Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with health and eating

Why do I always get so hungry late at night?

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:32:35 -0800

Why do I always get so hungry late at night? I tend to go to bed around 12:30-1 am, though it usually takes me a long time to fall asleep. I always get hungry around 11-12, and if I stay up later than usual I get especially hungry. I usually eat something, but even then I don't feel full. I've been this way for several years, if not forever; I don't remember ever not being like this.

Maybe-relevant info: I'm 23 and male. I don't have any relevant health problems except a tendency to fall asleep late and wake up late (for which I take melatonin). I eat pretty nutritiously, mostly vegetarian. (I may lack some protein, but I try to get it from legumes; I might also lack some kind of vitamin, but I'd have no idea how to tell). I don't exercise much, though I think I had the same problem back when I did exercise more. I tend to consume a lot of caffeine, mostly tea (which I usually avoid drinking after 8 pm unless it's decaf).

Does this happen to anyone else? It seems like everyone else I know eats dinner somewhere between 6 and 8 and then doesn't eat anything after that until falling asleep, so it seems pretty weird! It's supposedly unhealthy to eat late at night, so is there anything I can do about it?

Anonymous just because I included a lot of identifying information.

Looking for some healthy recipe resources

Afroblanco — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:15:58 -0800

Looking for cookbooks, blogs, websites, and forums that specialize in simple, healthy recipes. I'm a single guy who doesn't have a whole lot of time to cook or wash dishes. But I'm tired of eating out all the time, and would like to change my eating habits.

I'm not looking for a "diet." I want to make a permanent change in the way I eat.

I like healthy/vegetarian food, but am not myself a vegetarian. So no dietary restrictions really, except that the food must be healthy, nutritious, low-fat and low-calorie.

I don't mind putting some effort into my meals, but ideally these recipes wouldn't require a lot of time-consuming preparation or cleanup.

Assume that I don't know anything at all about cooking, because, well, I kinda don't.

Idle hands are eating a devils food cake

abdulf — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 09:55:48 -0800

I have the opportunity to exercise in the morning, at lunch and in the evening. Does it matter if I do certain exercises in order? I have an hour to workout before work, around 7-8am in the morning. Then another hour at lunch from 12-1pm. Finally, I have about 2 hours in the evening, typically 5-8pm or 7-10pm.

This is about 5 hours a day, possible more, that I could be using to reach my fitness goals. Right now I use 1 hour of that time.

I already follow a 3 day a week lifting routine from a Men's Health book. That typically takes about 20 to 40 minutes. Once or twice a week I attend a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class in the evenings that lasts 45 minutes.

I could do this indefinitely (have been doing this for almost a year) but it's not helping me reach my goals of weightloss. It has helped me maintain my weight and it has improved my fitness levels, but that isn't enough. My goal is to reduce weight (I'm 25 years old, 5'10, 240lbs).

Can you point me to extended exercise routines for people with a lot of time on their hands? Maybe the routines used for Olympic athletes or "the biggest loser tv show"? The only exercise I hesitate to do a lot of at this weight is running for extended periods since it tends to cause pain in my shins and knees.

I know nutrition matters. The issue on the nutrition end is not daily things like sodas or cookies. Rather, it's things like eating an entire box of cookies out of boredom. Being aware of this problem, combined with burning that spare time staying physically active, I think, will help me with this.

No more Spaghetti-O's for me.

itchie — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:20:18 -0800

I ate some hot (temperature-wise) food and passed out. What happened? While I was on the phone last night, I ate some hot food - unbearably scorching. Next thing I know I've passed out on my bed with the person still on the other line. They said I moaned and kept saying "Oh it's so hot!" and then all she heard was gurgling noises, and that I was out for about 5 to 10 seconds. My face was white and my vision was spinning for a few seconds. What exactly happened to me? Was it my body shutting down to protect me from the warmth of the food? Should I get it checked out (even though I feel no symptoms today)?

Share your slow carb recipes

sid — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:50:34 -0800

Give us your slow carb recipes! We are attempting a slow carb diet, which for us means cutting out or severely reducing all flour, rice, potatoes, and bread. Our carb sources would be pulses, legumes, and sweet potatoes. It's going pretty well so far but I think we are going to soon grow tired of hummus! Please share any delicious recipes that would fit the stated parameters.

