I'm confused about the crisps/mug recommended portion
April 25, 2016 8:29 AM Subscribe
I'm just like, so wait, enough crisps to equal the weight of the mug or to fill a mug because I have some large-ass tea mugs, let me tell you.
posted by Kitteh at 8:40 AM on April 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 8:40 AM on April 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
Ozeri Multifunction Digital Kitchen and Food Scale, elegant and black
posted by chrchr at 8:41 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by chrchr at 8:41 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
MyFitnessPal FTW. I just hit my 365 day streak yesterday.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:48 AM on April 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
posted by leotrotsky at 8:48 AM on April 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
Literally the only thing that worked to help me lose weight was to set aside half of what I cooked as leftovers before even plating anything. If I didn't do that, I'd always go for seconds, even if I'd had more than enough to eat.
Our feedback loops are completely broken.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:48 AM on April 25, 2016 [18 favorites]
Our feedback loops are completely broken.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:48 AM on April 25, 2016 [18 favorites]
for like 90% of food items that exist on earth i can just stop eating when i'm full but then all of a sudden, potatoes.
i like getting mashed potatoes in single serving sizes from fresh direct even tho it costs as much as 3lbs of uncooked potatoes would because the last time i thought wow maybe i should try and save some money and buy a 5lb bag of potatoes i realized that i had no earthly clue how many to boil to make mash for one person for one meal and then i went into a fugue state and when i emerged i had eaten at least 3lbs of mash and an entire tub of sour cream
fucking potatoes
posted by poffin boffin at 8:53 AM on April 25, 2016 [100 favorites]
i like getting mashed potatoes in single serving sizes from fresh direct even tho it costs as much as 3lbs of uncooked potatoes would because the last time i thought wow maybe i should try and save some money and buy a 5lb bag of potatoes i realized that i had no earthly clue how many to boil to make mash for one person for one meal and then i went into a fugue state and when i emerged i had eaten at least 3lbs of mash and an entire tub of sour cream
fucking potatoes
posted by poffin boffin at 8:53 AM on April 25, 2016 [100 favorites]
We've been weighting and counting food since January to stick to calorie ranges. I still don't feel full after a proper meal. I miss being able to tuck into a bag of snacks without counting 17 pieces (or whatever) but mostly I miss feeling full.
The miserly amount of peanut butter I allow myself is depressing, but it's better than no PB at all.
posted by kimberussell at 8:53 AM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
The miserly amount of peanut butter I allow myself is depressing, but it's better than no PB at all.
posted by kimberussell at 8:53 AM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
When I got over 200 pounds, I was doing some thinking and I realized that it had been decades since I'd had even a nodding acquaintance with hunger.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:59 AM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:59 AM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
Funny, I was just reading Why It's Impossible to Just Eat Less
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:59 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:59 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
I have a kitchen scale which I use for cooking but not for doling out food for myself. I have finally gotten around to weighing pasta when I do eat it (which isn't often) so that's something. I mean, I know it's easy to eat too much so I try my best.
posted by Kitteh at 8:59 AM on April 25, 2016
posted by Kitteh at 8:59 AM on April 25, 2016
also honestly the meat serving sizes are fucking obnoxious and im not even going to pretend that i can survive on a piece of chicken the size of a deck of cards, what kind of sick freak would insist upon that. i will eat an entire chicken and no one can stop me
posted by poffin boffin at 9:01 AM on April 25, 2016 [21 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 9:01 AM on April 25, 2016 [21 favorites]
I've taken to pretending to have on They Live! glasses on in the grocery store, that convert labels to GET TYPE 2 DIABETES or HAVE A HEART ATTACK BEFORE AGE 50. What prompted this was an attempt at calorie counting, which has led me to become aware of just how much sugar I was eating. Like I'd buy a healthy-seeming cereal, but, look at the label, and it's like 14 g sugar per serving.
posted by thelonius at 9:02 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 9:02 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
Funny, I was just reading Why It's Impossible to Just Eat Less
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Oh, wait, I just went keto and started jogging. ...and the jogging was for health, not for weight.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:05 AM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Oh, wait, I just went keto and started jogging. ...and the jogging was for health, not for weight.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:05 AM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
why are we all eating too much?
Because food tastes good.
posted by jonmc at 9:07 AM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
Because food tastes good.
posted by jonmc at 9:07 AM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
I count calories on an extremely sporadic basis because measuring and weighing all my food is so incredibly obnoxious, but I find it's helpful to do even a couple times a week for just this reason -- I need to continually remind myself what an appropriate amount of food for my caloric needs actually looks like.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 9:10 AM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by the turtle's teeth at 9:10 AM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
We've been weighting and counting food since January to stick to calorie ranges. I still don't feel full after a proper meal.
You won't. Ever. That's the dirty trick of the whole thing. You can reduce your weight and be perfectly healthy, but your hunger sense will forever remain calibrated to whatever your maximum daily caloric intake was.
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Losing weight isn't impossible. Keeping it off more or less is, without superhuman discipline or personal chefs and trainers to keep you on track. Like, that's science. Biology sucks and wants us all to die young and fat.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:13 AM on April 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
You won't. Ever. That's the dirty trick of the whole thing. You can reduce your weight and be perfectly healthy, but your hunger sense will forever remain calibrated to whatever your maximum daily caloric intake was.
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Losing weight isn't impossible. Keeping it off more or less is, without superhuman discipline or personal chefs and trainers to keep you on track. Like, that's science. Biology sucks and wants us all to die young and fat.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:13 AM on April 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
The pasta & cheese sizes... I know them, rationally know them, but on a plate it makes me so sad. I generally up the cheese because I'm a vegetarian and shut up I know it doesn't work like that but a matchbox don't cut it round here.
In more related news: when I realised I was putting on weight living with my partner, one thing I did was buy a set of smaller plates for me. His and Hers may sound dumb, but I'm five nothing slug-a-bed and he's a six five cyclist, and he struggled to understand how little I needed to function on a day to day basis. So, yeah, get smaller plates and fill them up rather than putting less on a big plate.
posted by AFII at 9:14 AM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
In more related news: when I realised I was putting on weight living with my partner, one thing I did was buy a set of smaller plates for me. His and Hers may sound dumb, but I'm five nothing slug-a-bed and he's a six five cyclist, and he struggled to understand how little I needed to function on a day to day basis. So, yeah, get smaller plates and fill them up rather than putting less on a big plate.
posted by AFII at 9:14 AM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
An easy way to address this at home is simply to use smaller tableware.
One thing I've been noticing is that over here, while plates have not been growing in size for some time (although you can easily tell which are the newer ones - about an inch larger), but are becoming less round - most plates I see nowadays are squircles, making them larger without actually being bigger, if that makes any sense.
There's a lot of truth truth to the eyes also eating. I recall quite some years ago a chef did an experiment where people were served the same portion size in smal (although "80s regular" was probably right) and normal dishes. The ones most likely to have complained about (small) portion size by a very substancial margin were the ones with the larger plates, because most of what they saw was porcelain white, not food. Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised that serving a couple of shrimp with a fitful of rice with a spinach leaf and balsamic vinegar cream for decoration on a salad tray sized dish might make it feel more exclusive than if it was served on a regular plate.
Same with cellphone ads using models with small hands to make their devices look larger, I guess.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:16 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
One thing I've been noticing is that over here, while plates have not been growing in size for some time (although you can easily tell which are the newer ones - about an inch larger), but are becoming less round - most plates I see nowadays are squircles, making them larger without actually being bigger, if that makes any sense.
There's a lot of truth truth to the eyes also eating. I recall quite some years ago a chef did an experiment where people were served the same portion size in smal (although "80s regular" was probably right) and normal dishes. The ones most likely to have complained about (small) portion size by a very substancial margin were the ones with the larger plates, because most of what they saw was porcelain white, not food. Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised that serving a couple of shrimp with a fitful of rice with a spinach leaf and balsamic vinegar cream for decoration on a salad tray sized dish might make it feel more exclusive than if it was served on a regular plate.
Same with cellphone ads using models with small hands to make their devices look larger, I guess.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:16 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
We inherited some flatware and dinnerware from my in-laws and I kept saying, "My god, these are so tiny, what the hell." Now I know why!
posted by Kitteh at 9:19 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 9:19 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Yeah, check back in five years, man.
I don't think it's necessarily correct that your sense of hunger/satiety remains forever pegged to your maximum intake. I have an eating plan, but sometimes the rigors of life knock me off it. Coming back on, it's always a rough couple of days (usually starting on day two, when my body figures out it's for serious), but within a couple of weeks my appetite more or less adjusts to my intake. (Which is definitely not the same as saying I don't have food cravings, etc. Just that I can eat the allotted amount and not be hungry after.)
posted by praemunire at 9:19 AM on April 25, 2016 [11 favorites]
Yeah, check back in five years, man.
I don't think it's necessarily correct that your sense of hunger/satiety remains forever pegged to your maximum intake. I have an eating plan, but sometimes the rigors of life knock me off it. Coming back on, it's always a rough couple of days (usually starting on day two, when my body figures out it's for serious), but within a couple of weeks my appetite more or less adjusts to my intake. (Which is definitely not the same as saying I don't have food cravings, etc. Just that I can eat the allotted amount and not be hungry after.)
posted by praemunire at 9:19 AM on April 25, 2016 [11 favorites]
I honestly hate this photo set because thinking about food only in terms of how many calories it is is EXTREMELY reductive and misleading. 200 calories of cheese is not the same for your body as 200 calories of broccoli, or 200 calories of donut. We think of calories as evil, but living things need calories to survive! Straight up cutting calories just makes you tired and cranky and even sick. I think this kind of thing catches on quickly because the mindset of "all calories created equal just eat less of everything" is easy to grasp for busy people who don't have time to really plan out a healthy diet, which sucks because they end up just adding unhealthy calorie reduction to already stressed bodies.
posted by leafmealone at 9:33 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by leafmealone at 9:33 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
> You won't. Ever. That's the dirty trick of the whole thing. You can reduce your weight and be perfectly healthy, but your hunger sense will forever remain calibrated to whatever your maximum daily caloric intake was.
Untrue! For some, anyway. When we first went all low-carb and I was diligently tracking, I was often under 1000 calories per day but not hungry (because fat, protein). I am not as low-carby as I once was but still very rarely get the hungries the way I used to. It's been, what, four years? So it's a thing that can be possible.
posted by rtha at 9:35 AM on April 25, 2016 [25 favorites]
Untrue! For some, anyway. When we first went all low-carb and I was diligently tracking, I was often under 1000 calories per day but not hungry (because fat, protein). I am not as low-carby as I once was but still very rarely get the hungries the way I used to. It's been, what, four years? So it's a thing that can be possible.
posted by rtha at 9:35 AM on April 25, 2016 [25 favorites]
I hate my dinnerware for a lot of reasons, but I really like that the plates are small and would much prefer to replace it with more tiny plates, but who makes those?
posted by jeather at 9:39 AM on April 25, 2016
posted by jeather at 9:39 AM on April 25, 2016
diet hack! just stop eating anything you really like
no, really. the portion control part of this works itself out
the snag is the failure state of this diet, where you end up sitting on the curb outside a Safeway eating an entire wheel of brie, but until you reach that point, it really works
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:39 AM on April 25, 2016 [61 favorites]
no, really. the portion control part of this works itself out
the snag is the failure state of this diet, where you end up sitting on the curb outside a Safeway eating an entire wheel of brie, but until you reach that point, it really works
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:39 AM on April 25, 2016 [61 favorites]
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, because for the past two weeks, my lizard brain lust for food was just… turned off, I guess? I had a migraine that was followed by some really gross vomiting, and although I normally take a few days to get back to normal eating after such an event, that didn’t happen this time.
