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Is the amount of easy access processed food harming dieters health?
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CICO advocate. Plenty of pics.
#comeatmebro0 -
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Lovee_Dove7 wrote: »When people say something is working for them, I like to see pics.
I also wonder if they have measures of health like lab tests, for example, that have improved, and if they feel more comfortable and happy.
So many of those who continually pluck the CICO note don't have pics of themselves, and/or current pics, either.
I also wonder, what do they mean "working"?? That's a general term.
Do they mean the scale number went down? That's the guaranteed end result of CICO.
But HOW and WHAT you eat is going to produce different results for different people. If a certain picture comes into your mind of what "works" or what "results" you are after, then CICO is ONLY THE STARTING POINT.
The term "processed" and "clean" are also general terms. Whey protein is processed, but I eat it regularly. However, many or most processed foods I am not comfortable including in my diet, including many of the vegetable oils, refined grains, and packaged processed foods. I think they can be harmful to the metabolism.
I did nothing but CICO. You can check out all the pictures I posted. They're current, they're real, and I'm meeting goals just fine.0 -
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Cico advocate and has pics..,
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Another CICO advocate with pics and nothing to hide. My kitty is pretty, don'tcha think?0
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If you are losing weight, it's because you have a deficit. So what dieter is not CICO?
But a scale number is not the only thing I'm looking for, therefore types of foods and macros are important to me.
I aim to eat the majority of my food as my idea of natural, not processed.
What does NOT work for me is "eat whatever you want as long as it fits in your macros." Not all foods agree with my system. The metabolism responds to the type of diet you choose, and I think that's a good thing.
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Christine_72 wrote: »
I'm just afraid people will notice I lost weight eating ice cream and donate me to science early.0 -
Christine_72 wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »cushman5279 wrote: »Just the thought of any meat in a can is gross to me
Same here
Never tried it, and never will!
I'm sure there are tons of people who live on nothing but processed foods, I would hate to see their long term health markers... I just feel better mentally and physically if most of my food is fresh produce.
But why? We always see these comments about how much better it is to eat clean and how one can't be healthy if they eat processed, or they don't care about nutrition if they eat processed foods... As discussed in these threads it is impossible to eat NO processed foods since everything has some level of processing. When people bring up eating things like frozen vegetables, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, skinless chicken breasts and steel cut oats every one says, "that's not what I meant".
But let's change the adjective to ultra processed - things like frozen meals and Hamburger Helper.
Even the canned chicken that the OP asked about. I do enjoy cooking and try to use fresh produce when I can but in a busy working mom so I also rely a lot on convenience foods so let me propose a hypothetical ultra processed day with things that are in my house right now.
Breakfast:
Coffee plus:
Lunch:
Needs more protein:
Snack:
Dinner:
To which I would add 93/7 ground beef (processed) and some sort of frozen vegetable, possibly salad from a bag and:
I will have calories to spare so I will also probably have:
It's from the Southern Hemisphere so I don't know if that makes it better?
So those are all processed foods that are staples in my house. How are they negatively impacting my health markers?
I'm definitely not a clean eater. I have yogurt, whey protein and stuff like that.
What comes to my mind when I say living on processed foods goes something like this:
Breakfast- Poptarts, Froot Loops or a pile of deep fried sludge.
Lunch- Some form of take away or frozen meal
Dinner- Take away, canned meat/foods or frozen dinners.
7 days a week, 365 days a year. Now there is nothing inherintly bad with the above foods in moderation. But for those to be ones sole items of nutrition can not possibly be healthy. I only made a teeny tiny list, but I hope you get what I mean?
And yes, I've jnown people who eat like this... Obese and just generally unhealthy is what they have in common..
Oh I have Poptarts too, I just usually choose savory breakfasts. I used the classic no-no examples of a frozen meal and Hamburger Helper. But still my sample diet is not what people mean when they say a diet of only processed foods?
It seems that no matter what examples someone chooses on these forums it isn't what people mean when they say processed foods are unhealthy. Is that maybe because the people submitting the examples aren't unhealthy, so ergo there must be other worse foods that lead to the bad health sentence?
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Christine_72 wrote: »
Interesting. I never snoop in anyone's diary unless they ask me to. Different strokes for different folks.
My diary is for me. I feel no need to share it with anyone else, unless I am asking for help.