I'm a 23-year-old male, 6'4", and 175 lbs. I'm too thin. What's the best way I can gain weight and muscle? I'd like to start working out in my own apartment.

decrescendo — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:35:41 -0800

I'm a 23-year-old male, 6'4", and 175 lbs. I'm too thin. What's the best way I can gain weight and muscle? I'd like to start working out in my own apartment. I have played sports all my life and played ice hockey in high school, so I'm not totally out of shape or nonathletic by any means. I just really want to turn over a new leaf by moving into my new apartment and making a new me by gaining some weight/muscle. I still feel like I'm a skinny little shit like I was in high school.

Any tips for gaining weight and/or muscle? Anyone know of any good exercises I can do in my apartment? I plan on starting the 100 Pushups plan but I want to do other exercises, as well.

I'd rather start working out in my apartment and then maybe move to a gym a few months down the road. I feel too skinny/weak to be in a gym, I suppose. I guess that doesn't help the situation.

I should probably also change my eating habits to gain some muscle/weight. Any tips for that, as well?

Thanks MeFi.

How do I maintain a healthy lifestyle...

prunes — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:38:55 -0800

How do I main a healthy lifestyle while traveling for work? I work for a major multinational. Recently I was blindsided by the news that I had "volunteered" for a project that will involve significant travel, upwards of 75%, for around six months. There will be many different locations, so I don't think I will be staying in extended stay suites.

Now, I'm a very health conscious individual. I take great pride in not having succumbed to the obesity/grossness that plagues most people in my position. A large part of success is due to my near fanatical eating habits. I never eat fast food. I hate it. And after a day or two of eating out I feel gross. Daily I bring in to work multiple pieces of fruit; today I brought a pint of berries, two bananas, and a peach.

So my question, bluntly stated, is as follows: how will I be able to adapt to this new lifestyle with out my body turning to pudding?

Also, a related question while we're at it: given the great amount of responsibility and the crummy lifestyle I will be adopting, what demands should a person in my position reasonably be able to make (e.g. admiral club access, flying first class, health club access, etc.) ?

UK based food info site

twine42 — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:34:28 -0800

Can anyone recommend a site like FitDay.com but with an English base? Part of my drive to get fit means I want to plot out what I eat, where I'm going overboard and where I'm missing out.

Fitday.com seems to do most of what I want, but I'm sick of trying to translate everything into cups and would like it to have some idea what UK brand foods are.

Does such a thing exist for this side of the water? It seems like a perfect 'google question', but I'll be damned if I can find any useful answers...

Stop Binging?

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 20:16:26 -0800

How do i stop from binge eating? I have had an eating disorder (bulimia) in the past. Now i find myself not throwing up or even wanting to, but still eating large quantities of food and not being able to stop. Does anyone have any ideas on how to stop or recognize what is happening before going into a frenzy? I am going to counseling and have also been on anti-depressants. Both of these help a lot, but i would still like some strategies. Thanks!

Will these small changes to my diet make me healthier?

kbanas — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:14:51 -0800

I'm not fat, I'm just kind of.. fat. Are these choices making me healthier? So, I'm 6'4" and I weigh around 250 pounds. When I was a kid people used to tease me about being a string bean. They do not do this anymore. Instead of being a string bean, I guess I now resemble an oak tree - I'm a little thick in the middle. I'm not obese, but I'm not at a weight I'm proud of, either - I'm kind of...a little round. My pants are a little tight. My thighs rub together when I walk. My breasts kind of bounce a little bit when I go up and down stairs, and I'm a guy, so that's not as sexy as it sounds.

Why? Well, a couple things. I'm taking some anxiety medication that my doctor tells me isn't doing my weight any favors. I'm also not so active (I spend a lot of time in front of the computer), and that's not doing me any favors either. The big one, however, is how I eat. Any time you're stopping at Taco Bell and Burger King in the same week, you're probably not going to be rocking a six pack.

Well, look, I'm a reasonable guy - I realize that my best chance to drop some of the weight around my midsection is to take small, measured steps. I notice that when I undertake huge, drastic life changes, I have a tendency to not stick to them.

