Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with diet

Bipolar II and diet

whistle pig — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:50:27 -0800

"Curing" bipolar II through diet (specifically, by giving up sugar, alcohol and caffeine). Is this BS? This guy claims that giving up sugar, caffeine and alcohol cured him of bipolar II. While I recognize that giving up these substances is bound to have positive effects in someone with a mood disorder, it seems too good to be true that his horribly burdensome mood disorder was effectively caused by a few easily eliminated substances. I'd always thought that bipolar II was a condition that absolutely required medication to manage.

I did a little googling, and saw a few sites suggesting that a ketogenic diet might work. That seems more likely to me than simply giving up refined sugar, caffeine and alcohol. But does anyone else have insight into this?

How do I avoid gaining weight and stay on a diet while on a cruise ship?

adapt — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 17:52:13 -0800

This year I made a resolution for healthier living and have been successful so far. Overcame a lot of bad habits compared to where I started. But I'm going on a cruise with a group of friends next month. From what I've been told it's going to be an around the clock buffet. I'm planning on using the gym but don't know how to deal with all of the food. I'm not going to be on the alcoholic drinks package and figure I can enjoy dinner that way. Breakfast and lunch are a free for all though. Any ideas for what my best options would be so I don't gain 15 by the end of the week.

Cutting out refined sugar

JoannaC — Tue, 28 May 2013 17:08:11 -0800

I cut out refined sugar for a week, and the results to my body have been rapid and dramatic. What could be metabolically going on here? So, I had a little frozen yogurt binge last weekend, felt awful and decided to eat clean for a couple days to clear my system and recover a little. I am still eating fruit, bread, tomato sauce etc. (i.e. not reading labels like a hawk) but I have cut out all the processed sugars I was eating---Starbucks drinks, chocolate, pastries or treats that showed up at work, etc.

Six days later...I have lost three pounds and look noticeably smaller, I have more energy during the day (even when I don't sleep well), I am not hungry between meals and seldom think about food, I was offered a cupcake and turned it down, and best of all, a chronic throat-clearing problem that started a month or so ago has all but cleared up.

I guess I was eating more sugar than I thought I was---I thought it was okay because I was tracking my calories and staying within my allotment, but clearly there is more going on here than just calories. So...what exactly might that be? My sister, who is four years older than me, was diagnosed as pre-diabetic last year and I am wondering if the dramatic results (on my weight, appetite, cravings etc.) means that something other than 'calories in, calories out' is going on here. But...what?

My demands are reasonable, my diet is ridiculous.

aint broke — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:33:08 -0800

Over the last ten years, I've put on 10-15 pounds of pure, unadulterated fat. Giving up desert for the next ten years doesn't seem feasible, but my general food intake is fine. I was looking for a healthy but reasonably quick way to loose 10 pounds, and 4 Hour Body was recommended. After six weeks, I am at my exact starting weight. What am I missing, and where should I go from here? I tried this diet with my roommate (R). R and I are ovo-lacto vegetarians who share 19/21 meals every week. We found the 4HB diet relatively easy to follow as eggs, vegetables, beans, and tofu made up the majority of our food before. (Tofu/soy products are technically not allowed, but we are both female and not trying to build 37 pounds of muscle so we decided to ignore that rule.) We have both been very strict about cutting out all fruit, dairy, and grain products.
R has been loosing 2-3 pounds a week, and I am at my exact (down to the tenth of a pound) starting weight. My results were in line with my normal weight fluctuation- down a pound here and there, up a pound here and there. According to my body measurements, I may have lost an inch on my hips and half an inch on my waist, but that may be measurement error. I have a post-diet body fat analysis scheduled next week, but given that other metrics show no change, I'm not expecting much.

My previous attempt at diet modification was calorie counting. After a week of weighing all my ingredients, adding recipes to calorie counting software, and weighing my servings, I determined that my normal, unmodified diet is hitting carbs/fat/protein ratios reasonably well, contains enough fruits and vegetables, and is about 1700 calories on a normal day. Once I figured that out, I stopped counting. (I did count calories one representative day of 4HB dieting and got 1645 calories.)

I spend about 6 hours/week doing some form of physical activity- usually competitive tennis, jogging, weightlifting, yoga, and rock climbing. I enjoy all these activities but don't have time to add any more.

If I'm active, the food I'm eating is good, and the portion sizes are ok, what else can I tweak for weight loss?

