Looking for help finding a good book on healthy eating

[RVAbrendan]

This blog -- > http://www.thespartanwarrior.com/

has a TON of information and resources regarding healthy eating and living.

[Duckus]

I'm far from a perfect eater, but I have tried to make changes in the last couple years. There have been times when I've gotten lazy and eat like crap for a couple days, and I feel like crap when that happens. For me, the key to eating better (for the most part) has been the few things below.

1. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store.

2. Eat fruits and veggies every day, at every meal.

3. Always have real food at home. I rarely ever really "crave" fast food. When I do, it's 95% because I'm lazy and have no food in the house.

3.b. Always have real food that's easy to prepare at home. If this means cooking a lot on Sunday and eating throughout the week, then do it. If it means having apples/bananas/other stuff that's easy to grab and go, then do it.

3.c. Always have a good spice rack. This is key if you are making your own food. I always try to have a good variety of spices and spice mixes and marinades in the fridge. Just don't go overboard with the marinades and watch the ingredients.

4. Be aware of where your food is coming from. It may take a little more effort, and it may be a little more expensive, but you will start to notice a difference between cage free/free range eggs and cheapo eggs, or grass-fed and ****-fed beef.

5. Don't be afraid to eat breakfast for dinner, or dinner for breakfast. Don't let our cultural norms about when we should eat certain foods dictate your diet.

6. EXERCISE!!! This is perhaps the most important key to eating better. I find that when I work out, my body craves healthy food because that's what I need to sustain energy/rebuild muscles/etc.

Great advise.

Adding to your "3b" - About 4 years ago I started doing once a week big shopping trips. I eat heathy and actually save a ton of money. Every week my wife and I make a simple, flexible menu for the entire week (breakfast, lunch, dinner). We usually plan 6 dinners a week. It takes an hour or so to come up with a good menu and another hour or two to shop but it is really worth it because it saves me so much time during the week not trying to figure out what I want to eat.

[joe]

"You on a Diet" by Drs. Roizen and Oz. A very well written book that helped me lose, and keep off, over 30 pounds.

[Koolblue13]

Those represent major dietary pet peeves of mine.

Eating every three to four hours is a matter of personal preference, there are no tangible benefits to it beyond that. The metabolic argument people frequently make is absolute bunk.

Breakfast's importance as a meal is similar. There's no real benefit to a meal in the morning in and of itself, all of the research you see tying breakfast to weight loss is simply showing how regular eating patterns (of any kind) tend to be superior to irregular feeding patterns. People who think enough to eat at the same intervals every day have a more consistent intake throughout the day which is easier to monitor and control. The fact that it's a popular belief among sources of dietary advice that eating breakfast every day is important also means that people who do a little research (and, thus, are more likely to succeed than those who do not) are more likely to follow that piece advice when trying to lose weight regardless of its validity, further supporting the correlation. Also, breakfast food companies love to prop this one up because it helps sell cereal and oatmeal and all kinds of crap.

Basically, if you eat one or two BIG meals in the middle of the day you'll be no worse off than someone who eats 5-7 smaller meals every few hours provided that the total intake is the same.

This is an awfully uninformed post, but I think everybody else understands that.

[PeterMP]

This is an awfully uninformed post, but I think everybody else understands that.

I was actually going to chime in that I agreed w/ it.

I think there is too much of trying to push everybody into the same box whent it comes to eating. Somebody also earlier said something about humans being night eaters.

The fact of the matter is that there is still a lot of variety in the human race. That there is some sort of one size fits all diet or eating scheduele just doesn't seem likely to be realistic.

Personally, I can't imagine skipping breakfast, but I'll certianly buy that it might work for some people.

Even in diets, you clearly see that there is a lot of variation.

People of European descent (and Europeans) are clearly better equipped for a modern western diet. Clearly, large scale agriculture with doemstication of plants and animals have been a larger part of the evolutionary process. You see it with lactose intolerance, and you see it with the things like suceptibility to diabetes.

People of European descent are almost certainly better geared for eating processes food (e.g. breads) than others.

Now, that doesn't mean any of us geared for eating large amounts of food that we can (processed or not) based on the amount of physical activity most of us get.

And things like high fructose corn syrup and pack a lot of calories, cheaply in a relatively small serving size.

The best advice I think you could give somebody is to generally try and eat less (in terms of total calories), try and make your calories count (don't eat things that are "empty" calories- mostly things that are carbs heavy and/or heavy with artificial flavors and sweetners w/ no associated nutrients), try and have some variety in your diet, and do what seems to work for you.