So, I've started exercising a couple a couple days out of the week. I've started taking the stairs instead of the elevator. And I've tried to improve my diet.

So what am I asking?

Well, this question is chiefly about my diet. I eat out a lot, which is another strike right there - but that's something that's not going to change over night, so just humor me and accept it as one of the basic premises of this question.

Normally, let's say I go out to eat for lunch at work - I'd order, maybe, depending on the place, two coney dogs, an order of fries and a greek salad. Or a bacon cheeseburger, and order of fries, and a greek salad. Yuk, right?

Let's say that, as a place to start, I try to force myself to order things that have, say, turkey!

Turkey is healthy, right?

Let's say I order a turkey club, or a turkey rueben, or a turkey roll-up? Or instead of getting a lamb gyro I order a chicken gyro?

I mean, I know these things still have cheese, and dressing, and things - but are these choices actually improving my general well-being at all, or am I just fooling myself?

Don't Want a Career as a Competitive Eater

SansPoint — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 07:07:08 -0800

How can I learn to slow down and enjoy what I'm eating? I eat too fast. I know I eat too fast. When I'm given food, especially food that I like and tastes good, I'll wolf it down real quick, but I can't be sure as to why. I'd love to be able to slow down, to not be the first person to finish at the table, to enjoy to the fullest what has been presented to me. Furthermore, I'm trying to lose weight, and I know that eating slower helps you fill up faster.

So, what can I do? Anyone else who has this problem?

Yummy yummy yummy I want vegies in my tummy

t0astie — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 03:44:49 -0800

Help me learn more about nutrition and eating for wellness and energy. I'm looking for recommendations for resources -- books especially - I can make use of along the path to healthy eatin'. For a long, long time, my eating habits have been appalling - little in the way of fruits or vegies, hardly any protein. My diet consisted primarily of toast and coffee.

I've started to make some healthy changes and I would love to read more about nutrition and eating for wellbeing.

I have been browsing all the healthy eating threads here at askme, and have had a look at lots of the recipe sites mentioned.

But I'm really interested in hearing about books and printed resources that have inspired / guided mefites to eat healthy whole foods. Cookbooks? Books about nutrition? Magazines?

Google and Amazon searches turned up *so* much that it was really hard to tell what was any good.

Can I just clarify? Keen to learn more about eating for life/energy/wellbeing. *Not* looking for: diet books - Atkins, South Beach et al - or anything with a focus on weight loss/dieting.

Help to separate the (whole) wheat from the chaff

synecdoche — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:56:29 -0800

I'm thoroughly baffled about how I should eat. Over the past year, I've been working on reforming my body. I lost a lot of extra weight that I had packed on since high school and am currently at a healthy body fat percentage (12% - 18% depending on the measurement method). Unfortunately, during that time, I lost a fair bit of muscle, likely from eating too few calories. In short, I lost the weight, but I didn't end up with a body I was really happy with.

About five or six weeks ago, I started to train with weights again. I'm currently working out with weights three times a week, doing high-intensity interval training two days a week, and then do some other form of cardio (it varies-- running, basketball, street hockey, whatever) on a sixth day. I'm fairly happy with this, and I have seen some definite gains in my strength and muscle.

However, I am still stymied by what I should be eating. I used Weight Watchers to lose the weight initially, and it gave me a set amount of points that I ate every day. However, as I said, I think it was too little food for me, a 24-year-old male. I'm trying now to go it alone, but the conflicting reports on caloric requirements have me completely confused.

Depending on the calculators I've looked at, I should be eating anywhere from 2000 to 3500 calories per day, given my current workout schedule. Add to that the fact that some of these things use abstracts like "activity modifiers" and such, I don't have any clue as to if what I am eating is enough, too little, or what. I know WHAT to eat, just not how much of it.

So, what is the most reliable method to determine calorie needs? I track my intake with Fitday, but invariably I'll eat something (eating out, etc) that I have no idea how to count. I want to get something I can focus on-- I work better that way-- but there is so much variance that I have no clue what I am doing.

Compounded to this is the fact that I don't know if, at this stage, I should be "cutting" or eating at maintenance. My ultimate goal is to have six-pack abs, not for the abs themselves, but more for what they represent. I've asked at various fitness forums, and still get conflicting answers. Some have said I should cut until I get down below 12% body fat, others until I get to 10%, and still others have said that I should be working on building muscle for a few months before I bother cutting at all.

