Berry78

Pretty sure my extended family doesn't care for me much either ... I dunno why.. oh well, their loss

I'll have to report back r.e. avacados. Haven't bought one in a while. I figure I can eat half of one, but not sure what I'll be able to eat with it.

My 11 year old son (an Aspie), can't help himself, and keeps calling me fat. He didn't do that before surgery.. so he's noticing the difference, but yes, I'm STILL 50lbs overweight.. so it's true. He himself is rail-thin, and is paranoid about becoming heavy. I have to tread carefully around him because he'd be prone to become anorexic. The adults in the house are jealous, so started their own diets. But it really hasn't changed anything in our relationships. I always wore the britches.. they're just smaller now My biggest challenge is in trying to "help" them with their diets. Either they expect someone to do 100% of the work.. feed them what they are supposed to have for every meal.. or they want to rebel against the plan and secretively "cheat". It's a weird place to be, because, obviously they need a plan that they are comfortable with and that they can feel in control of. But since they don't do the legwork to figure out why they should eat some things, and not eat others (which is what I'm all about).. they don't have that foundation of true understanding. Without a good foundation, the house will fall. Any diet book you pick up makes a strong case for its own diet, eschewing all others. Much like religion. In the past, I'd read a book, fall for the enticing claims, and come out at the end with something that was unsustainable. So I'm trying to create something new without having to quote any one author. Find my own path through the weeds by looking at each thing individually and figuring out how they fit together. The only way I can do this is by having GOBS of free time, and I do, because I don't work right now..

Half-Tum, you are a riot! Thanks!!

1oz nuts is about 14g fat. 3.5oz avacado is about 14g fat. (Lol, there'd be no room for salad!) 1.5oz cheese has 14g fat I already eat the nuts, so that makes sense. But cheese and avacado really don't show up in my current plan. At the moment.. it's autumn. Fresh salads aren't a big thing for me this time of year anyway. A teaspoon of butter on cooked veggies sounds pretty good. 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon .. so I can have 3 "meals" of cooked veggies for the same fat as 1 fresh salad.

Nourishing Traditions was my bible about 10 years ago. Interesting article: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/80/2/396.full Ok, so for those that don't want to read the study.. basically they tested the carotenoid absorption after eating salad with fat free dressing, reduced fat dressing, and full fat dressing. (Carotenoids are the plant pigments that give them their bright colors and are thought to be good for us.. for example the "Vit. A" found in carrots). Each salad weighed 8.8oz, and contained spinach, romaine, shredded carrots, and cherry tomatoes. They added 1oz dressing to each salad. The test subjects absorbed pretty close to zero carotenoids from their salads with fat-free dressing. Yep. You think you're doing that great thing by squirting lemon juice on your salad.. and you don't get to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins at all!!! They absorbed lots of the carotinoids from the full fat dressing (2 tablespoons of dressing provided 28g fat). The reduced fat dressing had 6g fat, and they absorbed about half as many nutrients. I'm sad they didn't test something between 6 and 28g fat.. there is a big grey area there where maybe we don't need a whole 28g. Our salads are more apt to weigh about 4.4oz since we have tiny tummies, so our equivalent dressing would be 1 tablespoon.. 14g fat. There had been a previous study with cooked veggies, and 5g added fat (1 teaspoon) may have been enough to absorb the nutrients from that. Either way, these quantities of fat ARE small compared to what people like to do, dumping a gazillion tons of dressing on their salads... but for me, I'm watching my calorie goals go flitting out the door! Eek!

Some days you WILL mess up. We all do! But that's ok! 2 steps forward, 1 step back.. still gets you there, it just takes longer! Who cares how long it takes? This isn't a race. *Beating yourself up when you go off plan is MUCH more harmful than going off plan ever could be.* (Well, in a literal sense.. don't go slam down a big mac on your way home from the hospital after surgery.. that would be very dangerous! But if you know your life is on the line during the first 2 months postop, usually that's enough to get through that time frame without messing up. It's later when that big mac won't kill you that the struggle is likely to become real.) Anyone with addictions needs outside help. Counseling, group therapy, support groups, all of that. {Hugs} You aren't alone. MANY people on this board struggle with just this thing.

