Diet and Weightloss

[danceoftheshamen]

6 hours ago, El Zen said:

@danceoftheshamen. Could you explain about these ‘toxins’? What are they and what do they do to my body? 

Toxins come in many forms, in food, in the environment such as pollution, diesel fumes etc, chemicals we use daily such as cleaning fluids, bleach etc. The body absorbs these and they can have a severe impact on the bodies immune system. Stress and lack of sleep are also especially involved in this “attack” on the immune system.  
There is so much info it’s difficult to say it all in brief on here of course but poor diet and the modern day assault on our bodies from the above are the main cause of old people diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, dementia etc. 
 

 

[danceoftheshamen]

9 hours ago, Seat68 said:

I am a little confused myself. I have been on a slimming world diet of varying degrees of success since 2003. Currently on it now and toxins have never been mentioned. 

“Toxins”is not something I got from Slimming World that’s why, but they are prevalent in all sorts of things, food has often been treated with very toxic chemical pesticides and we also are exposed to them in many household cleaning products, bleach for example, air spray, deodorants and many more. A lot of deodorant contains Aluminium a known carcinogenic for example.
 

Then you have airborne toxins from diesel fumes for example.
 

It is easy to research it all if required. 

[Stevo985]

10 hours ago, El Zen said:

A pal of mine swears low carb is the right diet for him. Doesn’t watch his cal counts at all, but religiously watches carb %. Eats as much as he wants and, crucially, drinks as much as he wants as long as it’s a ‘low carb’ product. Even «low carb» beer and wine. 

Needless to say he’s not losing anywhere near what he should be losing, all because he’s lulled himself into thinking ‘low carb’ is the only thing that matters. 

If I remind him I lost 20 kgs in 80 days counting calories, he says he can’t count calories and it doesn’t work for him. Sure it does, you just don’t want to. It hurts, but it works. 

100%

Unless you have some sort of medical condition, calorie counting works for everyone. And those people who do have a medical condition are a tiny tiny TINY proportion.

Low carb diets mostly work because, guess what, there's lots of calories in carbs

[Stevo985]

9 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Agree but I don’t think Keto is a fad diet. Its a lifestyle for many people.  

I never said Keto was a fad diet

[Stevo985]

6 hours ago, villa4europe said:

I didn't calorie count 

I just learned what was high calorie, what's good and what's bad in general and cut out the bad, 18 months with no crisps for example, hardly any sweets, replaced chocolate with brownie protein bites but chocolate stayed around more than everything else, diet coke only, you can lose weight whilst still drinking a lot of diet coke I can tell you that for a fact 

And then shit loads of exercise to create the deficit, I was football 2 or 3 times plus gym probably 4 or 5 hours doing cross fit 

Then did the timing, intermittent fasting which I found easy, eating around exercise, played football at 6pm so no sugar before, not sure of thr science of that but to me it makes sense, if I know I'm going on a 2 hour walk Saturday morning I will eat after not before, that naturally reduces my number or meals and pushes me to the fasting 

Now I eat kind of whatever I want, 2 meals a day, walk 5km with work, play football once no gym but touch wood I'm not putting weight on 

Yep, again I'm not saying you need to calorie COUNT... just that diets only work if you are in a calorie deficit. 

Calories are the ultimate thing that matter. If people can be in a calorie deficit without calorie counting then that's absolutely ideal

[Rds1983]

6 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

100%

Unless you have some sort of medical condition, calorie counting works for everyone. And those people who do have a medical condition are a tiny tiny TINY proportion.

Low carb diets mostly work because, guess what, there's lots of calories in carbs

Carbs are 4 calories per gram, same as protein. Fat is more then double that at 9. That doesn't mean that fats are to be avoided though. 

Not going crazy on carbs is 100% beneficial but I'd still aim for at least 40% (200-250g) of my macros from carbs (45% protein and 15% healthy fats). They're the best fuel used by the body to function and exercise. 

I wouldn't recommend keto as a long term food plan. 

But if it works for people and they're happy on it then fantastic. That's the main point. 

[El Zen]

11 hours ago, danceoftheshamen said:

Toxins come in many forms, in food, in the environment such as pollution, diesel fumes etc, chemicals we use daily such as cleaning fluids, bleach etc. The body absorbs these and they can have a severe impact on the bodies immune system. Stress and lack of sleep are also especially involved in this “attack” on the immune system.  
There is so much info it’s difficult to say it all in brief on here of course but poor diet and the modern day assault on our bodies from the above are the main cause of old people diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, dementia etc. 
 

 

Talking specifically about food, being in a thread about diets, can you please name examples of foods that contain toxins, what those toxins are and how they negatively affect my body?

If I’m inadvertently poisoning my body, I’d like to know. 

