Tell me about your healthy diet

[Anonymous]

I track nothing, but I second the recommendation above re: Dr. Will Bulsiewicz's book - Fiber Fueled. Some of the research he cites is a little cherry-picked, tbh, but the overall message of the book is one that changed my entire relationship with food. At bottom, his message is that instead of restricting what you eat or eating less, you should view every time you eat as an opportunity to nourish your body. If you are hungry and you eat junk, you missed an opportunity to fuel your body. That doesn't mean you ruined your diet and you might as well give up; you just should try to take the next opportunity to eat better food. This was really a mind shift for me that has improved my relationship with food 100x over.

Some other tl;dr from the book:
- Aim to eat 40 different plants a week (this isn't just vegetables - fruit, seeds, whole grains, herbs count too!)
- The more fiber you can eat, the better
- Prebiotics and probiotics are really helpful for your gut
- The less meat/animal products you eat, the better, but don't beat yourself up about it - again, view eating animal products as less-than-ideal nourishment vs. a "diet failure"

I follow this advice, have a healthy BMI, and most importantly I have stopped obsessing about what I eat. I generally eat healthy foods, I eat when I'm hungry and don't when I'm not, and I have plenty of energy to get through my day.

[Anonymous]

Counting grams of protein, fat, and carbs is not helpful, nor is counting calories.

But if you insist on counting something, count grams of fiber.

The more of it you can consume the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me:
- everything in moderation
- Don't eat a lot of meat (1-3x month)
- Dairy maybe 2-3x/week
- Eat all the vegetables and fruit I want - meals are a big veg based meal like big bowl of soup/stew, huge salad in the summer, etc
- Eat some "junk" in moderation, every day. Like some peanut butter cups, or some ice cream, or doritos, or whatever. But eat them after I've had my veggie-based meal.
- Rarely drink (1-2 drinks a month)

I don't track any macros. I workout 6 days a week, usually.

How do you get in the necessary protein?

Beans, legumes, nuts, vegetables. As I mentioned I eat meat occasionally. Ditto for hardboiled eggs a couple times a week. The obsessions with "zomg protein!" is over the top. Nobody needs exorbitant amounts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've spent the last six months slowly transforming my diet. I was raised on bad foods - much of it processed, definitely the typical low fiber high fat American diet. After I left home I recreated most of the foods I'd eaten growing up but the busier my career got the more my diet relied on a lot of take out most of which was also low fiber high fat and high sodium to boot.

The last several years I got a lot of experience cooking - before I'd been a passable cook but I became much more skilled and began to really enjoy cooking. I'm grateful for those skills and that enjoyment because it's helped a lot with the transition to eating foods that are fairly new to me as I begin to eat more plant based. Growing up vegetables mostly came in a can or when fresh were cooked to the point they were entirely unappetizing - it's a whole new world for me to crave vegetables and fruit and for them to be the focus of my grocery shop and diet.

I recommend Dr. Robert Lustig's books, Dr. Will Bulsiewicz's book and online content on the fiber fueled diet, and especially if you podcast, check out The Exam Room with Chuck Carroll. It's the podcast of the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine and the content it medically accurate and has really motivated me to make these life changes. They push a plant based diet for optimal human health, but there isn't judgment or condemnation for listeners who continue to consume animal products. I still eat eggs, some dairy, and chicken - yesterday for Xmas I had some ham, it was lovely, but I definitely feel better the last few months that I no longer consume beef or pork and have cut way back on cheese and butter.

Every morning I consume:

12-24 oz blueberry green tea unsweetened
1/4 cup walnuts
1 slice (6 portions per 9" pie) homemade quiche made with store bought pre-rolled crust, 6 eggs, 3/4 cup cream, 3/4 cup shredded parmesan, 8oz chopped fresh spinach sauteed with 4oz julienned sundried tomatoes and minced fresh garlic. Quiche is flavored with either italian herb blend or herbs de provence and also plentiful chili flakes as I really love heat in my food and it is thought to help with BP.

Sometimes I also have a side of roasted veggies - red or sweet potatotes or brussel sprouts - with my quiche, but more often just the quiche and afterward a piece of fruit either small apple, banana or 2-3 little mandarin oranges.

