Thanks to everyone for the bean cooking tips!

Ah geeze that's a nasty cancer. Extremely painful.

20 pounds isn’t just a “vanity” problem, especially for people with slight builds.

Anonymous wrote:
I have about 100 pounds to lose and I'm considering going on Ozempic or one of its cousins. I'd never risk its side effects for just 20 vanity pounds.

I am with you in the “100 club” but I suggest you not judge others as we don’t want them to judge us, ok?

The wife of a dear friend of mine died from cholangiocarcinoma 15 years ago after it was detected just days after her second child's birth. She was otherwise perfectly healthy, mid 30's...a runner. No symptoms. (Or if she had them, they were masked by pregnancy.) She was dead within 6 months.

I have about 100 pounds to lose and I'm considering going on Ozempic or one of its cousins. I'd never risk its side effects for just 20 vanity pounds.

OP, your friend is really lucky that they caught her cholangiocarcinoma super early. It has a super low survival rate once it spreads, which it does easily and quickly through the bile ducts. My mother, a healthy 56 year old, was diagnosed with it (several years ago) one August and was dead by November. It’s that aggressive. I also had gallstones in my 40’s and got my gallbladder removed partly due to family history. I’m currently researching whether Wegovy would be harmful for me due to my personal and maternal history of gallbladder disease, so your post was very informative and helpful. Thanks so much. Please tell your friend to find an oncology team familiar with this rare cancer and to attack it aggressively as time is of the essence! Wishing her the best.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you needing to lose 20 pounds should try eating beans for breakfast- a cup is ideal but at least a half cup. Beans are nature’s Ozempic.

Ideally you would ditch all the junky food products and the unhealthy foods and focus on plant based and healthy fats, too - that’s for overall health and longevity.

But definitely beans in the morning will shut off your food noise and dial down appetite. I’ve been eating beans for weeks now and I can’t even eat dinner anymore, I just have breakfast and lunch and maybe a small salad or some nuts or fruit in the early evening.

Fiber is really miraculous, and very good for you!

How do you prepare the beans?

I eat them refried - vegan. I make a batch once a week and use black beans because they are overall the most nutrient dense/rich of the beans. I add onion, garlic and spices.

In a pinch when I haven’t food prepped I use Goya refried vegan black beans and I add some more garlic and spices because I like a lot of flavor.

You can eat them all kinds of ways for breakfast - mix in eggs, beans on a whole grain seeded toast, bean burrito, etc.

The more you can front load fiber into your morning meal, the more sated you will feel all day and it will really change your appetite and quiet the food noise. It really works!

Thanks, so Goya is canned black beans correct?

Yes the Goya refried black beans are canned. They are pretty yummy but higher in sodium than when I make my own home cooked batch, so I only use them in a pinch.

If your diet is relatively low in sodium (mine is on account of being mostly whole fresh food and plant based, zero ultra processed stuff) the sodium from canned beans won’t be a big deal.

Please share your cooking method for beans. I've never had success cooking beans from dried beans. They either don't get soft or get too soft and fall apart.

NP jumping in. I only make black beans and cook them from scratch with dried beans.

I wash my beans and then they go into a dutch oven - I fill the pot with water until the beans are fully submerged and covered by water, preferably an inch at minimum but I prefer adding more water.

I add in smashed garlic cloves, half a white onion and a jalapeño. Then I simmer on low for 2.5-3 hours as I continually check the water to ensure the beans remain fully submerged. Add water as needed.

I don’t season until the beans are done. Once they’re soft and have cooled down, I purée them in the blender until creamy. Then I put them in airtight container in the fridge.

I only season the beans when ready to eat. I warm up the puréed beans and season with sea salt and gold in some cheese to melt. Then the warm beans & cheese are spread on toasted naan - easy breakfast which my kid eats daily.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you needing to lose 20 pounds should try eating beans for breakfast- a cup is ideal but at least a half cup. Beans are nature’s Ozempic.

Ideally you would ditch all the junky food products and the unhealthy foods and focus on plant based and healthy fats, too - that’s for overall health and longevity.

