ali
Level 7 Valued Member
After a lot of experimentation, study and research into nutrition I've been eating the same way now for a couple of years without thinking about things too much. Getting a structure in place, or template, which fits my lifestyle was the main aim after I shed the fat. The link posted above - tonygentilcore - is how I eat. Simple, very tweakable. I hadn't read that before and although with a good dose of confirmation bias that is a really good template to follow. I agree there with Joe that a lot of food issues has to do with semantics and psychology. I like to think of 'diet' as a diet ie what you eat rather than loading it with the form 'diet', meaning a form of deprivation, struggle or inner battle. Using the words 'on a diet' implies negativity, feelings of low self worth, lack of self control and builds anxiety around 'food and mood'. A nasty, vicious circle ensues. Similarly, Intermittent Fast has a deprivation tone to it too. Can recommend looking into Nate Miyaki's work. He has a template too, IF, but it is called Intermittent Feast. Sounds much better, doesn't it? Now and then stuff your face with glorious food rather than now and then don't eat. It is the same thing, the same outcome, the same science but is more positive, more pro eating rather than pro not eating. When choosing between Feast or Famine, what would you choose? There is a distinction, a powerful one and it changes, or at least it did me, how you think about food. I played about with fasting - not for fat loss per se - more as a form of easy maintenance and struggled with it. When I did exactly the same thing but substituted the word Feast in there, everything changed and fasting was easy! It's a glass half full/glass half empty thing. Makes a huge difference.
All this diet and nutrition stuff has led me full circle. I eat pretty much as I did as a kid, until 18 or 19 years old. I'm 51 now. Anyone in their late forties and older will know the time where it all became f*cked up. The saturated fat issue and the seven countries study by Keys delivering us 30 years of stupid diets, low fat craziness and piles of processed food. I now eat like the teenager I was back then. Good wholesome food most of the time. And the very odd and revealing conclusion that I've made is that I kind of know all this stuff because I ate the way I do now for the first 19 years or so of my life! It has taken me nearly 30 years to realise it! And my parents were experts in nutrition. It is funny reading about the reason why you should eat liver for instance, all the sciencey geeky stuff about vitamins, nutrients etc is all great written by someone with a phd in nutritional science. I'm not knocking it, at all. My mum used to say the same thing!! ....."Can I not just have chips Mum?" ..."No, you will eat your liver because it is the most nutritious thing on this god forsaken planet. You will eat it and your brussel sprouts or you are not going out!!"..." Any chocolate for afters, Mum?" No, your Dad brought you back a coconut". I would then go out with my mates and attempt to steal a chocolate bar from the local shop. Failed usually, I was never a criminal mastermind. Christmas time consisted of piles of brazil nuts and walnuts that I opened with a hammer, they didn't even come unshelled back in the day. I preferred a hammer to a nutcracker. And then boxes of apples sent over from Canada by my uncle. No playstations for me. Apples! Never liked him. My first bowl of pasta I had whilst hitch hiking in the Italian alps as a hippy 19 year old. And then returning home, the meditteranean diet was the thing. I was chuffed because I had some pasta, in Italy too. I felt quite a celebrity. Sporty types, like me, were advised to eat pasta for energy. Somehow the meditteranean diet was corrupted too, not fresh fish, salads, fresh veg and olives, no.....pasta and pizza....and buckets of the stuff. It was all downhill from there.
I'm now gluten free. No pasta. No s***. Most of the time. And I eat like a hormonal, hyper active, energetic and ravenous teenager. My mum was right, eat your liver and greens. My Dad never brought home the bacon, instead it was coconuts. For the last 5 years I've been knee deep in getting to grips with all this nutrition stuff, sciencey or anecdotal, all of which is interesting and enlightening. 30 years of being brainwashed by dodgy science, government guidelines, food marketing and iffy health advice has now been well and truly quashed by paleo researchers sticking, scientists and authors, some qualified, some not and my good old Mum and Dad. It's a funny old world.
All this diet and nutrition stuff has led me full circle. I eat pretty much as I did as a kid, until 18 or 19 years old. I'm 51 now. Anyone in their late forties and older will know the time where it all became f*cked up. The saturated fat issue and the seven countries study by Keys delivering us 30 years of stupid diets, low fat craziness and piles of processed food. I now eat like the teenager I was back then. Good wholesome food most of the time. And the very odd and revealing conclusion that I've made is that I kind of know all this stuff because I ate the way I do now for the first 19 years or so of my life! It has taken me nearly 30 years to realise it! And my parents were experts in nutrition. It is funny reading about the reason why you should eat liver for instance, all the sciencey geeky stuff about vitamins, nutrients etc is all great written by someone with a phd in nutritional science. I'm not knocking it, at all. My mum used to say the same thing!! ....."Can I not just have chips Mum?" ..."No, you will eat your liver because it is the most nutritious thing on this god forsaken planet. You will eat it and your brussel sprouts or you are not going out!!"..." Any chocolate for afters, Mum?" No, your Dad brought you back a coconut". I would then go out with my mates and attempt to steal a chocolate bar from the local shop. Failed usually, I was never a criminal mastermind. Christmas time consisted of piles of brazil nuts and walnuts that I opened with a hammer, they didn't even come unshelled back in the day. I preferred a hammer to a nutcracker. And then boxes of apples sent over from Canada by my uncle. No playstations for me. Apples! Never liked him. My first bowl of pasta I had whilst hitch hiking in the Italian alps as a hippy 19 year old. And then returning home, the meditteranean diet was the thing. I was chuffed because I had some pasta, in Italy too. I felt quite a celebrity. Sporty types, like me, were advised to eat pasta for energy. Somehow the meditteranean diet was corrupted too, not fresh fish, salads, fresh veg and olives, no.....pasta and pizza....and buckets of the stuff. It was all downhill from there.
I'm now gluten free. No pasta. No s***. Most of the time. And I eat like a hormonal, hyper active, energetic and ravenous teenager. My mum was right, eat your liver and greens. My Dad never brought home the bacon, instead it was coconuts. For the last 5 years I've been knee deep in getting to grips with all this nutrition stuff, sciencey or anecdotal, all of which is interesting and enlightening. 30 years of being brainwashed by dodgy science, government guidelines, food marketing and iffy health advice has now been well and truly quashed by paleo researchers sticking, scientists and authors, some qualified, some not and my good old Mum and Dad. It's a funny old world.