What to bring home if not the bacon?

Anonymous — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:58:56 -0800

Help me cope with my live-in girlfriend's increasingly arbitrary diet I've been living with my girlfriend for a couple of years now. She has been a "pescatarian" for as long as I've known her, which is fine by me - I love a lot of veggie dishes, and fish too. She's also never asked me to alter my diet to match. However lately she's gotten stricter with herself - fish is nearly out, so are most dairy products and anything with a hint of fat or starch (potatoes, rice, noodles). Basically she's down to only veggies, mostly zucchini, in fresh, steamed or soup form.

We used to go out a lot more, but it's getting more difficult to find a restaurant that will serve something she'll like. I've tried to cook a few times, but even the veggie recipes I find usually have too much *whatever* for her tastes, and she usually offers to cook for herself.

From my side, I love eating a variety of foods. Something new everyday if I could. Eating out is one area I'm happy to spend gobs of money. She'd rather have the same thing every day. I'm finding myself getting frustrated more than I should, and psychoanalyzing her choices

(I could go into depth about that - one driver is that she's focussed on her athletic performance, but she isn't following any guru's system. I occasionally worry about her getting enough vitamins and such, but she isn't suffering. Besides, I don't know any better to claim the dietary high ground. I'm more interested in coexistence than conversion).

So what strategies can I use to navigate our wildly different tastes? I'm really concerned that little things like this don't build bitterness as we get older together. Eating together is such a social thing and all. Tips?

How do you practice portion control in the real world, after dieting?

sweetkid — Wed, 08 May 2013 09:38:52 -0800

I've been doing Paleo for five weeks and have been losing weight at an okay rate - about five or six pounds down now. I'm doing about 90/10 which comes out to around two "cheat" meals in my estimation, though the cheats have been mostly pretty tame, some red wine, a few slices of pizza, half a tiny panna cotta. In either five weeks or when I hit my first goal weight, whichever comes first, I'm planning to ease out of Paleo somewhat, and eat more things, but also practice portion control. How do I do this? I was a normal BMI before this and my goal will put me sort of in the middle of the healthy range. Before this I was more toward the top of the range.

My question is how people practice portion control when eating out and with "bad" foods. For example, right now when I get a steak salad out from a place near work (no dressing), I take out half the steak portion and save it to throw into dinner or for lunch the next day. The rest of the salad is romaine and some other grilled vegetables or beans (I'm including legumes with my Paleo).

When I've "eased off" Paleo, if I want a muffin from a nearby bakery, should I just toss half the muffin right away so I don't eat it? Or a croissant? Or eat the whole thing and skimp later? How do other people do this?

I've never been a huuuuge eater but I'm small. It's mostly that when the food is there (say a plate of nachos) I will just keep nibbling at it, because everyone else is.

When tracking calories before the diet, I could end up at around 2,000 without really thinking about it. Also, I definitely added calories drinking and I'm planning to buckle down on that.

Now, I'm keeping it at a net of 1200 per day and I don't feel hungry on that, so I'd like to keep it that way. I'm also exercising 5-6 days a week, mostly yoga and cardio.

I hope this is enough info. I don't want advice on whether or not to do Paleo, or if I should lose weight at all, or about the exercise. Thanks!

Diet after diverticulitis

adamrice — Fri, 03 May 2013 10:58:58 -0800

A couple of days ago, I got a CT scan looking for for diverticulitis, and later that day got a phone call telling me I had a positive diagnosis. It's being treated with drugs (I was actually already feeling improved by the time I got the diagnosis). Today I saw the PA who ordered the CT scan, basically so that she could tell me not to eat corn or seeds…ever. Now I'm wondering. My wife did some research, and found the following on the Mayo Clinic website: "In the past, doctors thought that nuts, seeds, popcorn and corn played a role in causing diverticulitis by getting trapped in the diverticula. However, research has shown that these foods aren't associated with an increased risk of diverticulitis."

My only risk factors are age (I'm over 40) and family history.

So: are those jokers at the Mayo Clinic putting me on, or is my PA passing on outdated medical advice?

Is it safe to take a Multivitamin, Flax-seed Oil, Garden Veggies...

bostonhill — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:34:49 -0800

Is it safe to take the following supplements every day during big meals? Nature's Way 'Alive! Multivitamin' Flaxseed Oil Capsules (1000mg) Garden Veggies (Nature's Way) Milk Thistle and Hawthorne Berries Capsules Thanks!