This nuts and quiche and fruit breakfast works so well for my body - it's a great phytonutrient bomb with the right balance of fat, protein, carbs and especially fiber that it keeps me sated for hours. I usually have breakfast around 8 and don't think about food again until 2pm. Usually around that time I'll have a cup of raw broccoli and another serving of nuts - pistachios typically - or more fruit.

Dinners can be roasted vegetables in various combinations, rice bowl with roasted veggies, or my curry which I make 2x month. My curry is tomato based with onions, sweet peppers, garlic, dark garbanzo beans, kale or spinach and some chicken because I still love some saturated fat in curry (I also use some cream and butter, but not much compared to how I made it a year ago). When I make a batch of curry I make a batch of rice and keep it in the fridge for the week - it makes leftovers easier but it's also a great method because rice and potatoes and certain other starches (pasta) become much more resistant when cooked and then cooled before eating - whether you eat it cold like pasta salad or reheat it again for consumption.

Dr. Lustig's boom Metabolical discusses that the two rules for caring for your body are 1) feed the gut and 2) protect the liver. Feed the gut means design your diet around feeding the microbiome in your gut. There are billions of bacteria in there and they all like different food - Dr. Bulsiewicz, a gastroenterologist, suggests it's best practice to consume at least 30 different plant sources per week, and as many each day as you can. Plant sources include fruits and veggies and whole grains but also herbs and spices so you can get a variety easily. My quiche contains ten different plant food sources, for instance. Paired with the nuts and fruit or side veggie, I've already consumed 12+ sources at one meal.

I still struggle a little with occasional emotional urges for sweets and unhealthy savories, but the thing that astonished me was how within a few weeks of consuming the RDA+ of fiber every day, and a variety from whole foods, my gut microbiome rebalanced so nicely that beyond having beautiful BMs every morning, my food-obsessed brain has just quieted down almost entirely. I don't have cravings like I'd battled for years in peri/menopause. When I do have sweets or really fatty foods, I am quickly satisfied and usually feel icky after consumption because my gut just doesn't want that food. Sweets and fat destroy the good bugs and feed bad bugs that make you feel sick and tired all the time.

Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. Little meat or dairy, none at all if you can. Don't grab for substitutes - avoid ultra processed foods as much as possible. Our bodies are evolved for whole foods, close a possible to harvest condition.

This has been some of the hardest but also best work of my life. I wish I'd been born into a healthy eating family but I don't think many Americans really are, most of us are eating a diet that is really not good for our hearts and guts and other organs. It's nice to see there really is a movement of doctors trying to change healthcare by prevention through diet and other lifestyle modifications, but the forces against them are strong so it will take time to change our food and public health education systems. So much of our chronic disease is curable by using food as medicine but there is not a lot of profit in that except for broccoli farmers.

NP. This is fantastic. I'm going to make a quiche tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

1200 calories/day. About 40% protein and 30% each carbs (emphasis on complex carbs, fruits, veggies, whole grains) and 30% fats (emphasis on unsaturated fat). Very minimal sugar and try to avoid processed foods.

So, food this week looks like:

breakfast: nonfat Skyr or cottage cheese and berries

Snack: a protein shake

Lunch: spinach salad with veggies and a protein (usually chicken, maybe salmon or a tuna steak). Or, a veggie omelette, or grilled, marinated protein and veggies. Last week it was ground turkey and sweet potato chili for a couple days. One day it was 1/2 a large buckwheat crepe with Swiss and a double order of spinach.

Snack: today was a sliced apple with cashew butter. Sometimes a smoothie with berries, almond milk and nonfat skyr. Sometimes a Balanced Break. Etc.

Dinner: right now, we’re on a soup kick. It’s that weather. Basic formula is low sodium chicken broth or tomato brother base, plus a protein (ground turkey, turkey, chicken or ground chicken, very low fat ground beef), plus beans and veggies.

Last week, we ate ground turkey, cannellini beans and kale soup. This week it’s ground chicken chili (lots of beans and veggies). Italian Wedding soup is probably next— ground turkey sausage meatballs, chickpea pasta and lots of greens.