It wasn’t a few days of plain rice and an occasional banana, like I’m used to. Instead, I could feel the physical sensation of hunger, but eating seemed sort of . . . hypothetical? I wasn’t disgusted by the thought of food, but it didn’t particularly interest me either. I was eating because I knew I needed to, not because my entire animal self was staaaaaaaaaarving all day long (my usual hunger level). A tiny portion could be a meal, and even though I could tell I wasn’t full, it didn’t feel like pain to stop. Eating didn’t fill me with a rush of bliss chemicals— I could tell the food was nice and tasty, but whatever.
It has been kind of a revelation. I don’t expect it to last (alas), but I finally understand that my experience of hunger is actually viscerally different from, say, that of my mother, who was always one of those people who just wasn’t very interested in food.
It also made me wish that a lot of the naturally slim and un-hungry people who pound on the “losing weight is easy! just eat less!” drum could experience my “normal”.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:42 AM on April 25, 2016 [25 favorites]
It wasn’t a few days of plain rice and an occasional banana, like I’m used to. Instead, I could feel the physical sensation of hunger, but eating seemed sort of . . . hypothetical? I wasn’t disgusted by the thought of food, but it didn’t particularly interest me either. I was eating because I knew I needed to, not because my entire animal self was staaaaaaaaaarving all day long (my usual hunger level). A tiny portion could be a meal, and even though I could tell I wasn’t full, it didn’t feel like pain to stop. Eating didn’t fill me with a rush of bliss chemicals— I could tell the food was nice and tasty, but whatever.
It has been kind of a revelation. I don’t expect it to last (alas), but I finally understand that my experience of hunger is actually viscerally different from, say, that of my mother, who was always one of those people who just wasn’t very interested in food.
It also made me wish that a lot of the naturally slim and un-hungry people who pound on the “losing weight is easy! just eat less!” drum could experience my “normal”.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:42 AM on April 25, 2016 [25 favorites]
I hate my dinnerware for a lot of reasons, but I really like that the plates are small and would much prefer to replace it with more tiny plates, but who makes those?
Fiestaware luncheon plates! We eat almost all meals off them and only use the gigantic dinner plates when we're having a party.
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:43 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Fiestaware luncheon plates! We eat almost all meals off them and only use the gigantic dinner plates when we're having a party.
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:43 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
"diet hack! just stop eating anything you really like
no, really. the portion control part of this works itself out"
I'm currently working this exact diet hack. I love pasta and potatoes and bread and especially bread where sugar and other wonders have been added to level it up into cake(! YAY CAKE!) and also anything that is made of sugar whether or not chocolate is involved.
Having cut these things out almost entirely (except for dried dates which are Nature's Candy and you can't tell me I can't have them, just give me this one thing please) I have found that my portion sizing on everything else has moved around out of necessity. Dinner time now looks like a hunk of meat alongside a huge pile of vegetables. The work day involves just as many snacks but now more of them are fruit and nuts.
I certainly have felt a level of hunger with which I have not had recent acquaintance. I'm not a fan of that part. I am, however, a fan of having a better view of my abs and also not having my teeth rot out as quickly.
"the snag is the failure state of this diet, where you end up sitting on the curb outside a Safeway eating an entire wheel of brie, but until you reach that point, it really works"
s/entire wheel of brie/entire carrot cake/
posted by komara at 9:47 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
no, really. the portion control part of this works itself out"
I'm currently working this exact diet hack. I love pasta and potatoes and bread and especially bread where sugar and other wonders have been added to level it up into cake(! YAY CAKE!) and also anything that is made of sugar whether or not chocolate is involved.
Having cut these things out almost entirely (except for dried dates which are Nature's Candy and you can't tell me I can't have them, just give me this one thing please) I have found that my portion sizing on everything else has moved around out of necessity. Dinner time now looks like a hunk of meat alongside a huge pile of vegetables. The work day involves just as many snacks but now more of them are fruit and nuts.
I certainly have felt a level of hunger with which I have not had recent acquaintance. I'm not a fan of that part. I am, however, a fan of having a better view of my abs and also not having my teeth rot out as quickly.
"the snag is the failure state of this diet, where you end up sitting on the curb outside a Safeway eating an entire wheel of brie, but until you reach that point, it really works"
s/entire wheel of brie/entire carrot cake/
posted by komara at 9:47 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm five nothing slug-a-bed and he's a six five cyclist, and he struggled to understand how little I needed to function on a day to day basis.
OH MY GOD if he ever finally fully twigs to it will you please let me know how you did it? My boyfriend perpetually worries that I am starving to death when I eat even a bite less than he does.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:48 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
OH MY GOD if he ever finally fully twigs to it will you please let me know how you did it? My boyfriend perpetually worries that I am starving to death when I eat even a bite less than he does.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:48 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
2nding Fiesta salad/luncheon plates! You can also get tons of the saucers off ebay for not very much, and eating two saucers' worth of dinner is usually a pretty good portion. Plus you can pretend it's tapas.
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:50 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:50 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
I find I eat more appropriately when I eat actual meals. Which is weird for me. I mostly grave on a few things here and there to where I'm never really hungry but I'm never really full either. And then I look back at the end of the day and add it all up and I've consumed far more than I realized. It's a hard habit to break though.
posted by downtohisturtles at 9:51 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by downtohisturtles at 9:51 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Search terms that help finding smaller plates: Salad plate, small plate, appetizer plate, party plate (returns a lot of paper results though), dessert plate ("glass dessert plate" is better, I have about a dozen of these that I got at Walmart 10+ years ago). I also have these Corelle Bread and Butter plates.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:54 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Lyn Never at 9:54 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Counting calories doesn't mean figuring out which kale entry to choose, it means being aware that 2 tablespoons of olive oil in your tomato sauce is significantly more calories that one tablespoon. It means not rounding out your meal with extra pasta and bread. I went from 212lb at age 45 and cut back to 165 a couple years later. I've bounced around a bit but I accept that I'll always be a bit hungry. That's good. That's natural. We're biologically designed to survive and function on very little. Also, fuck sugar.
Not to say that people should have to live on very little. We only get one go-round for sure, so if eating a lot is one of your favourite things in life, go for it.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:56 AM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Not to say that people should have to live on very little. We only get one go-round for sure, so if eating a lot is one of your favourite things in life, go for it.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:56 AM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
I don't think it's necessarily correct that your sense of hunger/satiety remains forever pegged to your maximum intake.
Yes, same, if I was still somehow dependent on my high school intake when I was on the swim team then I would weigh about 800lbs right now. I'm definitely not eating an entire jar of peanut butter every day (as a snack! a between meals snack!) these days, and I would die if I tried.
honestly what works for me is just not keeping food in the house that isn't part of a specific meal. right now my only available snack-type food is full-fat plain greek yogurt and sunflower/pumpkin/flax seed butter. meanwhile i open the cupboard at my aunt & uncle's house and there are multiple huge family sized bags of chips and cookies and i go into a diabetic coma just looking at it. i hate visiting them because i gain noticeable weight in one weekend.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:56 AM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
Yes, same, if I was still somehow dependent on my high school intake when I was on the swim team then I would weigh about 800lbs right now. I'm definitely not eating an entire jar of peanut butter every day (as a snack! a between meals snack!) these days, and I would die if I tried.
honestly what works for me is just not keeping food in the house that isn't part of a specific meal. right now my only available snack-type food is full-fat plain greek yogurt and sunflower/pumpkin/flax seed butter. meanwhile i open the cupboard at my aunt & uncle's house and there are multiple huge family sized bags of chips and cookies and i go into a diabetic coma just looking at it. i hate visiting them because i gain noticeable weight in one weekend.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:56 AM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
I'm actually only looking for dinnerware that comes in sets and has a (small) dinner plate, a (smaller) salad plate and a (smallest) dessert plate, plus bowl. (No teacups or saucers.) This is essentially an impossible task.
posted by jeather at 9:59 AM on April 25, 2016
posted by jeather at 9:59 AM on April 25, 2016
The miserly amount of peanut butter I allow myself is depressing, but it's better than no PB at all.
Try this, it is amazing.
posted by biscotti at 10:03 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Try this, it is amazing.
posted by biscotti at 10:03 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Jeather, until you posted your follow-up post, I was going to suggest just buying some Duralex, because the small stackable bowls, the 7.5" plates and the 5.4" plates have been great for plating and portion control. And for reasons I'm sure Science can explain, putting everything on clear dishes somehow makes it look like there's more food.
posted by sobell at 10:05 AM on April 25, 2016
posted by sobell at 10:05 AM on April 25, 2016
omg if you eat it off a mirror it looks like there is 2x as much food i bet
posted by poffin boffin at 10:07 AM on April 25, 2016 [21 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 10:07 AM on April 25, 2016 [21 favorites]
so many potate
posted by poffin boffin at 10:07 AM on April 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 10:07 AM on April 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Yeah, check back in five years, man.
And, to be clear, the point of making statements like this is not to say "Feh, don't bother trying" or anything like that. Rather, I think it's an important antidote to the Green Lantern (all you need is more willpower) nonsense that pervades our thinking about diet and weight. Your body is actively fighting your attempts to lose weight, and it won't ever stop. If you backslide at all and your weight goes up again -- which it will, statistically speaking -- it's very important that you not feel like you have somehow failed. You haven't failed anything, biology is failing you.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:08 AM on April 25, 2016 [24 favorites]
Yeah, check back in five years, man.
And, to be clear, the point of making statements like this is not to say "Feh, don't bother trying" or anything like that. Rather, I think it's an important antidote to the Green Lantern (all you need is more willpower) nonsense that pervades our thinking about diet and weight. Your body is actively fighting your attempts to lose weight, and it won't ever stop. If you backslide at all and your weight goes up again -- which it will, statistically speaking -- it's very important that you not feel like you have somehow failed. You haven't failed anything, biology is failing you.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:08 AM on April 25, 2016 [24 favorites]
My hunger sense goes down when I start eating less; I was told by doctors this is pretty normal. Your stomach will naturally expand or shrink depending on how much or how little you push its limits.
I have noticed when I'm eating less for lets say, a week-- if I end the week with a big meal, I'll get full very quickly. But if I push myself to finish that big portion, then continue to have big meals during the week then I notice I get hungry a lot easier and the big meals become the new 'normal' for my stomach. At least in my case, overeating begets overeating and vice versa. It's tough to break the cycle though.