[Stevo985]

53 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

Carbs are 4 calories per gram, same as protein. Fat is more then double that at 9. That doesn't mean that fats are to be avoided though. 

Not going crazy on carbs is 100% beneficial but I'd still aim for at least 40% (200-250g) of my macros from carbs (45% protein and 15% healthy fats). They're the best fuel used by the body to function and exercise. 

I wouldn't recommend keto as a long term food plan. 

But if it works for people and they're happy on it then fantastic. That's the main point. 

But carbs are far less filling so you naturally eat more. 
 

200 calories worth of bread isn’t even going to touch the sides. 200calories of protein would. 

But yes, whatever works for people will work. 

 

The ultimate point is you can follow whatever diet you like. If you’re eating more calories than you’re burning, you won’t lose weight 

[Rds1983]

43 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

But carbs are far less filling so you naturally eat more. 
 

200 calories worth of bread isn’t even going to touch the sides. 200calories of protein would. 

But yes, whatever works for people will work. 

 

The ultimate point is you can follow whatever diet you like. If you’re eating more calories than you’re burning, you won’t lose weight 

Lean into the protein completely, it's what I have more of than anything. But having the carbs in there to provide the fuel to actually exercise effectively is a key for me. You can definitely feel the difference in energy and strength levels between low and high carb days when carb cycling. This let's you have longer and more productive workouts and burn more calories. 

But whatever works for people. 

Completely agree on calories in/out and people not knowing enough about how that works. 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Rds1983

[danceoftheshamen]

3 hours ago, El Zen said:

Talking specifically about food, being in a thread about diets, can you please name examples of foods that contain toxins, what those toxins are and how they negatively affect my body?

If I’m inadvertently poisoning my body, I’d like to know. 

It's very difficult to make a list & it depends what you specifically class as "toxic" of course.  When i say toxic i mean "damaging to the body" or having a negative impact on the body in some way, to me that means it is harmful or "toxic". Of course we have to take into account the "compound effect" too. What i mean by that is that one or two portions of burgers & chips won't immediately do anything to you but if you have them regularly over many months/years your health will eventually deteriorate. This leads us into a false sense of security as we see no effects for quite a while and those effects are so gradual. But the reality is compounded over time a poor diet will slowly damage your body. So it is effetively a slow poisoning of, or gradual damaging effect on the cells of the body and this can eventually result in diseases.  The opposite is true too however... If you diet for a day or two you won't really see any difference but as you continue the compound effect starts to work for you and gradually you reverse the weight gain. 

For the record when i lost weight i also lost my indigestion issues (i used to get reflux at night and always was taking Rennie's) and as an added bonus my asthma also went so i now don't need inhalers!! The doctors don't tell you that bit and when i asked why he said "because most people don't listen so we don't bother anymore!!!! How sad is that!

Of course some foods are severe, some less-so. I think the evidence is all around us in reality. Such as it is well documented that a healthy mediterranean diet of fresh fruit, vegetables & fish etc lead to a longer life. 

As for which foods to avoid, well i'd start with the processed or "man Made" variety as they often contain lots of chemicals hidden as "E numbers" (Easy to check the labels for confirmation). These are used to preserve, colour or add flavour to otherwise tasteless foods and many are not good for you at all. Unfortunately we live in a World where money rules and profits are the only concern so large companies are more bothered about the shelf life of a product than they are the impact on people. Sad but true.

Trans-fats are outright dangerous and are used by most fast food outlets, usually in the cooking oil they use. Why? because they are "cheap"!! As i said profit is all they care about. So if we have a takeaway we try to make it at home. 5% beef made into burgers with fresh salad and baked chips is stunningly tasty and for me much nicer than the junk you buy from fast food places. You can also have that and diet!! What's not to like?!

Sauces are full of E-numbers, Salt (major cause of heart disease if consumed in too high volumes), Sugar (major cause of diebetes). 

As for carbs, bread, cereal grains etc well they get turned into sugar by the body so again there is a massive diabetes pandemic as a result of when governments and health bodies started pushing grains such as Wheat, Corn, Barley etc etc as staple foods. I believe this happened back in the 50's/60's. Prior to that diabetes was not so prevalent. Of course all of this would be denied by certain bodies, to protect those good old profits!! Half of the USA has been converted to growing these things to feed the masses. They spray them with highly toxic chemicals to kill bugs and mites etc but this of course gets absorbed into the food chain. 

Really "Grow your own" is the way forward but of course to some that is simply not possible so i would just say source your food carefully. Check the labels, avoid dodgy take-aways or at least ask them "what brand of oil do you use?" then research it. Imagine if everyone asked that they would surely have little option but to use a safer more healthy oil instead of cheap trans-fat laden junk. It's scary how many takeaway owners have no idea about the adverse health impacts of the food they are selling to people and they will of course try to belittle it if asked to protect their "profits" (there it is again).

