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Dietary advice (where's RRM when you need him?)

10:54 / 06.03.02

Serious query, actually. Around the time of my last period of serious (well, serious to me) gym-bunnying, I started looking at ways I might alter my diet. Little changes, at least to start with, on an experimental basis - if it makes me feel good, I might stick with it.

Anyway, I had an induction session at the gym last night, with a scarily enthusiastic American instructor who bulldozed through most of my personal boundaries in the first five minutes (in a reasonably good way) before telling me "I bet you're allergic to lactose and gluten; you should try giving them up, you'd lose that". She then prodded my small-but-perfectly-formed pot belly.

So... I'd vaguely been considering this anyway, but with someone else providing external motivation, I'm tempted to see what it's like. Give up dairy products and wheat for a month. I suspect it's gonna be very difficult (cheese, in particular, is a biggie for me) but I'll give it a go.

Anyone else - through choice or necessity - restricted their diet in this way? Any tips on good dietary substitutes? Did it make you a) feel less bloated, or b) start believing in Lizard conspiracies?

11:05 / 06.03.02

I was a right porker before I started the gym, and the weight just dropped off me. It was a combination of the exercise and just generally eating more sensibly, rather than cutting out any specific food groups or products.

Simple and obvious things were not eating any fried food at all, really, scrapping the trips to takeaways, mainly eating chicken, pork and turkey rather than red meat, knocking chocolate and sweeties on the head, and wherever possible going for any foodstuff that has "only three per cent fat" emblazoned across the label, which might not have done me any actual good but made me feel better.

I don't eat much cheese, and milk is all semi-skimmed. Soreen malt loaf is a great snack that's hardly got any fat in it. And rice cakes piled high with houmous is my current favourite.

The best thing about it all was that I didn't cut out any beer, and last week I got into a pair of old 30" waist jeans very comfortably. BTW, if you don't believe how fat I was, I can post a quick link to some pix of my band on stage. Fred Durst had nowt on me.

odd jest on horn

11:21 / 06.03.02

removal of dairy products and sugar from my diet had these effects for me:

no more chronic sinusitis
no more chronic sore throat
better skin
less depression
less bloated
less gas (yes, i know this is too much information

)

the removal of gluten from my diet seemed not to matter at all though i had gathered from my inquiries into the matter that gluten was probably the primary cause for my dairy intolerance. see the thread on ah-ah-a-chooo. i never did find the primary cause (if there is one). one doctor suggested stress and lack of exercise. (not unlikely). i'm very happy that i don't have gluten intolerance. life without pasta and ryvita is not worth living.

i use home made almond milk on cereals. just almonds and water in a blender through cheesecloth. no need to buy skinned almonds. actually tastes very goooood in a weird "almost but not quite unlike milk" way. i am hyperallergic to nuts, otherwise i would make nut milks too for variety and more taste.

i use tahini (pulped sesame seeds) a lot. doesn't taste anything like butter but it's good esp. on ryvita with cucumber slices. *lots* of calcium.

also one side effect of not eating dairy and/or sugar and/or gluten and/or something almost ubiquitous, is that you become very conscious of what you're putting into your body. this is a good thing.

the lizards *are* taking over the world. have you noticed how bush's eyes change colour from day to day? it happens when he puts his wives lenses in by mistake.

11:24 / 06.03.02

Ah, but I'm basically laziness itself when it comes to food; I really can't see myself straining almonds through cheesecloth (or whatever). Given that I'm so idle, can people suggest alternatives to sandwiches, pizza, etc., etc.

Is Chinese food healthier, say, (in a gluten/lactose sense) than Indian?

11:40 / 06.03.02

seriously: cut out cow's milk. decent soya milk is easy to get and there's lots of really lovely varieties (provomel's oat 'milk' plus their cartons of strawberry sOYa drink are my faves). i still eat cheese but in small amounts it's okay (tho i know i would be better off without it).

cheap 'easy cook' rice fucked my digestion, and i only buy basmati these days. and i buy vogel's bread. there's 3 or 4 varieties i think, it's way, way better than any other bread i've tried. fresh pasta rather than dried, too. basically i've found i have to spend a bit more, but it's worth it.