Sweet treat: frozen Greek Yogurt Yasso Bar. Right now, raspberry chocolate chip.

Yes, I’m on Zepbound, (and recently switched from Wegovy). I’m sure other people can just willpower 1200 calories a day and a limited diet. I need help to maintain that. .

I’ve been on this diet 8 months and lost 65 pounds. Started at 302 lbs and today wasn’t And I feel fantastic. Aching, inflammation, joint pain, GI problems, all gone.

Each week, I also do 120 minutes of strength training, plus 60 minutes of yoga and 90 minutes of cardio (cardio is one place I should do better). My MD is tracking closely, and I am losing almost entirely fat. R that takes work.

[Anonymous]

Everything I eat is cooked by me, for my taste—simple seared salmon or trout, when eaten with lemon. I eat a lot of potatoes, peas and cabbage.
Cabbage soup/stews with a bit of meat for flavor. The meat I cook, such as beef with carrots and peas, and onions as the base.
Beans, cooked with smoked ribs.
I cook what I like, and I like good food. I even make panang chicken with all the ingredients I buy, as per the recipe. The foods I cook make me feel good.
I eat sunny-side eggs for breakfast, plain sliced avocado with vinegar and some salt, bowls of blueberries, and strawberries.
I can honestly say that when I have potato chips, I feel how greasy they are. I enjoy them and do not feel guilty about eating them, knowing that I eat 90% of the food I cook and make.
There is nothing special about what I cook; central European food is made from scratch as much as I can here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1200 calories/day. About 40% protein and 30% each carbs (emphasis on complex carbs, fruits, veggies, whole grains) and 30% fats (emphasis on unsaturated fat). Very minimal sugar and try to avoid processed foods.

So, food this week looks like:

breakfast: nonfat Skyr or cottage cheese and berries

Snack: a protein shake

Lunch: spinach salad with veggies and a protein (usually chicken, maybe salmon or a tuna steak). Or, a veggie omelette, or grilled, marinated protein and veggies. Last week it was ground turkey and sweet potato chili for a couple days. One day it was 1/2 a large buckwheat crepe with Swiss and a double order of spinach.

Snack: today was a sliced apple with cashew butter. Sometimes a smoothie with berries, almond milk and nonfat skyr. Sometimes a Balanced Break. Etc.

Dinner: right now, we’re on a soup kick. It’s that weather. Basic formula is low sodium chicken broth or tomato brother base, plus a protein (ground turkey, turkey, chicken or ground chicken, very low fat ground beef), plus beans and veggies.

Last week, we ate ground turkey, cannellini beans and kale soup. This week it’s ground chicken chili (lots of beans and veggies). Italian Wedding soup is probably next— ground turkey sausage meatballs, chickpea pasta and lots of greens.

Sweet treat: frozen Greek Yogurt Yasso Bar. Right now, raspberry chocolate chip.

Yes, I’m on Zepbound, (and recently switched from Wegovy). I’m sure other people can just willpower 1200 calories a day and a limited diet. I need help to maintain that. .

I’ve been on this diet 8 months and lost 65 pounds. Started at 302 lbs and today wasn’t And I feel fantastic. Aching, inflammation, joint pain, GI problems, all gone.

Each week, I also do 120 minutes of strength training, plus 60 minutes of yoga and 90 minutes of cardio (cardio is one place I should do better). My MD is tracking closely, and I am losing almost entirely fat. R that takes work.

Are you also on Ozempic?

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks all, this has been a really helpful thread. It is fiber that I need to ramp up, and honestly protein as I slack on that quite a bit and get hangry a lot as a result. I’m obese, but I’m not trying to lose weight, I just need my digestion to settle and it’s good to hear how some of you hit your daily minimum of 30 grams of fiber. Also I’m naturally nosy and like finding out what people eat.

[Anonymous]

DP, what the pp above posted about missing the chance to fuel your body, I never heard anyone researching something like that. This is the first time I have read about that.
But that is precisely how I would describe my eating habits of a gourmand. I would rather eat something that I enjoy than eat horrible McDonald's fries that taste horrible.
I am happy to wait and make what I like to eat, and I like to eat good and healthy foods, like homemade stews, beans, roasted chicken with potatoes, etc.
I have never been overweight in my life, and I love food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've spent the last six months slowly transforming my diet. I was raised on bad foods - much of it processed, definitely the typical low fiber high fat American diet. After I left home I recreated most of the foods I'd eaten growing up but the busier my career got the more my diet relied on a lot of take out most of which was also low fiber high fat and high sodium to boot.

