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!

@Norachance

Why We Eat (Too Much) http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weightlosss_chat/4023261-Why-We-Eat-Too-Much

And thread 2

Why We Eat (Too Much) Thread 2 http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weightlosss_chat/4245218-Why-We-Eat-Too-Much-Thread-2

We had the cows discussion at one point. I think we concluded that cows in the uk and Europe are mostly grass fed.

I am in the USA and I buy Irish / European cheese and specifically look for milk from grass fed cows though you can only get it as uht out here for some reason.

Thank you 😊

Gosh so much to think about!

I've just prepped salad for days! Carrots and cabbage shredded, and coleslaw made.

The carrots will also be mixed with sweetcorn and lemon juice, peanuts added at the last minute, as a salad.

Cucumber thinly sliced with dill.

A small gammon piece in the pressure cooker (doesn't make the kitchen hot).

It's too hot to cook!

The heatwave is in force here in Portugal too, we're hiding indoors with all the windows and shutters closed to keep the hot air out.

I discovered Elizabeth David's classic chocolate mousse recipe yesterday, which I consider to be completely on plan, as it has only two ingredients - chocolate and egg. You mix the yolks with the melted chocolate, then fold it all into the stiffly-beaten whites.

I use a very high quality, dark (75%), Belgian couverture chocolate, which has no palm oil or other shite added.

I love chocolate mousse, and this is the best one I've ever tasted. Surely it's the perfect dessert for this diet?

< swoons>

Erm, linky please if possible!

I've been making my chocolate mousse like that for ages, it's how it's made here in France. I remember posting the recipe on a very old thread somewhere. It's a great way of using up eggs too, I use 6 eggs to 200g dark chocolate. It's so easy and very tasty, and on plan as Leadbetter says.
Still drowning in courgettes here so any other recipes welcome! I made a courgette gratin, also on plan with eggs, crème fraîche and Emmental which is also on plan.

I think people's tastes in Portugal are less sophisticated, sam. Chocolate mousse is a popular dessert in restaurants, but it's quite sweet and they use a 40-50% chocolate.

Here's Elizabeth David's recipe, as it's written in the book, with my notes:

Use 1oz chocolate and one egg per serving / person

(I also did 200g to six eggs, but I've divided it into smaller servings for every day consumption).

Melt the chocolate in a thick pan over a low flame with a tablespoon of water (I suspended a bowl over a pan of water). A tablespoon of rum added will do no harm.

Stir the chocolate until it is smooth. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks. Stir the melted chocolate into the yolks.

Whip the whites very stiffly and fold them over and over into the chocolate, so that they are perfectly blended, or the chocolate may sink to the bottom.

Morning all! I am back from holidays and back on plan as of yesterday. I've gained two pounds, but given that we had a daily croissant and baguette delivery for 10 days that's actually pretty good going. And they were delicious and I'm not sorry! Anyway that's probably partly holiday blip and partly water retention from the heat, so it's not bothering me.

Yesterday I started back in strong with chicken and avocado salad for lunch and my first attempt at cauliflower rice for dinner. It was a Green Chef box (my last one, have now cancelled my subscription) so had packet hoisin sauce which is not on-plan, but the cauliflower rice was not as much of a ficker to make as I thought it would be and delicious! I grated quarters of cauliflower using a normal grater because I don't have a food processor (well, I do but it's in the garage and never used, and I bar recipes that can't be done using normal every day utensils), and then fried it with olive oil and it was amazing. I always thought it would be soggy and weird. I had it with loch trout, which was also delicious - nicer and redder than salmon.

My new goal is to stick to the plan over the rest of the summer, and not go mad on ice cream and rose wine like last year.

@TheLeadbetterLife I love Portugese food, I have very fond memories of grilled sardines which always tasted better there than at home!
I find it really hard to get a smooth melted chocolate mix with the eggs, there are often a few lumps of chocolate in mine but the family like it so I'm not too worried: I don't think I'm quick enough at folding in the egg whites!
@TooExtraImmatureCheddar were you on holiday in France? 2lbs is a really small weight gain in that case! We have an excellent boulangerie in our village and I go in most days, but only every buy bread , croissants, patisserie for my family, never me: I don't miss them now, but it was hard at first (they do the best mille feuilles ever):
Water retention is definitely an issue in this heat so I'm ignoring the scales for the next week or so! It's too hot to eat much so weight gain unlikely:

I gave this WOE my best shot but I just couldn't lose anything and this isn't a weight I wanted to maintain!
Despite my instincts, I've gone to calorie counting and the weight is coming off. I'm trying to get my cals from "good" food but there is some processed stuff and dairy is back to lower fat.
I'm hoping to get to target and slowly come back to you all..