11:47 / 06.03.02

Reading this really makes me see how unhealthy I am....always say I'm going to start eating better but never do - soooo weak ! But I really am going to start trying to get into shape (as soon as I come home, there's no point until then

)

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:48 / 06.03.02

quote:Originally posted by shortfatdyke:
seriously: cut out cow's milk. decent soya milk is easy to get and there's lots of really lovely varieties (provomel's oat 'milk' plus their cartons of strawberry sOYa drink are my faves).

This seems to be typical of my problem with changing my diet: having lived with a close family member who is allergic to dairy products, I can categorically state that soya milk is just not the same as proper cow's milk. It just isn't as nice... I mean, I could maybe face it in a cup of tea (which presumably I'd have to take without sugar, and with non-caffeinated tea, in fact probably not with proper tea at all, tannin being very bad for you according to some, but something organic with bits of twig floating in it). But on my cornflakes? No way.

I suspect my diet is one of the areas in my life that's always going to remain more or less unreconstructed and 'off-message'...

11:56 / 06.03.02

flyboy - i have crohn's disease and i was in serious pain a lot of the time. i cut out milk because i was desperate to get some kind of life back and the effect was magical, basically. cut out milk for a while, just to see how you feel. you might find it has an amazing effect. and the oaty soya milk really makes the whole cereal thing a possibility.

odd jest on horn

12:00 / 06.03.02

i found that chinese restaurant food contains lots of gluten usually. all deepfried dishes are deepfried in wheat batter. most of the noodles are wheat. soy sauce has wheat in it. living gluten free is hell! i'm just glad i don't have to. there's hardly ever any dairy in chinese food.

about indian food. i've found that yoghurt and ghee are okay for me in small quantities. the yoghurt germs eat most of the lactose apparently and ghee is purified butter so it has almost no lactose in it either. in my indian home cooking these are the only dairy products used. when i was living without gluten i loved indian bread. pappadums are made of lentils and i made chappatis out of pure chick pea flour (weird bean taste, but good). if you're gonna buy chappatis they're prolly gonna be mainly wheat though. but for the most part indian food is gluten free in my experience.

one thing i'd recommend is thai food. most of that is gluten *and* dairy free. the noodles are almost always rice, even the deep frying batter is often rice.

vietnamese food is similiar but has lots of white sugar. if you're not avoiding that you can go for vietanamese too.

never trust clerks. they don't know anything about the ingredients and just make up whatever they think you want to hear.

never trust cooks. they lie! i've had to get an adrenalin shot because the bastards said it was just almonds, no hazelnuts, honest. it was in ice cream so i couldn't sense the reaction right away because of the numbing efefct of the cold, so i ate more of it than i could cope with. if you have reason to believe that there's something in the food you shouldn't be eating, don't order it, even though the clerk and cook say it has no wheat or dairy in it.

exceptions can be made for health food type restaurant, where everybody looks like an anorexic. the staff in those places areusually quite knowledgeable and honest, not to say fanatic about ingredients.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:05 / 06.03.02

quote:Originally posted by shortfatdyke:
flyboy - i have crohn's disease and i was in serious pain a lot of the time. i cut out milk because i was desperate to get some kind of life back and the effect was magical, basically. cut out milk for a while, just to see how you feel. you might find it has an amazing effect. and the oaty soya milk really makes the whole cereal thing a possibility.

Well sure, as with my stepfather (who's more or less allergic to milk to the point where it's almost fatal - don't ask me what that's called), I have no difficulty understanding cutting out certain foods because of medical necessity, and I'm very glad there are alternative options available. I guess I just have a (possibly slightly knee-jerk) wariness to people who don't need to do this but do so as a kind of lifestyle option (is this needlessly provocative? it should be clear I'm not talking about anyone who's done so for other reasons, be they ethical or for reasons of health). Maybe I should leave this line of thinking for the 'organic foods' thread...

odd jest on horn

12:10 / 06.03.02

quote: as a kind of lifestyle option (is this needlessly provocative? it should be clear I'm not talking about anyone who's done so for other reasons, be they ethical or for reasons of health

not needlessly provocative, but not clear either

what do you mean by "lifestyle option"? do you have any examples where this kind of eating was for other reasons than health or ethics. (barring the obvious "i just don't like it")

13:40 / 06.03.02

You are, of course, perfect in every way, just as you are, Little Buddha. I could poke that bossy American woman in the eye.
Will it affect your mental health, having no serotonin-enhanced crisps and passion-inducing peperoni? You going to start cooking, then?