And yes, cutting calories to an extreme degree (for my body at least) was doing more harm than good for me. About 7 years ago when I was 'losing weight' and doing it for all the wrong reasons and doing it all wrong-- I was counting calories. I was on a decent number for my size, and it was going well, but I was impatient after a year and my loss had slowed down. I decided to go low carb, more cardio, and to 1200 cals a week and my body rebelled by clinging to every drop of fat and making me feel awful, headachey, and hungry all the time. I became obsessive about food, and couldn't enjoy anything. It was truly the pits. And as soon as I ate even an ounce close to normal, my body clung to that energy for deal life. No surprise, it thought it was starving. I don't doubt the statistic that says most people on diets gain weight within 2 years of losing it.
After I got healthy to be strong and feel better and not to solely lose weight-- I ate everything but in moderation, did more varied exercises other than just pure cardio (weights/intervals), and dropped the time limit (I gotta lose x in a year!), I felt so much better it was ridiculous. It took a lot longer, but I was happier for it to. I also (tried to) come to terms with never really being hollywood/media 'skinny' or trying to look a certain way.
It's absolutely great to learn good portion control; it's helped me immensely. Know what you're eating and where you're over-eating. But being obsessive about portions has not. As always it's a guideline and it's not JUST about, 'I can't eat peanut butter because it's like eating 20 celery sticks' or 'I can't have this piece of cheese because it's so fatty and high in calories,' -- there's GI stuff to consider, there's lots of things at play. It's more about eating everything but in moderation. It's trite but true. The way I tend to swing it is I'll think about my meals a bit more week to week. If I have a cheesy pasta dish planned for that night, I'll maybe skip the cheese in my sandwich, or ditch a piece of bread from it at lunch and make it open faced. If I want to have 6 pancakes in the morning, I might eat chicken and steamed veggies for dinner. I view it like a scale to balance; but I don't do it obsessively. You will have to pry my baked cheetos from my cold, dead hands.
It also helps me to savor things if I do indulge; so many times it's so easy to inhale things and eat from boredom, and it sucks.
Besides, half the stuff we know about things being 'bad' has been misguided. (Like eggs. And cheese. And salt and...)
posted by Dimes at 10:09 AM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
I have noticed when I'm eating less for lets say, a week-- if I end the week with a big meal, I'll get full very quickly. But if I push myself to finish that big portion, then continue to have big meals during the week then I notice I get hungry a lot easier and the big meals become the new 'normal' for my stomach. At least in my case, overeating begets overeating and vice versa. It's tough to break the cycle though.
And yes, cutting calories to an extreme degree (for my body at least) was doing more harm than good for me. About 7 years ago when I was 'losing weight' and doing it for all the wrong reasons and doing it all wrong-- I was counting calories. I was on a decent number for my size, and it was going well, but I was impatient after a year and my loss had slowed down. I decided to go low carb, more cardio, and to 1200 cals a week and my body rebelled by clinging to every drop of fat and making me feel awful, headachey, and hungry all the time. I became obsessive about food, and couldn't enjoy anything. It was truly the pits. And as soon as I ate even an ounce close to normal, my body clung to that energy for deal life. No surprise, it thought it was starving. I don't doubt the statistic that says most people on diets gain weight within 2 years of losing it.
After I got healthy to be strong and feel better and not to solely lose weight-- I ate everything but in moderation, did more varied exercises other than just pure cardio (weights/intervals), and dropped the time limit (I gotta lose x in a year!), I felt so much better it was ridiculous. It took a lot longer, but I was happier for it to. I also (tried to) come to terms with never really being hollywood/media 'skinny' or trying to look a certain way.
It's absolutely great to learn good portion control; it's helped me immensely. Know what you're eating and where you're over-eating. But being obsessive about portions has not. As always it's a guideline and it's not JUST about, 'I can't eat peanut butter because it's like eating 20 celery sticks' or 'I can't have this piece of cheese because it's so fatty and high in calories,' -- there's GI stuff to consider, there's lots of things at play. It's more about eating everything but in moderation. It's trite but true. The way I tend to swing it is I'll think about my meals a bit more week to week. If I have a cheesy pasta dish planned for that night, I'll maybe skip the cheese in my sandwich, or ditch a piece of bread from it at lunch and make it open faced. If I want to have 6 pancakes in the morning, I might eat chicken and steamed veggies for dinner. I view it like a scale to balance; but I don't do it obsessively. You will have to pry my baked cheetos from my cold, dead hands.
It also helps me to savor things if I do indulge; so many times it's so easy to inhale things and eat from boredom, and it sucks.
Besides, half the stuff we know about things being 'bad' has been misguided. (Like eggs. And cheese. And salt and...)
posted by Dimes at 10:09 AM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
It helped a lot to realize that my difficulty losing weight was just my body looking out for me. Thanks, body! I know you think it's REALLY IMPORTANT to hold on to all those calories, just in case something bad happens.
posted by redsparkler at 10:12 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by redsparkler at 10:12 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
When I was on the super low carb wagon, I noticed that my experience of satiety changed dramatically. When I was full, I was DONE, and there was no appeal whatsoever to keep eating (versus a lifetime of being able to just...keep...noshing.... Long leisurely brunches were killer.) I also noticed that my experience of hunger was way less panicky and frenetic--like, I knew I was hungry, but didn't get hangry or feel like my mental faculties were derailed by starvation.
I've adhered to that choice off and on for several years now. It's hard to choose to go completely without sweets and breads, and carbs really do hit the spot of emotional eating like nothing else, so sometimes I eat them...and find the same results all over again.
posted by Sublimity at 10:15 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
I've adhered to that choice off and on for several years now. It's hard to choose to go completely without sweets and breads, and carbs really do hit the spot of emotional eating like nothing else, so sometimes I eat them...and find the same results all over again.
posted by Sublimity at 10:15 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
And, to be clear, the point of making statements like this is not to say "Feh, don't bother trying" or anything like that. Rather, I think it's an important antidote to the Green Lantern (all you need is more willpower) nonsense that pervades our thinking about diet and weight.
Yes, exactly. I took off a bit more than 20% of my body weight at one point, it was not "just" willpower or "just" anything, really, and the more I learn about the actual science of our metabolism, the more I understand how lucky I was that what I tried worked and has been (more or less) sustainable. People who say "just eat less and move more!" are not only being obnoxious, they're demonstrating their ignorance of what we actually know now about the body and how it reacts to caloric restriction (to say nothing of the psychology around food).
For what it's worth and to stay on topic, portion control was important to me. It is well-established that we are terrible at eyeballing portion sizes (and it wouldn't surprise me if you could show in a lab that people restricting their calories become worse at it, it's amazing the tricks the body has cooked up to keep us eating more), and then most of us don't have calorie counts internalized, either. So we just have no idea of our intake, and while I'm not a fanatic about calorie-counting, clearly that degree of obliviousness doesn't work. I do use a kitchen scale on a regular basis. But I also had to concede that, for me, the old saying in the fortune file is true: any size snack bag is a single size snack bag. I had to quit buying snacks in sizes that I knew I didn't want to eat in one sitting. All this stuff: very complicated, very individual, and all the while very resisted by the body.
posted by praemunire at 10:19 AM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
Yes, exactly. I took off a bit more than 20% of my body weight at one point, it was not "just" willpower or "just" anything, really, and the more I learn about the actual science of our metabolism, the more I understand how lucky I was that what I tried worked and has been (more or less) sustainable. People who say "just eat less and move more!" are not only being obnoxious, they're demonstrating their ignorance of what we actually know now about the body and how it reacts to caloric restriction (to say nothing of the psychology around food).
For what it's worth and to stay on topic, portion control was important to me. It is well-established that we are terrible at eyeballing portion sizes (and it wouldn't surprise me if you could show in a lab that people restricting their calories become worse at it, it's amazing the tricks the body has cooked up to keep us eating more), and then most of us don't have calorie counts internalized, either. So we just have no idea of our intake, and while I'm not a fanatic about calorie-counting, clearly that degree of obliviousness doesn't work. I do use a kitchen scale on a regular basis. But I also had to concede that, for me, the old saying in the fortune file is true: any size snack bag is a single size snack bag. I had to quit buying snacks in sizes that I knew I didn't want to eat in one sitting. All this stuff: very complicated, very individual, and all the while very resisted by the body.
posted by praemunire at 10:19 AM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
When I was on the super low carb wagon, I noticed that my experience of satiety changed dramatically. When I was full, I was DONE, and there was no appeal whatsoever to keep eating (versus a lifetime of being able to just...keep...noshing.... Long leisurely brunches were killer.) I also noticed that my experience of hunger was way less panicky and frenetic--like, I knew I was hungry, but didn't get hangry or feel like my mental faculties were derailed by starvation.
THIS IS EXACTLY MY EXPERIENCE.
It's more like "You might want to think about eating something at some point, dude," and less like: "EAT! EAAAT!! EAT NOW OR YOU DIE!"
Blood sugar crashes suck.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:19 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
THIS IS EXACTLY MY EXPERIENCE.
It's more like "You might want to think about eating something at some point, dude," and less like: "EAT! EAAAT!! EAT NOW OR YOU DIE!"
Blood sugar crashes suck.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:19 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm all for an all-out terrorist war on billboards, so we can travel our various worlds without being bombarded with imagery designed to fuel insatiable desire for consumption as the only thing to fill a much deeper cosmic void. Burn the fuckers, for a start.
posted by sonascope at 10:20 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by sonascope at 10:20 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
I love sweets and breads, but they also make me feel like shit after I eat them (Case in point: the pancakes with real maple syrup I had for brunch this weekend) and they also make me eat more than I normally would (Case in point: Everything I ate after brunch this Sunday).
So I try not to eat them.
Down 45kg for three years and holding steady.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:20 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
So I try not to eat them.
Down 45kg for three years and holding steady.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:20 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've adhered to that choice off and on for several years now. It's hard to choose to go completely without sweets and breads, and carbs really do hit the spot of emotional eating like nothing else, so sometimes I eat them...and find the same results all over again.
Weirdly, my experience is just the opposite-- when I go no-carb, I become a ravenous misery creature who cannot stop eating and feeling terrible. When I have small amounts of carbs (rice or bread, not cakes and Butterfingers) supplemented by lots of veggies and protein, I feel better and lose weight.
I only mention this because I used to feel like I was taking crazy pills for carbs being a central part of managing my appetite, instead of them making it worse/unmanageable, as seems to happen for most people.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:21 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
Weirdly, my experience is just the opposite-- when I go no-carb, I become a ravenous misery creature who cannot stop eating and feeling terrible. When I have small amounts of carbs (rice or bread, not cakes and Butterfingers) supplemented by lots of veggies and protein, I feel better and lose weight.
I only mention this because I used to feel like I was taking crazy pills for carbs being a central part of managing my appetite, instead of them making it worse/unmanageable, as seems to happen for most people.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:21 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
It helped a lot to realize that my difficulty losing weight was just my body looking out for me. Thanks, body! I know you think it's REALLY IMPORTANT to hold on to all those calories, just in case something bad happens.