I found a really interesting study that was done on the microbiota changes across the lifespan. Very small children and the very old (80+) have a relatively high number of "bad bugs", whereas everyone else has a minimal number of them. There was another difference that I'd have to look into more, where infants have a large proportion of a certain type of good bug, and they consistently dwindle through life to be virtually gone by time you're 80+. So, from that study, I don't think the super elderly have a special kind of good bug that made them live longer. (But, the bugs were separated into phyla, not individual strains, so it's possible they did have higher proportions of certain critters within families). We had a special occasion yesterday, and so we were supposed to have cake. My hubby was prepared to drive an hour to go get some extra special cake, and I was like, not interested AT ALL! We did have cake, and it was very good (from a local place), but I was almost the opposite of craving it. I was shocked, however by how much cake I could eat once I started, because I did enjoy it. Couldn't handle the frosting, though.. way too sweet. No restriction on soft, moist cake! Good to know! Lol! If I've been craving anything, it's sweet potatoes and butternut squash. That stuff is da bomb! Sweet and orange. My newest dilemma is how to make sure I'm getting fat with all my veggies. I don't want to eat meat with them because I get full too fast, but if I have to add a ton of oil to them, then it increases my calorie load. It's not clear exactly HOW MUCH fat you need to efficiently digest the fat-soluble vitamins, but it's a decent amount. Yesterday I put an egg with my lentil soup, (I had missed it for a couple days), and oh my gosh, was that good. There is definitely something in eggs that I need (from the first egg I ate postop, I felt it). I eat whole eggs because egg whites alone actually make you more deficient in something (I want to say biotin).

Oh, man... I almost choked on my coffee!! Lookin' great!!

Fascinating stuff! Makes me wonder if we're all just pooppets that are having our strings pulled by our little microbiome friends (or enemas)... Toilet humor is the best.. why trash talk, when we can dump on ideas?! But in all seriousness, how on earth did they remove the ability of Drosophilia to manufacture an amino acid?? HOW??? Now I have to go see if they've analyzed poo from centenarians..

Cooking fruit makes the sugars super easy to digest... so anyone with blood sugar issues might not want to do this, or should limit their consumption and combine with fat, fiber, and/or protein to slow 'er down.

Waler, I'm interested in finding out what you have to say. Maybe you can tell us about one of your examples.

Ok, you'll need a pen and paper for this one. Wash apple and slice it up, removing core. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Add a little pat of real, salted butter. Microwave for 2-3 minutes or until done. Eat. I am now super sensitive to sweet, so need nothing extra.

Yeah, I like the number 157, but I'm not married to it. Even 185 will be thrilling!

Aww man! I wanna run around naked.. no one else wants that, but what a freeing experience! Ah well, prolly be cold, anyway. This is why I like reading about the diet/lifestyles of those that DID live a long time, so we know what may work. My grandmother lived to be 98. She worked until she was 85 as a cook. She grew up in a farming family and ALWAYS had her garden. Sugar sweetened desserts about once a week, no soda, home made meals 3 times a day, all food groups present and accounted for. (I spent a summer with her as a child, and was struck by how much cooking there was). When the kids would run through before supper, hungry! Hungry!, she had a plate of cut vegetables on the table from which they could help themselves. I'll have to ask my Aunts what they remember...

Sure, you can do it! The average loss for someone with your stats puts them at 186ish. But why would you want to be average? I like this, very much:

That ORAC scale is interesting. So hard to compare things though, since everything is measured based on a 3.5oz "serving". Works for potatoes, but not garlic! Lol. There is probably one running around that has converted the quantities to normal using amounts. I don't know, if you cook whole garlic cloves, they might be mild enough to eat 3.5 oz...

https://www.thediabetescouncil.com/what-you-should-know-about-diabetes-and-the-dawn-phenomenon/ Ok, so first your blood sugar drops during the night (probably because you haven't eaten for a while). Hormones come along to say, hey, we need more sugar! So the liver puts out sugar. The pancreas then says, oops.. too much sugar, let me put some insulin on that. In a typical person, that brings blood sugar back down, but in a diabetic, the insulin is missing or ineffective, so the blood stays over-sweet.

30g carbs plus 63g protein equals 372 calories. This is probably a ketogenic diet, or at least borderline keto.. and you'd have to eat 4.5oz of fat a day to bring it up to 1500 calories. Half a cup of oil, spread out on 3 big salads (That's how I imagine this working). It's not a bad idea, but it's not surprising he got control of blood sugar levels.. Basically people are getting 3 salads a day with a small amount of meat on each one, a few nuts, a bunch of dressing, and a side of corn or beans at noon and night. No dairy except cheese, no fruit, no grains. I think it'd be fun for about a day... but what can you do when you have a disease? You do what you can to make it go away (or as close to "away" as possible). Kudos to the good doctor for formulating a plan to help people. And, of course, it wouldn't HAVE to be salad all the time.. an omelet in the morning, meat, potatoes, and veg at night.. doesn't sound so bad...

I do want to point out that those studies are performed on your typical people off the street that are consuming 2500 calories on an average day. (Many of us before surgery). Not sure they'd be applicable for us.. at least not until we are able to consume a normal amount of calories again. All those benefits, we've already received from the surgery. I doubt we'd derive MORE benefit from doubling up.... but I dunno..

It would be nice to not have to count and plan.. and if we could still eat 20 cups of food a day, then maybe we would have that luxury. But, here we are, having to meet a zillion different nutritional needs into 3-5 cups of food. Heck yeah we have to plan! My hubby, with his normal-sized stomach, can easily eat 2 cups (4 servings) of beans, PLUS a nice hunk of whole wheat bread, PLUS a side of baked apples, all in one sitting. Then he can eat 2+ more times during the day. He has the LUXURY of spreading his nutrients out into massive quantities of food, and it's nearly impossible for him to not meet his protein needs (the above meal has 34g, right there). But I'm not him. I don't have a normal sized stomach any more, and if I ate the given meal, it would take all day, and I wouldn't have room for anything else. And I would only consume 34g for the whole day, which would leave me deficient. But this was my choice.. I'm exchanging a future of diabetes (and having to count blood sugar readings several times a day) for counting my protein.

