnight oats, too. I'm new to breakfast so don't find it easy. 20g of oats goes a long way, though.

I've had French onion soup for lunch, too. That was great!

Lunch is usually leftovers from dinner or an omelette. Maybe a jacket potato.

Dinner is often a curry, often some kind of roast or traybake.

I'm glad to read it's not just me that doesn't tend to bother with breakfast! I don't tend to get hungry until at least 11 and often just have a boiled egg to get me to lunch.
The shared meal plans are SO helpful for me just starting out please keep them coming!
It's also raised a couple of questions, are ryvita okay?! I picked some up yesterday as I was going with the 'read the label and see if you understand it' and obviously I did, just rye flour.
Also, curry pastes. I eat a lot of curry and use good quality pastes and spice blends- that's alright isn't it?
I do have sweeteners in my hot drinks but nothing else, no fizzy drinks or any of that powdered stuff. It's one of my compromises!
Sorry for all the questions, I'm surprised there's not more info online by now. It's hard to know where the line is re processed food. I'm going to try and find that documentary about upf..

Spice blends will be ok if there's no sugar/flour in them. Pastes vary. I'm using mine up, but will be careful when buying. It will be the wrong kind of oil, but only a smidgen so it depends how hard core you are!

Compromises is right. If you're doing everything else right, then the oil in the curry paste won't matter.

The two large cookies I accidentally ate last night will matter a lot more than my curry paste!

So today- breakfast was a handful of brazils at 11am.
Lunch will be left over curry.
Dinner... Mujadara it's in my copy me that. Lentils rice and onions.

That will mean no wheat today, just fruit and nuts/lentils/rice. So that should be ok, I think. Certainly better than many things!

Meal planning really helps. I must get back into it.

I've been into Copy Me That and changed my settings so the why we eat compliant recipes are clearer.