DASH Diet thread
Replies
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FWIW I am 51 and have no medical conditions that would require me to watch my sugar intake. Back in the day I did WW with a focus on their “Good Health Guidelines” which are pretty similar to DASH. But WW encouraged whole grains where DASH requires specific servings of whole grains. If I remember correctly the n=1 podcast talked about scaling the servings based on calories.
I’ll be having a baked potato at lunch for the potassium as well. Plain Greek Yogurt in lieu of sour cream and reduced fat cheese. I really have no idea where my micronutrients will land today. But the weekend is a good time to experiment
Edited for spelling errors... sigh4 -
emmamcgarity wrote: »FWIW I am 51 and have no medical conditions that would require me to watch my sugar intake. Back in the day I did WW with a focus on their “Good Health Guidelines” which are pretty similar to DASH. But WW encouraged whole grains where DASH requires specific servings of whole grains. If I remember correctly the n=1 podcast talked about scaling the servings based on calories.
I’ll be having a baked potato at lunch for the potassium as well. Plain Greek Yogurt in lieu of sour cream and reduced fat cheese. I really have no idea where my micronutrients will land today. But the weekend is a good time to experiment
Edited for spelling errors... sigh
The weekends are definitely a bit more 'loosey goosey' for me-I'm trying to figure how to categorize the chipotle sauce I got on my Subway sub right now
I intentionally got a veggie sub though, because of DASH (a footlong), so I could count it for 2 servings of veggies lol. 2 -
amberellen12 wrote: »Thank you ladies for your replies.👍
Right now I don’t have any major health conditions, except this excess weight 40 lbs, but at my age 61 I would like to keep it that way and not do anything that can cause a condition in the future. That’s why I’m so interested in what Dash allows for the daily sugar intake with diabetes rapidly increasing so much in the world. How to make sure I’m not eating foods that can promote it and other conditions is very important to me.
You definitely need to do what you feel is best
As a sidenote-I actually used to be a prediabetic, and come from a family tree full of type 2 diabetics. Getting my prediabetic diagnosis (in my 30s), was what triggered my weight loss and after losing 50lbs I normalized my fasting glucose numbers, into the 80s. At the time of my weight loss phase I was still eating a very typical SAD diet (fast food all the time, all sorts of 'processed' foods etc). In my case it didn't matter what I was eating though, it was the excess weight that was causing my glucose numbers to go wonky.
I'm now a few years into maintaining and in that time I've experimented with numerous ways of eating (it helps stave off boredom in maintenance for me). I get twice a year blood work/health screenings, and the data shows that it hasn't mattered what I'm eating-my weight, and being at the lower end of the healthy BMI scale, is what regulates my glucose number.
It really is crazy what excess weight can do to our health, I think more than we even know at this point!
I really agree with you about what excess weight does to our health and how carrying it around wears down our joints. Look at how many knee and hip replacements are being preform.
That’s why CICO is so important and to make sure we eat the most nutritious foods for fueling our bodies.1 -
Was the chipotle sauce a mayo texture? One Tbsp of low fat mayo is counted as a fat serving.
My potato plan was ditched due to lack of supplies (we’re out of potatoes). Oh well...2 -
amberellen12 wrote: »emmamcgarity wrote: »With a focus on micronutrients today’s breakfast was a cup of Raisin Bran with a cup of skim milk, a cup of orange juice and a cup of strawberries. I’ve avoided “drinking my calories” for so long, but it feels good to add it back in for the potassium. In other news the scale was down .7 this morning. So I am less than 2 lbs from my pre-Christmas weight. So that’s nice.
Question... wouldn’t that be a lot of sugar? I was told by the hospital dietitian and all the reading I’ve done that we should keep our sugar down to 25g per day. That we would get from whole fruit. Wouldn’t the juice and raisin have a lot of sugar in them. I was told to eat the whole orange for fibre and not to drink juices which would have the equivalent of 10 oranges to get that much juice. 🤷🏻♀️
Normally a 25 g limit would be for added sugar. I have seen NOTHING credible that suggests a reason to limit intrinsic sugar. I don't consume juice often because I don't find it filling, but I see no other reason to avoid juice for health reasons.
DASH does not limit intrinsic sugar or juice (except consuming lots of juice may make it tough to hit the fiber goal).0 -
amberellen12 wrote: »amberellen12 wrote: »emmamcgarity wrote: »With a focus on micronutrients today’s breakfast was a cup of Raisin Bran with a cup of skim milk, a cup of orange juice and a cup of strawberries. I’ve avoided “drinking my calories” for so long, but it feels good to add it back in for the potassium. In other news the scale was down .7 this morning. So I am less than 2 lbs from my pre-Christmas weight. So that’s nice.