I think some of us have sufficiently disordered eating that we don't easily adjust to richer food by eating less.

I'm finding I can include now more nuts and whole dairy, but still need to follow slimming world. I've cut out the fake yogurts and bar type things. I'm still using the fake mayonnaise, but that's more because I bought it accidentally forgetting that I now use yogurt instead.

That's maintenance though, rather than actual weight loss.

Hello Everyone and thank you for the recipe @TheLeadbetterLife.

I am on holiday , self catering which should have been fine, except for my purchases of erm, cake, from the highly acclaimed cafe en route. I actually justified it thinking to myself two slices would easily last a week, cut into, you know bite size portions....

Hahahahahha oh dear, hahahahahah.

One slice down, two days in.....

Getting loads of walking in, and am not sorry about the cake! There has also been A Birthday, which justified scone, cream and jam. Not looking forward to the weigh in.

And it's not even especially hot here, so can't blame any weight gain on water retention either. Pah.

Oh and I certainly have trouble adjusting to eating less with a richer diet.

Or even, adjusting to eating less of anything, really...if I did I would be at goal weight by now...

Definitely disordered eating here, but even so am very much better than two years ago.

I agree about the disordered eating, I can happily continue to eat like a Viking at a feast even once full. I do think my body has adjusted in some ways though, as I couldn't eat the quantities of bread or pasta I used to. Carbs sit so heavily that I don't enjoy them as much anymore. Cheese and yoghurt on the other hand... I can't allow myself unlimited quantities of those, because I don't know if I have a limit.

I think it helps me a lot that my husband also follows this diet with me, and we don't have anyone else (human) in our household. I've just made another batch of chocolate mousse and divided it into 12 small portions, to last us six days. If I were on my own and not accountable to anyone, I doubt it would last two.

Well done Billybagpuss. Fantastic result. You should be so proud.

Off the wagon again. I don't know what has gotten into me. Will join back in on the next thread.

Oui! I was in Provence, in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and it was just stunning. Which part of France are you in?

I do find it hard to remember not to have one of the croutons I just made for tonight's salad etc.

So, listing again because it helps remind me not to stray!

Lunch will be salads left over from yesterday- bean salad, Waldorf ish salad, tuna and olives, some pearl barley, maybe a little cheese and ryvita.

Dinner will be a Cobb (?) salad- romaine, celery, eggs, bacon, no croutons, tomatoes, olives... Parmesan would be nice too.

I've got some blackcurrants to eat. Probably with yogurt. Maybe frozen? I could make a tub of faux icecream. How could I soften it, do you think?

I buy bags of frozen raspberries to have with my yoghurt, and when they're straight out of the freezer they mush up with the yoghurt and freeze it slightly. It's nice on days like we're having at the moment. Maybe you could freeze the blackcurrants? Freezing the yoghurt will be a non-starter without additional ingredients like sugar.

I've read up a bit. Apparently if you whip the yogurt first, you get a fluffiness that survives the freezing.

I'm going to give it a go with ricotta and Greek yogurt.

@TooExtraImmatureCheddar I'm in Brittany, as far as you can get from Provence (which is gorgeous). Been here 20 years now, married to a Frenchman and going to the UK now is like going to a foreign country, the portions in pubs/restaurants are huge and people are so friendly there compared to France. This WOE isn't great for boulangeries but I know more and more French people who are cutting down on bread/croissant/cake consumption

Hi everyone, I've just picked the book up from the library and it's already completely signing to me. I'm only about a third of the way through, but have struggled with my weight for about 15 years. First did SlimmingWorld 12 years ago, got down to 11st7, bmi 22.5. I then put it all back on over 2/3 years, then even more with baby no1, then did it again between babies. This time I've been doing it 4.5 years. Started at 15st12, lost 3st then put 1.5 back on. Now it just won't shift. As soon as I lose a few pounds I'm ravenous, backing up the jenkinson theory.

As this is such a big shift in eating, and I can't get my head around high fat, I'm not going to start straight away but read more, work out what I can eat then start after my holiday in august.

Someone on here combines this WOE with slimming world.
They count the fats as healthy extras or savvy syns. It's not unmanageable.

Presumably if you get good at it, over time you can allow yourself more healthy extras and syns while still maintaining! That's what I'm aiming for, approximately.