"Eat well, live better" class vs. MFP
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Oh, @PAV8888, I think you are absolutely right about the dietitian’s goals in this situation. The irony, as was clear when we did introductions, is that every single participant is there to lose weight. Most of us also talked about wanting to be healthy, more active, etc., but the bottom line for us coming into this is weight loss. That is not her jam. The very first exercise she did was to have us talk about what comes to mind when we hear the word “diet.” In that sense, she and most MFPers are on the same page; we don’t think deprivation or gimmicky fads are sustainable over the long term but understand that bigger changes in mindset are needed. I was just struck by some of the contested claims; hence the use of vs.5
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kshama2001 wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »She cautioned against weighing and measuring because it's too diet-focused and "we can't ever truly know" what calories are in our food (? - something about the calories it takes to digest certain foods).
Calories in, calories out is oversimplified.
"Tracking calories is difficult and most often inaccurate."
The fact that we can't get a guaranteed accurate calorie number from weighing and measure is a bad reason to advocate the plate measure and hand portion guide. If weighing is bad because it's not perfectly accurate, that means she thinks accuracy is a good thing. Eyeballing stuff is pretty much guaranteed to be less accurate than weighing.
I wouldn't hire an accountant who told me not to keep records and just give them a spitball estimate of what I spent on various things.
I wouldn't hire a doctor who thought that instead of sending a sample of my blood to a lab, they'll just lance my finger, squeeze out a bit, and decide what was wrong with me by looking at it with the naked eye.
I wouldn't hire an engineer or architect who instead of calculating the weight various materials will bear, just shrugged and said "use 2X2s and throw in some rebar where you think you need it."
I love your accountant example! I'm not at all disagreeing with it; this is what it made me think of:
At one point in my life, I had to carefully monitor my bank balance. One pay period, I literally had $1 left before pay day. These days, I have a cushion, and don't have to keep track that closely.
Similarly, there have been times in my life when I lost weight by making some food and lifestyle changes, and did not have to track calories. Not so these days.
Absolutely -- specific changes that work for you instead of tracking is perfectly fine, if that works. I just think the person running the class in the OP is saying "weighing is an inaccurate to track calorie. Here, try this even less accurate way of tracking calories."2 -
history_grrrl wrote: »Just popping in to say I’m glad to know this report-back will be interesting and useful to some, and also to lament: can’t believe I misspelled “dietitian”! (I am known, in my circles, as something of a spelling maven.) Yikes.
Also, I’m really enjoying everyone’s thoughtful responses. So much insight here; I especially appreciate the points about logical inconsistencies, such as the inexact nature of such things as “palm size.” As some others have said, as a details person who appreciates precision (math major for a while in university until history stole my heart), I find it pretty easy to weigh and log and vastly prefer it to muddled guesswork. I plan to gently bring up these points, including mentioning the legacy USDA site.
Back soon to post some of the resources from Week 1.
When comparing mathematics to food consumption and portion size/control nothing can compete with a scale, so math wins and it's a no brainer. The point I think is the cultures that are not obese or people that don't have a weight problem aren't weighing every bite they put in their mouths and they may even believe that's weighting foods to be excessive and lead to eating disorders etc, it's all perspective I guess.5 -
on the other hand, almost every woman i know whose doctors (mostly male) put them on an 800 calorie per day diet. that's low for me at 5'4", it's super low for someone like my friend, who's 6 fee tall. i am sure there must be doctors, nurses and dieticians out there who know more than the average bear about nutrition, but no one i know has ever met one in person.6
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zebasschick wrote: »on the other hand, almost every woman i know whose doctors (mostly male) put them on an 800 calorie per day diet. that's low for me at 5'4", it's super low for someone like my friend, who's 6 fee tall. i am sure there must be doctors, nurses and dieticians out there who know more than the average bear about nutrition, but no one i know has ever met one in person.