Question... wouldn’t that be a lot of sugar? I was told by the hospital dietitian and all the reading I’ve done that we should keep our sugar down to 25g per day. That we would get from whole fruit. Wouldn’t the juice and raisin have a lot of sugar in them. I was told to eat the whole orange for fibre and not to drink juices which would have the equivalent of 10 oranges to get that much juice. 🤷🏻♀️
DASH allows for juice-if I'm remembering correctly that was actually the main fruit source during the trials (I believe it's mentioned in the first podcast?).
That doesn’t make sense to me. With the intake of added sugars in everything so high why would they promote drinking juice that can spike your blood sugar. If that’s so then this isn’t a diet for me. I want to keep my blood sugar down.
DASH isn't specifically for T2D or IR, and most people have no issues with blood sugar. You don't have to consume juice, but it doesn't forbid it. It focuses more on micronutrients.1 -
Where do eggs fit in DASH, are they part of the meat category? If so, when I plan this out, I'll have to tweak it to add more eggs, because they are an important part of my diet and I don't believe they are problematic.
Yeah, eggs each count as a oz of meat (and I see others covered that first!).0 -
For some reason I thought the podcast mentioned 50 g of fiber but all the documentation seems to point to 30 g of fiber. Does anyone have a source for the 50 g reference?0
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Fruit -- 5
Veg -- 3
Dairy -- 2.5
Whole grains - 5
Meat -- 3 oz
Added fat -- 0
Nuts and seeds -- 0
Added sugar - yes
My fiber landed at 34. I am annoyed that some items I had did not report potassium.1 -
If whole foods, make sure you choose the USDA entries, they have potassium.2
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Yes my annoyance was from some tomato bisque soup from the deli and a package of frozen vegetables that I know both contained potassium. They just didn’t report it. Sunday afternoon is my grocery shopping day. I will be reading lots of labels.0
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So, thinking more about the importance on micro-nutrients with DASH, I dusted off my cronometer account and started playing around with numbers. Is the DASH's potassium, magnesium and calcium targets the same as the RDAs recommendations for these, or are they higher? I did a bit of googling but can't find an answer.0
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I’m curious. I stumbled across this tidbit on Mayo in reference to treating low potassium due to illness or treatment. I’m not sure when the new labeling guidelines take effect. But lack of info certainly makes the DASH numbers challenging.
“Because lack of potassium is rare, there is no RDA or RNI for this mineral. However, it is thought that 1600 to 2000 mg (40 to 50 milliequivalents [mEq]) per day for adults is adequate.”1 -
So, thinking more about the importance on micro-nutrients with DASH, I dusted off my cronometer account and started playing around with numbers. Is the DASH's potassium, magnesium and calcium targets the same as the RDAs recommendations for these, or are they higher? I did a bit of googling but can't find an answer.
It was 4700 mg for potassium, which is close to the minimum at Cron, although I modified mine to the 4700. I didn't find a number for calcium to stuck with the default one at Cron (same with everything else).1 -
I am assuming these numbers are based on a 2000 calorie diet. My stats put maintenance calories for me closer to 1600. So I might just need to plan on scaling numbers.0
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emmamcgarity wrote: »I am assuming these numbers are based on a 2000 calorie diet. My stats put maintenance calories for me closer to 1600. So I might just need to plan on scaling numbers.
My current stats, with the weight loss phase I'm currently in, is under 1,400 calories and my maintenance calorie intake is around 1,600. Katherine in the second podcast touched on that and said she thought it would be very hard to meet all the DASH requirements on anything less than 1,800 calories (if I'm remembering correctly). It's definitely more challenging to have less calories to work with!
If you click on the NIH link, in the very first post in this thread, there's a section where the NIH adjusts the DASH servings sizes down, to fit different calorie intakes (1,200, 1,400, 1,600 etc). That's been very helpful for me and I've been following the recommendations for the 1,400 option. I'm going to track micro-nutrients on cronometer this week and it will be interesting to see where I come in, with having the lower amount of calories.1 -
emmamcgarity wrote: »I am assuming these numbers are based on a 2000 calorie diet. My stats put maintenance calories for me closer to 1600. So I might just need to plan on scaling numbers.
My current stats, with the weight loss phase I'm currently in, is under 1,400 calories and my maintenance calorie intake is around 1,600. Katherine in the second podcast touched on that and said she thought it would be very hard to meet all the DASH requirements on anything less than 1,800 calories (if I'm remembering correctly). It's definitely more challenging to have less calories to work with!
If you click on the NIH link, in the very first post in this thread, there's a section where the NIH adjusts the DASH servings sizes down, to fit different calorie intakes (1,200, 1,400, 1,600 etc). That's been very helpful for me and I've been following the recommendations for the 1,400 option. I'm going to track micro-nutrients on cronometer this week and it will be interesting to see where I come in, with having the lower amount of calories.