[Enter Apotheosis]

Well said, Peter. There are a lot of good guidelines out there that can assist people in eating more healthily but there are few hard and fast rules that (1) work for everybody and (2) are not up for contention.

This is an awfully uninformed post, but I think everybody else understands that.

I'd love to see you expound upon this. As it is, I'm forced to guess that you've either bought in to the popular misconceptions I'm decrying or you've extrapolated something from my post that I had not intended to convey.

[Corcaigh]

Count me as another who doesn't believe timing of eating matters. Starvation will slow metabolism, but delaying a meal by a few hours isn't starvation.

What's most important is total calorie intake over a 24 hour period. Whether you get that in two or three decent sized meals, or six or seven smaller ones, doesn't really matter.

The strongest argument for having a hearty breakfast is that it makes you far less likely to gorge on empty calories such as doughnuts or snacks when you get to the office.

[ixcuincle]

You can eat breakfast if you want but it doesn't really matter, I do both. On Tuesdays and Thursdays when I'm out and about and busy throughout half a day I wake up at 6 AM, eat breakfast, and then head off. On M W F SAT SUN I skip breakfast and don't eat anything until 11 AM. It doesn't matter, I'm still hungry at 11 AM breakfast or not

[Koolblue13]

The best advice I think you could give somebody is to generally try and eat less (in terms of total calories), try and make your calories count (don't eat things that are "empty" calories- mostly things that are carbs heavy and/or heavy with artificial flavors and sweetners w/ no associated nutrients), try and have some variety in your diet, and do what seems to work for you.

This I can agree with and it should be obvious. However, eating once or twice a day, in a heavy fashion of whatever you want, makes no sense. Your body wants to be in good shape and will be, if you don't bog it down with trying to digest huge meals and let it do what it is designed to do.

[Enter Apotheosis]

This I can agree with and it should be obvious. However, eating once or twice a day, in a heavy fashion of whatever you want, makes no sense. Your body wants to be in good shape and will be, if you don't bog it down with trying to digest huge meals and let it do what it is designed to do.

What are you basing this on? Scientific research? Personal experience?

[Koolblue13]

What are you basing this on? Scientific research? Personal experience?

Both. Ill explain more tomorrow when I wake up. I'm too drunk to make any real points now.

Yes I'm an educated health nut who loves to drink. I believe in balance.

[Enter Apotheosis]

Both. Ill explain more tomorrow when I wake up. I'm too drunk to make any real points now.

Yes I'm an educated health nut who loves to drink. I believe in balance.

Fair enough :pfft:

[Koolblue13]

Those represent major dietary pet peeves of mine.

Eating every three to four hours is a matter of personal preference, there are no tangible benefits to it beyond that. The metabolic argument people frequently make is absolute bunk.

Breakfast's importance as a meal is similar. There's no real benefit to a meal in the morning in and of itself, all of the research you see tying breakfast to weight loss is simply showing how regular eating patterns (of any kind) tend to be superior to irregular feeding patterns. People who think enough to eat at the same intervals every day have a more consistent intake throughout the day which is easier to monitor and control. The fact that it's a popular belief among sources of dietary advice that eating breakfast every day is important also means that people who do a little research (and, thus, are more likely to succeed than those who do not) are more likely to follow that piece advice when trying to lose weight regardless of its validity, further supporting the correlation. Also, breakfast food companies love to prop this one up because it helps sell cereal and oatmeal and all kinds of crap.

Basically, if you eat one or two BIG meals in the middle of the day you'll be no worse off than someone who eats 5-7 smaller meals every few hours provided that the total intake is the same.

Basically, while you sleep, your brain and body are healing and working to make you fit. That's when natural HGH is released. So, when you wake up it's important to refuel right away. Most people eat just awful first thing though. You really want some grains and fiber for breakfast.

As far as eating large meals later on. Your body has to work hard to digest food, so giving it too much work to do just makes it work slow and sluggish. If you go to bed stuffed, your body will only be able to focus on what's in the stomach and not what it should be doing.

I like to eat 5 times a day, with one large meal in the middle, usually pasta and veggies.

I'll elaborate later if I can.

---------- Post added April-10th-2012 at 08:29 AM ----------

This blog -- > http://www.thespartanwarrior.com/

has a TON of information and resources regarding healthy eating and living.

There's some great info on that site, you're right. Thanks for posting it.

[dfitzo53]

Basically, while you sleep, your brain and body are healing and working to make you fit. That's when natural HGH is released. So, when you wake up it's important to refuel right away. Most people eat just awful first thing though. You really want some grains and fiber for breakfast.

