I'm ditching the junk food - question about fruit.

Hildy_J

The weight loss thing is going well... so now I've started on my second goal which is to quit the fast-food, takeaway junk, processed crap and chocolate (oh Snickers how I love you, though!) in a bid to get my fat/sugar macros under control and my diet as healthy as possible. My fat and carb (mostly down to sugar in my case) macros are SUBSTANTIALLY in the red every day, it can't be healthy and I don't want to end up with hardened arteries! Also I have yet to hit my protein macro. *sigh*

I really do not like vegetables. Except potatoes. Meat I like in small amounts, but can't eat loads. I love fruit though and I was wondering if it's possible to get all the micronutrients I need just from having some fruit every day?

QuilterInVA

You won't be getting adequate protein and fat from fruit. Fruit is also high in calories for the most part. If you continue to eat the way you have in the past, you will continue to have weight problems. You need to try different vegetables and different ways of preparing them. You might not like it raw, but cooked is fine, for example. There are hundreds of vegetables out there and you could always add a protein shake to get extra protein in.

iechick

Nope, you need the veggies. Try green smoothies, which is a great way to hide the buggers :laugh: I make a green smoothie every day and it has two veggies (usually kale and spinach) and then three fruits (usually a banana and then two kinds of berries or something like an apple). Alls I taste is the banana usually

Also, while upping your veggie and fruit intake is a good idea, totally cutting out the foods you enjoy is just setting yourself up for failure and misery. You can still eat things like Snickers candy bars as part of a healthy diet. I eat a mostly whole foods, plant based diet and still have things like an occasional cookie, eating out etc. I aim for a 90%/10% ratio and it's working really well for me.

Hildy_J

This is NOT good news. :sad:

My friend swears by her Jason Vale juicer & his recipes. However that means splashing out on a juicer... expensive, I think?

I'm going to buy Snickers etc one at a time from now on. The bulk buying thing made sense economically but binge-wise not so much.

melaniecheeks

You need protein. If you dont eat a lot of meat, then other good sources are dairy - milk, cheese, especially cottage cheese and Greek yoghurt.

Beans, lentils etc are also good sources.

Nuts in moderation.

What is it about veg that you dont like? There's 100s of varieties, and many many ways to cook them.

Hildy_J

Thanks for that guys - great tips will try. Love milk, cheese, lentils, nuts, will try smoothies/juices. Spinach smoothies though?

What don't I like about veg? Only the taste, texture, smell and the way they look. I can eat them every now and then, I do like a roast dinner with sprouts and parsnips but not every day and there's always other stuff I'd prefer.

yarwell

My friend swears by her Jason Vale juicer & his recipes. However that means splashing out on a juicer... expensive, I think?

Mine was £8 on Ebay, ok I got lucky. Should be able to catch one under £50 without many miles on the clock.

Hildy_J

My friend swears by her Jason Vale juicer & his recipes. However that means splashing out on a juicer... expensive, I think?

Mine was £8 on Ebay, ok I got lucky. Should be able to catch one under £50 without many miles on the clock.

Of COURSE ebay. All roads lead to ebay... Thanks!

melaniecheeks

Try roasting veg - parsnips, squash, courgettes, onions, carrots all work very well with this method.

Cauliflower cheese?
Tomato based pasta sauce?
Crunchy carrot sticks?
Mushrooms in omelette?
Peppers in a stir-fry?

Hildy_J

I'm sorry but no. I love mange tout though - will definitely get some of those as a chaser for my spinach smoothie! Which is going to be green, isn't it.