Low carb until dinner to lose weight?

lovisa91 — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 08:57:31 -0800

I live with a group of friends and we all take it in turns to cook dinner one day of the night, which usually consists of lasagne, pasta, rice etc. I am wondering if I could lose weight if I ate low carb for breakfast and lunch, and then ate dinner that is prepared by my housemates? I would like to lose around 15 pounds by July.
I will not give up on these dinners as it is a really nice thing we have that brings us together. Also on weekends I do enjoy going out and having a drink or two, althout I don't ever drink so much that I get drunk. So my question is will it be possible to lose weight by balancing these habits with exercise 3 or 4 times a week and with healthy meals apart from dinner.

If this would work, I am also wondering what some ideas are for breakfast and lunch that are vegetarian. Thanks!

Weight Watchers PointsPlus Fail?

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:45:04 -0800

WeightWatchers has ceased to work. What are my non-surgical options. I am morbidly obese. At my highest I pushed 400 lbs (5'6"). Surgery was looking to be my only option but as a last ditch effort I joined Weight Watcgers (for the sixth time) in 2009.

They were on the points system and I held to it and lost about 140lbs. In 18 months. The. The weight loss then slowed. To try and pick it up I got a personal trainer but it didn't work. There were comments made about building muscle but at least I was still losing if it was ounces per week if not pounds.

So in late 2011 when they switched from points to points plus I really hoped for a kick start. But the opposite happened--as soon as they went to points plus o started to gain weight. Tracking and working out 3 times per week I gained 20 lbs back in a year.

I will admit to frustration with that gain - maximum effort with negative results. So I quit working out and quit tracking. I quickly gained back another 30 lbs.

I had to think it was me (self blame is common for fat people) so I recommitted. For three weeks I've reuthrned to being devout. I'm following the weight watchers program, tracking every bite, staying in my points, not even using any activity points or extra points. I am eating a moderate amount of fruit, just about 3 or 4 servings fresh fruit per day. I'm having vegetables with every meal.

My workouts are not intense, mostly a power walk for 40-50 mins 2-3x per weekas its what my joints and stamina Can Endure.

But I am still gaining.

I am really feeling the WeightWatchers Pointsplus system is broken. I have talked to my leader and just gotten platitudes of "stick with it" and "keep eating power foods" but I'm losing motivation.

I'm looking for advice. I either need to somehow modify the program to work for me or find another program. I really don't want surgery but I'm back considering that option. I'm looking to MeFites for some direction.

Best combination food/exercise log app?

Halloween Jack — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:26:46 -0800

iPhone user; I've experimented with exercise logging apps such as MapMyRide+, Cyclemeter and Fitocracy (most of my exercise is cycling-oriented, but I'm also looking at Kinect exercise games and, potentially, weightlifting). Is there a good combo app that logs both exercise and food intake? Or one site that could possibly accept input/imports from both? Pluses include:

- Suggested calorie counts for relatively common prepared foods (e.g. pizza) so that I don't have to depend on stuff with nutrition labels

- iOS, although I do have an Android 7" tablet

- Either free or one-time fee; would look at subscription services if they're really good

When re-heating your food is not an option

sunshine arakhan — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:42:45 -0800

I've just started a new job that doesn't have a microwave (or an oven) in the kitchen, which is a big downer for me as I've always taken leftovers or other easily heated food for work lunches (and there isn't any other heating facilities close by that I can use). The thought of only being able to take cold salads or plain sandwiches for lunch isn't very appealing as I quite enjoy tucking into a spaghetti bolognaise or chicken schnitzel at lunchtime, and with winter approaching here in the southern hemisphere I live off hot, chunky soups during those months. Can anyone suggest any filling foods I can take for my lunch that don't need to be hot/warm to be delicious? Bonus points if they aren't too expensive or difficult to make in addition to dinner of a night.

$500 or Less to a "Summer Body"

Urban Winter — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:33:05 -0800

Stuck at a fitness plateau. Not weight loss - fat loss. I'm about 5-8% (not exactly sure; I only have inexact measurement options) below where I want to be, which is the 10% mark. Help me get to my goal or as close as possible by the summer (and stay there)! In advance: I'm 23 years old, 5'4", ~135lbs, in decent shape, pretty new but not a total newb when it comes to most diet/fitness knowledge. If it makes a difference, I'm in Albany, NY.

