The Healthy Weight and Eating Thread

[Nichole]

Hope you keep the good feeling!

Unfortunately, there are many people who look in the mirror and feel that way, even when it is not the truth.

My sister always had a really poor self image. She is 5'11" and built similar to me, but freaks out if she is over 115lbs. She only thinks she looks good at that weight or less, but she really looks like a crack whore. older than me, even though she is 8 yrs younger.

Yikes! 5'11" and 115lbs? I'm 5'7" and I can't imagine ever being 115lbs again. I felt too thin when I weighed that and actually used to try to gain weight. Ahh, those days are over.

[cjfshaw]

5'11'' and 115 lbs is ridic, im 5'5'' and 115 and im tryna gain me some weight

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

Yikes! 5'11" and 115lbs? I'm 5'7" and I can't imagine ever being 115lbs again. I felt too thin when I weighed that and actually used to try to gain weight. Ahh, those days are over.

she most likely has some sort of eating disorder. Very sad that this happens to so many young women.

[ztemhead]

Lany - we had someone at work like that (although I have no idea what her age was, I am guessing mid thirties - she was probably younger but looked older). She actually got let go for falsifying her time records, but that's unrelated. She was so thin that her arms were half the size of mine, and one day, when she wore a thin and tight sweater, you could see all the ribs in her ribcage and all the bones in her spine. I know this because I sat behind her at a training class. Eww! Eww! Eww! It was like, "are those her ribs??? OMG." I think she may have been bulimic, because she told me that she had to have her front teeth pulled (not just root canaled - PULLED) due to extensive decay. You don't naturally get extensive decay on your front teeth.

meth addict.

[Angalin]

This Salon interview on why we overeat was fascinating to me. Really explains why we have such trouble saying no to trigger foods.

In people who have a hard time controlling their eating, their brain circuits remain elevated and activated until all the food is gone. Then the next time you get cued, you do it again. Every time you engage in this cycle you strengthen the neural circuits. The anticipation gets strengthened. It's in part because of ambivalence. Do you ever have an internal dialogue? "Boy, that would taste great. No, I shouldn't have it. I really want that. And I shouldn't do it."

That sort of ambivalence increases the reward value of the food. It increases the anxiety, it increases the arousal, it keeps it in working memory. We're wired to focus on the most salient stimuli in our environment. For some people it could be alcohol or illegal drugs or nicotine or sex or gambling. For many of us it's food.

[cjfshaw]

You know how sometimes when you burp and you can taste the food that you ate earlier? Well whey protein burps are gross, the flavor of it is just as bad coming up as it is going down.

[ztemhead]

This Salon interview on why we overeat was fascinating to me. Really explains why we have such trouble saying no to trigger foods.

some deep truth there.

ETA: I read the full article. Kessler's the man. Obama should put him back in government somewhere.

[Minaku]

Karma comes 'round to bite me in the ass. Voluntary recall of Nestle Toll House cookie dough, which I've been using for the last couple of days to make my cookies. The ONE TIME I cave and get Toll House (usually I buy Pillsbury because the taste is better) there's a voluntary recall issued. And yes, I've been eating the raw dough. I also eat eggs that are not fully cooked. I am a horrible woman and a terrible mother.

Well, I guess that's my cosmic smackdown for buying a tub of cookie dough and then pigging out on it. Back on the bandwagon I go.

[lokisnow]

yesh, the industrial food stuffs have a lot of bad karma built up, spinach, cookie dough, CAFO meat, eggs, pasteurized milk all sorts of bad things seem to happen to it over the last few years. :-p

[ztemhead]

interesting personal trivia- I just burned off north of 1200 calories, but the thought of eating right now makes me queasy. mid-cycle trip I had a plate of really delicious sweet potato fries in front of me, and I didn't even eat half of them. I wonder why that is.

[Stego]

Sometimes exertion causes minor nausea.

[Minaku]

Meanwhile in Taiwan I can go to the local outdoor market, pick a chicken out that's been running around the countryside until that day, get it slaughtered and taken care of, and have it be the best damn chicken I've ever had. Oh, and the cost would be NOWHERE near what it would be in American markets.

The fact is that fresh, local food is actually very cheap and affordable in non-Western countries. Asia and South America have tons of food available on the street for a quarter or less the cost of the US. We do not have street food here, and I find that to be a crime of massive proportions. I understand why, but we don't. How is it that countries with GDPs and economies weaker than ours can still produce so much food and have it be so cheap? That's a rhetorical question. I can come up with a few reasons why.

Edit: Some of the best greens I've ever eaten were from a medium-sized village in central Taiwan. The greens are called "crossing cat" and they grow only in that region. It's pretty commonly found where it does grow, however. I had them fresh with some Kewpie mayonnaise and bonito flakes and they were freaking amazing. And they came from the backyard. Could Americans do that? Could they go foraging around their backyards for dandelion greens and other roughage and be able to eat them?

