changing eatting habits

[Dogmama]

Ditto velogirl. Toss the poptarts.

Watch chinese food that is breaded & fried. Very high calorie.

I'm a food dork - I have never liked the pre-packaged greens. As a child of the '60's, I was taught to be distrustful of the establishment. So, I wonder - how do they keep that stuff fresh & make a profit?

You can get bags for produce that will keep it fresher longer. I also clean all of my veggies (organic whenever possible) but I don't chop them unless I know I'll be in a huge rush - or it is a salad that needs to marinate. I've heard chopping veggies & fruit causes them to release nutrients.

I don't cook anything in their plastic bags because heated up plastic releases chemicals implicated in cancer. I take the food out of the plastic bag, put it in a bowl & cover the bowel with a plate (not a plastic wrap.)

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OK, now that I've ratted myself out as being a food maniac...

You need clean protein, good fat & complex carbs. A few excellent books:

South Beath Diet Quick & Easy Cookbook - meals to be made in 30 minutes

Anything by Moosewood.

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I absolutely love a book called Stop Your Cravings by Jennifer Workman. It is influenced by Ayurveda. The cover says "A balanced approach to burning fat, increasing energy and reducing stress." She talks about making lunch your biggest meal and making sure that you have all of the five tastes in your meals. She also goes into the different doshas and how to eat correctly (and even exercise) according to your dosha.

I usually avoid those kind of books like the plague, but this one is excellent. She is a registered dietician & isn't out to sell you her supplements, etc. She talks about doing a cleanse twice a year and how to fashion the cleanse based on your dosha.

[RoadRaven]

Everyone's giving great advice... eat sensible healthy choices...

But one thing that has greatly helped me in losing a little weight is only eating when I am hungry. This might sound really obvious, but its actually quite difficult.

We are trained/socialised from the moment we begin eating to eat because it is time to eat, or because we must finish what is on our plate, or because someone else is eating.
As children we are taught to stop listening to our stomachs.

I found when I reminded myself to eat only when hungry, I actually found I wasn't hungry as often as I was eating... therefore I was taking in less food... logical sequence, I began to lose weight.

Combine only eating when hugry with sensible food choices (but don't deprive yourself of occasional treats) and cycling and you will sheed the pounds/kgs...

[Pedal Wench]

Microwavable soup containers - single servings with a slice of a hearty whole wheat bread would be good. Those pouches of flavored tuna is really good - doesn't need mayo, so you save calories right there (I like the hickory smoked rolled up in a wholewheat/high fiber tortilla) and you can bring a few weeks worth to work and store it there.

[btchance]

There are some great ideas here. This is what I try to do.

In the mornings I usually eat some grapes, piece of cheese, an apple, and drink some milk. Other times I have subsitute something for wheat bread. The mornings I'm post call I eat the scrambled eggs and bacon at the hospital.

Morning snack - I have some prepared bars that I eat - sometimes a Nature Valley bar, other times a South Beach one or Oatmeal Raisin breakfast cookie. Will also sometimes have another piece of cheese. Wheat or Grahm crackers with peanut butter also works. (no way I can go from 5am - noon without eating)

Lunch - depends on whatever is in the hospital cafeteria. If I can't find anything decent, then I have a bowl of cereal and some bread.

Afternoon snack - same as morning

Evening - usually something I prepared on an off day. One favorite is roasted potatoes with olive oil and spices added. Also do brown rice, wheat subs with meat and lettuce and tomatos, and some bought prepared meals - anything to keep me away from my standby, frozen pizza. I always make sure I have milk with this meal also, and if I've worked out, other things are added.

I try to remember to do my multi-vitamins and calcium with dinner also.

Hope this gives you guys some ideas. If you see anything missing from my diet, please share your recommendations.

[btchance]

Just remembered - I would invest in a good cooler. Stuff will stay good in that for a long time. I would try fruits and subs for dinner. Also you can get the rice packets where you can heat that up in the microwave.

[tygab]

lots of good comments here... I second eating when you feel hungry, not when you're supposed to, and also eating MORE often. In "Body For Life" (my husband did this and dropped 30 or so pounds, pre-biking) they say to eat 6 meals a day. The difference is they are little meals, You eat a lot, seems like all the time, but you are rarely hungry.

I find another key to eating right is having the right foods around. The more processed and prepped, the worse they are for you, almost always. We make sure to get lots of basic building blocks (fruit, yogurt, cheese, cereals, etc). If we have the good stuff around, we'll eat it, you know?

And we spend some time during the week to make foods that we can freeze, for fast lunches and dinners. Chilis, homemade mac and cheese, veggie soups etc.

We have a ton of single serving size containers (the reusable/recycleable kinds that are very inexpensive, so if they do break we don't mind). We never have enough of them. It's great because I can open the freezer in the AM and grab a meal for lunch. We especially like to make food from in season local produce, then in the wrong seasons we get a special treat of the local goods!

I've also taken a stash of food to work, so I don't need to resort to vending machine snacks or other goodies that frequently appear (candy, pies, ice cream, chips etc ...) in the work setting.

For deserts we get fruit popsicles or freeze jello & fruit cups. Better for you than ice cream.

It's actually not that hard to do, once you have a bit of a plan. But making the changes can be daunting at first. I am much happier with the way we eat now.

[cherinyc]

There are some great ideas here. This is what I try to do.

In the mornings I usually eat some grapes, piece of cheese, an apple, and drink some milk. Other times I have subsitute something for wheat bread. The mornings I'm post call I eat the scrambled eggs and bacon at the hospital.