Anyhow i'll get off my soap box lol! I just really hate to see the damage it causes and the oblivious general public being sucked in by it all not realising the risks they are taking. 

To summise

I try to have as much Fresh, leafy locally grown produce with fruit & home cooked fish / meat as possible. I prefer home made takeaway as it's so much tastier and you know what you're eating not tripe served up by a large company using cheap harmful processed ingredients so as to maximise profits. They are full of salt, sugar, preservatives, trans-fats and whatever else. I even found out my local "all u can eat" chinese puts flower in their dishes to fill you quicker so you eat less!!! 

Avoid where possible, processed, longlife, man-made food & sauces. 

Each to there own but that's my opinion on it all.

As for medicines well please don't get me started on that! As a Doterra Wellness advisor I learn a lot about the toxic chemical based medicines we all pump ourselves with when actually sometimes there are much healthier and less toxic, totally natural alternatives (But i am not allowed to advertise these as medically beneficial as the companies who make the chemical based stuff refuse to test the natural stuff presumably once again as it may affect their profits!!! It just so happens they are the only people who are allowed to test stuff!) So the lady at work who had been suffering with tendonitis in her leg for months and was on all sorts of toxic chemical based painkillers issued by her GP (she was still limping very badly despite this) was quite stunned when i gave her a rollerball bottle with a few drops of Essential oils in it and after ONE application her tendonitis went completely and she now has no painkillers at all ... Must be coincidence right? 

Edited November 24, 2021 by danceoftheshamen

[fightoffyour]

16 hours ago, danceoftheshamen said:

 Avoid Cheese, biscuits, crackers, bread, sauce, chocolate, sweets etc…

Edit: sorry for the gif only reply (it's not anymore!), @Seat68

Edited November 24, 2021 by fightoffyour

[villa4europe]

we obviously dont have half the shite in our food that the yanks do but yeah my understanding was that there are both natural and unnatural toxins in our food still

bio / organic fruit and veg is the obvious one to try and avoid pesticides etc and cut back on processed meats

the natural ones are the daft stories of like dont eat 4kg of marzipan or you'll die...dont eat the green part of a potato, there's something bad for you in cinnamon, fruits with stones (plums, peaches etc) contain something, there's something in kidney beans meaning that you have to cook them properly and watch how you reheat them, obviously certain mushrooms and then also you can find some bad stuff in various bits of shellfish - but the main point is to be affected by natural toxins you have either be unlucky or eat an unrealistic amount of something

[Risso]

22 hours ago, El Zen said:

A pal of mine swears low carb is the right diet for him. Doesn’t watch his cal counts at all, but religiously watches carb %. Eats as much as he wants and, crucially, drinks as much as he wants as long as it’s a ‘low carb’ product. Even «low carb» beer and wine. 

Needless to say he’s not losing anywhere near what he should be losing, all because he’s lulled himself into thinking ‘low carb’ is the only thing that matters. 

If I remind him I lost 20 kgs in 80 days counting calories, he says he can’t count calories and it doesn’t work for him. Sure it does, you just don’t want to. It hurts, but it works. 

I lost all my weight on a very low carb/keto diet. I would imagine he probably wasn't doing it properly. I much prefer this way to counting calories, as for me it doesn't hurt a bit.  Eat more or less what I want and don't count calories at all.

[El Zen]

35 minutes ago, Risso said:

I lost all my weight on a very low carb/keto diet. I would imagine he probably wasn't doing it properly. I much prefer this way to counting calories, as for me it doesn't hurt a bit.  Eat more or less what I want and don't count calories at all.

Of course you can lose weight on low carb/keto. That doesn’t mean calories don’t matter. 

[El Zen]

@danceoftheshamen. Thanks for typing all of that. I probably don’t agree with all/most of it, but I appreciate the effort and respectful reply. 

I’m generally skeptical of terms like ‘toxins’ when discussing diets and nutrition, as no food is in itself toxic. E-numbers aren’t inherently bad. Sugar, salt, fat, whatever, are all absolutely vital to our existance. If anything, I probably don’t get enough salt and could probably eat a bit more sugar too. Too much of anything is bad for you. It just varies how much too much is. 

