ever notice how eating healthy isnt the norm?

kaittx13

I think it is so wierd that eating healthy and "right" for our bodies is not the normal thing to do..

Why do people sometimes assume that just because your eating healthy your trying to lose weight.. why can I just not enjoy eating that way?

Yeah I am trying to get back on track and lose weight now. But even when I was just eating normal for myself I had people ask if I was on a diet? what the heckk

I guess it just bothers me that sometimes it is assumed if you eat veggies and fruits and dont like chowing down on a steak and dont drink soda your "on a diet"
I think it is a bit ridiculous and ignorant.

If someone is eating healthier than the general population.. I think it shows they are just more aware and educated on what goes into their body. Those people actually know the consquences food can have on our bodies and health (not just weight). I am by no means a health guru, but since learning more about all the foods out there I like to know what i am putting into my body.. it the only one i have and i want to take good care of it.

ANewLucia

That is soooo true. The media pushes so much unhealthy junk foods and marketing is geared to promote it everywhere you look, that is the norm now. All the garbage they put in the foods, and people are amazed that most of the general population is overweight with multiple health issues????

When you go to the supermarket what do you see, junk junk and more junk plus lots of overweight people. When you go to WholeFoods Market (an organic/natural supermaket/deli) the norm there are slender people. I like that norm way better!!!

sabrinafaith

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I don't eat processed foods or refined sugar and I hate fast food and junk. I don't like the way my body feels after eating that stuff even. It feels bloated and lethargic and gross. I don't even understand how people could want to eat french fries or pizza or a bag of chips. It just doesn't appeal to me.

Now if someone put a big bowl of berries in front of me... WOW! that would disappear fast! lol

eriny

DITTO HERE !! just this morning asked was i on a diet ?? did not want to eat a kolace

csingleton24

I concur! And why is it people feel like they have to say "ignore what I'm eating!" or "Don't say anything about my eating McDonalds" or "I didn't have time to make dinner" or something like that. Like you are all up on their business on what they are eating because you eat healthy. I sometimes feel like others feel guilty or something for eating crappy around me. Almost like I'm the health police or something! I don't care what they eat! If they are feeling guilty about it then obviously they know it's not good for them. It's almost like they are making excuses for their food choice.

gvcgoldmedal

Yea you are completely right. I don't think I've ever eaten completely healthy, always skimmed the lines. But I have coworkers asking whats up when I have a salad for lunch instead of a burger piled high with everything you shouldn't eat. Another thing to point out that its largely our culture. Other cultures don't view eating healthy the way we do. Its too bad really.

Its funny though, now that I am making an effort to eat healthy 95% of the time, I notice how often I wasn't eating healthy.

-Matt

Michellerw1

Such a good point!

I always eat healthy, and even before I did people at my office always commented on my "weird" food, like homemade hummus and carrot sticks. Pretty normal stuff to me...

JensLogin

Agreed. We live in a "super-sized" society and our statistics on obesity prove it. It is absolutely horrific the amount of food we as Americans eat. We have completely forgotten what portion control is and both adults and children alike are paying for it with their health. Recently, Jamie Oliver (The Naked Chef - because he cooks clean!) ran a short series on TV called, The Food Revolution (You can see the videos online). His goal was to transform the school district in the city that was documented as the fattest city in America in a recent study. You wouldn't believe the standards these schools must abide by based on FEDERAL standards. For instance, they have to have so many vegetables in each meal. Great, right? NO - tell me why they count pizza sauce and french fries in the vegetable count? Again, these are FEDERAL standards the schools must abide by. The food is frozen and processed with very little fresh anything. It makes it that much more important to education ourselves and our children in our homes about eating proper nutrition, clearly they are not getting anywhere else!

I choose to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet, as well as keep a vigorous fitness routine. I love the way it makes me feel and I have so much more energy when I eat right! Although, the thought of not having an occasional slice of pizza would make me too sad. I just try to do it in a more healthy way!

Have a good one!

khskr1

Don't even get me started on trying to clip coupons for healthy food! They don't exist! But if I want some "food like substances" I can save up to $1.00 each! LOL

questionablemethods

Absolutely right. I just spoke with the nutritionist on campus. We were talking about how to maintain a healthy weight without feeling the need to count every calorie or become too obsessive (I know myself and I know this is a danger for me). Anyway, she remarked that just "paying attention" to what you eat and making healthy choices can sometimes be viewed by the larger society as disordered eating or not "normal" but then she said "But look around at all the people who aren't paying attention. We've made it nearly impossible to maintain a healthy weight without at least paying a little attention to it."