But definitely beans in the morning will shut off your food noise and dial down appetite. I’ve been eating beans for weeks now and I can’t even eat dinner anymore, I just have breakfast and lunch and maybe a small salad or some nuts or fruit in the early evening.

Fiber is really miraculous, and very good for you!

How do you prepare the beans?

I eat them refried - vegan. I make a batch once a week and use black beans because they are overall the most nutrient dense/rich of the beans. I add onion, garlic and spices.

In a pinch when I haven’t food prepped I use Goya refried vegan black beans and I add some more garlic and spices because I like a lot of flavor.

You can eat them all kinds of ways for breakfast - mix in eggs, beans on a whole grain seeded toast, bean burrito, etc.

The more you can front load fiber into your morning meal, the more sated you will feel all day and it will really change your appetite and quiet the food noise. It really works!

Thanks, so Goya is canned black beans correct?

Yes the Goya refried black beans are canned. They are pretty yummy but higher in sodium than when I make my own home cooked batch, so I only use them in a pinch.

If your diet is relatively low in sodium (mine is on account of being mostly whole fresh food and plant based, zero ultra processed stuff) the sodium from canned beans won’t be a big deal.

Please share your cooking method for beans. I've never had success cooking beans from dried beans. They either don't get soft or get too soft and fall apart.

In my experience with cooking dried beans over the years, the most critical factor is the water you use. You can’t use hard water or the beans won’t soften - the minerals and chemicals in hard water will harden the shell of the bean and no amount of cooking can fix that once it’s happened. To avoid that issue, I use distilled water only for the soaking and the cooking of dried beans. After ruining a couple of batches of baked beans using hard water or bottled which wasn’t soft enough, I switched to distilled and have never had issues again.

I don’t make baked beans anymore because the way I like them includes too much sweet and also pork and I don’t eat meat or sugar anymore.

I cook chick peas after first soaking for at least 24 hours in distilled water. Then change the water to fresh distilled and bring to boil for 5-10 minutes, turn down to low heat (2 on my old stove’s dial) and cook 1.5 hours on low. Drain and refrigerate the beans for later use in salad, rice bowls, or curry depending on my week’s food plan.

This recipe works well for refried beans, but I don’t add salt until the frying process because salt can also prevent the beans softening when initially cooked. I also include finely diced sautéed garlic along with the spices, and I add cayenne because I like heat and it’s very healthy as well if you can tolerate capsaicin.
https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/homemade-refried-beans/

For those who are looking to improve gut biome health and thus trigger the ‘natural Ozempic’ process of satiety and reduced food noise that fiber intake can provide, it’s always a great idea to cook beans, whole grain rice, whole grain pasta and potatoes in advance of when they are going to be consumed and to chill them in the fridge at least overnight before consuming them either chilled or reheated. Cooking and cooling before consumption raises the levels of resistant starch in the beans, rice, pasta or potatoes and resistant starch feeds good gut bacteria that will help revitalize gut biome.

But bottom line to keep the gut healthy you have to eschew the junk - sugar, alcohol, saturated animal fats, ultra processed food products laden with seed oils and emulsifiers, etc. These substances destroy good gut bacteria and encourage the overgrowth of bad gut bacteria. You can have them sparingly if you can’t live without them entirely, but you’ve got to build a healthy gut to shed weight and promote overall health and mental health and that means going without the junk.

This is why calories in calories out isn’t a rule that actually works as so many people think - yes it’s a general rule, but not all calories are the same and some require more energy to break down (fiber) while others are so toxic that they hijack healthy metabolism and also drive overconsumption. This is what recent research into the gut biome has taught us and why obesity researchers are re-educating dietitians so they can re-educate their patients.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you needing to lose 20 pounds should try eating beans for breakfast- a cup is ideal but at least a half cup. Beans are nature’s Ozempic.

Ideally you would ditch all the junky food products and the unhealthy foods and focus on plant based and healthy fats, too - that’s for overall health and longevity.

But definitely beans in the morning will shut off your food noise and dial down appetite. I’ve been eating beans for weeks now and I can’t even eat dinner anymore, I just have breakfast and lunch and maybe a small salad or some nuts or fruit in the early evening.

Fiber is really miraculous, and very good for you!