I've never heard of any doctor putting someone on an 800 calorie diet. 1000, maybe. If they're super morbidly obese and facing imminent death if they don't lose weight.0 -
sollyn23l2 wrote: »zebasschick wrote: »on the other hand, almost every woman i know whose doctors (mostly male) put them on an 800 calorie per day diet. that's low for me at 5'4", it's super low for someone like my friend, who's 6 fee tall. i am sure there must be doctors, nurses and dieticians out there who know more than the average bear about nutrition, but no one i know has ever met one in person.
I've never heard of any doctor putting someone on an 800 calorie diet. 1000, maybe. If they're super morbidly obese and facing imminent death if they don't lose weight.
There seems to be an idea getting going that goes to 800 for a short time at first, maybe a couple weeks. I think it maybe started in the UK, and I think some doctors are recommending it.
https://thefast800.com/the-very-fast-800/
Personally, I wouldn't want to do it. 🤷♀️1 -
sollyn23l2 wrote: »zebasschick wrote: »on the other hand, almost every woman i know whose doctors (mostly male) put them on an 800 calorie per day diet. that's low for me at 5'4", it's super low for someone like my friend, who's 6 fee tall. i am sure there must be doctors, nurses and dieticians out there who know more than the average bear about nutrition, but no one i know has ever met one in person.
I've never heard of any doctor putting someone on an 800 calorie diet. 1000, maybe. If they're super morbidly obese and facing imminent death if they don't lose weight.
There seems to be an idea getting going that goes to 800 for a short time at first, maybe a couple weeks. I think it maybe started in the UK, and I think some doctors are recommending it.
https://thefast800.com/the-very-fast-800/
Personally, I wouldn't want to do it. 🤷♀️
Yes, the NHS and Diabetes UK have an 800 calorie programme for eligible Type 2 Diabetics. I doubt the US doctors recommending this are using the same eligibility requirements and providing the same level of support and monitoring.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/diabetes/treatment-care/diabetes-remission/0 -
As promised, here are some links/citations for resources that aren't password-protected from the first session of the class:
Week 1
Mindless Eating: Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating - Note: I just looked this book up and found this interesting Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/feb/16/mindless-eating-brian-wansink-is-there-something-rotten-behind-the-research
Am I Hungry: https://amihungry.com/
Canadian Food Guide: https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/
Mediterranean Diet Pyramid: https://oldwayspt.org/resources/oldways-mediterranean-diet-pyramid
Mediterranean Diet Scoring Tool: https://www.hamiltonfht.ca/en/resourcesGeneral/Documents/Medi-Diet-Scoring-Tool.pdf
Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines: https://csepguidelines.ca/
What Are You Really Hungry For?: https://barriefht.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/9.-What-Are-You-Hungry-For.pdf
24-Hour Fitness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F5Sly9JQao
Healthy You Journal: http://niagaranorthfht.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screen-Shot-2023-01-23-at-10.48.03-AM.png2 -
@snowflake954, I just posted above some of the "Mediterranean diet" material. Somewhere else, I saw a discussion saying this originated with some guy in the 1950s observing eating patterns of people in southern Italy, but now I can't seem to find it.
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One of the thing to aim for according to the Mediterranean scoring tool is 480 calories of olive oil every day? I'm not going to do that, period.
(They apparently would want that to be in addition to the fatty fish and nuts, besides. Yikes.)
Overall, looking at the whole scoring tool, I get it, but there are some not very nuanced points in there IMO if one is pursuing overall healthy eating, a maybe broader thing than just "eat Mediterranean". (Don't interpret that as a diss to Mediterranean; even as described there, it looks like a reasonably healthy approach, even though I'm not gonna spend that many calories on any oil daily. (Personal goal is 50g/450 calorie fat minimum, prioritizing MUFA/PUFA and enough O-3s for balance.)1 -
I agree with you.One of the thing to aim for according to the Mediterranean scoring tool is 480 calories of olive oil every day? I'm not going to do that, period. (They apparently would want that to be in addition to the fatty fish and nuts, besides. Yikes.)