I'm not particularly interested in other peoples diaries either. But when I read posts saying "I eat chocolate, chips and drink booze every day, I make it fit", then I get curious to see how they manage it within their calories in the hopes of getting some pointers, and 9 times out of 10 their diaries are closed :huh:0 -
Christine_72 wrote: »
I don't really see why this matters. I follow CICO. I have no shame with what I eat. I don't secretly eat "clean" and claim to follow IIFYM. My diary is open to my friends only, as it will continue to be, because that's just what I prefer and I don't need anyone's input. I eat a lot of my own recipes that I enter into the recipe builder, so they won't be much help to anyone anyway.
I agree with Shell. My diary is for me.
ETA, if you're curious, I had Chick Fil A, some frozen pizza, and some cookies today. It fit. No room for booze today, though
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Christine_72 wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »
Interesting. I never snoop in anyone's diary unless they ask me to. Different strokes for different folks.
My diary is for me. I feel no need to share it with anyone else, unless I am asking for help.
I'm not particularly interested in other peoples diaries either. But when I read posts saying "I eat chocolate, chips and drink booze every day, I make it fit", then I get curious to see how they manage it within their calories in the hopes of getting some pointers, and 9 times out of 10 their diaries are closed :huh:
I only snoop when someone asserts that they don't eat processed foods, since I am always curious what they really mean by that, or if someone asks for help as to why they aren't losing, and have the same experience. Do you think maybe that's because the default is a closed diary?0 -
Lovee_Dove7 wrote: »When people say something is working for them, I like to see pics.
I also wonder if they have measures of health like lab tests, for example, that have improved, and if they feel more comfortable and happy.
So many of those who continually pluck the CICO note don't have pics of themselves, and/or current pics, either.
I also wonder, what do they mean "working"?? That's a general term.
Do they mean the scale number went down? That's the guaranteed end result of CICO.
But HOW and WHAT you eat is going to produce different results for different people. If a certain picture comes into your mind of what "works" or what "results" you are after, then CICO is ONLY THE STARTING POINT.
The term "processed" and "clean" are also general terms. Whey protein is processed, but I eat it regularly. However, many or most processed foods I am not comfortable including in my diet, including many of the vegetable oils, refined grains, and packaged processed foods. I think they can be harmful to the metabolism.
Can you provide something more convincing than "I think"?0 -
Lovee_Dove7 wrote: »But a scale number is not the only thing I'm looking for, therefore types of foods and macros are important to me.
I assume they are for most people (macros not necessarily, food choice, of course). But what they are is going to depend on individual goals and differences and the like. That said, I see people say "a calorie deficit is what matters for weight loss but food choice matters for nutrition, health, and satiety, of course" every single time this discussion comes up, so I don't get your suggestion that people are only focusing on a scale number. In particular, the usual advice re beneficial protein is substantially higher than the RDA (and I give it too).
Even my comments above about the focus on the label "processed" missing the point didn't at all argue that foods are all the same. The point was that even some ultra processed foods can be beneficial in meeting a goal and NOT contain lots of added sugar (or whatever other ingredients people wish to avoid). You have to look at them individually. The claim that Americans who eat a lot of ultraprocessed foods have less healthful diets isn't because that's a necessary consequence of such foods (which aren't really foods I eat a lot of anyway, other than today, I guess, but I still think it is important to be clear-headed about this), but because the types of such foods that people choose. If people are eating lots of cookies as a disproportionate part of the diet, it really doesn't make a huge difference whether they are store bought or made at home -- it will still result in high calories, probably less desirable macros and nutrition, and lots of added sugar.What does NOT work for me is "eat whatever you want as long as it fits in your macros." Not all foods agree with my system. The metabolism responds to the type of diet you choose, and I think that's a good thing.
Again, I think whether a food agrees with you would be part of whether it was something you want or not, no? It is for me -- nutritional considerations are part of what determines what I want when eating what I want so long as it fits in my macros (although I don't really do IIFYM anyway, since I don't care that much about carb vs. fat percentage). If making dinner I might decide I want one thing vs. another, but the overall nutrition content is going to be relatively similar, since I have a strong idea of what a dinner should contain. I wouldn't decide just to chuck dinner and have cake. Sure, I occasionally have something that doesn't really fit my usual goals (say a margherita pizza) and if so I adjust other meals to make it work. I don't know why you are assuming people don't care about nutrition.
I also don't agree that the metabolism is going to vary much based on food choice (TEF won't be much different unless you go outside of a sensible protein range on one end or the other, IMO), but that's not really the topic of this thread (and neither is IIFYM), so I won't argue about that here.0
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