Holton

I just think this speaks strongly about where we are in society with fast foods. Growing up on a farm (50 odd years ago), fast food was not even in our vocabulary, so everyone ate healthy (if you can get beyond the fact that everything was fried!). We raised our own meat, we fished, we grew our own vegetables, so every night our plates were filled with healthy choices (and I assure you the kids ate the same thing as the adults or they didn't eat!). We now live in a "super size, right now" society that doesn't want to wait for anything and feels entitled to receive as much as something as possible. We have become gluttons in general. I think you are right on target with your remarks and it is a shame that those of us who are choosing our foods more carefully these days are sometimes the ones oogled for being strange!

kaittx13

Im so glad to see there are actually others out there that think "wierd" like me.
Good point on the Whole Foods vs. Grocery Store...it is soo true. It irriates me sometimes when i cant find something at the grocery store that i think is normal. Since their "organic/healthy" section is so small. Shouldn't that part of the store be larger since that is how we are suppose to eat?


Oh yeahh our culture has definitly "super sized" everything and tries to force feed all of us crap! Especially with all the marketing and advertsment geared toward kids. Yeah the Government if anything is part of the problem. They dont do enough to help.
They subsidize farmers who grow corn.. it is amazing how much corn the U.S. grows. Guess where is goes? Into all the refined food that is eaten. Alot of the corn in made into high-frutose corn syrup. blehhh.

Ohh its amazing all the things that are hidden in our food.

Its good to hear information, ideas and opinions of others.

Thanks. Hope everyone enjoys beating the norm

Barneystinson

I'll take a meal from 1930 anyday (lard and all, baby...oh yeah) over most of the "meals" that pass as dinner in today's society.

I guess there's nothing wrong with being busy and running here and there, but I always hear all these excuses from family and friends who eat a lot of processed foods - the "ugh, but I don't have time to make healthy food" or "well, pizza isn't that bad, right?" or "it says healthy on the label!" and it sort of makes me want to pound my head on the wall. I probably spend more time than the average person in the kitchen, but that's because I think of cooking as a hobby. I do know, though, on weeks when I'm short of time, I prepare things ahead of time and leave them in the fridge. Really ain't that hard.

But I tell people that and they get uppity in my face (still) about how they don't have time to be healthy like that and it's going overboard. They'd rather go out and get "normal" meals at restaurants, because hey it's only the 4th time that week they went out to dinner, right? I get condescending looks if I get a large salad for a meal or meat with vegetable only. I mean, nevermind the fact I'm sitting there eating an 8 ounce ribeye, I'm a friggin weirdo for not getting a pile of mashed potatoes.

So yeah, whatever. Screw 'em.

tn2010

I've been gradually trying to become more of a locavore (eating mostly local foods) and have had some really huge eye-opening experiences. My husband and I are very busy people, both teachers and musicians, with 2 kids and a busy social life. We found ourselves eating out a lot, especially when one or both of us would come home from work, pick up the kids, and then race off again to teach a night class or run a rehearsal. When our lives slowed down a little bit we came up with a game plan for eating healthier. So, now we set the bread maker to have wheat pizza crust ready when we get home, the crock pot with a hearty soup, or we go to a local restaurant with local ingredients (we're lucky enough to have that around here). Recently we were on a road trip and found ourselves hungry for dinner around 10 pm. We pulled into a Burger King and my hubby got a Whopper meal and I got a Jr. Whopper meal. We took one bite of our fries and decided they weren't worth it. Such a great feeling to say "no" to something that 6 months ago we would have happily gorged on.

I love to cook and regularly bring leftovers to work. I love it when my colleagues see my lunch and say, "did you MAKE that?!?" Or when they see my bread and ask, "Where did you get that?" (I make all my own bread). I had a colleague comment on the CSA we both belong to, saying that she'd been using vegetables she'd never even heard of before. I commented that I agreed...I loved the salad turnips and the garlic scapes. And she said, "Oh, I meant all the zucchini." Wow...I thought everyone ate zucchini!

kayemme

"ugh, but I don't have time to make healthy food"

this is my favorite coming from people who watch television.

Dreamerlove

Watch FOOD INC, if you want to know whats in your food....creepy!

kayemme

Oh yeahh our culture has definitly "super sized" everything and tries to force feed all of us crap!

last week my bf & i rode our bikes out to our csa farm to check it out. on the way back we spotted a handmade ice cream joint, so we thought "well, we biked uphill for 3 hours, why not?" i ordered a medium cone for each of us and she said "we only have small or large" so i went with two smalls.

it had 3 scoops of ice cream teetering on a sugar cone. when i saw it, i was like "my god, this is the small??" it was enormous.

now, don't get me wrong, i ate lovingly every single scrap, but the point is i was expecting something like 1 healthy scoop. but when it came out to be that much more, i was like "damn, i'm so glad i didn't order the large."

questionablemethods

Not sure if anyone here is familiar with Dave Ramsey. I appreciate his no nonsense approach to getting/staying out of debt. He always says "You don't want to be normal because normal is BROKE!"