As far as eating large meals later on. Your body has to work hard to digest food, so giving it too much work to do just makes it work slow and sluggish. If you go to bed stuffed, your body will only be able to focus on what's in the stomach and not what it should be doing.

I like to eat 5 times a day, with one large meal in the middle, usually pasta and veggies.

I'll elaborate later if I can.

---------- Post added April-10th-2012 at 08:29 AM ----------

There's some great info on that site, you're right. Thanks for posting it.

Here's my (and I think EA's) thing with this line of thinking.

It sounds great. It sounds extremely logical.

But where's the actual evidence? The same claims get parroted in pretty much every popular nutrition source these days, but where are the, for example, clinical tests? Sleep studies? Blood tests? Surveys about attitude and energy level? Comparison of growth/health between people eating on different schedules? Anything?

[zoony]

But where's the actual evidence? The same claims get parroted in pretty much every popular nutrition source these days, but where are the, for example, clinical tests? Sleep studies? Blood tests? Surveys about attitude and energy level? Comparison of growth/health between people eating on different schedules? Anything?

It's all part of the conspiracy, dummy. :slap:

[bdiamond]

I see a lot of misguided advice from a lot of these posts. The key to success is knowing how much energy you burn during the day and coming up with a diet plan that doesn't exceed that (and still allows you to make sure you're getting in essential vitamins and nutrients). You can enjoy the food you like, but you must realize how big of an impact it can have on the rest of your diet.

The problem I see is most people look at certain foods as "clean" or "dirty" and it's really not a good way to go about things as depending on which diet you're following they all have different interpretations. Diets should be viewed in the a larger spectrum than an individual meal. I'm down about 30lbs on my current diet and I still eat pizza, sugars and other things you probably have been told to stay away from.

I run a fitness channel on YouTube where I cover a lot of nutrition misconceptions (as well as workouts, cooking videos, mistakes people make in the gym, etc...). If you're ever interested in setting up an actual diet plan I'd be more than happy to help.

http://www.youtube.com/campbellfitness

[ixcuincle]

That's what I said, it doesn't matter if you eat something labeled as "bad" or "unhealthy", as long as you don't eat it too often. It's not bad if you eat pizza, it's bad if you eat pizza every day for several decades.

I was listening to master chef John Folse and he was going off on how pundits labeled Southern cuisine as "unhealthy"...he then went on to quote fellow master chef Julia Child: "There is no such thing as bad food: only too much good food."

[Enter Apotheosis]

Basically, while you sleep, your brain and body are healing and working to make you fit. That's when natural HGH is released. So, when you wake up it's important to refuel right away. Most people eat just awful first thing though. You really want some grains and fiber for breakfast.

I agree with most of what you've said so far. As far as the the bolded part goes, though, I have to ask... why? What makes you think that there's a critical time in the morning where you have to refeed? While we're at it, why are grains critically important in the morning?

As far as eating large meals later on. Your body has to work hard to digest food, so giving it too much work to do just makes it work slow and sluggish. If you go to bed stuffed, your body will only be able to focus on what's in the stomach and not what it should be doing.

Whether a large meal will slow you down (irrespective of the sleep thing for now) will depend almost entirely on the content of the meal, your individual biology, and, perhaps most importantly, your normal eating habits.

The sleep thing itself is highly debatable and you're simply not going to find conclusive scientific backing of it. If you get enough sleep and supply your body with the necessary energy and nutrients it will generally recover and/or grow as it needs to.

I like to eat 5 times a day, with one large meal in the middle, usually pasta and veggies.

Then this is how you should eat

Here's my (and I think EA's) thing with this line of thinking.

It sounds great. It sounds extremely logical.

But where's the actual evidence? The same claims get parroted in pretty much every popular nutrition source these days, but where are the, for example, clinical tests? Sleep studies? Blood tests? Surveys about attitude and energy level? Comparison of growth/health between people eating on different schedules? Anything?

Basically

Heck, I'd even accept anecdotal evidence at this point just to have something more concrete to analyze and (likely) argue against.

I see a lot of misguided advice from a lot of these posts. The key to success is knowing how much energy you burn during the day and coming up with a diet plan that doesn't exceed that (and still allows you to make sure you're getting in essential vitamins and nutrients). You can enjoy the food you like, but you must realize how big of an impact it can have on the rest of your diet.

The problem I see is most people look at certain foods as "clean" or "dirty" and it's really not a good way to go about things as depending on which diet you're following they all have different interpretations. Diets should be viewed in the a larger spectrum than an individual meal. I'm down about 30lbs on my current diet and I still eat pizza, sugars and other things you probably have been told to stay away from.

