h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"I had carbs yesterday though and I really need to avoid them as much as possible. Today I have had no carbs. (Is corn meal a carb?)"

I'm afraid so, Lady C. BUT, if it was made with stoneground cornmeal, not so bad at all!

I'm afraid, with my impending start of "Couch Tour 07", I have no time or inclination for dieting. After I move up north, my roomie is on WW. The quickest way to trigger my particular brand of stubborness is to try and *make* me do something -- even when it's something I *want* to do. I dig in my heels and say "I won't, and you can't make me!" Missouri mules got nothin' on me!

Wish me luck, and some added wisdom, while you're at it...

I'm holding at 40 pounds. I've been here a while, so would like to start going down again.

Good luck with the move, SC. And don't worry about the diet. he move itself will be stressful enough for you without the added stress of a diet. If it doesn't work out, you can come stay with me for a while and I'll introduce you to some of those stubborn mules.

Seriously, I wish this area had a decent job market so I could find you the perfect job. The cost of living is so much lower here than where you are that living on a fixed income is easier.

Cornmeal not stone ground. It is a well known national brand.

However, we only dusted the fish and okra with it. Did not make cornbread! The salad was delicious. I balsamic vinegar.

with the move, SC. I don't you.

17 weeks 10 pounds lost
17 weeks and one day: 12.5 pounds lost
Once I can stay a week below the 12 pounds lost I figure I'll have succeeded in my personal goal, but just scraping in after a down day doesn't hack it

It is lucky I am losing any weight with the slack way I audit calories on down days. There is some holding back and avoidance of temptations, but a little snacking on extra ryvita (more than I've calculated should be consumed), and addition of lime pickle to tomatoes and no restriction on with milk, and then the evening meal - last night was chicken pieces marinated in cumin seeds, garlic and lemon juice, pan fried and served with some roasted vegetables and bulgar wheat with lemon juice chicken stock and parsley.

The idea of excluding "carbs" does not find favour in my mental palace. We do not trust this person. Strange how intermittent fasting is accepted, but dieting practices others accept as worthwhile are dismissed as fads. There is probably a rationale for it.

There are reasons other than weight control to go easy on carbs, especially the ones containing sugar and flour. There are a number of studies and lots of books that talk about the adverse effects of excessive carbohydrate consumption. In spite of the conventional wisdom which states that fat, especially saturated fat and cholesterol, causes heart disease, the actual clinical studies don't bear that out. Insulin is the key to everything. Heart disease, diabetes, fatty liver, obesity, some cancers, some autoimmune disorders, even Alzeheimers.

Read "Natural Health and Weight Loss" by Barry Groves. Groves is my new guru. There is a list near the back of all the health conditions that are caused or made worse by excessive carbohydrate consumption. It isn't just diabetes, like most people think.

Ah well, insulin! I accept that doing things to keep insulin homeostatic mechanisms working effectively is crucial. My eyes were particularly opened by the link you made to the Australian report on fructose and fatty liver.

I just can't get to grips with purposefully excluding a food group from my balanced diet being appropriate. Made baklava for first time last night. Hade left over sheets of filo pastry and I can't abide waste.

The thing is, Pimms, this whole idea of needing a balanced diet is flawed. We did not evolve on a balanced diet. Especially not one that included refined grains and sugar.

I will admit that many of my favorite foods are high in carbohydrates. I love them. Wish I could eat them in unlimited quantities without any adverse effects to my weight or health. I have spend years looking for justification to do just that. Giving up favorite foods is hard - don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

As to the science behind it, we are bombarded with contradictory information. We have to pay attention and dig for the theory that seems right to us. I was impressed by Groves interpretation of the studies he cites and by the fact that he has so much documation to back him up. My gut instinct is that he is right and what we've been told for decades about what constitutes a healthy diet is a load of rubbish.

He doesn't say anything new. This information has been out there for ages. I just didn't want to believe it because I didn't want to give up my potatoes and corn chips and pecan pie. And you don't have to never eat a treat. Have them occassionally. Just don't have them every day and in huge servings.

My problem is that once I start eating sugar or starch, I crave it like an alcoholic craves alcohol after that first drink. I don't want one french fry. I want a plate full. I don't want one cookie. I want a handful. It is easier not to have any at all than to try to limit it to really small servings.

Hyp, have you read 'Eating for Your Type'? The author postulates that because of the way we evolved and the way blood types came about, different people groups have different blood types and that by blood type you can predict which food groups will be better for a person. For example, type O is the oldest type and the earliest people groups were primarily hunters so people with type O blood should eat mostly red meats and chicken with minimal servings of carbs. Type A is newer and the people who had that type were the early farmers and herders so people with A blood should eat lentils, fish and some chicken for protein and whole grains for carbs. The author also said what pretty much everyone else has said - no refined sugars. I only skimmed the book my mom had and haven't had time to look at his research, which might be primarily anecdotal, but I thought it was an intersting theory all the same. Plus, it works for my mom.

