Ok, so talk to me, please, food guru's - calorie counting etc.

[Quail_Antwerp]

First, I'll be up front and honest, please just give me some stuff in laymen's terms...if you get all deep on me and post long articles, I'll lose interest - i know, that makes it sound like i'm a boring person.

I have a few questions first, about calorie counting. Tell me, if you're exercising do you need to intake x amount of calories to burn x amount - right?

and how do you know how many calories are in say, a chicken breast?

a pork chop?

or my 8 oz steak?

a single serving cornish hen?

fresh green veggies?

in a raw carrot?

in an apple?

in a potato?

in bananas?

in oranges?

should a person even really worry about counting calories??

and why is it that too much raw fruit is something to be concerned with when those are natural sugars?

I've been eating more salads, with tomatoes and cucumbers, with very little dressing, drinking more water, and I tend to have either one of or one of each of the following - apple, banana, orange - per day. Plus a raw carrot and sometimes celery.

I still eat bread - but not at every meal.

I have found - thanks to Becca - that I enjoy having nuts for snacks.

I have decreased my coffee intake from roughly 6 cups a day down to 2-3 cups a day - and learned that by skipping coffee entirely apparently puts me in a not so friendly mood (ask Becca).

I tend to eat more baked than fried foods, but when I do fry stuff, it's in EVOO - we've completely done away with vegetable oil, canola oil, and shortening- or real butter. That switch was easy. I have lard on hand for when/if I make pie crusts. I use only butter in my cookies when I bake those (which hasn't been for awhile).

I'm not sure what else.

Talk to me, please?

 

[Dace]

Yay on the oil thing, that is an awesome switch!

Fruit converts quickly to sugar in your blood stream triggering an insulin reaction...which in short is not good. Not good as in to much insulin action can lead you towards insulin resistance and or diabetes AND leads to more fat storage

Forget everything that you know about calories. We have all been brainwashed to some degree that we need a low calorie low fat diet. Hog wash. When we eat things that our bodies convert to sugar too quickly, (white rice, bread, tortillas, bananas, sweets, dried fruit, juice etc) our bodies store them as fat. If we can eat things that convert more slowly to sugar in our bodies, we lessen the insulin response and BURN the food as energy rather than store it.

Think of blood sugar and the resulting insulin reaction as a great sale at the market. The Avocados are on sale for 5 cents each, yay, stock up! Get all those Avos at home and they quickly become a liability because 1) you can't store them, they go bad quickly... you can't really bake with them and you can't can them and 2) you can't eat 50 avos in a short amount of time.....they are going to end up in the trash. Well too much sugar in your blood stream is the same. Sure the candy bar/bagel/bowl of pasta seems like a great idea at the time, but what is your body going to do with all that blood sugar? It has no choice but to clear it out of the blood stream and store it as best it can....as fat.

What we need is a clean whole foods diet, heavy on the veggies.

Veggies- cooked and raw
Protein- whole eggs, meat, nuts, cheese, plain yogurt, kefir, beans & lentils
Fat- butter, EVOO & coconut oil, heavy cream (in coffee )
Water
Other carbs - whole grains sparingly, brown rice, quinoa, whole wheat pasta & sweet potatoes


Does that make sense? If you live on a lower glycemic index diet it keeps you blood sugar on an even keel and gets your body to stop adding to the fat and starts using what you have stored. Eat when you are hungry...in fact don't go more than 4 hours or so without eating. Keep that metabolic furnace burning by feeding it clean nutrient dense foods.

 

[Dace]

This is why fruit can be dangerous....

A banana carries a glycemic load of 14

Vanilla waffers carry a glycemic load of 14

Sure there is some nutrition in a banana...but what it does to your blood sugar is the same as eating vanilla waffers :/

http://www.naturalchoicesforyou.com/site/680805/page/222881

http://www.alsearsmd.com/glycemic-index/

*Note that what you really want to understand and watch for is the glycemic LOAD, not just the glycemic index.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

I already use real butter and EVOO - but we do have some margarine in the house - trying to get it out of here, but when I don't buy it, DH does.

I did sneak some whole wheat spaghetti in with our groceries when we shopped the other day - but I'd be OK with not eating any pasta - with the exception of Huntington Chicken that Becca's mom makes. I wonder how that would be with real cheese and whole wheat pasta?

My ideal meal is a meat main dish and loads of veggies - I actually get sick of potatoes but DH thinks every mean should have mashed potatoes with it.

So no white rice?

 

[BeccaOH]

Brown Rice is wonderful. Better than the white stuff -- and I always loved the white stuff. You just have to plan for cooking it longer. No instant rice junk even if it claims to be brown.

I don't like to be nagged or criticized about my food choices, but I do appreciate support when I'm working hard to stay healthy. I'll try to support you if you support me.

 

[BeccaOH]

Hey, we need to stock up some good food for Friday-Saturday.
Boiled eggs
Grilled chicken strips
Nuts
Apples
Carrots
Cucumbers
Coffee

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

I don't like to be nagged or criticized about my food choices, but I do appreciate support when I'm working hard to stay healthy. I'll try to support you if you support me.

so no more saying you're starving yourself?

you've got a deal!

 

[Dace]

Yeah, make the switch to brown rice.

Keep those kinds of carbs on the menu for E & the kids...baked potatoes, brown rice, whole wheat pastas...but fill your plate with veggies instead. Baked sweet potatoes are great when the family is having reg baked pots....big piles of roasted cauliflower may appeal to E, I love it because it gives me that bland filling whiteness that I miss in a baked pot or pile of rice.

Back to the calorie question for a minute.
If you and I both consume 1500 calories per day...

I fill my diet with corn flakes, fat free sweetened yogurt, rice cakes, bananas, skinless grilled chicken w/ white rice and corn on the cob

Your day is filled with plain yogurt, veggie & cheese omelet, salad, nuts, a big old steak with baked sweet potato with real butter and a pile of roasted veggies

You will lose weight and I will gain. All of the things in my day are high glycemic load foods and cause a constant spike and crash of blood sugar and I will be constantly hungry ..... where with yours, you will be full, satiated and have maintained a steady level of blood sugar.

 

[Wifezilla]

Tell me, if you're exercising do you need to intake x amount of calories to burn x amount - right?

Nope. The human body doesn't work that way.

 

[Dace]

Tell me, if you're exercising do you need to intake x amount of calories to burn x amount - right?

Nope. The human body doesn't work that way.

Really, the more you exercise the hungrier you are. You body is hard wired to try to even out that expenditure of energy.