Be joyful...and then pound the butter

[catherine]

My permaculture teacher shared this article (this one's for you, Jane!)

But he also introduced it with this wise comment:

It is not about fat or no fat. It's about health in all realms of our life, beyond organic foods--living an active joyful life first and foremost... then get myopic and reductionist if you want .

Frustrating how the food rules shift so capriciously. So, "joy" is the diet that I'll adopt. I might be better off with just that.

[razz]

My permaculture teacher shared this article (this one's for you, Jane!)

But he also introduced it with this wise comment:

It is not about fat or no fat. It's about health in all realms of our life, beyond organic foods--living an active joyful life first and foremost... then get myopic and reductionist if you want .

Frustrating how the food rules shift so capriciously. So, "joy" is the diet that I'll adopt. I might be better off with just that.

Remember the eggs were bad for you fad? Now they are part of a healthy diet. I choose to enjoy my food keeping it simple with small treats that give me joy. Today's celebration of paying off my car is a bacon and tomato sandwich on a homemade bun. OOOO, so good. Another might be one scoop or mocha almond fudge ice cream cone or an entire mango. The rest of the time, starch in the am and noon and veggies plus a protein and a fruit in the pm. Simple and easy and fun to prepare.

[ApatheticNoMore]

considering some cultures have subsisted on quite low fat diets for a long time (more than truly high fat diets which seem more of an anomaly - although *mixed* macronutrient diets like the Mediterranean less so), I don't think it's going to kill you, that is generic you, but a low fat diet might not agree with some people for sure, especially with various health issues.

Those doing so tended to eat far too much stodgy food like bread, pasta and rice, the experts said, while missing out on vital nutrients.

Participants eating the highest levels of carbohydrates – particularly refined sugars found in fizzy drinks and processed meals – faced a 28 per cent higher risk of early death.

well if that is what they are really and truly eating, of course they are missing out on vital nutrients. They are DOING IT WRONG. Yea maybe I sometimes do diets wrong too, but not long term (veganism and extreme keto were the only completely bad experiments).

If they are deciding to eat low fat, high carb, for whatever reason - they should be eating fruits, and potatoes and sweet potatoes, maybe some rice, might be best to make some of the rice brown but obviously many cultures don't and do ok, quinoa etc.. And yes eat some protein, even if it's mostly lean fishes and chicken, and legumes as well if you want. But not even eating foods that qualify as foods ... isn't a decent test of anything except empty calories.

FWIW I'm temporarily experimenting with a low fat diet. I have lost some weight on it, but I may have peaked out the amount of weight I can lose on that particular diet, maybe just a few pounds total, we will see it. Clothes quite a bit loser but same size still so ... So be it, my BMI is healthy anyway apparently, I could just lose some fat IMO, but I'm not so sure it's that easily achieved on any diet (yea starving myself would work - but just no). And I don't think everyone will lose weight on low fat, probably less so if you are older, I was running an experiment. I eat the type of things mentioned above. I feel ok mostly though maybe a bit grumpier, I sleep well, I look healthy, I don't avoid fat entirely - eat 30-40 grams a day, I eat protein with near every meal (that ALONE will lead to some weight loss probably btw). There are some days I cheat and eat more fat. But I find a low fat diet VERY BORING. I have occasional slight but not strong hunger, I can deal with that if I'm actually losing weight, but we shall see. At any rate low fat, much higher carbs doesn't seem to harm me, and I did lose a few pounds. However though these real carbs might be ok for me, I can still feel bad eating junk food. And I'd way rather eat more Mediterranean as I usually do as it's way less boring. But sheer boringness itself is probably healthy in limiting calories!!

[JaneV2.0]

I was happy to see that. Now for the backlash...

[Rogar]

I won't be pounding butter any time soon, but it is a good point. Sometimes we obsess over details and miss the bigger issues. People who are close to their recommended weight range, get regular exercise, are fairly upbeat about life, and have a low stress level can probably thrive on a variety of diets.

[SteveinMN]

Several years ago, the comedian Margaret Cho promoted the "F--k It Diet": instead of reaching for, say, another rice cake as a substitute for the cake you really wanted, she had a piece of cake. And she lost weight. Her point (and she was by no means the only person to make this point) was that extreme dieting is itself an obsession with food and that, absent a medical reason to be that watchful (celiac, diabetes, allergy), we were all stressing ourselves and being unsatisfied by food when eating a little of what you really want satisfied and let you move on to other matters in life.

It takes a while to make that stick, if it can stick for a person at all. But my experience is that it can be done, gradually better than "cold turkey". I think we all have had times when we really really want something that's not particularly nutritious or healthful. Just a couple of bites of whatever offers more to the soul than any number of "more appropriate" substitutes.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Quite low fat (under 20% likely) diet was not something I really was all that great at sustaining. Ok the truth is maybe that I HATE ALL DIETS period.

I will merely say it raised my awareness of basic stuff like how much cream I was adding to tea and dressing (homemade with olive oil and vinegar of course) to salad. I now add much less, and actually find it agrees with me much more physically to do so (agrees with my stomach more, feel less tired and actually less hungry). So that I suppose was the benefit of that experiment unless I decided to do it again, which I could, but I hate dieting, and truthfully it's really hard to even consume calories that way, you just eat a lot of completely unsatisfying almost no calorie no fat nothingness. So at best such an experiment pushes one more to a middle ground (adding less empty cream calories to tea etc.) but does not at all leave one wanting the extreme.

And I don't believe anyone needs to pound butter. As the recommended fat calories from even this study is what just about EVERYONE in the U.S. who isn't following Ornish, McDougal or another more omnivorous but VERY low fat diet is already eating anyway and basically, people mostly don't need to eat MORE of anything (ok except maybe vegetables ...).

[SteveinMN]

anm, that certainly is the thing about diets (or is it better to call them "eating plans"?) -- what works well for one does not work well for another. The tricky bit is to find what works for ourselves over the long term.

My jury is still out on low-carb-high-fat, but I sort of don't get a choice besides low-carb-low-fat and I know that does not work for me. As it is, I suspect I don't eat all the fat I'm "supposed" to be eating daily, but I'm still battling years of questionable nutrition education and gauging whether eating certain fats make me feel worse than others. Always a work in progress. Maybe the Soylent folks are right...