Most of us are only a few generations, at best, from radical food insecurity. We all probably have a great-grandfather or so who died of a nutrition-related illness. For the entire history of humankind right up until a few decades ago, the survival of the species was far more threatened by your starving to death or being too thin to reproduce than by your dropping dead of a heart attack at 55. The body behaves entirely reasonably given the environment it evolved in. Who knows, maybe in two hundred years or so this will be less of a problem...
posted by praemunire at 10:22 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Most of us are only a few generations, at best, from radical food insecurity. We all probably have a great-grandfather or so who died of a nutrition-related illness. For the entire history of humankind right up until a few decades ago, the survival of the species was far more threatened by your starving to death or being too thin to reproduce than by your dropping dead of a heart attack at 55. The body behaves entirely reasonably given the environment it evolved in. Who knows, maybe in two hundred years or so this will be less of a problem...
posted by praemunire at 10:22 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Weirdly, my experience is just the opposite-- when I go no-carb, I become a ravenous misery creature who cannot stop eating and feeling terrible. When I have small amounts of carbs (rice or bread, not cakes and Butterfingers) supplemented by lots of veggies and protein, I feel better and lose weight.
it me
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:23 AM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
it me
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:23 AM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
I love how in any diet/weightloss/exercise thread, we get comments like this Counting calories doesn't mean figuring out which kale entry to choose, it means being aware that 2 tablespoons of olive oil in your tomato sauce is significantly more calories that one tablespoon. It means not rounding out your meal with extra pasta and bread... While also getting comments about how just eyeballing or vague "cutting back" it isn't enough; and all those online calculators are wrong and it DOES matter what kale entry you choose; and you have to weigh every damn thing that goes in your mouth; and oh no wait the ACTUAL answer is no-carb or paleo or south beach or fast days or...
I'm fine with people sharing their experiences about what works for them. It's kind of fascinating to me when I can remove the self-loathing moral judgement voice in my head. I just wish it more often came with some humility about the differences in gender, hormones, metabolism, lifestyles, genetics that mean your capital-A Answer is not necessarily someone else's captial-A Answer; and some of us never get an Answer, or at least not a "hey that's not so hard" one.
Like, I've known dudes who eat poorly and do ~two simple things (cut out soda pop and stop eating out so much, usually) and drop weight like crazy. That's great for them. But I already don't drink soda and home cook most meals. I love vegetables and eat them a lot, but I'm 5'1" so a calorie-restrictive diet for me is very very little food and it just plain sucks. Also I suffer from acid reflux so heavy, overly protein-focused and super low carb meals make me feel sick while also simultaneously not really feeling sated. Which I guess is a way to make me eat less but is no fun.
Plus I am (and many of us are) trying to balance what feel like the competing moral goods of eating healthy, not busting the budget on the grocery bill, and not eating foods (especially meats, but everything counts here) that destroy the environment by their very production. So I paid $5 for a dozen certified humane eggs last week at the grocery store but the "you should be paying your debt off faster" part of my brain really fought with the "chickens should have better lives" part of my brain as I did it.
Food is such a fraught topic emotionally, societally, morally. We would all do well to recognize that when discussing it.
posted by misskaz at 10:23 AM on April 25, 2016 [73 favorites]
I'm fine with people sharing their experiences about what works for them. It's kind of fascinating to me when I can remove the self-loathing moral judgement voice in my head. I just wish it more often came with some humility about the differences in gender, hormones, metabolism, lifestyles, genetics that mean your capital-A Answer is not necessarily someone else's captial-A Answer; and some of us never get an Answer, or at least not a "hey that's not so hard" one.
Like, I've known dudes who eat poorly and do ~two simple things (cut out soda pop and stop eating out so much, usually) and drop weight like crazy. That's great for them. But I already don't drink soda and home cook most meals. I love vegetables and eat them a lot, but I'm 5'1" so a calorie-restrictive diet for me is very very little food and it just plain sucks. Also I suffer from acid reflux so heavy, overly protein-focused and super low carb meals make me feel sick while also simultaneously not really feeling sated. Which I guess is a way to make me eat less but is no fun.
Plus I am (and many of us are) trying to balance what feel like the competing moral goods of eating healthy, not busting the budget on the grocery bill, and not eating foods (especially meats, but everything counts here) that destroy the environment by their very production. So I paid $5 for a dozen certified humane eggs last week at the grocery store but the "you should be paying your debt off faster" part of my brain really fought with the "chickens should have better lives" part of my brain as I did it.
Food is such a fraught topic emotionally, societally, morally. We would all do well to recognize that when discussing it.
posted by misskaz at 10:23 AM on April 25, 2016 [73 favorites]
Telling people their biology is failing them is absolutely saying "Feh, don't bother trying."
No. It's telling them their biology (and psychology) places certain constraints on what they can accomplish and makes the task more complicated than they might hope. Which are just facts, and facts that must be reckoned with to have a decent chance of reaching an acceptable outcome.
for people who have actively lost a bunch of weight and sound like they're pretty proud of it, it's a shitty, de-motivating thing to say as a counter-point.
It's a far far shittier thing to push the "just do x!" on the many many many more people for whom this will not work and for whom we know this will not work. Do you have any idea how many people are out there absolutely hating themselves and blaming themselves for "not having the willpower" to do or stick to "just do x"?
posted by praemunire at 10:28 AM on April 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
No. It's telling them their biology (and psychology) places certain constraints on what they can accomplish and makes the task more complicated than they might hope. Which are just facts, and facts that must be reckoned with to have a decent chance of reaching an acceptable outcome.
for people who have actively lost a bunch of weight and sound like they're pretty proud of it, it's a shitty, de-motivating thing to say as a counter-point.
It's a far far shittier thing to push the "just do x!" on the many many many more people for whom this will not work and for whom we know this will not work. Do you have any idea how many people are out there absolutely hating themselves and blaming themselves for "not having the willpower" to do or stick to "just do x"?
posted by praemunire at 10:28 AM on April 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
People are different, different things work for different people, same as it ever was. I can do more cocaine than most people I've met, but that doesn't mean it's a reasonable amount for most people to try to keep up with. Also I can stop when I run out, instead of going back for more like virtually everyone else I've met.
Simple sugars and carbohydrates, on the other hand, seem to go directly to my love handles while bypassing my liver and muscle glycogen stores entirely. I was 6'3" and 245 lbs (pushing a 40 inch waist) about five years ago when I started my last serious "lifestyle change" which has resulted in me hovering around 205 lbs and 34-inch waist for the past 4 years, dipping as low as 180 at one point and as high as 215 at another. But for me I learned (after studying up on nutrition and biology and whatnot, plus extensive experimentation) that Carbs = weight gain for me and as long as I moderate the carbs, I can maintain around 200 Lbs no problem, without any additional exercise or drugs.
Some people never find out what works for them, and that makes me sad. I wish it were possible to tell them "just do what I did" but alas; different strokes for different folks seems to be the way of the world.
posted by some loser at 10:30 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Simple sugars and carbohydrates, on the other hand, seem to go directly to my love handles while bypassing my liver and muscle glycogen stores entirely. I was 6'3" and 245 lbs (pushing a 40 inch waist) about five years ago when I started my last serious "lifestyle change" which has resulted in me hovering around 205 lbs and 34-inch waist for the past 4 years, dipping as low as 180 at one point and as high as 215 at another. But for me I learned (after studying up on nutrition and biology and whatnot, plus extensive experimentation) that Carbs = weight gain for me and as long as I moderate the carbs, I can maintain around 200 Lbs no problem, without any additional exercise or drugs.
Some people never find out what works for them, and that makes me sad. I wish it were possible to tell them "just do what I did" but alas; different strokes for different folks seems to be the way of the world.
posted by some loser at 10:30 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Something I find very challenging is that if I spend too much energy thinking about food in any context, it always ends up with a sort of recidivistic relapse into binge-eating bad stuff. So explicit calorie counting, for example, pretty much always triggers this for me in the end. It’s so hard to find that sweet spot where I’m being mindful enough about to eat healthfully and in moderation without cultivating an obsession that can easily flip into the counterproductive.
posted by threeants at 10:33 AM on April 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by threeants at 10:33 AM on April 25, 2016 [13 favorites]
But while portions in cafes and restaurants are often now gargantuan, the recommended portions on food packets may be unrealistically small. For most breakfast cereals, the “serving size” across the EU is 30g. In a Kellogg’s Variety pack, the Corn Flakes are just 17g. To my 16-year-old son, this is hardly more than a mouthful (admittedly, he is 6ft 11in). A couple of years ago, I interviewed a spokesperson for Kellogg’s, who said that these tiny recommended sizes are aimed at children but admitted that adults do “eat a bit more”
I don't know about the EU, but in the US, the "serving size" dictates the basis for the amount of calories, fat, etc listed on the package. So using an artificially small serving size is a way to make it seem like food is less fattening than it is. And my understanding is that manufacturers have pretty wide latitude in determining what constitutes one serving of whatever it is they are selling, and that it quite often is less than what the average consumer will eat as a single portion of the package.
posted by layceepee at 10:33 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
I don't know about the EU, but in the US, the "serving size" dictates the basis for the amount of calories, fat, etc listed on the package. So using an artificially small serving size is a way to make it seem like food is less fattening than it is. And my understanding is that manufacturers have pretty wide latitude in determining what constitutes one serving of whatever it is they are selling, and that it quite often is less than what the average consumer will eat as a single portion of the package.
posted by layceepee at 10:33 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
.for people who have actively lost a bunch of weight and sound like they're pretty proud of it, it's a shitty, de-motivating thing to say as a counter-point.
They probably shouldn't be in a thread about the systemic difficulties of weight loss saying things that are shitty, demotivating brags about how easy it was for them.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:40 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
They probably shouldn't be in a thread about the systemic difficulties of weight loss saying things that are shitty, demotivating brags about how easy it was for them.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:40 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
I have this feeling that, in 50 years, carbohydrates will either be extremely tightly regulated, or be as illegal as meth or cocaine.
The number one show on television will be "Breaking Bagel."
posted by ilana at 10:40 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
The number one show on television will be "Breaking Bagel."
posted by ilana at 10:40 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
They probably shouldn't be in a thread about the systemic difficulties of weight loss saying things that are shitty, demotivating brags about how easy it was for them.
I realized this as soon as I hit post that much like exercise threads, diet/food threads become the domain of the One True Way advocates. Paleo, keto, calorie-counting, intermittent fasting, etc? It works for you? Awesome. But stop acting as though it's the option for everyone. Losing weight is hard enough as it is, y'know?
posted by Kitteh at 10:44 AM on April 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
I realized this as soon as I hit post that much like exercise threads, diet/food threads become the domain of the One True Way advocates. Paleo, keto, calorie-counting, intermittent fasting, etc? It works for you? Awesome. But stop acting as though it's the option for everyone. Losing weight is hard enough as it is, y'know?
posted by Kitteh at 10:44 AM on April 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
The bright point of this article is that I appear to be under counting how many serves of fruit and vegetables I eat along with all the pasta etc.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:46 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:46 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
I really, really wish there was I way I could even out not eating carbs -- which makes me feel great but is harder to quit than smoking ever was because there's no cessation aids and I don't even need the sunglasses to see the EAT CARBS signs everywhere -- and weightlifting. Trying to do both while also not being hungry for 75% of the day or spending literally all my free time cooking and promptly ingesting chicken is Too Hard.
posted by griphus at 10:49 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by griphus at 10:49 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
welcome to the horrible world of drinking eggs
posted by poffin boffin at 10:53 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 10:53 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
My wife and I, British, love to visit the USA. We also love the food. However, we have learned that is absolutely necessary literally to cut in half any food we order, and leave half alone. You live in an 'obesogenic' culture.