Last summer my friends and I spent a lot of time at the home of one of my friends, who before she moved had a swimming pool and poolhouse in her backyard. It was a lot of fun, but too often I felt myself feeling self-conscious due to my weight. I'm not fat, I'm just overly self-examining and tend to find a lot of flaws in myself physically. I'm working on that, but I also know that some of what I pick about is fixable, and that fixing it would make me both healthier and happier.

In the last year I've gone from 25% body fat to around 16% (could be 3% off in either direction; I'm assuming I'm closer to 18-19% based on progress photos). I'm pretty pleased with my progress, but I want to take the last 60-90 days and cut down to 10% or less. I've already restricted my diet for this purpose. I was on about an 80% paleo plan, and currently I'm doing Tim Ferriss' slow-carb plan, and as of this week I'm going to cut most junk food out of cheat day as well. Cheat day will still be composed of stuff I can't eat during the week, but it will be better stuff.

I go to the gym three times a week to do heavy lifting. I'm not very advanced in my weightlifting capabilities, but I've gotten a lot better in recent months and I feel I'm doing my best and improving at every workout. My workouts are:

Day 1: Barbell squat, bent-over barbell row, Turkish get-up
Day 2: Deadlift, clean-and-press, dips
Day 3: Bench press, dumbbell weighted lunge, pull-ups

I have a desk job, but regularly sneak away from my desk to pace up and down the hallway; at present that's really all I can do at work, but I'm using a pedometer app on my phone to try to make sure I walk at least half a mile to a mile during the day this way. It's not much, but at least it's something. When it warms up some I'll be walking the ~2 miles to and from work as often as possible as well.

I've tried doing bodyweight workouts at home, but I can never seem to stick to them; I get bored and end up skipping them. What I'd like to do is add some cardio mixed with strength work, probably in the form of interval training. I sometimes go jogging, but don't do it regularly, and don't enjoy it enough to make it a part of my regular schedule. Mostly I'll go jogging when I'm feeling jittery and need to get out some energy, but the gym is closed. Oh, and I have a pull-up bar at the house I stay at 1-2 nights a week; I can't bring it to this apartment because all the doorframes are wonky.

Oh, and I am getting better at sleeping more. It's a process, but I'm slowly changing my habits and working toward getting enough sleep. I understand the importance of it; I'm just having really hard time switching gears and becoming an early-to-bed-early-to-riser.

I have decided that I can put down a maximum of $500 on fitness stuff to reach my goal, though if I can make it with less I would also like that. So far, I'm considering getting a rowing machine (thinking maybe a Stamina rower) and maybe some protein supplements, as I'd like to put on some additional muscle while I'm at it. Personal training hasn't been too helpful for me; I'm a member of the YMCA, not interested in switching gyms, and while their trainers are good they're not too helpful once you've gotten past the "in decent shape and not an idiot with the weights" phase. They're very machine-focused, and I'm not interested in that. I am also considering dropping some money on a 3-month membership to a rock climbing gym I recently discovered in my area, though this is tentative as I'm not honestly sure how often I'd go due to a busy schedule.

So, with all that in mind, here are my questions:

1) What kind of rower can I get? Please don't suggest a Concept 2; I know they're the best, but I'm looking more for the Honda Civic of rowing machines as opposed to the BMW of rowers. Yes, I know they're available used, but I want something I can just order and start using rather than hunting for the right deal for weeks. I am familiar with proper rowing technique, and want a machine that simulates this as accurately as possible (legs>back>arms stroke). I believe I can get what I need for $250-300 if not less.

2) Looking for ideas/knowledge re: the supplements. Resources are welcome, as is personal experience.

3) What should I spend the rest on? Current ideas include a rock gym membership, better shoes (I'm currently weightlifting in my old highschool running shoes; not ideal I know), or maybe personal training with someone from outside the YMCA (a big maybe).

4) I'd like to be able to party some during the summer without stressing, and I'd like to be less strict about what I eat once I reach my goal and am no longer actively trying to lose fat, but rather maintain a current level and add muscle from there. I have an almost absurdly slow metabolism and am concerned about backsliding almost immediately at the start of the summer.

5) Anything else? Pretty much an open invitation to impart whatever information you feel is important/needful.