13:47 / 06.03.02

If it helps, I've found easy things to cut out include -

caffeine - decaf tea, coffee and no coke basically covers it.

Sugar is more difficult, but swapping sugar for sweeteners and going for the low cal option is easy enough.

I've swapped standard snacky stuff for things like flapjacks, nuts and sultanas, which in cases aren't better fatwise, but are better for me.

I have my diet [a word I dislike because people assume you're trying to lose weight and I'm Sticky McStick, skinny stickbloke] because of my arthritis, but I do worry when people say they're giving up X because they're 'intolerant'.

Is food intolerance the new staying in?

odd jest on horn

14:03 / 06.03.02

what is "staying in"?

quote: I have my diet [a word I dislike because people assume you're trying to lose weight and I'm Sticky McStick, skinny stickbloke] because of my arthritis, but I do worry when people say they're giving up X because they're 'intolerant'.

would you rather they told you graphic stories of why they stopped eating certain foods? those stories are usually not all that pleasant

15:36 / 06.03.02

Seriously Ganesh, can you bear to count fat grams? Then when you plateau, cut down your servings of carbs. I did those two things and lost 20 lbs. As ZoCher has suggested, it helps if you do your own cooking... unless it's specially a health-food restaurant, I read somewhere that --it may have been Anthony Bourdain-- anything you eat in a restaurant is just like you make at home, plus a pound of butter. Because butter makes everything taste better.

pointless and uncalled for

15:47 / 06.03.02

In my admittedly limited experience I've discovered that allergies rarely if ever cause a pot. However in the cases of friends who have had difficulties with loosing weight and "diets" that a simple shift in proportions in proportions is enough to bring the body more in line with a prefered shape.

Basically a set of proportion limits of 10 - 15% meat, 3 - 5% dairy, 30% carbs and the rest in veggies/fibres is good.

Try to avoid meat in more than one meal per day and preferably as part of a hot meal.

If you're partial then pot is great at breaking down brown fat which is the long-term stuff and excercise will attack the rest. If not, steel yourself for a longer haul but it will be worth it.

16:54 / 06.03.02

Funny you should ask about RRM...'pparently we be closer....

Robot Man Reformed

17:00 / 06.03.02

If you want, I can try to entice the scientific RRM here, but-

Ganesh: "Given that I'm so idle, can people suggest alternatives to sandwiches, pizza, etc., etc."

I don't necessarily live the waisays way all the time, mainly because of the inflated prices of anything natural in unnatural Greenland. (+ some other personal reasons - one being my tendency to drink and party as hard while I still can) When I do not, I try to eat as little flesh, although poultry is a regular in those periods, chips being a biggie for me coupled with the occassional salad of an apple, 2 tomatoes, raisins and coldpressed olive oil (or tomatoes, cucumber, oil). In december, all the brown eggs disppeared from the supermarket shelves, so I have resorted to drinking that little bit extra of oil, and as long as you have eat something natural, then it's no major disaster to eat a meal of prepared foods, I guess.

18:55 / 06.03.02

quote:Originally posted by ZoCher:
You are, of course, perfect in every way, just as you are, Little Buddha

Aww. That's really, really nice. Listen to him, 'nesh. Stay as cute as you are.

Then again, I am drunk and unaccountably emotional right at this moment.

10:56 / 07.03.02

Awww...

Thanks, people (and thanks, RRM, for responding to the thread title). I'm not actually trying to lose weight as such; not at the expense of enjoying my food, anyway. I was interested specifically in the 'food allergy' angle because it was suggested to me that experimenting with giving up dairy and wheat products might make me feel less bloaty, generally.

Still not sure what I feel about it, but trying to experiment (which ain't easy given that I'm too lazy to cook and practically everything 'prepared' contains wheatflour...)

pointless and uncalled for

11:04 / 07.03.02

Cutting down on dairy and wheat should make you feel less bloaty, particularly if you're an overproducer. This is something that I learnt from a homeopathic therapist at an early age. Basically people can be divided into three groups, underproducers, overproducers and overdoers.

Overproducers have a tendancy to feel more bloaty and react more to food and environmental conditions. If you're one of those people that create a lot of phlegm, have oily hair or get gassy easily then there is a chance that you're an overproducer.

