Diet Thread

[Nobody]

This video is scary IMO. Many people are happy to eat whatever they want and die early. But are those same people willing to suffer through decades of irreversible back and neck problems? This video may be scary enough to convince some to eat better. Much of what he talks about he has seen first hand through his employment as a MD.

[Nobody]

I suspect there has been another version of this video done in the past. Anyway, an extra 500 Cal a day - which is about a fifth of the average man's intake - should be enough to cause most to be overweight, if not eventually obese. Like I've said before, obesity is mult-faceted, but the biggest factor appears to be ultra-processed foods.



Also I"m glad Greger has changed the video format again and taken his image out. To me, it didn't appear productive to have his image in the videos.

[Nobody]

The rise of flexitarians: Shoppers, seeking less meat, turn to plant-based products - SMH

[Nobody]

This one is worth seeing IMO.



In regard to fermented foods, be careful of the sodium content and - like probiotics - I believe most people won't benefit from them.

[Nobody]

Drinking one sugar-sweetened drink a day increases cancer risk by 78%, study finds - news.com.au

[Nobody]

As expected, Australians' dietary choices got worse over the pandemic. Considering the expense of eating healthier these days, I'd be surprised if that trend changes for the better anytime soon, if ever. The trajectory has been downward for a long time, so I can't see it getting better in the long term either. Therefore we should expect chronic diseases and weight management problems to continue increasing.

New data is ‘bad, bad’ diet news... - SMH

[Nobody]

I agree that observational studies have merit for diet.

[Nobody]

Vitamin D can be toxic if taken in high doses. Here's how much you should be having - ABC

[Nobody]

A long video. The part on toxins I thought was the most interesting. It explains why some people find it harder to lose weight than others. His video suggests the toxins are hard to get rid of too.

[EzRock1523]

Welcome to the Diet Thread. This thread was originally started in response to those who objected to posts discussing diet in the Loser Club (yearly) threads. As of 2022 these forums are now much quieter than they used to be and so there is now a single BNA Loser Club thread that coninues on year to year. There is also a Plant Based Diet Thread in which we post articles and information specific to plant based eating.

Below are some links to healthy eating guides. They are plant only eating guides because according to the body of nutritional science, that is the healthiest way to eat.

https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/pla ... tarter-kit
https://p.widencdn.net/ktho8u/Power-Plate-Brochure

https://nutritionstudies.org/whole-food ... iet-guide/

https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.c ... ide-A4.pdf

Please see link below if you are concerned about the adequacy of plant based diets.

http://www.eatrightpro.org/~/media/eatr ... -diet.ashx

Below are articles aimed at medical health professionals in case you want some more technical information in relation to healthy eating.

https://www.thepermanentejournal.org/is ... ition.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4991921/

For those looking for my "Basics of Healthy Eating" guide that used to be posted here, I've discontinued posting it. If you want to know something specific that isn't in the guides above, please post your question in this thread27.5 inch bike

Thank you for summing up everything. Keep up the good work. I find this information useful.

[Nobody]

Thank you for summing up everything. Keep up the good work. I find this information useful.

Thanks for taking the time and effort to post the encouragment. I intend to.

The one vegetable you should eat

And the answer is broccoli. I think I've posted before that John McDougall said if you're undecided about what you should eat, then just eat sweet potato and broccoli.

As a side note; the credentials listed of the doctor who gave the advice doesn't specify anthing to do with diet and nutrition. Yet people will still will listen to untrained MDs for their opinion on diet over most other people. As puzzling as that is to some of us.

The oncologist in the video below says that broccoli should be part of every meal.

[Tim]

Hi Nobody.
I recently discovered Woolworths 4 Bean mix. No added salt and only 80 cents a can. They have other canned beans such as lentils for the same price, also unsalted. Saves a lot of fuss soaking and cooking them.
Adding them to each meal now. A very cheap protein (amongst other nutrient) source, I'm downing 3 tins a week.
No doubt you've mentioned beans somewhere in this thread but just wondering what you think?

[Nobody]

Hi Nobody.
I recently discovered Woolworths 4 Bean mix. No added salt and only 80 cents a can. They have other canned beans such as lentils for the same price, also unsalted. Saves a lot of fuss soaking and cooking them.
Adding them to each meal now. A very cheap protein (amongst other nutrient) source, I'm downing 3 tins a week.
No doubt you've mentioned beans somewhere in this thread but just wondering what you think?

Hi Tim,

I'll start by saying my experience with beans isn't extensive. So my comments about them primarily come from articles I've read or watched and I'll add my limited experience to that.