Help me interpret my elimination(ish) diet results

Vatican Cameos — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:30:33 -0800

I suspect my diet is causing me chronic health problems. How can I confirm this and fix it without health insurance? Semi-elimination diet results inside - please help me interpret my observations. In essence, I inadvertantly had great results with a month on a semi-elimination diet. I recently spent a month living and working in a place with shared meals prepared by cafeteria staff. This was in a Central American country, and the food provided included a ton of rice and beans, a few veggies, plenty of meat, not a lot of spices/onions/garlic, and a fair amount of dairy and gluten. There wasn't much salt in the food, but there was a decent amount of processed wheat flour & sugar (in desserts, daily PB&J's for lunch, crackers, cookies, etc). I didn't drink as much water as I should have, but I did drink a ton of beer, tea, and coffee.

After a month on this diet, I felt better than I've ever felt before, and a number of chronic health issues that had been plaguing me had suddenly vanished. I was also doing a ton of exercise during this time, but I have mostly continued the exercise after returning home and the symptoms have all come back after about 2 weeks. My diet at home is fairly terrible and I know that there are plenty of things I can change (lots of processed/salty foods, high-fat, too many carbs, not enough vegetables).

However, I will have a lot more energy to cook and overhaul my overall diet once I have eliminated the ongoing health issues, so I want to focus on the specific health problems that improved as a first step. Those issues are:

Lower abdominal pain, painful gas, and bloating 1/2-3 hours after eating, often such that I can't stand up for ~1/2 hour during an attack.
Gross distension of the lower abdomen during attacks - makes me look super pregnant.
Skin problems: excema on sides of nose, seborrheic dermatitis, breakouts on neck/chin
Water retention / water weight, which makes me look puffy all the time. It gets worse around my period but is pretty annoying all the time. The amount of water weight seems to fluctuate fairly quickly, too - one day my clothes will fit fine, the next day they're too tight all over, and a couple of days later things will fit again. Other people have even commented on how labile my weight seems.
Low energy, sleeping a lot
Brain fog
Depression & anxiety

For the first few symptoms, I think I've been eating too much fructose/sugar and that this is the cause of the serious post-prandial pain - I'm having fructose malabsorption problems. Since returning home, I've noticed that when I consume no fructose and try to limit my daily load of fructans (from tons of onion & garlic mostly), I don't have attacks and I feel generally fine, though the water weight has definitely still stuck around.

The water weight is still a mystery to me, though. Here are my hypotheses - could anybody help me narrow this list down based on my observations? Anything I can watch for to narrow it own further? Things I haven't thought of?

Sodium-potassium balance - at home, I tend to eat very salty foods and eat very few foods that are high in potassium. I ate a lot less salt and a lot more potassium on the good diet.
Dehydration - I know that I rarely drink enough water at home, and I've heard that this can cause your body to hold on to excess water. It's entirely possible that my increased intake of coffee and beer on the diet still shifted my fluid balance toward the positive, even with its diuretic tendencies - seriously, I drank a lot of coffee and beer. Does it make sense that water consumption could be making such a big difference?
Fructose malabsorption side effect - I've read that the high concentration of solutes in the small intestine caused fructose malabsorption can cause water retention because it changes the osmotic balance. I'm not sure how this would affect my entire body at once, though - does this seem plausible?
Carb overload - I'm not sure about this, because I actually ate a fair amount of carbs there. I had two PB&J's for breakfast/lunch and plenty of rice/beans/potatoes with dinner, often followed by a bready dessert. I also had plenty of carbs in the beer (though it was a fairly light beer). I have had decent results with low-carb diets in the past, though.
Some sort of exercise effect - while I've been keeping up most of the exercise, I haven't been working myself quite as hard or as regularly as I did down there. Would it make sense that exercise would have such an immediate and drastic effect on the amount of water weight I'm carrying?

Does anyone have any insight? Which of these hypotheses seems most plausible? Cheers and thanks.

What's left to eat?

lgandme0717 — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:26:15 -0800

Caring for a sick relative, recently released from the hospital, in my home. He is on both a low-sodium and a low-potassium diet. Please help me with meal planning before I go crazy! All of the supposedly healthy foods that I love and serve my family often are suddenly a deathtrap. All kinds of fruits and vegetables -- from cantaloupe and oranges and bananas to avocados and spinach and asparagus and tomatoes and carrots -- are high in potassium. I read that onions and garlic are good, low-potassium foods -- but what the heck can I put them on? Googling tells me differing results w/r/t other specific foods as I search for them individually. So far I have been serving a lot of eggs and fish (nervously). Bonus points for a pescetarian-friendly lifestyle, since that's what I am... and thank you in advance!