Not being educated in this field or a licenced practicioner I'll go no further on this matter but certainly something worth considering.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:03 / 07.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Persephone:
I read somewhere that --it may have been Anthony Bourdain-- anything you eat in a restaurant is just like you make at home, plus a pound of butter. Because butter makes everything taste better.

I'm a hopeless case, clearly - my instinctive reaction to this is something along the lines of "really? best start putting a pound of butter in everything I cook at home!"

12:07 / 07.03.02

I do, sometimes. *And* I'm lactose-intolerent, being Asian.

None more hopeless than me...

18:14 / 07.03.02

Ganesh - do you own a salad spinner?
Y'know, one of those bins with the turbine in it.
(That sounds almost like a Cole Porter lyric.)

the drums you put lettuce & whatever else in to keep it clean & fresh & accessible.
Wonderful for healthy snacking, those.

And a good blender for making smoothies. Frozen fruit & juice or yogurt. Dash of honey. Nice.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:22 / 07.03.02

This is really interesting- I've cut down on dairy in the past, but I've seldom cut it out. Does anyone here know if you should cut out anything even remotely milk-related (I'm thinking of the whey in margarine, the growing medium for Quorn, stuff like that), or is it just the major sources- cheese, milky drinks- that are the prob?

Robot Man Reformed

20:51 / 07.03.02

Darling, you're welcome.

And Mordant, of what I have learned (and felt directly on my body) it's more about getting some of the stuff what I consider healthy, enabling you to mix it with what I'd consider unhealthy food. But a general rule is that the fatter and more sugary the diary product is, the healthier it is for you - although I am lactose intolerant for obvious reasons, I have no trouble with fullfat cream butter and cream cheese. They are fine fat sources.

Beware of lowfat diary, though.

09:12 / 08.03.02

I cut down on the amount of glutens I eat - changing the sandwich at lunchtime for a salad - and I found it had a significant effect on the previously rebellious state of my guts. Cutting down on the oily stuff, though, is even better.

I hardly ever have dairy products so I can't comment on that.

I have chronic IBS, reflux and indigestion generally and frankly, I know that the vast majority of it is psychological. I gobble food, I swallow convulsively (globus hystericus, apparently), I drink coffee, I smoke and I'm a stress bunny. Oh, and I take SSRIs. It's amazing I keep anything down at all.

I've met people who claim to have suddenly discovered allergies and intolerances (usually after a trip to an "allergologist") and I've never believed any of them. If you have an allergy or intolerance, chances are you'd know about it already. Face it, when we're fat, it's almost always because we're eating too much and exercising too little, and when we're bloated it's because we're eating too much crap.

A diet cutting down on glutens may be a good idea generally, we probably eat more than is healthy because of the way our cultural diet has grown up, but that's not intolerance.

09:12 / 08.03.02

I think the term 'allergy' is used by a variety of professional and amateur health specialists to mean a range of things...

And yeah, it looks like investing in a juicer would be a good idea.

11:03 / 08.03.02

Never mind a juicer, anyone know where you can get George Foreman's lean mean fat dribbling machine? It gets all the fat out of stuff, then you can have beef dripping sarnies - or is that not the point?
Guess I'll have to keep sticking things under the grill.

Sorry I fell out of this conversation a while back, but things got hectic and I couldn't come visit - I do want to play, honest.

As you're a doc, I'd be interested in getting your take on the allergies/intolerance thing, Ganesh.
I've read a couple of articles on the concerns some gps have when people start insisting they have an allergy/intolerance (often after visiting a diet consultant or some kind). There's a worry quite a few people are screwing their systems, often on the dairy/calcium balance.
What's your take?

odd jest on horn

11:21 / 08.03.02

hmmm mr y, what makes you think Ganesh is more capable of answering this question than the rest of us?

11:24 / 08.03.02

It's a pretty specialist area, and there's loads of conflicting info. I still haven't navigated my own way through it, so I don't really have a 'take' on it as yet. Sorry.

11:26 / 08.03.02

I think it's a general inbuilt disquiet on the idea of food intolerance, a desire to hang round with young doctors and the hope of a free consultation.

The Planet of Sound

11:56 / 08.03.02

quote:Originally posted by grant:
[QB]Ganesh - do you own a salad spinner?
Y'know, one of those bins with the turbine in it.
(That sounds almost like a Cole Porter lyric.)

QB]

More like a Vic Reeves lyric. Apples are a handy substitute for more stodgy fare, I've found, and have the added bonus of making you reet regular.