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

It is a double cookout weekend with a kids birthday party and father's day. *sigh*

I do have turkey burgers though and will stick to them. Even for the kids I have some veggies and fruit in addition to the various types of chips. I love chips. :(

I make a point of never serving soda to the kids, so that is not a problem at least.

With any luck, I will mostly survive the weekend without too many "bad" things (half a corn on the cob, a few chips and a huge steak)

[cjfshaw]

This is a great point about expense. In the interview that I read, the creator was very respectful of how difficult this would be for a lot of people. That made me appreciate their angle even more. It sounded like they were really just trying to get people to start talking about these issue more as oppose to moralizing about how anyone who doesn't eat perfect is wrong.

He specifically imagined a lower income family that could feed its three children for $12 at McDonald's. He's not expecting everyone to switch overnight, just that those that can perhaps ought to a little more and that every time you do buy better food you will be casting a vote for more future availability and at better cost.

^ This just got me interested.

[Stego]

Lany, eating ground beef is absolutely fine! No need to eat a turkey burger if you would prefer a beef burger.

Just drop the bun, cheese, and ketchup if you want to behave.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

Lany, eating ground beef is absolutely fine! No need to eat a turkey burger if you would prefer a beef burger.

Just drop the bun, cheese, and ketchup if you want to behave.

:love: Thanks. I always worry the premade burgers are too high in fat. When I buy ground beef, I make it 93% fat free, but it's too time consumming (and expensive) to make all homemade burgers.

[lokisnow]

I saw Food Inc, best documentary I've seen in years (other than Man on Wire) I consider it a must see. And it was freaking awesome to see Salatin featured so heavily. ;)

I also just finished reading the Omnivore's Delimma earlier this week. Fascinating book, I think my favorite parts were when he worked at Polyface and then later when he learned how to hunt and forage.

to a degree these two are pretty much telling me what I most like to hear though. :-p

[Nichole]

When I was a student in the south of France they had an absolutely bitchin' setup that I guess would be called a "farmer's market" in the US. It was there way more than once a week though and it was awesome.

The once a week thing drives me nuts about farmers markets. I can't always plan what I will need for an entire week. Besides, if you don't get to the SLC farmer's market right when it opens all the good produce is gone. And there are yuppies everywhere.

[lokisnow]

Was Michael Pollen featured in Food, Inc.? I saw him in a kind of co-interview so I'm assuming that he was. I've been meaning to read Omnivore's Dilemma for a while now. I did read his follow-up "In Defense of Food" which was great and can be read very quickly.

I've repeated this in a lot of thread but the gist of "In Defense of Food" is that we Americans eat too little actual food and too many "edible food-like substances." Most real food is found at the perimeter of the supermarket and most of the edible food-like substances are found in the aisles.

Yeah, Pollan is rather prominently featured in Food Inc. The film sort of echoes the structure of the first two parts of Omnivore's Delimma. Corn, CAFO meat, and then Salatin's alternative.

What's amazing about the film is that they got footage from inside slaughtering plants, aerials of the CAFOs and also include footage inside of the new irradiation facility that make our meat 'safe' by loads of tech and energy and expense.

[Mya Stone]

Guys, I have a serious question:

Chats, you read my mind. Except mine has left as of a few days ago. But I went to my WW meeting yesterday morning, knowing that I haven't been exactly perfect (the stress in our lives is reflecting in my eating choices atm, but I'm not out of control)...and the scale said I was up FOUR FUCKING POUNDS. In one week.

The woman looked shocked (not as much as me), and then explained that I could just be retaining a lot of water. I've lost weight consistently every single week since I started (averaging 2.3 lbs lost a week in 14 weeks) and this week, boom! I know that in order to gain a pound, you have to eat 3500 additional calories, and that mulitplied by 4 is absolutely not possible, even with the stress eating. I track my food eaten, and I'm allowed 35 additional weekly points on top of my daily allowance, and I used 34 of them...but I didn't go over. And I had additional activity points that I hadn't used, as well.

Have you guys heard of having 4 lbs of water weight added on at the end of "lady time" and it being unhumanly humid out lately? Please, tell me honestly. I almost wanted to cry at the weigh-in, I was so discouraged. But the more I thought about it, the more I didn't believe that that was my "actual" weight for the week.

The woman said that she wouldn't be shocked if I was down 6-7 lbs next week, and not to be discouraged. This is my first slip, if it even is a slip, and not just a fluke. But because I've been at this for 14 weeks now, and this "water retention" has never happened, I'm just curious to hear your opinions.

Thanks in advance. :)