Overall, looking at the whole scoring tool, I get it, but there are some not very nuanced points in there IMO if one is pursuing overall healthy eating, a maybe broader thing than just "eat Mediterranean". (Don't interpret that as a diss to Mediterranean; even as described there, it looks like a reasonably healthy approach, even though I'm not gonna spend that many calories on any oil daily. (Personal goal is 50g/450 calorie fat minimum, prioritizing MUFA/PUFA and enough O-3s for balance.)
I had 3 tsp of EVOO today for 150 calories. Now, this is just for cooking and salads. I'm sure there's oil in other things I ate today. Will it add up to 480 calories total? I don't know. That's why I said there's a lot of nonsense on the Med diet. Just use common sense. No one seems to talk about that anymore.
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history_grrrl wrote: »@snowflake954, I just posted above some of the "Mediterranean diet" material. Somewhere else, I saw a discussion saying this originated with some guy in the 1950s observing eating patterns of people in southern Italy, but now I can't seem to find it.
Yes--I know. I believe his name was Keyes. He especially liked the way they ate in small villages. People were poor, that's why they ate less meat and more legumes. They also foraged on the hillsides and in the countryside. In the village where my MIL was born, they ate greens that you couldn't even buy in the cities. When we went there to visit, I'd taste some of these wonderful recipes--incredible stuff. One that I remember was a frittata made with wild asparagus.1 -
snowflake954 wrote: »history_grrrl wrote: »@snowflake954, I just posted above some of the "Mediterranean diet" material. Somewhere else, I saw a discussion saying this originated with some guy in the 1950s observing eating patterns of people in southern Italy, but now I can't seem to find it.
Yes--I know. I believe his name was Keyes. He especially liked the way they ate in small villages. People were poor, that's why they ate less meat and more legumes. They also foraged on the hillsides and in the countryside. In the village where my MIL was born, they ate greens that you couldn't even buy in the cities. When we went there to visit, I'd taste some of these wonderful recipes--incredible stuff. One that I remember was a frittata made with wild asparagus.
That sounds about right. The Italian immigrants who migrated to my part of southern Ontario in the 1960s came from the South, and many left because of postwar poverty. My ex-landlord, when I was renting, described visiting his peasant relatives there and the amazing food, as you have. One of my neighbours still grows garlic descended from garlic she brought over when she migrated. My visiting SO managed to finagle a sample from her, and now he grows it in his own garden, marked by a little Italian flag.3 -
Well, I do agree with calories in-calories out being oversimplified.
In general, yeah, no one is gonna get fat stuck on a deserted island. Watching your calories is a good gauge.
But in the real world, we also know things like hormones (Esp. fluctuations caused by menopause or PCOS and such), insulin resistance, certain medications, etc. can make it more difficult to lose weight.
There is a reason why if you put a bunch of people on an identical diet for the same amount of time, they aren't going to lose the exact same amount of weight. There's gonna be some variations in what they lose base on individual bodies. It can be very discouraging when someone is trying to lose weight, has some unknown inhibitor that is causing them to progress slower than expected, and everyone else is just telling them calories in-calories out, so I personally hate acting like it's a simple and fool-proof formula for everyone.
But health at every size movement, well, that always kind of irked me. When you're super morbidly obese, you can't be healthy at that size in the long run. Maybe it'll take a bit to catch up with you but eventually it's going to catch up. I don't think medical professionals should encourage obese or morbidly obese people to just maintain.
As for plate method vs. counting/tracking vs. any type of diet-- I think one size does not fit all. Best to figure out what works best for you, not just based on your body but on your lifestyle so that you can live with your new habits.1 -
Honestly the only thing that has worked for me and made me accountable is CICO.
I guess it’s personal though and you really have to take the time to work out what works for your personality and for your body as well.0 -
snowflake954 wrote: »history_grrrl wrote: »@snowflake954, I just posted above some of the "Mediterranean diet" material. Somewhere else, I saw a discussion saying this originated with some guy in the 1950s observing eating patterns of people in southern Italy, but now I can't seem to find it.