PS - I'm of the 'can't have it in the house' school. If there are cookies, I want to eat them all. If there is candy, same thing unless it has coconut in it. I just can't have it in the house - still too big a temptation.

The "eat for your blood type" is an interesting theory. What about the type O who would rather have chicken and fish than red meat though?
Oh, I like a hamburger occasionally. We have steak at least once a week, but I never eat more than 3 ounces of it. L. and I share a rib eye. I eat about a fourth of it. I can eat turkey, chicken, and fish more often.
My down fall on snacks is definitely potato chips--so I buy the kind the grandsons like instead of the kind I like.

There's a problem with that assumption about the amount of meat eaten by paleolithic peoples, though. The percentage of their diet due to meat consumption was less than 20% (sometimes MUCH less). Most of their diet came from the gatherer part of the hunter/gatherer equation. None of those gathered roots, veg, and fruit were refined at all, though.

From what I learned back in my uni Anthropology courses, the amount of meat eaten actually rose after farming and domestication of livestock -- after all, you knew where to find those beasties, if you had them up in the back forty...and you could grow the food for them, so it was in their interest to stick around.

As you can see, I'm not buying The Zone or the Blood-Type diets.

All the "experts" disagreeing about things keeps life interesting.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating. We all have to find what works for us and then do it. We don't all react the same way to foods. One size fits all doesn't apply to dieting.

Emee, I looked at the eating for your type information. You're right about no one being told to chow down on refined carbs. At least most people in the field are agreeing about sugar and heavy starches being detrimental. (Except the American Diabetic Association, of course, who are still killing people with their "balanced" diet.)

I'm a bit confused, though. I have a half-sister and a full brother. Both have Type O blood. At least I think my brother's is Type O. I have Type A. So, our genetic backgrounds are the same, but according to the book, we should be eating different diets.

Any plan that encourages people to go lightly on the refined carbs and processed foods is a good one, as far as I'm concerned.

The information about what paeolithic man ate is interesting. But the really important thing is what modern man is eating. I don't really care what percentages of protein/fat/carbohydrates cave men ate. We know they didn't eat refined sugar and flour, trans-fats, and all these preservatives, flavor enhancers, stabilizers, etc. Evolution takes far too long for humans to have adapted to such major food changes in just a couple of hundred years.

I happen to believe Barry Groves ingterpretation of the situation. I am currently eating a much more natural diet which includes saturated fat, protein, lots of fresh vegetables and a small amount of fruit.

Any way you look at it, we all need to eat more things that come out the ground than out of a package. There's a book I want to read called 'The Year I Ate my Yard' - written by a man who dug up his front yard and planted a garden.

I posted a yeast recipe for you i nmy journal and have also found a sour dough recipe and a couple of potato bread recipes that don't use yeast at all. I'll post them later when I get a chance. Need to make corn bread and put beans in the oven.

"(Except the American Diabetic Association, of course, who are still killing people with their "balanced" diet.) "

Lately, they're encouraging a diet which divides a plate up into quarters - two quarters are veg, one quarter each of protein and starch/fruit.That sounds pretty reasonable to me, these days, and is about how I eat.

Maybe not all doctors bother keeping up with what's going on? My first diabetes doc wanted me to eat a very high protein diet, with a largish amount of bread and veg, little fruit. Never worked with me at all.

The diet they put F on when he was diagnosed with diabetes made his condition worse, not better. I've talked to dozens of people who had similar reactions. It wasn't a fluke in his case. Even when he was in the hospital, where meals should be healthy, they brought him a "diabetic" diet that contained white bread, sugary cereals, fruit juice,milk, potatoes and desserts. It's fine, they said, we'll just give him more insulin. It was like giving him poision and saying it's okay because we'll give him the antidote before it kills him.

Yeah, when I was in the hospital last year, I got into constant battles with the dietitians; they even sent their supervisor up to talk to me, right before they discharged me. Fact is, if all they would give me was white bread or a roll, a piece of greasy meat (sometimes mystery meat, I'm convinced!), a skimpy serving of greens and veg, and some fruit, milk AND fruit juice -- well, I didn't eat most of it. They freaked out, I lost weight, but my blood sugars were in range. The nurses ended up having to adjust my insulin pretty low, to compensate, but they didn't cause much trouble, since my numbers stayed good. I mean, FRIED CHICKEN, and mashed potatoes!?!? Haven't these people ever heard of FIBER?? OY!!

SC, I genuinely don't understand their reasoning. It is sheer insanity. And if they can't handle something as straightforward as serving healthy meals, how on earth are we supposed to trust them to get anything else right? Which is why, in the US at least, one of the most dangerous places to be is in a hospital.

Last time I spent time in a hospital (in Sweden) I got a tummy flue while waiting for the plaster on my leg to dry...

And hospital food here is absolutely awful - overcooked and tasteless.

Do the dieticians ever actually look at and/or taste the food they are ordering up on the menus? I mean, they have to have a college degree in nutrition to qualify for the job, for heaven's sake!