Anyway, I heard this guy on the radio saying if you manage to diet for a year, you could 'reset' your hunger levels. Sounds promising if true. Obese people can maintain stable weight loss.
posted by alasdair at 10:55 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
Anyway, I heard this guy on the radio saying if you manage to diet for a year, you could 'reset' your hunger levels. Sounds promising if true. Obese people can maintain stable weight loss.
posted by alasdair at 10:55 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
I have this feeling that, in 50 years, carbohydrates will either be extremely tightly regulated, or be as illegal as meth or cocaine.
Between this and climate change, I've never been so happy to know that my ancestors pretty uniformly die young.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:57 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Between this and climate change, I've never been so happy to know that my ancestors pretty uniformly die young.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:57 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
My wife and I, British, love to visit the USA ... You live in an 'obesogenic' culture.
We're ahead of you by about four percent. Mote, beam, etc.
posted by griphus at 10:59 AM on April 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
We're ahead of you by about four percent. Mote, beam, etc.
posted by griphus at 10:59 AM on April 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
Would you like to Beam-size your McMotes for 79¢
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:09 AM on April 25, 2016 [29 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:09 AM on April 25, 2016 [29 favorites]
I def remember being in a McDonalds a few years back and the kid working the counter just could not understand why the dude ordering the six-piece nuggets didn't want to upgrade to a 20-piece for a dollar. I thought it was one of those mandatory upsells at first (and it probably was) but he was really, genuinely confounded as to why the guy didn't want three times as much fried chicken as he ordered.
posted by griphus at 11:11 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by griphus at 11:11 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Would you like to Beam-size your McMotes for 79¢
Yes, and extra ranch dressing for the McMotes. And a small diet coke.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:12 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yes, and extra ranch dressing for the McMotes. And a small diet coke.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:12 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
One box of Trader Joe's Mac and Cheese shells is 2.5 servings.
Bastids!
posted by srboisvert at 11:12 AM on April 25, 2016
Bastids!
posted by srboisvert at 11:12 AM on April 25, 2016
I def remember being in a McDonalds a few years back and the kid working the counter just could not understand why the dude ordering the six-piece nuggets didn't want to upgrade to a 20-piece for a dollar.
OMG yes, this. If I go to a fast food place (as a last result, usually on the road and no time to spare) and I feel like I need a caffeine hit instead of water, I'll ask for a small. Every. Single. Time I get the upsell, "Don't you want the large for only x cents more?" No. No I do not. I do not care about the cents, I care about the calories and if I get the large, I'm going to drink it all.
posted by cooker girl at 11:21 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
OMG yes, this. If I go to a fast food place (as a last result, usually on the road and no time to spare) and I feel like I need a caffeine hit instead of water, I'll ask for a small. Every. Single. Time I get the upsell, "Don't you want the large for only x cents more?" No. No I do not. I do not care about the cents, I care about the calories and if I get the large, I'm going to drink it all.
posted by cooker girl at 11:21 AM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
I really do wish there were some way to talk about these things that skirted both "just do X, it's easy" and "you are doomed--dooooomed!" Neither are helpful to people who legitimately want to achieve greater health and fitness. Which is an okay thing to want, it doesn't mean you hate yourself.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:29 AM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:29 AM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
Also my favorite bowls at home are cheap melamine rice bowls from the Asian grocery that are like .50 a pop. They're the perfect size for one serving of $carb. If they're all dirty and I have to use one of our regular Target soup bowls, I have to use the measuring cups because those things are YUUUUGE--which is fine for a bowl of vegetable soup but not so much for anything else.
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:32 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by soren_lorensen at 11:32 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
RE: Cheese
...you guys all know that matches come in boxes of 300, right? That's right, cheese block same size as ONE MATCH BOX and they didn't say WHICH one I could use.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:36 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
...you guys all know that matches come in boxes of 300, right? That's right, cheese block same size as ONE MATCH BOX and they didn't say WHICH one I could use.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:36 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
smash cut to shipping container full of loose matches side by side with a 5000kg slab of cheese
posted by poffin boffin at 11:41 AM on April 25, 2016 [20 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 11:41 AM on April 25, 2016 [20 favorites]
Leotrotsky came in here, said they lost 45 lbs, and said how they did it.
C'mon, that is not precisely what he said:
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Oh, wait, I just went keto and started jogging. ...and the jogging was for health, not for weight.
Do I really need to unpack this language for you? The "ha ha I guess I did what you guys think is impossible then, and I just did x, and then not even to lose weight"? I doubt he had any malicious intent, but this kind of flip approach to what is a pretty damn intractable problem for most people who have it is harmful to those around him, and in no way required to express pride in his accomplishment--and, yes, the odds are unfortunately much in favor of his "just doing x" approach not working in the long run.
I don't think I saw this link upthread: this article has a summary of the literature showing that portion size actually affects satiety--people given larger servings will eat more, and vice versa, and, within certain limits, both groups will report the same levels of fullness. Of course these are all under lab conditions, but it is suggestive that being conscious about portion size can be helpful.
posted by praemunire at 11:46 AM on April 25, 2016 [12 favorites]
C'mon, that is not precisely what he said:
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Oh, wait, I just went keto and started jogging. ...and the jogging was for health, not for weight.
Do I really need to unpack this language for you? The "ha ha I guess I did what you guys think is impossible then, and I just did x, and then not even to lose weight"? I doubt he had any malicious intent, but this kind of flip approach to what is a pretty damn intractable problem for most people who have it is harmful to those around him, and in no way required to express pride in his accomplishment--and, yes, the odds are unfortunately much in favor of his "just doing x" approach not working in the long run.
I don't think I saw this link upthread: this article has a summary of the literature showing that portion size actually affects satiety--people given larger servings will eat more, and vice versa, and, within certain limits, both groups will report the same levels of fullness. Of course these are all under lab conditions, but it is suggestive that being conscious about portion size can be helpful.
posted by praemunire at 11:46 AM on April 25, 2016 [12 favorites]
The wealthy parts of the world are stuck in an eating disorder/ body dysmorpia psychological cluster, which sucks but is probably better than being in famine from time to time. I lucked out having a metabolism that (currently) takes anything I throw at it and leaves me tall and lanky so I don't pay a whole lot of attention to diet and workout stuff but goddamn it is inescapable.
The only 100% gold-plated universally applicable diet/workout tip I can think of is to not drink soda. No matter what your body chemistry or morphic type or preferences or whatever, just laying off the hummingbird food cannot possibly do anything but help. Even just less soda than having soda with every meal, which at least in the USA seems to be pretty typical in my experience.
The amount of salt, sugar, fat, and umami pumped into foods is just incredible. I got into the habit of only eating "natural" peanut butter, as in one of the brands where the ingredients label just says "peanuts," and now Jiffy and Skip taste like peanut jelly to me. Canned soup, especially Progresso, tastes like sea water. In case you didn't already know, Fritos are a perfect firestarter for camping.
posted by 3urypteris at 11:55 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
The only 100% gold-plated universally applicable diet/workout tip I can think of is to not drink soda. No matter what your body chemistry or morphic type or preferences or whatever, just laying off the hummingbird food cannot possibly do anything but help. Even just less soda than having soda with every meal, which at least in the USA seems to be pretty typical in my experience.
The amount of salt, sugar, fat, and umami pumped into foods is just incredible. I got into the habit of only eating "natural" peanut butter, as in one of the brands where the ingredients label just says "peanuts," and now Jiffy and Skip taste like peanut jelly to me. Canned soup, especially Progresso, tastes like sea water. In case you didn't already know, Fritos are a perfect firestarter for camping.
posted by 3urypteris at 11:55 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
"...why are we all eating too much?"
Because we live in a society that has us trading away the majority of our time for barely enough money - keeping us vaguely unsatisfied but constantly busy. Admonished from youth against self-medicating with substances, we turn to the unnaturally fatty, salty, sugary carbohydrate-rich food of our obesogenic culture as a way to take the edge off. In the aspirational struggle under a neoliberal economy, food is our socially sanctioned narcotic - and the same rigged market forces that are the cause of our chronic existential anxiety have made that sickening food cheap, delicious, convenient and abundant.
I'm stressed, I want a pizza. I'm busy, I'll just have a hamburger. I don't have enough time in the morning, I'll just grab a bowl of sugared cereal. I just got home and it's 8:30 at night, I will have this microwaveable pasta.
Like leisure time, uninterrupted conversation, and quiet reflection before it - eating has also been relegated to the late evenings, weekends and moments in-between. Lets eat quickly at our desks so we can just get back to work, and since this primal joy is off the clock it might as well make me feel as good as possible.
At least that's my take on it.
posted by jnnla at 12:02 PM on April 25, 2016 [56 favorites]
Because we live in a society that has us trading away the majority of our time for barely enough money - keeping us vaguely unsatisfied but constantly busy. Admonished from youth against self-medicating with substances, we turn to the unnaturally fatty, salty, sugary carbohydrate-rich food of our obesogenic culture as a way to take the edge off. In the aspirational struggle under a neoliberal economy, food is our socially sanctioned narcotic - and the same rigged market forces that are the cause of our chronic existential anxiety have made that sickening food cheap, delicious, convenient and abundant.
I'm stressed, I want a pizza. I'm busy, I'll just have a hamburger. I don't have enough time in the morning, I'll just grab a bowl of sugared cereal. I just got home and it's 8:30 at night, I will have this microwaveable pasta.
Like leisure time, uninterrupted conversation, and quiet reflection before it - eating has also been relegated to the late evenings, weekends and moments in-between. Lets eat quickly at our desks so we can just get back to work, and since this primal joy is off the clock it might as well make me feel as good as possible.
At least that's my take on it.
posted by jnnla at 12:02 PM on April 25, 2016 [56 favorites]
jeather, for matched relatively small dinnerware I'd look at Japanese sets.
posted by clew at 12:27 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 12:27 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
The article posted by the man of twists and turns about decision fatigue really hit home for me and juggle that with constant moderation of my real personality in the corporate workplace. I used up all my self control so as not to lose track of my smiley agreeable workplace face and say or do things that might cost me my meager paying job.
We have to nod happily along while listening to less knowledgeable, more senior people share their "wisdom" about tasks and information they really know nothing about. Meanwhile, we also play along with the latest workplace initiative that promises a happier office environment but is really poorly disguised cost cutting and job slashing. Little wonder I want to go home, eat something yummy and have a nice glass of wine instead of taking a walk and eating healthy. My self control points were all used up by noon on any given workday.
posted by narancia at 12:29 PM on April 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
We have to nod happily along while listening to less knowledgeable, more senior people share their "wisdom" about tasks and information they really know nothing about. Meanwhile, we also play along with the latest workplace initiative that promises a happier office environment but is really poorly disguised cost cutting and job slashing. Little wonder I want to go home, eat something yummy and have a nice glass of wine instead of taking a walk and eating healthy. My self control points were all used up by noon on any given workday.
posted by narancia at 12:29 PM on April 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
One thing I have to add is that I've found it very possible to change my "feeling full" measure. I did it with corsets. I've been wearing corsets a few hours a day for 4 years or so for back support. As a consequence I've lost several inches off my waist. But a corset acts very similarly to a stomach band, in that it prevents your stomach from expanding. There's literally no place for anything to go. So I would eat about half of what I otherwise wood at a sitting while wearing one. But now I can't eat that much at once regardless of whether I'm wearing a corset or not (I'm mostly not when I'm eating. But I've noticed unless I'm pigging out on something special it really doesn't make a difference.)