How do you prepare the beans?

I eat them refried - vegan. I make a batch once a week and use black beans because they are overall the most nutrient dense/rich of the beans. I add onion, garlic and spices.

In a pinch when I haven’t food prepped I use Goya refried vegan black beans and I add some more garlic and spices because I like a lot of flavor.

You can eat them all kinds of ways for breakfast - mix in eggs, beans on a whole grain seeded toast, bean burrito, etc.

The more you can front load fiber into your morning meal, the more sated you will feel all day and it will really change your appetite and quiet the food noise. It really works!

Thanks, so Goya is canned black beans correct?

Yes the Goya refried black beans are canned. They are pretty yummy but higher in sodium than when I make my own home cooked batch, so I only use them in a pinch.

If your diet is relatively low in sodium (mine is on account of being mostly whole fresh food and plant based, zero ultra processed stuff) the sodium from canned beans won’t be a big deal.

Please share your cooking method for beans. I've never had success cooking beans from dried beans. They either don't get soft or get too soft and fall apart.

Instapot. Creamy and delicious every time.

Anonymous wrote:I don't know, but having tried Ozempic for a month myself-and stopped due to the horrible side effects-it seems clear to me that this drug is not well-tolerated or good for everybody.

I don't want to write about the gross side effects I had, but they were bad enough that I stopped this drug I had badly wanted to start.

And I would not be surprised if Ozempic becomes the new fen-phen. I also remember my grandma talking about some diet med she and all her friends were prescribed in the 1960s, which was also eventually found to be really harmfiul and banned. What makes us so sure Ozempic is going to be different from those instances?

PLEASE TELL US!!! This is helpful to those who haven't tried it!

Admittedly, I haven't paid attention to everything surrounding Ozempic. I know it's been around for a long time, so why only now is it being used specifically as a weight loss drug when that was a known "side effect" for years? Were they doing tests and waiting for FDA clearance?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has been used for years for diabetes and has proven to be a relatively safe medicine. But ALL medicines carry risks and that is why it is stupid to go on ANY medicine to lose 20 dang pounds.

ah, but the 20 dang pounds are so hard to lose!

I'm on Wegovy and have about 80lbs to lose. I would never use this medication for 20lbs. It is not a walk in the park.

"It is not a walk in the park."
What does this mean? Enlighten those of us who aren't on it and have never tried it...

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t Oprah just have shi$ coming from both ends recently and hospitalized? Gayle went in and in about it.

Source?!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you needing to lose 20 pounds should try eating beans for breakfast- a cup is ideal but at least a half cup. Beans are nature’s Ozempic.

Ideally you would ditch all the junky food products and the unhealthy foods and focus on plant based and healthy fats, too - that’s for overall health and longevity.

But definitely beans in the morning will shut off your food noise and dial down appetite. I’ve been eating beans for weeks now and I can’t even eat dinner anymore, I just have breakfast and lunch and maybe a small salad or some nuts or fruit in the early evening.

Fiber is really miraculous, and very good for you!

How do you prepare the beans?

I eat them refried - vegan. I make a batch once a week and use black beans because they are overall the most nutrient dense/rich of the beans. I add onion, garlic and spices.

In a pinch when I haven’t food prepped I use Goya refried vegan black beans and I add some more garlic and spices because I like a lot of flavor.

You can eat them all kinds of ways for breakfast - mix in eggs, beans on a whole grain seeded toast, bean burrito, etc.

The more you can front load fiber into your morning meal, the more sated you will feel all day and it will really change your appetite and quiet the food noise. It really works!

Thanks, so Goya is canned black beans correct?

Yes the Goya refried black beans are canned. They are pretty yummy but higher in sodium than when I make my own home cooked batch, so I only use them in a pinch.

If your diet is relatively low in sodium (mine is on account of being mostly whole fresh food and plant based, zero ultra processed stuff) the sodium from canned beans won’t be a big deal.

Please share your cooking method for beans. I've never had success cooking beans from dried beans. They either don't get soft or get too soft and fall apart.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe look into therapy.

DP - Regardless of the the validity of your point, mental illness is not a cool pejorative. Do better.