My epiphany came with the concept of "single ingredient". Old fashioned cook books compile ingredients like: eggs, butter, sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon. Modern cookbooks say things like: 1 cup Pillsbury all-purpose baking mix The problem with the baking mixes and boxed cake mixes, is we lose track of what goes into the food. Occasionally I have the kids make a cake from scratch. They are SHOCKED at the pile of sugar that goes into the bowl. A cake mix has that stuff all mixed up, so you can't SEE it! When I was working on formulating my meal plan, I started with protein-containing foods. I googled, for example, "egg nutrition". A quick chart shows up from which I can select the size/quantity. I go through lists of these foods, comparing all the different types, and similarities quickly become apparent. From these similarities, I can generalize (for example, 7g of protein in an egg, a half cup of beans, one ounce of nuts, one ounce of meat or fish, 1/4 cup cottage cheese, or one cup of milk). I know I might be off a gram here or there, but it's close enough that I can now plan a day without having to keep going and looking up the protein content of the various foods. If I'm worried, I plan for more protein than I need. After protein is taken care of, then I look at the next macro. Carbohydrates. Some of the selected protein foods contain carbs, so I count those up. Do I have room for any others? If yes, then I look at fruit. A while back, I was researching fructose, and the daily recommended amount was approximately what was contained in one piece of fruit. So, that's easy. One fruit, depending on size, usually contains 15-25g carbs. I look at fruit, rather than grains, because fruit contains vitamin C, and addresses any sweet cravings. Plus, you keep a fruit bowl on the counter and grab a piece. No cooking or prep required. During the weight loss phase, that's pretty much as many carbs as we should be eating. The next place I'd look is starchy vegetables (potatoes and sweet potatoes). If I really am yamming for a sweet potato, I have that instead of fruit. (And on the super rare occasions that I want ezekial toast.. again, substitute). Veggies come in a variety of "starchiness". Leafy greens have less starch than winter squash, which has less than corn. It's good to have a sense of the variation, but I don't let any of the numbers dictate which ones are good or bad. All of them have a ton of nutrients and should be eaten liberally. I don't go out of my way to eat corn most of the time because the calorie/nutrient ratio isn't the best during the weight loss phase. But if I'm presented with a nice fresh ear of sweet corn, I'm not saying "no". And lastly, fat. We need some fat. Most of the protein containing foods also contain fat. I count up what is included in the foods that have already been selected. For the most part, it's enough that I don't have to add any (we need somewhere between 35g and 65g). But, those veggies that contain vit. A and K need to be eaten with some fat. So if I'm eating veggies alone, I add a teaspoon of olive oil or butter (or swallow an omega 3 supplement) with them. 1 t. is 5 grams (40 calories). If you want protein with it, melt cheese on broccoli. Calories: If we are aiming for 1100 calories, and 70g protein and 80g carbs (600 calories) + 55.5g fat (500 calories)... then everything works. But, when it's time to increase calories, usually protein needs don't go up significantly, so we'll have to increase carbs and fat. That's when we start bringing in potatoes, whole, unprocessed grains, and additional nuts and avacados and cheese. But, it's not a free for all, just because all the food selections are whole and nutritious, we still have to pay attention to how many calories we can handle before starting to gain. Some of us will gain on 1200 (check your thyroid!), and some can eat 2500 and maintain. The only way to know where you stand is to spend money on testing, or keep impeccable food records/plan.

Actually I was just using her as a real-time example.. the other parts of the post are the more interesting MIL has gone through so many diets that she thinks she knows it all.. but is also TERRIFIED to eat. She has lost 30lbs, and wants to keep up the momentum, but also doesn't want to give up things like diet soda or biscuits and gravy. She's all over the place, honestly. I'm thinking that's how a lot of us were on diets in the past. Just not really sure how to actually make it happen. Personally, I planned out each diet to a "T".. had all my rules and parameters in place, then embarked upon them. The missing puzzle piece for me was the knowledge that a diet has to be forever. Somehow I missed that memo, and thought they were supposed to be for a few months or so. My diets were designed for maximal weight loss in a short period of time, rather than durability. Life circumstances or hunger would knock me off plan, lickety split. MIL's "plan" is to see if she can continue eating like, 500 calories a day.. and she'll make sure she gets at least 20g of protein. (yeah, I'm eating this whole ounce of pork.. because I had half a cheese sandwich earlier with a whole 5g of protein in the cheese).. psycho... Yes I'm venting here.. but I don't to her. I'm actually pretty nice (maybe a little firm). I'll mention WW to her.