im eating cereal right now. cherrios.

I quit drinking sodas years ago but I did it in steps. It took about two weeks of drinking diet coke before I was used to the taste. Then, regular Coke was too sweet. A year later, I just quit drinking sodas altogether. Now, I might mix a little fruit juice(with no added sugar) to some club soda.

I gave up fast food years ago, too and do not miss it at all.

I try to avoid vegetable oils and instead use butter, olive oil, coconut oil, and lard. Bacon grease for cornbread and cooking kale and collards.

Cutting out sugar is HARD. No doubt about it. I still have chocolates now and then. But if there's no ice cream in the house, I'm fine. I used to always have several flavors in the icebox. I've discovered that I can drink espresso and Lungo coffee at my desk at work without sugar but the coffee at home from the Mr. Coffee desperately needs it. I try to substitute almond milk instead. It is not the same.

And those damn potato chips. Can't eat just one handful; must go for the kill on the entire bag. Those are terrible for you. Sugar and omega-6 to the max. blech. But they taste so good. I won't buy them myself but if my wife does, they are worse than crack.


I eat Greek yogurt with raisins. We get grass fed beef from our son-in-law's farm. I grow a lot of vegetables in the backyard organically; just had a big mess of kale(cooked in the bacon grease saved from Sunday morning) last night.

I learned to cook when it was just me and my dad. If I wanted to eat, I had to cook. When I was a poor student in New Orleans, I learned to cook cheaply. Red beans and rice would last for days and I could eat on a whole chicken for several meals, the carcass finally being used for chicken soup and stock.

You guys that aren't yet 30, your metabolism WILL slow down. You don't believe it anymore than I did when I heard that from all the old fat people but it WILL happen. It is depressing to know that you used to eat 8,000 calories of whatever you wanted every single day and couldn't gain an ounce and now just looking at food makes you gain weight. So just be ready for it.

Artificial sweeteners...

gimme the deets?

Well, your body can't create calories where there are none, so if it's a zero-calorie sweetener then you don't have to worry about calories. But... I've read that your body treats these sweeteners the same as it does regular sugar when it comes to insulin production. So if you are concerned about developing diabetes, the zero-calorie sweeteners don't reduce that risk. Or so I've read. Who knows what's actually true?

Aw, did carleton hurt your feelings by saying the word "freshman"?


Maybe I haven't found the right brand, but I tried whole wheat pasta a few times, and the texture and taste have been pretty subpar each time. I had bought a whole bunch too, because I had (mistakenly) assumed that it would be the same as regular pasta, except whole wheat.

They have been linked in various studies to weight gain. Why? There are differing reasons. One is that it tricks your brain into wanting regular sugar and the cravings are harder to stave off.

Here is an excerpt from an article on Mark Sisson's website Mark's Daily Apple:
"Another study, which I covered a couple years ago, analyzed the diets of more than 9,500 men and women between the ages of 45 and 64 and found that drinking diet soda was associated with a 34% higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome – the perfect storm of high triglycerides, belly fat, insulin resistance, and obesity that’s so popular nowadays. This was an even stronger association than the one between the “high-meat, high-fat” Western diet and metabolic syndrome.

Authors of both studies speculate that diet soda drinking just extends the life of sugar cravings, rather than eliminating it. In this scenario, diet soda doesn’t regulate the desire for sugar; it increases it, and diet soda drinkers are simply replacing those empty calories with real sugar. This makes sense, and I think it’s part of it, but a couple other studies suggest that something else is going on entirely independent of caloric intake:

The dietary habits and weights of a homogenous group of middle aged women were tracked for a year. Regardless of initial weight status and inexplicable by “food consumption patterns,” users of diet soda were more likely than nonusers to gain weight. They didn’t eat markedly different from non-soda drinkers and yet they got fatter."

Interesting stuff.

Being from the south, the #1 enemy IMO is SWEET TEA. We drink it as if it were our mother's milk from the time we are toddlers, and it is so, so hard to kick. Even when I get good at kicking sweets and other processed foods, the tea is always what keeps me hooked on the sugar. I've recently turned to vegetarianism simply because it forces me to cook. I keep track of everything on MyFitnessPal, and I will admit, my protein intake has suffered; however, it has kept me shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store.

For me, besides the sweet tea, the hardest thing to overcome is carbs. I love bread, rice, pasta, and other grains like couscous. I have discovered quinoa to be something that I can substitute for couscous in a lot of recipes, though, so maybe that will help some. I only use whole wheat pasta now, but the carb savings aren't that significant. Cereal has been such a staple my whole life (no wonder I'm a fatty), and this thread has opened my eyes up in that regard.

What does everyone eat for breakfast?

I've done a lot of reading on artificial sweeteners, and can't find a straight answer. Some tests say they're fine for you, most indirectly funded by the companies. And I've also read the opposite, funded by other sweetener companies... And its almost 50/50 regarding third party research...

as for breakfast, grapenuts and fat free milk.

Breakfast?
Usually two eggs scrambled in butter with some red peppers chopped up in it, or an omelet with some sausage, or ground beef and some spinach, and 4% fat cottage cheese and a cup of joe.

This is so far from true it is ridiculous.

My own anecdotal observation is that fat people are always drinking big ass diet sodas.

Post Hoc, my friend.

The simplest advice about food and shopping for it. . . you can survive and live healthy with just the foods found all around the produce section. Vegetables and lean proteins, everything else is just filler, quite literally.

Let it go guys.

I'm editing the bickering out of the thread.

Just had some Bear Naked granola. nomnomnomnomnom

Here's one quick link: https://stephencabral.com/side-effect...weeteners.html

Some people have trouble digesting the sugar alcohols like sorbitol so they get gas, vomiting, diarrhea, etc.

Hey guys. Just curious if theres anyone else here who's on a gluten free diet. I found out about a year ago that I had celiac disease, which explains my chronic lack of weight (and other health problems) . But so far, with biking around 10 miles a day (when I don't work- more when I do), I have been completely unable to put on any weight. I'm 6'3", and around 125-130 pounds (yes, that skinny). Just hoping someone might have some affordable, high calorie gluten free tips. I should also mention that I'm lactose intolerant as well(I know, right?).

Whaaaat.

My boyfriend is 6'1" and weighs 145 pounds, and I thought that was skinny. Sorry to hear about all your diet limitations.

Oh, all sorts of things. Get yourself a paleo cookbook as paleo also = gluten free. I make wicked good energy bars out of nuts, seeds, almond butter and coconut oil. Cook it up in a pan, stick in the fridge and cut into wonderful high calorie squares.

Almond meal makes really nice muffins and cookies, which are both healthy and very heavy on the calories.

Almond butter with a sliced apple is a great snack.

Trail mix - nuts, seeds, dried fruit etc.

If you mean real meals rather than snacks, check out cookbooks - there are probably good gluten-free specific ones, but I'm a fan of 'Everyday Paleo" which is full of great meals that take less than 30 minutes to prepare and are tasty. Add in a gluten-free type grain on the side if you'd like (Quinoa) and you've got a whole bunch of options.

i drink beer

This is great- thank you very much. I also recently heard about powdered hemp protein, which I might give a try.

I'd think you were shady if you didn't.

You are at an unhealthy weight, my friend!

I tend to eat a ton of red meat, pasta, eggs, lots of breakfast cereal (I have a raisin bran addiction), oatmeal and beans. Not the most healthy diet I admit, but cheap as dirt. For a semester I spent $250 on food.

Well no ****, haha. That comes from 8 years of having an extremely damaged large intestine, to the point that I've had significant malabsorption.