Of course the problem is that I get hungry again sooner. When I tend to eat junk because it's easy. So I try to save a portion of my healthy meal to eat a few hours later.
So as a modest suggestion, if anyone is really having a problem with this, you might try it. It sounds extreme, but it's just a piece of clothing.
posted by threeturtles at 12:35 PM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
Of course the problem is that I get hungry again sooner. When I tend to eat junk because it's easy. So I try to save a portion of my healthy meal to eat a few hours later.
So as a modest suggestion, if anyone is really having a problem with this, you might try it. It sounds extreme, but it's just a piece of clothing.
posted by threeturtles at 12:35 PM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
I don't know about the EU, but in the US, the "serving size" dictates the basis for the amount of calories, fat, etc listed on the package. So using an artificially small serving size is a way to make it seem like food is less fattening than it is. And my understanding is that manufacturers have pretty wide latitude in determining what constitutes one serving of whatever it is they are selling, and that it quite often is less than what the average consumer will eat as a single portion of the package.
The FDA instructs food producers on how to calculate appropriate serving size for different foods, based on FDA-provided tables of "Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed Per Eating Occasion". Manufacturers can't just make things up in an attempt to make their foods look better. And if the standardized "one serving" is generally less than what the average consumer thinks constitutes "one serving", isn't that exactly what the article is about?
posted by Lexica at 1:18 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
The FDA instructs food producers on how to calculate appropriate serving size for different foods, based on FDA-provided tables of "Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed Per Eating Occasion". Manufacturers can't just make things up in an attempt to make their foods look better. And if the standardized "one serving" is generally less than what the average consumer thinks constitutes "one serving", isn't that exactly what the article is about?
posted by Lexica at 1:18 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Leotrotsky came in here, said they lost 45 lbs, and said how they did it.
C'mon, that is not precisely what he said:
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Oh, wait, I just went keto and started jogging. ...and the jogging was for health, not for weight.
Do I really need to unpack this language for you? The "ha ha I guess I did what you guys think is impossible then, and I just did x, and then not even to lose weight"?
Context matters, and you're ignoring mine. I made that comment in response to an article titled, "Why It's Impossible to Just Eat Less." Which is untrue clickbaity bullshit. I know that because I f*cking ate less, and that's how I did it.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:21 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
C'mon, that is not precisely what he said:
I dropped 45 lbs in the last year. I guess I'm Impossible Man.
Oh, wait, I just went keto and started jogging. ...and the jogging was for health, not for weight.
Do I really need to unpack this language for you? The "ha ha I guess I did what you guys think is impossible then, and I just did x, and then not even to lose weight"?
Context matters, and you're ignoring mine. I made that comment in response to an article titled, "Why It's Impossible to Just Eat Less." Which is untrue clickbaity bullshit. I know that because I f*cking ate less, and that's how I did it.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:21 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Next up: I watched this video of a toddler and a beagle and I completely believed what happened next, I want my ten dollars back.
posted by griphus at 1:26 PM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by griphus at 1:26 PM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
Which is to say, obviously that it worked for me. I'm not speaking for anyone else. You do you, I'll do me. But:
Yeah, check back in five years, man.
Makes you sound like an jerk.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:30 PM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Yeah, check back in five years, man.
Makes you sound like an jerk.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:30 PM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Guys, please let me introduce you to the Nos Diet.
It's actually not really a diet, but pretty much just awesome common sense.
There's quite a bunch of useful insights there.
The part of habit forming rather than dieting is particularly enlightening.
posted by sour cream at 1:55 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
It's actually not really a diet, but pretty much just awesome common sense.
There's quite a bunch of useful insights there.
The part of habit forming rather than dieting is particularly enlightening.
posted by sour cream at 1:55 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
I recently was told by my rheumatologist to try and eliminate gluten and coffee from my diet. I've been way more successful with the gluten part, I can tell you. Giving up coffee was going to end with me in an orange jumpsuit, apologizing to the world at large for that itsy bitsy thermonuclear explosion. But, in order to help understand what I was actually eating, both calories and nutrition, I got an app that is a food database and diet tracker.
I was astonished at the sugar content I was consuming. I mean a lot of it natural sugars from apples and bananas and milk, but even factoring those out,it was damn near impossible to meet the EFSA goal of 30 grams a day, especially if I ate "gluten free" processed foods, or gods help us, flavored yogurt. If I include natural fruit sugars, then I'm allowed 1/4 cup of milk, and one apple a day, and nothing else except greens with no dressing and poached meat. Which, bleh.
Thankfully, one of the side effects of the new lupus drugs is mild anorexia, so I've just sort of given up eating except for dinner with the family, and even then, not much because I'm am tired of thinking about food, so it's easier just to be hungry. I am always hungry. So hungry. I'm a baker, so I figured out how to make an amazing gluten free flour blend which makes springy bread, and fluffy cakes, and now because I suddenly know how carbs turn into sugar, I've given up baking. It's like, if I can't have bread, and came, and cookies, fuck it, I hate celery, I'll just have black coffee or water and be done.
And even running such a ridiculous calorie deficit of consuming only about 800 calories a day, and being able to move around for the first time in forever, so I'm biking about 15 miles a week, I've still only lost about 20 pounds in 3_4 months, however long this has been going on. I swear, I will smack the next person who says losing weight is easy.
Re smaller plates, if you find a chef supply store, they will have dozens of plate sizes, from tapas to monsters. Plus, they will usually be white or glass. My go to plates are clear, embossed pattern on the reverse side, tea plates. They're a tiny bit bigger than a sandwich plate, about salad plate size, without the slight bowl edges of a salad plate. Modern dessert plates are similarly sized, but anything from the period where multiple courses were common will appear teeny to the modern eye.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:03 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
I was astonished at the sugar content I was consuming. I mean a lot of it natural sugars from apples and bananas and milk, but even factoring those out,it was damn near impossible to meet the EFSA goal of 30 grams a day, especially if I ate "gluten free" processed foods, or gods help us, flavored yogurt. If I include natural fruit sugars, then I'm allowed 1/4 cup of milk, and one apple a day, and nothing else except greens with no dressing and poached meat. Which, bleh.
Thankfully, one of the side effects of the new lupus drugs is mild anorexia, so I've just sort of given up eating except for dinner with the family, and even then, not much because I'm am tired of thinking about food, so it's easier just to be hungry. I am always hungry. So hungry. I'm a baker, so I figured out how to make an amazing gluten free flour blend which makes springy bread, and fluffy cakes, and now because I suddenly know how carbs turn into sugar, I've given up baking. It's like, if I can't have bread, and came, and cookies, fuck it, I hate celery, I'll just have black coffee or water and be done.
And even running such a ridiculous calorie deficit of consuming only about 800 calories a day, and being able to move around for the first time in forever, so I'm biking about 15 miles a week, I've still only lost about 20 pounds in 3_4 months, however long this has been going on. I swear, I will smack the next person who says losing weight is easy.
Re smaller plates, if you find a chef supply store, they will have dozens of plate sizes, from tapas to monsters. Plus, they will usually be white or glass. My go to plates are clear, embossed pattern on the reverse side, tea plates. They're a tiny bit bigger than a sandwich plate, about salad plate size, without the slight bowl edges of a salad plate. Modern dessert plates are similarly sized, but anything from the period where multiple courses were common will appear teeny to the modern eye.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:03 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Man, I'm trying to lowcarb right now and while I'm loving all the hardboiled eggs and meat and nuts, I am just never going to be friends with leafy greens. If I make an effort and roast the shit out of it, I can do broccoli. It's not that I want tons of pasta, it's just that I hate most vegetables. If I could find the switch to turn that off that I'd stuff myself with kale and call it good.
posted by emjaybee at 2:49 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by emjaybee at 2:49 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
People have studied diets and other people have done meta-studies on those studies, and the research overwhelmingly shows that long term weight loss (as in 3-5+ years) is impossible except for an extremely small minority. Link.
posted by twilightlost at 2:52 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by twilightlost at 2:52 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
leafy greens just aren't worth the hassle for me. eating any more than the very small amount i'm already having leads to incredible amounts of agonizing stomach upset, to which people respond with such brilliant suggestions as "oh, it will go away eventually! just have more kale!" as though i'm going to subject myself to another day of gastrointestinal agony DELIBERATELY. but apparently i am unreasonable and fussy for choosing not to poop blood.
fuck kale, i hope kale poops blood
posted by poffin boffin at 3:19 PM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
fuck kale, i hope kale poops blood
posted by poffin boffin at 3:19 PM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
The National Weight Control Registry and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, meanwhile, indicate that long-term weight loss is possible.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24355667
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/74/5/579.full
I lost forty pounds five years ago (5'4" 155 -> 115 lbs) and I've kept it off. Up to around 118 during the holidays, back down to 115 (sometimes as low as 110) when I start running more as the weather warms up. Comments like "long term weight loss is impossible" really sound like "don't even try, and if you succeeded, just you wait, you'll fail too JUST LIKE THE REST OF US." It's tall poppy syndrome.
posted by stolyarova at 3:26 PM on April 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24355667
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/74/5/579.full
I lost forty pounds five years ago (5'4" 155 -> 115 lbs) and I've kept it off. Up to around 118 during the holidays, back down to 115 (sometimes as low as 110) when I start running more as the weather warms up. Comments like "long term weight loss is impossible" really sound like "don't even try, and if you succeeded, just you wait, you'll fail too JUST LIKE THE REST OF US." It's tall poppy syndrome.
posted by stolyarova at 3:26 PM on April 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
Comments like "long term weight loss is impossible" really sound like "don't even try, and if you succeeded, just you wait, you'll fail too JUST LIKE THE REST OF US." It's tall poppy syndrome.