Morning snack - I have some prepared bars that I eat - sometimes a Nature Valley bar, other times a South Beach one or Oatmeal Raisin breakfast cookie. Will also sometimes have another piece of cheese. Wheat or Grahm crackers with peanut butter also works. (no way I can go from 5am - noon without eating)

Lunch - depends on whatever is in the hospital cafeteria. If I can't find anything decent, then I have a bowl of cereal and some bread.

Afternoon snack - same as morning

Evening - usually something I prepared on an off day. One favorite is roasted potatoes with olive oil and spices added. Also do brown rice, wheat subs with meat and lettuce and tomatos, and some bought prepared meals - anything to keep me away from my standby, frozen pizza. I always make sure I have milk with this meal also, and if I've worked out, other things are added.

I try to remember to do my multi-vitamins and calcium with dinner also.

Hope this gives you guys some ideas. If you see anything missing from my diet, please share your recommendations.

btchance - it occured to me that most of the foods you described are close to the same color. white, beige-ish, brown. (cheese, milk, brown rice, bread, prepared bars, wheat bread/subs, roasted potatoes....)
I think you should introduce some greens into your diet (other than lettuce that goes on a sub).
You must have a CRAZY FAST metabolism, because if I ate like that....well, first of all I would be really tired all the time.

[Melstar]

DH and I are changing our eatting habits. we both want to loose weight...more loose b....... we get something with veggies.

any help is much appreciated!

Sandy

Well i think the golden rule is not to skip meals? cuz otherwise you may over eat come dinner time.

Of course i could direct you to some unhealthy eating habits that'll have you threading the line of "E" disorders, but, i'll get grilled by all the mother hens out and about here

[EBD]

I'm a grad student so I sympathize with having a crazy schedule and needing to eat on the run. One thing that helps me is to make a big batch of some sort of one-bowl meal on Sunday, then eat lunch from that all week. As long as I'm going to be in an air-conditioned building, I don't worry too much about refrigeration, at least for things like yogurt or pasta salad, or even little cups of cottage cheese (very filling!).

Pasta salad is the best to make for weekday lunches - any concoction as long as it has some veggies and a bit of protein. (Obviously this doesn't work for low-carb dieters, but they don't seem too prevalent on these boards). Recent favorites include pasta salad with tomatoes, chickpeas and feta in a lemon vinaigrette, and pasta with pesto, peas and chicken. Epicurious.com, the Foster's Market cookbook and the Barefoot Contessa cookbook are my main sources of inspiration for these kind of one-dish salad meals.

Of course, if I make too much, by the end of the week I may be sick of it, which is why I have a bowl of week-old pasta salad in my fridge that will probably have to be tossed tonight.

[RoadRaven]

Well i think the golden rule is not to skip meals? cuz otherwise you may over eat come dinner time.

If you eat only when hungry, and only eat til you are full, this does not become an issue

Of course i could direct you to some unhealthy eating habits that'll have you threading the line of "E" disorders, but, i'll get grilled by all the mother hens out and about here

Melstar... whats an "E" disorder??

[Melstar]

If you eat only when hungry, and only eat til you are full, this does not become an issue ]

Well then again, some of us are hungry 24/7... i know i am...

Melstar... whats an "E" disorder??

Eating disorders.

[mcoleman]

It seems like a struggle for us to get enough veggies also. I have been bringing Just Veggies (from Whole Foods) and low sodium V8 to add to my morning & afternoon snacks.
Another book to check into is Chris Carmichael's Food for Fitness. He has some wonderful receipes. My standby for dinner-when-there-is-no-time nights uses canned tomatoes and white beans and frozen spinach over whole wheat pasta. I usually toss in a little feta.

[RoadRaven]

Eating disorders.

Ah... eating disorders in general... sry, I thought "e disorder" was some special/specific thing I hadn't heard of before!

[lph]

We usually have this problem in summer, when the sun just doesn't go down and there's no way we want to go home to cook food.

These are a few of our solutions, you'll need a supply of leak-proof plastic containers:
Yoghurt with musli, chopped nuts and sliced banana.
Mediterranean style lunch: cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, sliced ham, rolls, small bottle of olive oil etc.
Packed salad, make sure it has enough protein eg. hard-boiled eggs, chick peas, beans.
And actually - dinner leftovers aren't necessarily gross when eaten cold. When I cook I often make fast wok-type dinners: strips of chicken or beef, lots of vegetables (carrots, onions, red peppers, green apple, broccoli), spices, fried in oil and served with boiled rice. I find myself eating cold leftovers of this quite happily when I come home late a few days later

[Bikingmomof3]

There have been wonderful suggestions. Everyone is different good thing there are so many food options.

I eat six small meals a day. My favourite book is Body For Life For Women. I need to keep my blood sugar happy and once I decided to actually listen to my doctor and do this, plus add in exercise, I dropped 60+ overall inches (fat, fat, fat), gained muscle (yay) and shed almost 70 pounds. (YAY ME!) It took me a year and a half, no quick fixes. Now I am healthier than I have ever been and loving every minute of it!

Now I just work on maintaining my weight and increasing my lean muscle mass.

I went from a size 20 to a size 6! I am extra proud, since I did it by myself.

FWIW-I did not overeat when I was big. Quite the opposite. I was never hungry. I would not eat until about 1pm or so after being up almost 8 hours! My metabolism had completely shut down, and it was a bugger to get it jump started again.

Now I am happily running, hopefully cycling outdoors as soon as I get the all clear from my neurologist and looking forward to my TNT training AND my goal to partcipate in a Tri before I am 40!