My best results are when I'm around 1800 (at least 1600, which is my goal unless I'm more active than I've been), or when I go way over my veg goal and also have beans -- my 15 veg serving day with also some beans and fruit and whole grains was my best day so far.
(I've not been tracking the past few days since I managed to let my pipes get frozen and burst and you can't get an emergency plumber due to extreme weather overall so I'm without water 'til Tuesday which just really sucks.)5 -
emmamcgarity wrote: »I am assuming these numbers are based on a 2000 calorie diet. My stats put maintenance calories for me closer to 1600. So I might just need to plan on scaling numbers.
My current stats, with the weight loss phase I'm currently in, is under 1,400 calories and my maintenance calorie intake is around 1,600. Katherine in the second podcast touched on that and said she thought it would be very hard to meet all the DASH requirements on anything less than 1,800 calories (if I'm remembering correctly). It's definitely more challenging to have less calories to work with!
If you click on the NIH link, in the very first post in this thread, there's a section where the NIH adjusts the DASH servings sizes down, to fit different calorie intakes (1,200, 1,400, 1,600 etc). That's been very helpful for me and I've been following the recommendations for the 1,400 option. I'm going to track micro-nutrients on cronometer this week and it will be interesting to see where I come in, with having the lower amount of calories.
My best results are when I'm around 1800 (at least 1600, which is my goal unless I'm more active than I've been), or when I go way over my veg goal and also have beans -- my 15 veg serving day with also some beans and fruit and whole grains was my best day so far.
(I've not been tracking the past few days since I managed to let my pipes get frozen and burst and you can't get an emergency plumber due to extreme weather overall so I'm without water 'til Tuesday which just really sucks.)
Oh no, that sucks about your pipes! Our guest bathroom froze up-the toilet just thawed last night
No damage that we're aware of, however one of our in-door/outdoor cats refused to go outside all of last week, during the polar vortex, and also refused to use his inside litter box 
I've been cleaning up cat urine from rugs and then kids clothes (that never get hung up ugh!!), all week and I'm about ready to scream! Thankfully vinegar gets the smell out, I've gone through two of those big bottles already sigh.... had to spray my entire living room area rug today 
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emmamcgarity wrote: »I am assuming these numbers are based on a 2000 calorie diet. My stats put maintenance calories for me closer to 1600. So I might just need to plan on scaling numbers.
My current stats, with the weight loss phase I'm currently in, is under 1,400 calories and my maintenance calorie intake is around 1,600. Katherine in the second podcast touched on that and said she thought it would be very hard to meet all the DASH requirements on anything less than 1,800 calories (if I'm remembering correctly). It's definitely more challenging to have less calories to work with!
If you click on the NIH link, in the very first post in this thread, there's a section where the NIH adjusts the DASH servings sizes down, to fit different calorie intakes (1,200, 1,400, 1,600 etc). That's been very helpful for me and I've been following the recommendations for the 1,400 option. I'm going to track micro-nutrients on cronometer this week and it will be interesting to see where I come in, with having the lower amount of calories.
My best results are when I'm around 1800 (at least 1600, which is my goal unless I'm more active than I've been), or when I go way over my veg goal and also have beans -- my 15 veg serving day with also some beans and fruit and whole grains was my best day so far.
(I've not been tracking the past few days since I managed to let my pipes get frozen and burst and you can't get an emergency plumber due to extreme weather overall so I'm without water 'til Tuesday which just really sucks.)
Oh no, that sucks about your pipes! Our guest bathroom froze up-the toilet just thawed last night No damage that we're aware of, however one of our in-door/outdoor cats refused to go outside all of last week, during the polar vortex, and also refused to use his inside litter box I've been cleaning up cat urine from rugs and then kids clothes (that never get hung up ugh!!), all week and I'm about ready to scream! Thankfully vinegar gets the smell out, I've gone through two of those big bottles already sigh.... had to spray my entire living room area rug today
Ugh, that sucks too.
I carefully left on faucets, but just spaced about the big sink next to my washing machine and pretty sure that's the culprit. It was totally fine so far as I know through Thursday evening (we got temp increasing all day Thursday) and then was disaster Friday morning -- I think the pipes developed a crack and then burst.