How can I get my aging father to stop eating like a picky child?

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 07:11:16 -0800

My dad is around 70 years old and has subsisted on a steady diet of shortbread cookies (those ones in the yellow box from the convenience store) and vanilla Ensure drinks for the past 2-3 years. How can we help him to help himself and eat real, nourishing food? My dad is a war vet, recently retired after 30 years of steady employment. He suffers from PTSD episodes (nightmares) occasionally, so his sleep is irregular, and he's quite irritable sometimes. He throws tantrums like a small child whenever myself or my mother try to talk to him about his poor diet, or get him to do something he doesn't want to do (e.g. plan something or make a phone call). His mood is slightly more stable now that he's quit alcohol. He's struggled for years with trying to quit smoking, to no avail.

My father started drinking Ensure during his recovery from oral surgery. He got part of his tongue removed to treat oral cancer, and had to get dentures after his teeth rotted out from the radiation. He doesn't like to wear his dentures due to the discomfort, so I'm not sure how possible it would be for him to eat real food. There has to be some alternative to sugar cookies and sugary milk (=Ensure!) 3x daily. He constantly clears his throat of phlegm. It is disturbing and saddening.

My dad refuses to start eating real food again, minus some soup at restaurants. He's a brilliant man, but was so emotionally unfulfilled as a child and damaged by war that he apparently feels no drive to take care of himself, despite his loving family. I'm sure it will be difficult for my mother--a wonderfully fun-loving, compassionate person and devoted wife--to care for him during his inevitable decline.

What can you do if your loved one refuses to help himself? How do you worry less about it? Looking for advice from anyone who has been in a similar position with a family member.

Recipe & shopping list app for Android

zixyer — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:53:51 -0800

I'm looking for a convenient app for Android that will build a shopping list from a list of ingredients. I love the allrecipes.com app where you can add an entire recipe to a shopping list and it will automatically do the conversions into buyable quantities. For example, if the recipe calls for 1 cup of frozen peas, it will put "1 (10 ounce) package frozen green peas" in the shopping list. Or if the recipe uses "3/4 cup diced onion" it will be converted to "2 onions".

The only problem is you're limited to the sometimes low quality recipes on allrecipes.com. I'm moving to a more restrictive diet, so is there any app that does sort of the same thing but allows me to enter my own recipes?

Did cavemen really grind almond flour?

mibo — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:46:57 -0800

I'm seeking your suggestions for easy, accessible, flexible paleo-ish meals. Snowflakes! I'm starting Crossfit foundations tomorrow (yay!). My research so far shows that a zone or paleo eating style is greatly encouraged. I don't want this to derail me from learning to be strong.

I eat mostly vegetarian, but more importantly I eat cheap and boring. Recently I've been eating pretty much the same thing everyday with occasional meals out (I usually get salad or a veggie burger). So it looks like this:

Breakfast: Oatmeal, maybe a banana and lots of coffee with lots of almond milk
Lunch: Egg salad (1 egg, 1 egg white & 1 tbsp olive oil mayo) with lettuce & tomato in a Flatout
Dinner: Lentils & rice with Greek yogurt
Snacks: liberal hummus and baby carrots

I like this because it's cheap, reliable and I've got all the points right for Weight Watchers. I do not like to cook, I do not like to grocery shop, and I really, really do not like the idea of going paleo and eating meat three (3??) times a day, but it's already obvious to me I'm going to need more protein.

Can you suggest your best meals that closely resemble my current diet? They would ideally be:

Fast and easy to make
Portable
Cheap
Complemented your Crossfitting awesomely

I'm just not going to be grinding my own almond flour for organic-blueberry-paleo-gluten-free muffins. Thanks!!

Math not adding up. Why am I not losing a lot of weight?

dubadubowbow — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:42:31 -0800

Mid-twenties male, eating extremely healthily, exercising very well, very happy with his setup here. But very curious why the pounds wouldn't just be falling off now, when they were at a maintenance level when I had the reverse habits as recently as a few months ago. (Or even any weight loss at all.) I'm not eating junk food or ever eating out, and calorie calculators online say that I would need 4,000 calories at a sedentary lifestyle to maintain my current weight. However, I exercise nearly every day for about an hour, a combination of running and weightlifting, and I already use low-fat, low-sugar everything in the food I cook and prepare for myself. So all of my extra calories, why I've figured I wasn't losing weight (although the exercise is a fairly recent addition), is from eating out and eating junk food from the grocery store, like Oreos or ice cream.