There seems to be some debate on how healthy beans are. There was a video which I think was posted in this thread on a guy that ate nothing but beans for a while. I thought it was a reasonable test. He was a runner and reported having less energy than usual and feeling somewhat lethargic. What I learnt from that is that beans may be part of a healthy diet, but maybe they shouldn't be a big part. John McDougall has commented that beans are heavy starches and to be careful about how much one eats. They are often more calorically dense than most typical plant foods (depending on the bean variety). While there are studies showing that beans reduce body weight, I have personally found the opposite. I subjectively find they increase my appetite. I'm likely an outlier though. Maybe it comes down to what you are comparing them to. They are mainly credited with weight reduction, improving the microbiome, reducing cancer risk and increasing longevity. The various Blue Zone groups all have beans in common as a food apparently.

Some articles on cancer and beans:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29352655/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/cooked ... ted-beans/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/blocki ... chickpeas/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/are-le ... d-for-you/

Most people don't need more protein that beans supply, but more fibre is usually beneficial. Legumes are usually high in both. A cheap alternative legume to the dried style of beans or lentils (dried, or processed and cannned) are frozen green peas. Even beans at 80c per can of beans. Since they only have typically 240g of drained contents, that works out to be about $3.33 per kg. Where home_brand frozen peas at at Aldi or Coles can be as little as $2.10 or $2.20 per kg. I find green peas easier to digest than most beans. Also by buying frozen, one avoids the can lining chemicals as well.

This video on a study shows that the two biggest factors in the subjects losing weigh was decreasing animal products and increasing bean intake. Starts at 13:35. PCRM recommends at least half a cup of beans per day.


My diet varies a lot as I experiment with different foods. Currently eating about 150g of green peas daily and sometimes about 120g (half a can) of canned beans. By weight, from most to least my diet recently is typically sweet potato, followed by Granny Smith apples, cooked oatmeal, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, green peas. There is also other seasonal fruit of varied quantities depending on price and hunger that day. I'm not tracking it that much.

[Tim]

Thanks for your considered reply again Nobody. I appreciate the effort you put into this thread.

My diet varies a lot as I experiment with different foods.

I guess this line sums up my approach to eating too.
I was already eating baked beans once or twice a week but was well aware of the salt and sugar content. By adding the Woollies beans I wasn't addressing any particular problem just trying-out other options. I'd read about the benefits of eating more legumes and pulses as they'd never really figured heavily in my diet. Having said that I now realise that frozen peas are on my dinner plate at least 4-5 days a week, alongside the minimum recommended 5 serves of veggies.
Weight and cardio issues aren't a concern for me. At 58kg (168cm tall), fit and active with healthy blood markers I don't worry about anything along those lines. I'm due for the annual tests but at very close to 60 years old there have been no issues to date.
My main health issues are more to do with periodic and quite debilitating depression when it strikes. More often than not coinciding with a long cold winter, declining motivation and resultant drop in activity levels.
A family history of various cancers worries me at times.
The best I can do is push on regardless, eat well and keep active.

[Nobody]

Thanks for your considered reply again Nobody. I appreciate the effort you put into this thread.

Thanks Tim.

My diet varies a lot as I experiment with different foods.

I guess this line sums up my approach to eating too.
I was already eating baked beans once or twice a week but was well aware of the salt and sugar content. By adding the Woollies beans I wasn't addressing any particular problem just trying-out other options. I'd read about the benefits of eating more legumes and pulses as they'd never really figured heavily in my diet. Having said that I now realise that frozen peas are on my dinner plate at least 4-5 days a week, alongside the minimum recommended 5 serves of veggies.

With baked beans, it's not only the extra salt and sugar. But they also typically only give you 50% beans rather than the 60 - 65% beans of the more specific canned bean varieties.

My main health issues are more to do with periodic and quite debilitating depression when it strikes. More often than not coinciding with a long cold winter, declining motivation and resultant drop in activity levels.

So is your problem Seasonal Affective Disorder related? If so, you're probably aware that bright light therapy might help.
Obviously diet is a factor in most problems. Even if only in the increasing or decreasing of symptoms. So worth the continued experiementation with that.

A family history of various cancers worries me at times.

It's typically on 5% risk factor increase due to straight genetics from families. The reason cancers often run more in families is that families have traditional eating patterns. Obviously if you can break free of their eating pattern, you can greatly change your risk.

The best I can do is push on regardless, eat well and keep active.

True. Hard to do with depression, but worth the extra effort during those times to prevent a poor eating pattern habit developing.

[Nobody]

A couple of articles that may be of interest to some:

Why late-night eating leads to weight gain, diabetes

"When animals consume Western style cafeteria diets -- high fat, high carb -- the clock gets scrambled," Bass said. "The clock is sensitive to the time people eat, especially in fat tissue, and that sensitivity is thrown off by high-fat diets. We still don't understand why that is, but what we do know is that as animals become obese, they start to eat more when they should be asleep. This research shows why that matters."

In the study, mice, who are nocturnal, were fed a high-fat diet either exclusively during their inactive (light) period or during their active (dark) period. Within a week, mice fed during light hours gained more weight compared to those fed in the dark.