Hope no major damage from the water before I turned it off.1 -
Sorry to hear about your frozen pipes and other cold weather woes. I live closer to the gulf and only occasionally have to deal with those issues1
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Sorry to hear about your pipes, lemur!2
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Another question for everyone-
under the grains section the NIH labels it 'Grains' and then there's a side-note that says to focus on mostly whole grains. Up to now I've been including all grains for servings, both whole and non-whole grains. What is everyone else doing? I have definitely focused more on whole grains since starting this experiment but I still eat white rice 2-3 times a week, brown rice 1 times or so a week. I just prefer white rice in certain dishes.0 -
I don’t often eat rice and haven’t had it since we have been tracking here. I’ve mostly been counting whole wheat bread slices for my whole grains. Occasionally a granola bar if it’s labeled as whole grain (but it is added sugar), and I also count lower sodium wheat thins as a whole grain. I will sometimes measure a cup of Cheerios as a whole grains serving for a snack in my lunch box at work. Oatmeal is another when I take the time to make it. Some of this feels like “creative counting”. My diary is public for anyone wanting to peek. Note that I personally don’t use a food scale. I recognize that it’s more accurate. However I’ve always focused on serving sizes of fruits and vegetables as a part of the WW healthy guidelines to meet nutrition goals, and my rate of loss has been as expected. I may at some point choose to start weighing food, but I’m just not there.1
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emmamcgarity wrote: »I don’t often eat rice and haven’t had it since we have been tracking here. I’ve mostly been counting whole wheat bread slices for my whole grains. Occasionally a granola bar if it’s labeled as whole grain (but it is added sugar), and I also count lower sodium wheat thins as a whole grain. I will sometimes measure a cup of Cheerios as a whole grains serving for a snack in my lunch box at work. Oatmeal is another when I take the time to make it. Some of this feels like “creative counting”. My diary is public for anyone wanting to peek. Note that I personally don’t use a food scale. I recognize that it’s more accurate. However I’ve always focused on serving sizes of fruits and vegetables as a part of the WW healthy guidelines to meet nutrition goals, and my rate of loss has been as expected. I may at some point choose to start weighing food, but I’m just not there.
Ha, me too
I 'have' to have a chip type thing with my lunches, and since starting DASH I've switched from chips/Fritos to Wheat Thins. I still get the crunchy/salty 'fix', but I don't have an urge to overeat on them like I do with other options. I feel a bit silly eating crackers with my lunch but it's been working well for me, and I totally count them as a whole grain lol!
eta: I only use my food scale to spot-check at this point, right now I'm just going by DASH's serving size measurements-using cups, teaspoons etc. It hasn't been an issue so far so I'll keep doing this until it doesn't work anymore 1 -
I just realized I didn’t actually answer your question. I have not been including non-whole grain foods in my DASH whole grain serving numbers. (I did not count my pizza crust as a whole grain serving)1
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I live in total fear of water flowing through pipes in my home. I have dealt with a flooded house or portion of a house 4 times and that is at least 400 times too many. Hopefully your repairs will be quick and inexpensive.
I have been following this thread pretty closely because my current diet has Med influences and I am always looking for improvements. It would be unwise for me to jump into DASH. I have a good system that is pretty effective for weight loss and satiation. I am implementing a tweak this week though that this thread/DASH inspired. I made a big batch of vegetarian chili to boost fiber and reduce my meat portion a little. I will also be relying on lentils a little more this week so I am not eating chili everyday. I am weak on fruit portions too so I am going to try adding in one additional serving a day this week.
Is it okay if I join in the discussion?5 -
Yes! Join us! I like that DASH let’s you use it as a frame and adjust based on your goals.1
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My most “creative” whole grain was a 100 calorie pack of whole grain goldfish crackers....1
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I live in total fear of water flowing through pipes in my home. I have dealt with a flooded house or portion of a house 4 times and that is at least 400 times too many. Hopefully your repairs will be quick and inexpensive.
I have been following this thread pretty closely because my current diet has Med influences and I am always looking for improvements. It would be unwise for me to jump into DASH. I have a good system that is pretty effective for weight loss and satiation. I am implementing a tweak this week though that this thread/DASH inspired. I made a big batch of vegetarian chili to boost fiber and reduce my meat portion a little. I will also be relying on lentils a little more this week so I am not eating chili everyday. I am weak on fruit portions too so I am going to try adding in one additional serving a day this week.
Is it okay if I join in the discussion?
Please do! It would be great if we could get a bigger group going on this-and it doesn't matter if someone is doing DASH hard core or just changing one or two things to be more DASH-ish It's all in good fun and the little changes we make all 'count', (I know upping fiber has already helped with my digestion etc).
That's why I'm enjoying this experiment so much-it's not an 'all or nothing' kind of deal, but more a set of guidelines that we can implement however works best for our eating preferences, schedules etc.1 -
Fruit -- 6
Veg -- 2
Dairy -- 1.5
Whole grains - 2
Meat -- 5 oz
Added fat -- 1
Nuts and seeds -- 1
Added sugar - yes
My fiber was low today. I may have one more glass of milk or juice today before bed but I haven’t decided just yet. Part of me just wants wine... My schedule was jam packed today which didn’t leave a lot of room for snacking. Maybe that’s good. I did pick up several DASH friendly items while grocery shopping. So, I am hoping for a good week1
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