I've read a lot, but it seems like every new thing I read conflicts something else I read. So, I'm turning to the hive. Aside from avoiding eating anything I can't count the calories for for a week and seeing what happens (and trying to account for the vagaries and imponderables that also affect body composition), what can the average guy do? Ultimately, I don't care about my weight. I just want my body to look better. I want the gut gone-- there is still a bit of one there-- and I'm not concerned about how long it takes, as long as I know I am taking the right road. About the only thing that I am sure of now is that it is good to drink water.

Sugar + Multi Vitamins = Healthy?

nosophoros — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:24:46 -0800

I was curious to know if it was possible to leave off of just sugar and multi-vitamins?

Eating chocolates is bad for you!

falameufilho — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:42:49 -0800

So I am living in a hotel for the past month. Every day the maid leaves a standard hotel branded chocolate on my bedstand. Every night when I arrive I put the chocolate on a drawer. So now I have a drawer filled with 20 chocolates or so. And I was wondering - what would be worse for my health? If I ate them one by one every night (as I am "supposed" to) or all at once in a chocolate binge?

If I eat one every night I am definetely having 100% of the chocolate digested into my system. If I eat 20 chocolates at once, maybe some of it wont be digested and just forwarded to my intestines.

It's one of those questions only AskMeFi can answer.

Please help me live past 50

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 20:11:44 -0800

Want to get healthier. In which order should I fix my three vices for optimal success? Cigarettes: 1/2 to 1 pack per day. Goal: quit entirely.
Alcohol: 3 to 6 drinks per day. Goal: not drink daily, but still be OK to go out with friends.
Food: Don't overeat, but don't get enough greens. Goal: eat relatively balanced meals daily.

I'm afraid if I try to fix it all at once, I'll fail miserably. What should I do first, and second, and third, and on what sort of schedule? In case it's relevant, I'll say that I don't use narcotics and am not taking any medication. I have occasional difficulty sleeping, and one worry is that these massive body chemistry changes -- though for the better -- might keep me awake nights.

Fatten us up and slim us down

LittleMissCranky — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 09:57:18 -0800

Piggyback filter: I need help with two things. First, getting healthy, tasty food on the table for two people in under half hour. Second, finding a personal trainer. More about the first topic: my husband and I are really pressed for time, but would like to eat at home much more than we do. We don't have much time for grocery shopping, so we need tips on consolidating grocery trips into one or two trips a week. We are ridiculously spoiled right now, since we eat out literally every night. We have a hard time planning for meals in advance, since we tend to like exactly opposite things and tend to "not feel like" eating things that we have planned. Things that freeze exceptionally well would be appreciated. Also, if you know of any services similar to this in the Houston area (or that delivers to the Houston area), that would be great. We recognize that we're going to have to get over some of our pickiness and spoiled-ness, so suggestions on how to do that beyond "stop being so picky and spoiled" would also be welcome.

Second part: We also want to start with a personal trainer, but don't really know how to find a good one. We would like to do sessions together, if feasible, but don't really know how that would work.

How do I learn to eat better?

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:06:19 -0800

Fruits and veggies make me want to vomit. How do I learn to eat healthy? Growing up, my parents let me eat anything I wanted. That meant a steady diet of drive-thru burgers and other junk food. Now that I'm an adult, that's all I can eat. I want to eat better, but it's not just that fruits and vegetables taste bad - they actually make me gag, which makes it extremely difficult. I think it's mostly the texture of foods that does it: I like tomato sauce, but hate tomatoes. I can handle leafy lettuce on my sandwich but not shredded. In very small quantities (i.e. two or three bites) I can tolerate broccoli, raw carrots, and apples. Melons, peppers, spinach, asparagus, mushrooms, onions, corn, beans, peas, anything with seeds - all disgusting. I've brought it up with my doctor, but the weird thing is I'm actually underweight, with normal cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. so he didn't think it was a big deal. I know I'm lucky that's the case, but I hate going to restaurants and knowing that 90% of the menu is going to make me want to retch. How can I learn to tolerate food that's good for me?