Healthy-ish Eats

My diet is about proportions of macronutrients. No counting calories, no portion control beyond stopping when you’re full.

Lost 51 pounds since August. I’m at my high school weight and now doctors are lecturing me that I don’t need to lose any more weight, not that I am overweight.

My two non-fancy restaurant mainstays are Feast From the East on Westwood Blvd. and Buna Market on Fairfax. Feast From the East is teriyaki chicken, steamed broccoli and lots of Siracha, no rice. Buna is a whole fried fish, the side vegetables they serve with it and only a small amount of the teff bread in which the vegetables are plated. At first I didn’t realize the fish was fried because it doesn’t have a crust or coating, but then I happened to walk back into the kitchen and saw how much oil they put it in. Nevertheless, it is freakin’ delicious and hasn’t impeded my weight loss.

At nice restaurants, I skip the carbs and order protein and vegetables, although I’ll eat foie gras if I feel like it. My opinion is that people are overweight from too many carbs and too much processed food, not from foie gras. I also find that great wine helps. The better the wine, the less I eat because I’m savoring the wine and don’t need to get a pleasure hit from pasta or dessert. Lousy wine, by contrast, pisses me off and makes me want to overeat. Your mileage may vary.

Oh, and in a nice restaurant, I will always order dessert wine in lieu of dessert. A glass of dessert wine is not going to have much more than 150 calories and your typical restaurant dessert could be up there at 700 or 800 calories. I used to think that I couldn’t have dessert wine because it was fattening. Now I think it’s a great way to end a meal.

6 Likes

Congrats @Omotesando. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

And it works because you aren’t overeating on calories, at the end of the day. :slight_smile: Proportions of macros has more to do with satiation, nutrition, proper hormone balance, and body composition, than weight per se. Some people are indeed more resistant to carbs than others, but one could easily use the same proportion of macros to gain, lose, or stay at the same weight depending on how much you ate. As you suggest though, the body is pretty good at knowing when it has had “enough” if you listen.

1 Like

I eat a lot more calories than someone trying to lose weight on an old-fashioned low-fat diet.

I could probably gain weight by continuing to eat after I’m full, but with a high-fat, high-protein, high-fiber, restricted-carb diet, I don’t want to. I eat what often seems like a ridiculous heap of food and then I’m not hungry for six to eight hours.

When people get a lot of calories from flour, sugar, and potatoes, their blood sugar spikes and crashes, and they’re soon hungry again. Or they’re hungry all the time.

1 Like

Serious question, if you don’t count calories, how do you know you are eating far more calories than someone else that follows a different diet? As you say, you are eating more in one sitting, but eating fewer times a day.

I’m definitely not disagreeing that your strategy is a good way to go. I lost 20 .lbs on exactly the diet you are advocating. I then gained about 15 .lbs of muscle and 15 pounds of fat over the next few years intentionally. When it came time to cut back down, I tried a different nutritional strategy that is more geared towards high glycogen stores (less fat, more carbs). I lost essentially the same amount of weight in the same amount of time.

I do find eating a high fat and high calorie diet more satiating with less ups and downs in energy levels. But I do find the notion that eating potatoes themselves cause weight gain to be overblown. Maybe that person is just eating more overall.

Mark Sisson’s Daily Apple website is a good resource for someone that likes to eat as you do. Very easy to follow for sure. Talking to a lot of athletes that purposely manipulate their weight for a variety of different reasons, I found out there is more than one way to skin a cat. Each has their pros / cons.

There are no pros to a diet high in high-glycemic-index carbs.

I know I’m eating more calories than I did in the past when I was on calorie-restricted weight-loss diets.

You can lose weight on any high ___ and low ___. I can lose weight on McDonalds if I wanted too.

Carbs do not make you fat or gain weight.

People who believe that carbs are bad is complete bro science.

4 Likes

If you want sensible diet advice listen to Alan Aragon.

1 Like

what was it? I wanna say it was Michael Pollen or Mark Bittman or one of those guys. In order of importance:

Eat food. (meaning relatively unprocessed products)
Not too much.
Mostly plants.

Eating as little as possible out of jars, cans, bottles, would probably improve the average north american’s health more than any other thing.If for no other reason than to rid us of the ginormous glut of empty calories in sodas and the like.

As westerners, we eat FAR above the most generous nutritional guidelines. And many of us (myself included) lead largely sedentary lifestyles. Certainly, we are no longer expending the calories running after the evening meal that we once did. We eat past the point of satiety. Louis CK: “The meal is not over when I’m full. The meal is over when I hate myself.” Try not to do that.

No two ways about it. Western meat production is tremendously stressful on the animals, on the environment, and on our health. Sure there’s examples of low carb, high protein diets, but we ALL know that even as omnivores we eat far more meat than we really need to. Because it’s delicious and we like it.

It’s kinda that simple, really. Not that I do any of those things… Well, I’ve gotten much better about the 2nd one. The first, and third, though. I think those are lost causes to me.

2 Likes

Carbs aren’t bad, but all calories aren’t equal.

https://medium.com/@davidludwigmd/defense-of-the-insulin-carbohydrate-model-redux-a-response-to-kevin-hall-37ea64907257

Nor are all carbs equal. Flour, sugar, and potatoes won’t keep you feeling full as long as whole grains and beans.

2 Likes

I eat it what tastes good. And I eat what I like. Usually those are the same things.

Because I will die. Regardless of whether I am fat, skinny, or somewhere in between.

And the last thing I want is to live a long life, being healthy, but not enjoying the food I eat.

4 Likes

michael pollan, i believe.

Eat food.
A lot of it.
Mostly animals.

Bittman also follows something similar. If I recall, he roughly practiced eating like a vegan for breakfast and lunch, then ate a broader range of foods for dinner.

He said that before 6pm he ate only fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/vegan-before-dinnertime/comment-page-6/

I disliked Michael Pollan’s food writing because any hedonistic feelings he has for the subject didn’t come across the way they did when he wrote about gardening.

Judging from the delightful Netflix tie-in for Cooked and the excerpts I’ve read from the book, maybe that’s no longer true.

i’ve only read dribs and drabs. not enough to form an opinion.

I didn’t have to read much for Pollan’s attitude to put me off. It was startling to read one of his pieces about gardening and see all the passion he didn’t seem to have for eating.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

– w.b. yeats

2 Likes