The last several years I got a lot of experience cooking - before I'd been a passable cook but I became much more skilled and began to really enjoy cooking. I'm grateful for those skills and that enjoyment because it's helped a lot with the transition to eating foods that are fairly new to me as I begin to eat more plant based. Growing up vegetables mostly came in a can or when fresh were cooked to the point they were entirely unappetizing - it's a whole new world for me to crave vegetables and fruit and for them to be the focus of my grocery shop and diet.

I recommend Dr. Robert Lustig's books, Dr. Will Bulsiewicz's book and online content on the fiber fueled diet, and especially if you podcast, check out The Exam Room with Chuck Carroll. It's the podcast of the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine and the content it medically accurate and has really motivated me to make these life changes. They push a plant based diet for optimal human health, but there isn't judgment or condemnation for listeners who continue to consume animal products. I still eat eggs, some dairy, and chicken - yesterday for Xmas I had some ham, it was lovely, but I definitely feel better the last few months that I no longer consume beef or pork and have cut way back on cheese and butter.

Every morning I consume:

12-24 oz blueberry green tea unsweetened
1/4 cup walnuts
1 slice (6 portions per 9" pie) homemade quiche made with store bought pre-rolled crust, 6 eggs, 3/4 cup cream, 3/4 cup shredded parmesan, 8oz chopped fresh spinach sauteed with 4oz julienned sundried tomatoes and minced fresh garlic. Quiche is flavored with either italian herb blend or herbs de provence and also plentiful chili flakes as I really love heat in my food and it is thought to help with BP.

Sometimes I also have a side of roasted veggies - red or sweet potatotes or brussel sprouts - with my quiche, but more often just the quiche and afterward a piece of fruit either small apple, banana or 2-3 little mandarin oranges.

This nuts and quiche and fruit breakfast works so well for my body - it's a great phytonutrient bomb with the right balance of fat, protein, carbs and especially fiber that it keeps me sated for hours. I usually have breakfast around 8 and don't think about food again until 2pm. Usually around that time I'll have a cup of raw broccoli and another serving of nuts - pistachios typically - or more fruit.

Dinners can be roasted vegetables in various combinations, rice bowl with roasted veggies, or my curry which I make 2x month. My curry is tomato based with onions, sweet peppers, garlic, dark garbanzo beans, kale or spinach and some chicken because I still love some saturated fat in curry (I also use some cream and butter, but not much compared to how I made it a year ago). When I make a batch of curry I make a batch of rice and keep it in the fridge for the week - it makes leftovers easier but it's also a great method because rice and potatoes and certain other starches (pasta) become much more resistant when cooked and then cooled before eating - whether you eat it cold like pasta salad or reheat it again for consumption.

Dr. Lustig's boom Metabolical discusses that the two rules for caring for your body are 1) feed the gut and 2) protect the liver. Feed the gut means design your diet around feeding the microbiome in your gut. There are billions of bacteria in there and they all like different food - Dr. Bulsiewicz, a gastroenterologist, suggests it's best practice to consume at least 30 different plant sources per week, and as many each day as you can. Plant sources include fruits and veggies and whole grains but also herbs and spices so you can get a variety easily. My quiche contains ten different plant food sources, for instance. Paired with the nuts and fruit or side veggie, I've already consumed 12+ sources at one meal.

I still struggle a little with occasional emotional urges for sweets and unhealthy savories, but the thing that astonished me was how within a few weeks of consuming the RDA+ of fiber every day, and a variety from whole foods, my gut microbiome rebalanced so nicely that beyond having beautiful BMs every morning, my food-obsessed brain has just quieted down almost entirely. I don't have cravings like I'd battled for years in peri/menopause. When I do have sweets or really fatty foods, I am quickly satisfied and usually feel icky after consumption because my gut just doesn't want that food. Sweets and fat destroy the good bugs and feed bad bugs that make you feel sick and tired all the time.

Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. Little meat or dairy, none at all if you can. Don't grab for substitutes - avoid ultra processed foods as much as possible. Our bodies are evolved for whole foods, close a possible to harvest condition.

This has been some of the hardest but also best work of my life. I wish I'd been born into a healthy eating family but I don't think many Americans really are, most of us are eating a diet that is really not good for our hearts and guts and other organs. It's nice to see there really is a movement of doctors trying to change healthcare by prevention through diet and other lifestyle modifications, but the forces against them are strong so it will take time to change our food and public health education systems. So much of our chronic disease is curable by using food as medicine but there is not a lot of profit in that except for broccoli farmers.

This looks great. As someone who always ate a non-processed healthy diet (thanks to my European parents) I haven’t had to transition like you did. I love my quiche just like you. I will just say this (and sorry to flag it), but that pre made crust is another so-so processed food.

Again, I eat it myself. Not saying you shouldn’t. But for your next stage, think about making your own dough or moving on to frittata (same thing just no crust). And keep the quiche with pre-made crust as a once a week indulgence

[Anonymous]

Loads of fresh fruit and vegetables and nuts. I don’t eat meat for ethical reasons, and also if’s not good for you anyway. My guilty pleasure are carbs - I love bagels, baguettes, pizza… Everything in moderation is fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me:
- everything in moderation
- Don't eat a lot of meat (1-3x month)
- Dairy maybe 2-3x/week
- Eat all the vegetables and fruit I want - meals are a big veg based meal like big bowl of soup/stew, huge salad in the summer, etc
- Eat some "junk" in moderation, every day. Like some peanut butter cups, or some ice cream, or doritos, or whatever. But eat them after I've had my veggie-based meal.
- Rarely drink (1-2 drinks a month)

I don't track any macros. I workout 6 days a week, usually.

How do you get in the necessary protein?

There is a cult of protein in American diet and fitness industry that has no basis in nutritional biochemistry. Most Americans consume far more protein than necessary for optimal health, certainly Americans are not protein deficient at all. But there is a whole agricultural industry built around selling us flesh based protein so it's hard to fight the propaganda with the news that you can get all you need from plants.

One would think that the logic would occur to us - if a gorilla (or hippo or elephant or giraffe, etc.) can be strong and health eating only plants, why can't a human?

NP

Wow…are you the same guy who told me years ago that if a horse can become big and strong on oats, then humans can be too? How about the fact that humans aren’t pachyderms or ruminants? Good grief, do you want to apply your same “logic” to lions or wolves?

[Anonymous]

I feel better eating a heartier lunch and a very light dinner. I sleep better and control my hunger better. It’s terrible for my social life, but I try to meet friends for lunch/brunch rather than dinner.

[Anonymous]

I eat two meals a day, lunch and dinner. Lots of salads, soups, chicken. If I have grains I eat brown rice and avoid bread but I do like whole grain crackers which im sure aren't healthy. Eat red meat or ground turkey a few times a month, eat pasta a couple of times a month and some cheese, mostly in recipes. Cottage cheese and Greek yogurt for snacks. Not a fruit lover but do like pineapple and apples. Olive oil and some butter. I do not drink alcohol or soda drinks but I do have a Diet Coke on occasion when I go out. Drink two cups of coffee with whole milk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me:
- everything in moderation
- Don't eat a lot of meat (1-3x month)
- Dairy maybe 2-3x/week
- Eat all the vegetables and fruit I want - meals are a big veg based meal like big bowl of soup/stew, huge salad in the summer, etc
- Eat some "junk" in moderation, every day. Like some peanut butter cups, or some ice cream, or doritos, or whatever. But eat them after I've had my veggie-based meal.
- Rarely drink (1-2 drinks a month)

I don't track any macros. I workout 6 days a week, usually.

How do you get in the necessary protein?

Beans, legumes, nuts, vegetables. As I mentioned I eat meat occasionally. Ditto for hardboiled eggs a couple times a week. The obsessions with "zomg protein!" is over the top. Nobody needs exorbitant amounts.

You must be weak AF