I run a fitness channel on YouTube where I cover a lot of nutrition misconceptions (as well as workouts, cooking videos, mistakes people make in the gym, etc...). If you're ever interested in setting up an actual diet plan I'd be more than happy to help.

http://www.youtube.com/campbellfitness

I agree with the spirit of the message but I also wouldn't totally discount the helpfulness of compartmentalizing "clean" and "dirty" foods nor would I consider the different dietary interpretations as being a bad thing. The sheer diversity of health and fitness goals more or less mandates that not everyone's gameplan is going to match up. You can get away with eating a considerable amount of "dirty" foods (whatever they may be) if you so choose because you appear to be in excellent shape but not everyone is going to aspire to that same level of fitness and, for them, being stricter on the dietary front may be necessary. Similarly, people who aspire to more specific fitness goals such as those who want to compete in bodybuilding (where strength is important but not as much as being genuinely lean at, say, sub 7% bf for men) per their aesthetic tastes will also likely have less dietary wiggle room than you do.

I feel like I've said this before but when it comes to the realm of health and fitness finding an approach that fits you is important even if it's not a perfect approach but being dogmatic about it or resistant to change is a bad idea.

[deejaydana]

Here's a really solid and education book about good eating: "What To Eat" by Marion Nestle. It gives chapters on what is certified organic, what is trans fat. And it does it all in a way that isn't dry or boring. It's endorsed by Michael Pollan who definitely has merit on his own if you haven't already read some of his stuff.

[ixcuincle]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/dining/doctors-learn-to-cook-healthy-crave-able-foods.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

SOME people cannot travel without Advil or a neck pillow. Dr. David M. Eisenberg, an associate professor at the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, feels incomplete without his beloved paring knife and eight-inch Wüsthof cleaver.

He was wielding both with sweaty zeal the other day on the dais of the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, demonstrating a stir-fry with perfectly browned shiitake mushrooms and a heavy dose of sake to the 400 or so pediatricians, endocrinologists, dietitians and other health practitioners who were spending three and a half days in the Napa Valley learning how to cook. “This isn’t neurosurgery,” Dr. Eisenberg said as he whacked a garlic clove with the cleaver. “This is hearty, affordable, cravenly delicious food.”

The son of a Brooklyn baker, Dr. Eisenberg is the founder and chief officiant of “Healthy Kitchens/Healthy Lives,” an “‘interfaith marriage,” as he calls it, among physicians, public health researchers and distinguished chefs that seeks to tear down the firewall between “healthy” and “ crave-able” cuisine. Although physicians are on the front lines of the nation’s diabetes and obesity crises, many graduate from medical school with little knowledge of nutrition, let alone cooking. It is a deficiency that is becoming increasingly apparent as the grim statistics climb. (By 2050, for example, as many as 1 in 3 adults will develop diabetes if current trends continue.)

Article talks about balancing healthy with "craveable" foods

"For Dr. Eisenberg, 56, a passionate cook who spent weekends as a child filling cream puffs and sprinkling cinnamon and nuts on rugelach in his father’s bakery, deprivation in the form of low-fat diets and bland overcooked vegetables is an enemy of doctors and patients. “For years we’ve told people ‘Don’t eat that’ or ‘Here’s your problem,’ ” he said of the physicians’ party line. “Sometimes,” he added of his own thrice-yearly yearning for steak, “you have to feed your inner jerk.”"

[Koolblue13]

Most of what I say about eating and foods, is made up from years of personal reading, conversation and experience as it's always been a hobby, being that I was a chef for years and a vegetarian off and on for most of my life.

If I was to post links, they'd be from highly opinionated sites that I enjoy and if people want to question them, they would be easy to do so.

The only way you'd be able to understand is to go get a good Whole Foods/ Macrobiotic cook book, that explains how to set your kitchen up and how to cook and try it for one month and see how you feel and look. It's pretty cheap after the initial investment and completely worth it.

[Rdskn4Lyf21]

There's great advice in this thread.

If there's anything you "must have", look for alternatives. Popchips are a great chip substitute, and Arctic Zero is a great ice cream substitute.

[Chump Bailey]

Arctic Zero is a great ice cream substitute.

Never heard of it. I thought for sure it would contain Sucralose. Sounds interesting - thanks.

[Koolblue13]

There's great advice in this thread.

If there's anything you "must have", look for alternatives. Popchips are a great chip substitute, and Arctic Zero is a great ice cream substitute.

Baked Kale chips are the bomb

[pointyfootball]

"Thrice-yearly yearning for steak"? I have a thrice-weekly yearning, although I am too cheap to give in to it.