Well over the last several weeks, for a variety of causes known and unknown but deeply appreciated, I've lost most of my appetite for the aforementioned fast food and junk food, as well as foods with refined sugar in them.

Now I actually feel like I need more calories and a little more fat to get myself through the day, energy-wise.

So that's all great, but I'm not losing a ton of weight. I guess I don't mind not losing weight (even though I have a considerable amount I could stand to lose), but...

a) I'm deeply skeptical of that baseline 4,000 calorie intake needed to *maintain* my weight at a *sedentary* lifestyle. But I'm willing to hear an explanation either way. Is that right?
b) By my rough counting, I can not be having more than 3,000 calories per day on my absolute highest-calorie days, and most days I would put more around 2,000 or 2,500. Even if I were right and that were about the amount I would need to *maintain* at a sedentary lifestyle, why am I not dropping pounds like a rock coupled with the regular, rather intense exercise (weightlifting and jogging)?

(I'm aware that strength training builds muscle, but I do a maximum of 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week, and would the weight change really be that drastic as to offset the weight loss?)

Sequential Eating, Metabolism, and Digestion

JamesBlakeAV — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:41:05 -0800

I was researching sequential eating and would like some advice, here are my thoughts and questions: It seems that it takes (on average) 2-4 hours for foods or beverages to leave the stomach. I was wanting to eat/drink something specific every two hours. I have 8 hours to sleep every night, and I like to eat right before sleep as well. This leaves me with 16 hours in a wakened state. Or, 9 segments of eating/drinking. (I drink water right when I wake up) On the basis of sequential eating, what are some useful tips/advice I could keep in consideration while putting together snacks of 1-3 things? It's looking like 4 meals a day, 5 drinks a day, alternating every two hours. OR, what I would rather prefer, is eating 9 meals a day (fruit in the morning with my water), and drinking 6oz of water every hour on the dot. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

How much can my body realistically change during a 5-month fitness plan?

JoannaC — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:46:10 -0800

The good news is, I have a summer job. The bad news is, I have to go into a swimming pool for it. In a bathing suit. Every day. Yikes! I am a mid-30s teacher who, for the first time last year, did not work during the summer. I was bored out of my mind. I just applied for, and was offered today, a summer camp job that has reasonable hours, is similar to jobs I have had before, and has okay pay for this sort of thing. The catch is that unlike my past camp jobs, which were primarily supervisory, this camp has a more egalitarian approach and all staff---right up to the director herself---perform the same functions. Which means I have to go into the swimming pool.

I am not a great swimmer, but I was told there are dedicated, qualified specialists who do the actual swimming instruction. As long as my body is physically in the pool with the kids, that's good enough for them, so no worries, right? Except that most of the other staff will be mid-20s college kids, and I am a 30-something who could stand to lose about that many pounds. The thought of baring my squishy, old-fogey body in front of all those kids terrifies me. I know it shouldn't. I know they probably will not much care how I look in a bathing suit. But for better or worse, this is scaring me. A lot.

So, I have fine months to get serious about my eating and to start working out again. I have a lot of workout DVDs, some of them pretty hard-core----Jillian Michaels, P90X and so on. I want to also adopt a nightly yoga routine because I was planning to do that anyway to try and manage my stress better and just in general be a healthier person. So, that's about 40 minutes of workout time per day. I am not sure I can afford more than that.

So, if I eat clean and devote this kind of time to reasonably intense workouts, how much progress can I actually expect to make in five months? Is it unrealistic to expect that I can make over my whole body in that time period? It sounds like a long time to me, but maybe it's only a long time if you have less work to do than I do. Maybe 30 pounds to lose is too much in that time period. So...what are my odds here? How much progress can I expect between now and the first of July?