I think it's more that clickbaity headlines are too short to express "long-term weight loss can be, for many people, extremely time-consuming and difficult to maintain, often requiring really onerous social sacrifices."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:47 PM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
I think it's more that clickbaity headlines are too short to express "long-term weight loss can be, for many people, extremely time-consuming and difficult to maintain, often requiring really onerous social sacrifices."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:47 PM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Prediction: in 10 years, gastric balloons that you swallow in pill form and dissolve on their own in 6 months will be widely available and relatively cheap. Using them to lose weight will be as common as getting a tattoo or piercing today. People will stay on them for years at a time.
posted by miyabo at 4:11 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 4:11 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Nuts are the bane of my so-called healthy eating swaps. I gain weight on nuts like nobody's business. Which makes me sad, because otherwise they were one of the few quick/portable protein sources that I really liked.
posted by TwoStride at 4:12 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by TwoStride at 4:12 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
And before people are all, "oh, it's easy! Portion control is easy!" No, for some of us it's not. Nuts are an all-or-nothing kind of food for me. And generally measuring and strict calorie-counting is a quick ticket back to crazytown for me as well, so... I just try to wing it and stay away from the obvious traps.
posted by TwoStride at 4:14 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by TwoStride at 4:14 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
TwoStride, nuts are absolutely not easy. Eating 500kcal or more in nuts is as simple as a couple handfuls. 200kcal of peanut butter is the size of a ping-pong ball. I adore nuts, but I can't keep them in the house if I want to stick to my calorie targets.
posted by stolyarova at 4:21 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by stolyarova at 4:21 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Nobody mentioned that male and female bodies handle food and fat differently? No? They do. Although I don't have sources on the specifics, so take this with a grain of salt, but -
To start with, the menstrual cycle causes body weight to fluctuate by about 5% up and down, usually because of water retention but not always. Menstruating uses up about a snack's worth of calories a day. A certain body-fat percentage is necessary for ovulation, so a body that ovulates will hang onto all the fat it can.
Just as testosterone leads the body to build muscle more easily, and keep it - although it's not a huge difference, obviously women still build muscle - estrogen and progesterone lead the body to build fat more easily, store it differently, and keep it.
(You can see this in trans people on HRT too. The biggest change in appearance is the change in overall body shape, and silhouette, because of changing fat stores.)
I honestly hate the way fat is demonized except when it's in very specific places on a woman's body.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 4:59 PM on April 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
To start with, the menstrual cycle causes body weight to fluctuate by about 5% up and down, usually because of water retention but not always. Menstruating uses up about a snack's worth of calories a day. A certain body-fat percentage is necessary for ovulation, so a body that ovulates will hang onto all the fat it can.
Just as testosterone leads the body to build muscle more easily, and keep it - although it's not a huge difference, obviously women still build muscle - estrogen and progesterone lead the body to build fat more easily, store it differently, and keep it.
(You can see this in trans people on HRT too. The biggest change in appearance is the change in overall body shape, and silhouette, because of changing fat stores.)
I honestly hate the way fat is demonized except when it's in very specific places on a woman's body.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 4:59 PM on April 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
The British serve potato crisps in mugs? Once again the Brits are just weird...
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:44 PM on April 25, 2016
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:44 PM on April 25, 2016
Man, like potatoes or cheese referenced above there are some things that I just cannot know are in the house, because then I need to take immediate steps to rectify that until those things are all gone. My first summer in Bagram my family sent me chocolate but it liquefied in the heat and was a pain to suck the re-hardened chocolate out and around the wrappers, so the following January I decided to be clever and order myself a shitload of chocolate to carry me through the summer. I think it was something like 10 or 20 lbs in all, beautiful bars of Chocolove in a variety of flavors, all smooth and perfectly-formed like the chocolate bars in the 70s Willy Wonka movie.
They were all gone by the middle of February.
Cheez-it party mix is another thing that I just can't know about, because I will finish the box even if it hurts.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 5:45 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
They were all gone by the middle of February.
Cheez-it party mix is another thing that I just can't know about, because I will finish the box even if it hurts.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 5:45 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
I think we need to know more about our personal metabolism in a quantitative way.
So say, you currently need to eat 2000 calories a day to maintain your weight. If you ate 100 less calories a day, would you feel hungry? For me the answer would be no. If your number is even higher, say, 200 calories, losing weight would be a relatively easy thing to do - just use those smaller plates or whatever, and you won't feel or notice the difference.
But if you're going to feel hungry if you drop by even 50 calories, then losing weight becomes a much harder task.
If people knew their hunger threshold, perhaps it would lead to less guilt about willpower etc, because its not about strength of character, but about the metabolic/physiological hand that you've been dealt.
On the flip side, it'd be great to know how many calories you can eat above your maintenance level before you feel full. I know this would vary depending on the type of calories you're eating, but the general concept is that the overage represents the danger zone. If you reach satiety very near your maintenance level, you're not going to gain weight easily. But if you don't, then weight gain is a much higher risk for you.
These parameters aren't a quick route to weight loss, but at least you know the steepness of the path.
posted by storybored at 6:29 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
So say, you currently need to eat 2000 calories a day to maintain your weight. If you ate 100 less calories a day, would you feel hungry? For me the answer would be no. If your number is even higher, say, 200 calories, losing weight would be a relatively easy thing to do - just use those smaller plates or whatever, and you won't feel or notice the difference.
But if you're going to feel hungry if you drop by even 50 calories, then losing weight becomes a much harder task.
If people knew their hunger threshold, perhaps it would lead to less guilt about willpower etc, because its not about strength of character, but about the metabolic/physiological hand that you've been dealt.
On the flip side, it'd be great to know how many calories you can eat above your maintenance level before you feel full. I know this would vary depending on the type of calories you're eating, but the general concept is that the overage represents the danger zone. If you reach satiety very near your maintenance level, you're not going to gain weight easily. But if you don't, then weight gain is a much higher risk for you.
These parameters aren't a quick route to weight loss, but at least you know the steepness of the path.
posted by storybored at 6:29 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
No. No I do not. I do not care about the cents, I care about the calories and if I get the large, I'm going to drink it all.
Same, except I won't drink it all, I'll have a fucking cup half-full of gross liquid to figure out what to do with. It's hard to get them to comprehend not wanting a soda at all too, sometimes. Sandwich and fries. Oh, you can get the value meal! No, just what I said, thanks.
posted by ctmf at 6:51 PM on April 25, 2016
Same, except I won't drink it all, I'll have a fucking cup half-full of gross liquid to figure out what to do with. It's hard to get them to comprehend not wanting a soda at all too, sometimes. Sandwich and fries. Oh, you can get the value meal! No, just what I said, thanks.
posted by ctmf at 6:51 PM on April 25, 2016
I'm not sure if folks here have read the thread about the person who is incapable of visualizing things with his minds eye, but it's really a testament to how very different everyone can be.
Given that, it's a wise idea in these weight loss threads to just avoid linking any sites that use words like "Impossible," "Everybody," "Nobody," "Easy," "Foolproof," or the like. If they're paraphrases of studies, try to find links to the studies or, at the least, a non-clickbaity summary that says "Almost impossible" or "Often effective" or the like. If there's an absolute, there's going to be an exception who that absolute is stating doesn't even exist (on both sides).
We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese: "OH MY GOD if he ever finally fully twigs to it will you please let me know how you did it? My boyfriend perpetually worries that I am starving to death when I eat even a bite less than he does."
Ugh, this. My wife has actually argued that I should eat more, and that I should just double my gym attendance to work off the extra calories. It's like saying "you should set some money on fire, and then do overtime to make up for it".
posted by Bugbread at 7:43 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Given that, it's a wise idea in these weight loss threads to just avoid linking any sites that use words like "Impossible," "Everybody," "Nobody," "Easy," "Foolproof," or the like. If they're paraphrases of studies, try to find links to the studies or, at the least, a non-clickbaity summary that says "Almost impossible" or "Often effective" or the like. If there's an absolute, there's going to be an exception who that absolute is stating doesn't even exist (on both sides).
We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese: "OH MY GOD if he ever finally fully twigs to it will you please let me know how you did it? My boyfriend perpetually worries that I am starving to death when I eat even a bite less than he does."
Ugh, this. My wife has actually argued that I should eat more, and that I should just double my gym attendance to work off the extra calories. It's like saying "you should set some money on fire, and then do overtime to make up for it".
posted by Bugbread at 7:43 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Given that, it's a wise idea in these weight loss threads to just avoid linking any sites that use words like "Impossible," "Everybody," "Nobody," "Easy," "Foolproof," or the like. If they're paraphrases of studies, try to find links to the studies or, at the least, a non-clickbaity summary that says "Almost impossible" or "Often effective" or the like.
This, and believing people when they say that something is hard for them. I don't have a difficult relationship with food but people I am closely related to. We had identical upbringings and we share most of our genetics, but this one thing is easy for me and hard for them.
The growth in dishes is definitely a thing. We found some retro-sized dishes at ikea the other year but they were surrounded by a sea of much larger plates and weren't part of a matched set.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:56 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
This, and believing people when they say that something is hard for them. I don't have a difficult relationship with food but people I am closely related to. We had identical upbringings and we share most of our genetics, but this one thing is easy for me and hard for them.
The growth in dishes is definitely a thing. We found some retro-sized dishes at ikea the other year but they were surrounded by a sea of much larger plates and weren't part of a matched set.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:56 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
The growth in dishes is definitely a thing. We found some retro-sized dishes at ikea the other year but they were surrounded by a sea of much larger plates and weren't part of a matched set.
Yep. My brother bought a house that was built in the 1940's. His dishes don't fit in the kitchen cabinets.
posted by jenh526 at 8:48 PM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
Yep. My brother bought a house that was built in the 1940's. His dishes don't fit in the kitchen cabinets.
posted by jenh526 at 8:48 PM on April 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
Sorry, didn't mean to imply we Brits were thin and you Yanks were fat: I know that we're roughly as fat as you. Just expressing sympathy that it must be even harder for you with huge, cheap portions of food even more embedded in your culture.
posted by alasdair at 10:50 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by alasdair at 10:50 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
This, and believing people when they say that something is hard for them. I don't have a difficult relationship with food but people I am closely related to. We had identical upbringings and we share most of our genetics, but this one thing is easy for me and hard for them.
Also we have no way of knowing how hard or easy something is for someone else.
It's seems likely that different people experience different levels of pain and discomfort when they try to exercise or restrict their diet. You have no idea whether the pain and discomfort you feel is greater or less than what someone else feels.
Some successful people are probably better at ignoring pain or at making themselves do hard things. Others may just actually feel less pain and discomfort from exercise and dieting.
posted by straight at 12:18 AM on April 26, 2016
Also we have no way of knowing how hard or easy something is for someone else.
It's seems likely that different people experience different levels of pain and discomfort when they try to exercise or restrict their diet. You have no idea whether the pain and discomfort you feel is greater or less than what someone else feels.
Some successful people are probably better at ignoring pain or at making themselves do hard things. Others may just actually feel less pain and discomfort from exercise and dieting.
posted by straight at 12:18 AM on April 26, 2016
Yep. My brother bought a house that was built in the 1940's. His dishes don't fit in the kitchen cabinets.
^THIS.^ The house we bought last year was built in 1912 and we were baffled by the shallow (original) cabinets. None of our plates fit! Except for the cubby over the stove and it's super high up. My in-laws were the ones that hipped us to the fact that plates and dishes were much smaller during the time this house was built and lived in.
posted by Kitteh at 4:59 AM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
^THIS.^ The house we bought last year was built in 1912 and we were baffled by the shallow (original) cabinets. None of our plates fit! Except for the cubby over the stove and it's super high up. My in-laws were the ones that hipped us to the fact that plates and dishes were much smaller during the time this house was built and lived in.
posted by Kitteh at 4:59 AM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
In Re plate size I was digging through some 50s ads for booze the other day and reminded that a martini used to be about this size instead of five olives on a skewer drowning in seven ounces of gin that's room temperature halfway through.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:43 AM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 6:43 AM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]
Wait, whoa, is 150g the actual recommended portion of pasta in the UK? Like nutritionists actually think that’s a normal portion?