Yes--I know. I believe his name was Keyes. He especially liked the way they ate in small villages. People were poor, that's why they ate less meat and more legumes. They also foraged on the hillsides and in the countryside. In the village where my MIL was born, they ate greens that you couldn't even buy in the cities. When we went there to visit, I'd taste some of these wonderful recipes--incredible stuff. One that I remember was a frittata made with wild asparagus.
Keyes research is highly suspect and there are a lot of reputable sources debunking it. For one thing it was a self-report epidemiological study, which is the least reliable type of data. He neglected to add the data of a host of other countries that simply didn't have the results he wanted-- he chose 9 out of 21. He gathered his data in Greece during Lent, when everyone eats less meat for that period for religious reasons. There are also a bunch of other factors contributing to longevity that are found in the Blue Zones that have nothing to do with diet.
Keyes was a doctor on a mission; he married himself to a narrative he was determined to cling to and push at all costs even when contrary data was presented, he was notorious for trying to quash studies and scientists who disagreed with his narrative, assistants reported him fudging data, etc.4 -
MacLowCarbing wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »history_grrrl wrote: »@snowflake954, I just posted above some of the "Mediterranean diet" material. Somewhere else, I saw a discussion saying this originated with some guy in the 1950s observing eating patterns of people in southern Italy, but now I can't seem to find it.
Yes--I know. I believe his name was Keyes. He especially liked the way they ate in small villages. People were poor, that's why they ate less meat and more legumes. They also foraged on the hillsides and in the countryside. In the village where my MIL was born, they ate greens that you couldn't even buy in the cities. When we went there to visit, I'd taste some of these wonderful recipes--incredible stuff. One that I remember was a frittata made with wild asparagus.
Keyes research is highly suspect and there are a lot of reputable sources debunking it. For one thing it was a self-report epidemiological study, which is the least reliable type of data. He neglected to add the data of a host of other countries that simply didn't have the results he wanted-- he chose 9 out of 21. He gathered his data in Greece during Lent, when everyone eats less meat for that period for religious reasons. There are also a bunch of other factors contributing to longevity that are found in the Blue Zones that have nothing to do with diet.
Keyes was a doctor on a mission; he married himself to a narrative he was determined to cling to and push at all costs even when contrary data was presented, he was notorious for trying to quash studies and scientists who disagreed with his narrative, assistants reported him fudging data, etc.
May all be true--but don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Times were very different then. The Med diet and village eating is still health worthy. He just brought it to the attention of many.2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »I recently did the VA MOVE program...I just sat through it because it was the only way I could get Contrave prescribed.
I just went through that program and my pharmacist/meds appointment is about five months out.
My hope is that due to all preceding meds for obesity being patently silly they'll get around to GLP-1 by the time of my appointment.
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The pharmacist/meds doctor did give me the silly old Qsymia, and I gave it the old college try for a month and a half. It didn't affect weight or appetite, but I did have a bunch of bad side-effects. After stopping that, another few months went by.chris_in_cal wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »I recently did the VA MOVE program...I just sat through it because it was the only way I could get Contrave prescribed.
I just went through that program and my pharmacist/meds appointment is about five months out.
My hope is that due to all preceding meds for obesity being patently silly they'll get around to GLP-1 by the time of my appointment.
Now, after going on a year, I just got the call and I might (MIGHT) be getting a prescription for a GLP-1. I'll know if it's for real in a couple of weeks.
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Strongly recommend reading the new Vanity Fair article about counterfeit GLPs infiltrating even the legit supply at doctors’ offices and pharmacies. Sounds like the criminal rings and Chinese knockoff crews are heavily invested, and indications Turkish government is involved, too.
FDA is overwhelmed, and the criminals are masking the source with layers and layers of doctored paperwork.
A medical conference even had to remove a shady fellow who showed up uninvited and unregistered, hounding participants to buy his “discount” injection pens.
There was also a brief discussions of idiot people going to Botox parties and randomly taking GLP injections that turned out to be intentionally relabeled insulin. Seven nearly died.
(WTF goes to “Botox parties” in the first place? Am I that far out of the loop these days?)
Anyway, excellent in depth investigative article.
I read it yesterday via Apple News, so it just be current magazine.4
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