Edited November 24, 2021 by El Zen

[villa4europe]

9 minutes ago, El Zen said:

Of course you can lose weight on low carb/keto. That doesn’t mean calories don’t matter. 

nope the science is still there 

but i do think keto is naturally a lower calorie diet, even following the basic principle of it rather than following it religiously and understanding the science behind ketosis at its core it promotes that you stop eating shit

i went chicken heavy when i did keto, 2 chicken breasts rather than chicken and pasta or rice for example, chicken breast for lunch rather than brown rice or a sandwich, without counting them i know its less calories, if it wasnt chicken breasts it was minced chicken because its easier and cheaper to get the <5% fat mince in chicken than it is in beef / lamb / pork

i must have come close to eating around 60 chickens in a 2 month period  not a clue how much hot sauce i got through with it, fried (in low fat coconut oil i think) chicken, spinach, usually tomatoes, garlic, hot sauce for 8/10 evening meals for 2 months, change the hot sauce up or use different spice rubs when it got boring, add mushrooms every now and then, cold roast chicken or scrambled egg for lunch

[Rodders]

I recently read 'Spoon Fed' by Tim Spector. It's well worth a read, just looks at how little or limited some of the existing science on diets actually is. The recommendations are hardly surprising. Avoid foods with loads of ingredients as more likely to be full of unnecessary chemicals ( he advocates a rough maximum of 9 ingredients as a rule of thumb ). plant based as the core of a diet supplemented with occasional meat and fish. Fresh is best but frozen fruit and veg is not that bad either. 

Smaller plates to help with smaller portions one of this little tricks I guess, but generally avoid snacking. That's the killer for me, all those addictive biscuits and crisps, where its never fun to just stop at one or two and you demolish a whole packet. I mean, from next week, I fully intend on just having a splurge for christmas but generally speaking don't eat too late in th evening, and also just listen to your body. Another chief point he reiterates is we are all individual ( Monty Python: I'm Not! ) so listening and adapting to how your body responds is as valuable as anything else. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

48 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

nope the science is still there 

but i do think keto is naturally a lower calorie diet, even following the basic principle of it rather than following it religiously and understanding the science behind ketosis at its core it promotes that you stop eating shit

i went chicken heavy when i did keto, 2 chicken breasts rather than chicken and pasta or rice for example, chicken breast for lunch rather than brown rice or a sandwich, without counting them i know its less calories, if it wasnt chicken breasts it was minced chicken because its easier and cheaper to get the <5% fat mince in chicken than it is in beef / lamb / pork

i must have come close to eating around 60 chickens in a 2 month period  not a clue how much hot sauce i got through with it, fried (in low fat coconut oil i think) chicken, spinach, usually tomatoes, garlic, hot sauce for 8/10 evening meals for 2 months, change the hot sauce up or use different spice rubs when it got boring, add mushrooms every now and then, cold roast chicken or scrambled egg for lunch

How did you get through the first few days and so called keto flu? It’s always done me over.  I heard it take up to 2 weeks before your body starts adequately using fat for fuel and it’s torture in the mean time.

[villa4europe]

8 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

How did you get through the first few days and so called keto flu? It’s always done me over.  I heard it take up to 2 weeks before your body starts adequately using fat for fuel and it’s torture in the mean time.

dunno if im honest

i started it start of jan after getting back from new years in a freezing cold snowy Salzburg with the new missus and we'd booked a trip to cuba for the end of Feb so i hit it hard to get a beach bod (!) i didn't know the science of it at the start, didn't hear the word keto until my PT (sounds posher than it was) clocked on to what i was doing well in to it, so there's every danger if i felt like shit i associated it with the time of year and the holiday rather than the diet, pretty sure i would have had stop drinking coke as my new years resolution (do it every year and last 3 months tops) so things like the being irritable and just generally losing your pattern i might have put to that because that does mess me about

plus then i would add because i did lose weight fast and my general fitness went up very quickly and i had a new missus its more likely that i was buzzing and just rode that wave instead

Edited November 24, 2021 by villa4europe

[danceoftheshamen]

1 hour ago, El Zen said:

@danceoftheshamen. Thanks for typing all of that. I probably don’t agree with all/most of it, but I appreciate the effort and respectful reply. 

I’m generally skeptical of terms like ‘toxins’ when discussing diets and nutrition, as no food is in itself toxic. E-numbers aren’t inherently bad. Sugar, salt, fat, whatever, are all absolutely vital to our existance. If anything, I probably don’t get enough salt and could probably eat a bit more sugar too. Too much of anything is bad for you. It just varies how much too much is. 

That's fine El Zen,  each to their own of course it all boils down to personal choice at the end of the day. I am not going to argue the point with anybody there really is no point and who am I to say what to eat or not?

All i can say is I ate too much of the stuff i mentioned previously and both balooned in weight and saw my Health deteriorate as a result so now i don't and i feel 100% better on many levels. 

Of course we all need some Salt and natural fats & sugar (not so sure about the artificial kind mind) but the reality is much of the food is crammed with abhorant levels of it. 

At the end of the day you pay your money & take your chances.