That’s funny in Italy the official recommended portion for dry pasta is 80g, though many people typically would round that up to 100g each when cooking. Or whatever will fit on a normal plate really? Depends on the recipe, but 150g would be a big portion already! plus cheese and sauce and veggies or bacon or shrimps or whatever you add, that’s not all going to fit on a classic deep plate, you’d end up splattering sauce all over the tablecloth. Or you’d need to use larger non-deep plates...
For fresh pasta, the standard is 125g - usually packages with 250 g say "for 2 people". And I’ve seen those packs in supermarkets in the UK too, so, it’s weird that there should be such a difference only for the dry pasta portions.
posted by bitteschoen at 8:12 AM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
That’s funny in Italy the official recommended portion for dry pasta is 80g, though many people typically would round that up to 100g each when cooking. Or whatever will fit on a normal plate really? Depends on the recipe, but 150g would be a big portion already! plus cheese and sauce and veggies or bacon or shrimps or whatever you add, that’s not all going to fit on a classic deep plate, you’d end up splattering sauce all over the tablecloth. Or you’d need to use larger non-deep plates...
For fresh pasta, the standard is 125g - usually packages with 250 g say "for 2 people". And I’ve seen those packs in supermarkets in the UK too, so, it’s weird that there should be such a difference only for the dry pasta portions.
posted by bitteschoen at 8:12 AM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm a huge fan of Nigel Slater and a lot of his pasta recipes call for 250 g of pasta for two people. At first, I'm always like, "I hope that's enough" and then when I make it, I'm like, "How much fucking pasta does his idea of two people eat????" I mean, yay leftovers, but a lot of recipes from other authors vary wildly as to what a two serving dish looks like.
posted by Kitteh at 8:24 AM on April 26, 2016
posted by Kitteh at 8:24 AM on April 26, 2016
bitteschoen, I think it's a dry vs. cooked difference. The recommendation is for 150g cooked pasta, which is around 50-70g dry, depending on the pasta itself.
posted by stolyarova at 10:01 AM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by stolyarova at 10:01 AM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
re: apps that let you track calorie intake
I was completely disappointed by these apps. In my eye they clearly are made for americans by americans, because one of their high points - namely a compendium of common foods - doesn't work at all for me; I don't have Kraft Mac'n'cheese at my french supermarket (or I have, but at a huge premium) and I don't have the time to input all the data into the app (I don't have the will either, but as we saw above, will is something quite complicated)
I would love if we could enforce a smartphone readable calorie count system on packaged food. I think it would really help being able to track calorie intake globally.
posted by vrittis at 11:17 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was completely disappointed by these apps. In my eye they clearly are made for americans by americans, because one of their high points - namely a compendium of common foods - doesn't work at all for me; I don't have Kraft Mac'n'cheese at my french supermarket (or I have, but at a huge premium) and I don't have the time to input all the data into the app (I don't have the will either, but as we saw above, will is something quite complicated)
I would love if we could enforce a smartphone readable calorie count system on packaged food. I think it would really help being able to track calorie intake globally.
posted by vrittis at 11:17 PM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
stolyarova: that had occurred to me! but who ever weighs dry pasta (or rice even) after it's cooked? That doesn't sound practical....
posted by bitteschoen at 2:59 AM on April 27, 2016
posted by bitteschoen at 2:59 AM on April 27, 2016
Yep. My brother bought a house that was built in the 1940's. His dishes don't fit in the kitchen cabinets.
Right now our kitchen cabinets are some basic Ikea models installed by the previous owner. They are bigger than the tiny cabinets I have had in some rentals, but they are not big enough for the plus-sized dishes that are for sale everywhere, and I don't know how well those dishes would fit in the older and cheap dishwasher, either.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:45 AM on April 27, 2016
Right now our kitchen cabinets are some basic Ikea models installed by the previous owner. They are bigger than the tiny cabinets I have had in some rentals, but they are not big enough for the plus-sized dishes that are for sale everywhere, and I don't know how well those dishes would fit in the older and cheap dishwasher, either.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:45 AM on April 27, 2016
I would love if we could enforce a smartphone readable calorie count system on packaged food. I think it would really help being able to track calorie intake globally.
My Fitness Pal has a barcode reader on it, so it might work for you. The only thing I found that it did not recognize was a packaged sandwich from a local distributor.
My downfall with trying to eat low carb is my need for not-cold crunchy stuff. Potatoes are good, but my real favorites are popcorn and tortilla/pita chips. Cold carrots do not fill that need. The "nut thins" or other alternative crackers are mostly rice. I can't stand pork rinds or beef jerky.
posted by soelo at 8:42 AM on April 27, 2016
My Fitness Pal has a barcode reader on it, so it might work for you. The only thing I found that it did not recognize was a packaged sandwich from a local distributor.
My downfall with trying to eat low carb is my need for not-cold crunchy stuff. Potatoes are good, but my real favorites are popcorn and tortilla/pita chips. Cold carrots do not fill that need. The "nut thins" or other alternative crackers are mostly rice. I can't stand pork rinds or beef jerky.
posted by soelo at 8:42 AM on April 27, 2016
Non-microwave popcorn is actually a great low-calorie snack. Using your own air-popper is ideal in that regard, but even stovetop popcorn can be ok if you use the bare minimum amount of oil for it.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:27 AM on April 27, 2016
posted by tobascodagama at 9:27 AM on April 27, 2016
Man, I'm trying to lowcarb right now and while I'm loving all the hardboiled eggs and meat and nuts, I am just never going to be friends with leafy greens. If I make an effort and roast the shit out of it, I can do broccoli. It's not that I want tons of pasta, it's just that I hate most vegetables. If I could find the switch to turn that off that I'd stuff myself with kale and call it good.
Yeah, the only thing that has made keto remotely possible for me is the fact that I genuinely enjoy broccoli and brussels sprouts. Well that and the fact that cheese isn't restricted.
My downfall with trying to eat low carb is my need for not-cold crunchy stuff. Potatoes are good, but my real favorites are popcorn and tortilla/pita chips. Cold carrots do not fill that need. The "nut thins" or other alternative crackers are mostly rice. I can't stand pork rinds or beef jerky.
Almonds. Blue Diamond puts out a lot of flavored varieties; I like the wasabi and soy sauce ones a lot. Handful of those and a string cheese and I'm good.
posted by rifflesby at 10:54 PM on April 27, 2016
Yeah, the only thing that has made keto remotely possible for me is the fact that I genuinely enjoy broccoli and brussels sprouts. Well that and the fact that cheese isn't restricted.
My downfall with trying to eat low carb is my need for not-cold crunchy stuff. Potatoes are good, but my real favorites are popcorn and tortilla/pita chips. Cold carrots do not fill that need. The "nut thins" or other alternative crackers are mostly rice. I can't stand pork rinds or beef jerky.
Almonds. Blue Diamond puts out a lot of flavored varieties; I like the wasabi and soy sauce ones a lot. Handful of those and a string cheese and I'm good.
posted by rifflesby at 10:54 PM on April 27, 2016
No. No I do not. I do not care about the cents, I care about the calories and if I get the large, I'm going to drink it all.
I am the same way. My husband does NOT understand this at all. He's from a VERY large family, where you buy 5 gallon jugs of mayonnaise if you don't want to be back at the shops tomorrow, and always go for the best possible quantity deal if you want everyone to get to eat at all. So when I say I'm in the mood for some ice cream, he's always pushing to buy the biggest available container of some generic crap that's on sale, and I want a pint (or smaller) of some special flavor I seldom eat, and we end up fighting about which is a better idea.
He also gets upset about food waste/non-plate-emptying.
I say to him, all food beyond maintenance calories are wasted, whether you eat it or not. Better to be wasted in the garbage than on my body.
My Fitness Pal has a barcode reader on it, so it might work for you.
As a non-US based MFP user, good luck with that outside the US. :-/
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 12:41 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
I am the same way. My husband does NOT understand this at all. He's from a VERY large family, where you buy 5 gallon jugs of mayonnaise if you don't want to be back at the shops tomorrow, and always go for the best possible quantity deal if you want everyone to get to eat at all. So when I say I'm in the mood for some ice cream, he's always pushing to buy the biggest available container of some generic crap that's on sale, and I want a pint (or smaller) of some special flavor I seldom eat, and we end up fighting about which is a better idea.
He also gets upset about food waste/non-plate-emptying.
I say to him, all food beyond maintenance calories are wasted, whether you eat it or not. Better to be wasted in the garbage than on my body.
My Fitness Pal has a barcode reader on it, so it might work for you.
As a non-US based MFP user, good luck with that outside the US. :-/
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 12:41 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
He also gets upset about food waste/non-plate-emptying.
I used to worry about that. Then I discovered my freezer.
posted by jenh526 at 11:54 AM on April 28, 2016
I used to worry about that. Then I discovered my freezer.
posted by jenh526 at 11:54 AM on April 28, 2016
Is there an app where you can take a picture of your food, and have its calories estimated by a Mechanical Turk type person? Because there should be. It would clearly be a very inaccurate estimate but at least it would be something.
posted by miyabo at 7:24 PM on April 28, 2016
posted by miyabo at 7:24 PM on April 28, 2016
Non-microwave popcorn is actually a great low-calorie snack.
I have recently turned to popcorn in desperation because I really wanted to find a snack that filled me up but had a low caloric density. (I am one of those people who is always-hungry but at least--I thought--I am not demanding in terms of how what I eat tastes. It turns out that shoveling popcorn into my gaping maw gets old fast.)
The comments here have been kind of dispiriting in that just trying to fill myself up means I'm keeping my stomach stretched out, and what I should be doing is eating less in the hopes that my stomach shrinks. Aaargh.
Also I suffer from acid reflux so heavy, overly protein-focused and super low carb meals make me feel sick
I'm probably not the best person to take advice from as I've been abusing omeprazole for the past year-plus, but unsweetened yogurt & kefir have been my go-to's for mitigating reflux symptoms.
posted by psoas at 11:26 AM on April 29, 2016
I have recently turned to popcorn in desperation because I really wanted to find a snack that filled me up but had a low caloric density. (I am one of those people who is always-hungry but at least--I thought--I am not demanding in terms of how what I eat tastes. It turns out that shoveling popcorn into my gaping maw gets old fast.)
The comments here have been kind of dispiriting in that just trying to fill myself up means I'm keeping my stomach stretched out, and what I should be doing is eating less in the hopes that my stomach shrinks. Aaargh.
Also I suffer from acid reflux so heavy, overly protein-focused and super low carb meals make me feel sick
I'm probably not the best person to take advice from as I've been abusing omeprazole for the past year-plus, but unsweetened yogurt & kefir have been my go-to's for mitigating reflux symptoms.
posted by psoas at 11:26 AM on April 29, 2016
« Older The Headless Women of Hollywood | Anticholinergics linked to dementia Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:35 AM on April 25, 2016 [112 favorites]