From what I can gather from the article, I shouldn't eat at night at all. But even if I eat in the evening, I should avoid high fat foods more since the fat can take up to 5 hours to enter the blood stream. The article suggests that this very late end result of eating in the evening will mess me up.



Binge eating is more common than anorexia or bulimia – but it remains a hidden and hard-to-treat disorder

In all honesty I'm probably on the spectrum for this disorder. Although I can go for long periods of time without eating (when necessary). When I do start eating, I have trouble stopping and I can get (more) hungry once I start eating. I don't seem to get much signalling from my body to stop eating, so I eat so much at once that I do harm to myself from being over-full. Lately I've been trying to spread out my meals more throughout the day. But I still find it more difficult to leave food for later when eating in the morning. Evenings are OK, because I think my body acknowledges that I've already got almost all my energy intake by then.

[Mr Purple]

I found the ultimate diet by accident over the weekend. Fractured a tooth on Friday and am unable to chew or eat anything hot or cold.

Found it's pretty much impossible to eat anything with a low enough GI to last a decent length ride. Keep on running out of power about 90 minutes in. Hopefully will get fixed today or tomorrow, I'm down 1.5kg already.

Do not advise this. Hopefully there's a silver lining and a brief period where my power picks back up to normal again, but my weight is still below 60kg.

[stevenaaus]

Cooked oats or scrambled eggs ??

[Nobody]

Found it's pretty much impossible to eat anything with a low enough GI to last a decent length ride.

This post was probably meant to be rhetorical, but I'll comment anyway.

GI in isolation is not a good indicator of a health food. Some of the healthiest foods are high GI and many of the unhealthiest are low GI. For those who really want to be get their A1C, fasting glucose and cholesterol lower, get the fat out of your diet in all it's forms. I have an excellent personal example of what I'm talking about below. I added some of the healthiest food forms of "good fats". Primarily PUFA omega-3 in the form of ground chia seeds and flax/linseed. I also added some rolled oats. Then both my LDL cholesterol and A1C significantly increased. My blood glucose was tested at the same time and was reflective of the A1C numbers.



Although I'm an excellent example of why to abstain from all forms of higher fat foods. I tend to have higher cholesterol than most people when on a standard diet and so my results may not be reflective of everyone's results with a similar intake.

EDIT: Grammar and change of wording, but sentence meaning unchanged.

[Mr Purple]

I agree.

Though my BMI is 20 on a good day, I wasn't too worried about how healthy the food was. I was more aiming to get through a 50km ride without running out of glycogen by the end of it!

Still down a kilogram and FTP is up a bit if anything. Certainly don't miss it, but haver a few weeks in Tasmania without a bike coming up so I'll probably regain it.

[Nobody]

Fair enough. My limiited understanding of GI is in relation to health, as a blood glucose spike usually causes a corresponding insulin spike. That in turn can have detrimental effects on our health, as in the storage of more energy to fat via triglyceride production. Raised insulin is also implicated in raising cancer risk. That's why I mentioned reducing total fat intake increases insulin sensitivity which reduces the glucose spike.

But for energy production, I thought it was just about getting enough total carb intake, which converts to enough glycogen. Biochronology experiments show this process to be more efficient in the morning, where in the evening most people are more insulin resistant and their bodies convert more energy to fat. That's why the calories consumed in the evening/night some say should be counted twice.

[Nobody]

Fix your environment and fix most of the impulsive consumption problems. Or as Chef AJ would say, "If it's in your house, it's in your mouth."



I watch my family eat all sorts of tasty unhealthy foods at the dinner table and the supermarkets I frequent have plenty of processed junk. I also used to share the family fridge, but now have my own. I believe environment helps. But it's better to develop a strong sense of purpose or reason as to why you are eating differently. If not, then it's very likely that you'll eventually fail. I've been eating a healthy vegan diet for over 9 years now. Mainly raw vegetables for most of this year since my liver tumor diagnosis.

[warthog1]

I agree that observational studies have merit for diet.

Good video showing good old Food Inc at work again. Thanks.

[Nobody]

Some years ago I flagged Mosley's personal poor health results as a reason why his heavily promoted 5:2 fasting diet might not be all that it was touted to be in regard to health.

Intermittent fasting may not be all it’s cracked up to be, study finds - SMH

The only issue was that the concept of 5:2 was not scientifically proven in humans.

So they did a small study to find:

“Yes, they lose weight. They lose fat. We proved that that’s true, but in terms of metabolic health, inflammation, insulin sensitivity, it doesn’t work at all,” says Fontana,

Fontana, who doesn’t fast or count kilojoules but pays attention to the quality of his diet, says the research debunks the idea that if we fast a couple of days a week, we can get away with eating and drinking whatever we want.

[Nobody]

We may have thought that food deserts were mainly an US problem. Apparently they are in greater Sydney too.

https://theconversation.com/are-you-liv ... lth-196477