Well, you can look around and make an equivalent statement when it comes to "normal" eating.

questionablemethods

" i ordered a medium cone for each of us and she said "we only have small or large" so i went with two smalls.

OMG. Don't even get me started on ridiculous portion sizes. But at least she didn't say "We only have medium and large." WHAT? Doesn't a binary system make one the "small" by default? Super-sized society, indeed!

kaittx13

I have wanted to see Food, inc. ever since it was in theathers! yeah i heard it was umm..really informative. lol
I have read Fast Food Nation and Skinny *****.. both of them talk about whats in our foods.
I usually read articles in yahoo!health, they also talk about what food has in it.. It so interesting. I think i read that Baskin Robins shakes have like 50 ingredients in them. CRAZYY!

1Steph1

Watch FOOD INC, if you want to know whats in your food....creepy!

LOVED this movie! And super size me too

1Steph1

I was thinking about this just last night while I was making a healthy dinner lol. The norm for me is I cook a healthy meal every night, and once in a while I will make something kinda more junky like a vegetarian lasagna or something like that... But for a lot of people I know., they do the opposite..a good healthy meal once in a while.... What kind of way is that to live????? lol

sissy56

Great topic and comments. Everyone is so right about the amount of effort it takes to eat well. I heard a person asked how he had lost so much weight and he said he'd chosen to live an inconvenient lifestyle ( eating well and exercising) and he's right; it's not convenient but the longterm alternative is so much worse.

KellyBurton1

I was talking to someone the other day and they ask me how much weight have I lost and I told them 90lbs altogether. She ask me when will I stop dieting. I looked at her with a surprise look and said I will never stop. Im not on a diet ,Its a lifestyle change. If I went back (not because I ever want to feel that way ever again) I would gain back everything. I've work to hard to give up.

lilmissy2

hahaha it's so true!

As a dietitian, you would not believe (well, perhaps YOU guys would!) the kind of crap we have to put up with both if we choose to eat healthily or if we choose to eat something not so healthy.

If you choose the fruit over the cake at the staff morning tea you are the obsessive eating disordered dietitian... but the physio can get away with it just fine! If one of us eats a white bread sandwich for lunch, suddenly there are all these questions about whether we think white bread is better for us and why we are eating it.

Don't even get me started on the people (including staff we work with) that absolutely refuse to eat anything in front of us!! :laugh:

sissy56

Also, I you liked Food, inc. , etc. there's another book called The End Of Overeating. It's mainly about additives and manipulation by companies that make processed foods.

KellyBurton1

Im busy all the time and I dont eat that stuff, theres such things as slow cookers and proper meal planning. People always make excuses.

pfenixa

So yeah, whatever. Screw 'em.

Dang right!

I'll admit, I'm one of the lazies that doesn't always cook...but I'm working on it! I grew up poor with just my dad who thought that all dinner came from a can or a box and it's definitely a tricky habit to break when you've been doing it for 20+ years. I mean, we were the house that bought maybe a half-gallon of milk a week or so because any more than that would go bad. I hesitate alot to buy fresh ingredients because I worry that it'll mostly go to waste since I don't use them regularly and no one in the house usually will at all. It's a work in progress, though. I've been collecting recipes and it'll certainly help to find a few that have similar ingredients.

That's my excuse. :blushing:

megamom

I ordered the small plate at a restaurant the other day. They set this massive amount of food in front of me. :noway: Turns out it was the small plate, not a mistake. Easily could have fed 2 people and did, I took half home and ate it another day. Why do they do that and what must the full plate have looked like?:huh:

kaittx13

If your worried about fruits and veggies going bad.. buy them frozen. make sure they dont have any sauces or extra stuff that would add calories. Also if your worried about them going bad.. then make sure you eat them Then your money is wasted and your eating healthy.

kayemme

Great topic and comments. Everyone is so right about the amount of effort it takes to eat well. I heard a person asked how he had lost so much weight and he said he'd chosen to live an inconvenient lifestyle ( eating well and exercising) and he's right; it's not convenient but the longterm alternative is so much worse.

"inconvenient" can be loads of fun, though. it's a mindset. i don't miss my old life one bit.