What makes feces sticky?

dontjumplarry — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:08:38 -0800

What causes feces to sometimes leave excessive, difficult-to-remove residue on the perianal area or on toilet paper? What causes it not to leave any residue at all? Is it related entirely to macronutrient intake (fat, fibre, water)? Or are other factors involved? (Supplementary questions. If it is caused by a high-fat, low-fibre diet, does that mean low-carbers always have sticky feces? And why is cat feces never sticky?)

another weight loss question

peachfuzz — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:36:58 -0800

In which I ask questions about optimizing minor weight loss (and maintaining weight loss); Very low calorie diets and exercise; Set points and starvation; Am I doin it rong? I am 5'2". Female. I have a fairly sturdy build and look/feel best around 115lbs. If I eat "normally", without thinking too much about it, my body seems to stick tenaciously to about 125. What with the holidays and some winter cocooning, I weigh 130 right now. I tend to eat very clean, mostly lean protein and colorful vegetables, with the occasional but not frequent meal that includes grain, legumes, or dairy. Paleo-ish, I guess. I mostly cook for myself.

I absolutely cannot lose weight without cutting to 800 calories a day. This is well below the "OMG NEVER GO BELOW" threshold, usually 1200, that people talk about. Is this a problem? At 800 calories a day, I see steady, slow loss right around two pounds a week, so that seems right. But am I hurting myself in the long run? I don't understand the science of metabolism and weight loss; it seems like it changes all the time. Can you explain to me why my caloric needs seem to be so low, and if it's a problem? If it's because my metabolism is slowed down, how do I speed it back up?

Other relevant info and questions:

800 calories is easy and sustainable for me (lots of raw vegetable-heavy salads and brothy soups, though not as much beer as I would like, sadly). Yes, I weigh everything on a scale and count everything—everything—I put in my mouth. I'm not grouchy or tired or obsessing, so I figure it's enough for my body to run on...right?

If I'm not counting, I'd estimate that I "naturally" eat about 1500 calories a day. This is what keeps me around 125. If I want to maintain at 115, obviously I'd have to eat less...right?

I sit at a desk all day but am training for a May marathon (currently running about 25 miles per week, that will go up) and do at least three 90-minute bikram yoga classes each week. So far I haven't adjusted my intake for training, since I feel strong and am not having any bad workouts. I'm worried, though, about how I do this once I reach my goal weight and don't want to lose any more—last summer, when I was training for an olympic-distance triathlon and a half, I couldn't seem to find the right balance and would eat too much, then too little. It's especially hard because the weight falls as the training ramps up and your caloric needs seem to be pulled in two opposing directions. What is a sane approach to doing this?

I know this works for me, but I still feel like I'm doing it wrong. My friends express horror and concern at the numbers. Everyone else seems to be able to lose weight on several hundred more calories and several fewer hours of exercise than I seem to need. I guess I'm slightly bitter about it, but also, does this indicate that something really is wrong that should be fixed?

How on earth do you stick to a diet?

nickhb — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 04:43:02 -0800

I'm looking to lose some weight and tone up, but I'm having a really hard time with the drastic diet changes that will be required. I think I have entirely the wrong attitude towards food in general. Snowflake inside I'm a young guy. As I mentioned in an earlier question, I'm trying to get in shape, lose my last baby fat, and gain some muscle. Everyone and their mother has explained over and over that diet is the most important part of a fitness plan, but I just can't stick to any drastic enough to really make a difference.

I'm trying to do 5-Factor Fitness, and the workouts are so far going very well, but the diet is a low glycemic index/no carbs type, and I'm having a really hard time giving up grains, breads, and sugar.

I'm from a big hispanic family, and food is a really huge part of how I grew up, especially crumbly white bread, lots of rice, and tons of sweet desserts. No one in my family has ever stuck to a diet longer than a month. The thought of never having that delicious food again (I know about cheat days, but it's still drastic) is kind of impossible to get my head around. I know I'm supposed to think about food as "fuel for the machine", but I can't move past my cultural conditioning on this.

How do you guys rearrange your eating habits? Particularly when you already have a deeply ingrained fixation on the importance of "good" food?

Help me start losing weight again

to sir with millipedes — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 06:37:26 -0800

So a couple months ago, I started dieting, and I ended up losing about 20 pounds. Which is great. I was hoping to lose about 20 more, but in spite of taking in fewer calories and exercising more, my weight loss seems to have basically stopped cold. I have read about this, and a lot of outlets are saying that my metabolism has likely slowed because I wasn't eating enough calories. Whoops. I'm 210lbs now, I'd like to get back on track to eating enough to lose 1-2 lbs a week. does anyone have any idea how I can ease back into eating more calories and kickstart my metabolism without my nutrient starved body packing pounds back on?