It's my mum's fault. She couldn't cook and all she ever gave us to eat was either marmalade sandwiches or cold lumpy veg with burned fatty meat. It was like something out of Oliver Twist. She would lock the chocolate biscuits, toffees and boxes of Black Magic away in a cupboard FOR HERSELF. You wouldn't believe it - we were only allowed one grape at a time. We were always so hungry as kids... I remember my brother eating raw sausages out of the fridge. *blech*

metaphoria

I think your biggest hurdle will be to get over the "I can eat whatever I want now" mentality that your mother sort of fostered in you. I make a green smoothie in a regular blender: a couple big handfuls of spinach, 1 cup of almond milk (or regular milk, or half milk half greek yogurt for more protein), a tablespoon of peanut butter,unsweetened cocoa powder to taste, 1 banana, a few ice cubes. Blend it all up, and you've got a chocolate smoothie loaded with nutrients. Add a scoop of protein powder to it, your choice of flavour.

Hildy_J

I think your biggest hurdle will be to get over the "I can eat whatever I want now" mentality that your mother sort of fostered in you. I make a green smoothie in a regular blender: a couple big handfuls of spinach, 1 cup of almond milk (or regular milk, or half milk half greek yogurt for more protein), a tablespoon of peanut butter,unsweetened cocoa powder to taste, 1 banana, a few ice cubes. Blend it all up, and you've got a chocolate smoothie loaded with nutrients. Add a scoop of protein powder to it, your choice of flavour.

Thank you so much. I'm going to make that smoothie to the letter (if we have almond milk in the UK? never seen it). For protein powder - health food shops or is in in the supermarket?

It's difficult with my kids sometimes knowing what to give them... don't want to deprive them but don't want them living on junk, either!

lynn_glenmont

Agreeing with those who are saying you need a variety of veggies, not just fruits, to get all your micronutrients (minerals and vitamins). I think there are two basic strategies for eating more veg if you don't like them much right now: try finding ways to hide them in foods you will eat, and just keep trying different vegetables in different ways until you find some you do like. On the hiding strategy, I believe there are a number of books out there aimed at parents who want to get their kids to eat more vegetables, but there's no reason the recipes in them shouldn't work for you. I think the recurring theme tends to be pureeing them and in foods kids otherwise like: e.g., pureed winter squash in macaroni and cheese, pureed mild and sweet veg like carrots in baked goods, etc.

As for trying new veggies in new ways, the list is endless:
-fried tomatoes (with your breakfast eggs and meat)
-sprouts (alfalfa, clover, radish, etc.), thin-sliced cukes, tomato, shredded carrots and a bit of avocado stuffed in a sandwich (with or without meat/poultry/cheese/hummus)
-squash pureed and mixed with mashed potatoes and other root vegetables
-squash, beets, or almost any vegetable can be cooked in a soup and then pureed to make bisque-style soup
-cook peas (cook them until they're extra soft if that will help make them more palatable) and mix them into a puree with potatoes, parsnips and/or other veggies you like
-roasted seaweed to nibble on as a snack, or crumble it up in your rice
-saute some onions and peppers to add to your lentils
-chop up crisp fruit like apples and pears and add similarly textured veggies (celery, fennel, bell peppers, carrots, jicama, etc.); add raisins and nuts if you like and a Waldorf-style dressing, subbing yogurt for the mayo, if you want to reduce the fat); start with more fruit than veg, if you like, and over time you could maybe increase the proportion of veg
-add vegetables (bell peppers, tomatoes, baby spinach, fennel, etc.) to a pasta salad
-add cooked eggplant, summer squash, onions, roasted peppers, etc. to sauce for lasagne or other baked pasta dishes, or swap out the tomato sauce in baked or unbaked pasta dishes for pureed winter squash mixed into a white sauce or combined with a little chicken stock and milk or cream (although tomato sauce is a great veg too -- and it's really a fruit, as are eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, squash, so if you like fruit, you should like them ;-)

GenesBernadette

I also have problems keeping my sugar to the right level, at the end of the day I almost always have gone into the dreaded red zone. When I go waaayy over and I'm looking through what I've eaten to point the finger of blame it's always the damn fruit!

I try to be a good girl and eat five fruit and veg a day as we are told but if I have a banana and an apple in a single day it will usually push me over the edge. Don't even mention a glass of fruit juice or smoothie in the morning! So I'm trying to focus more on veggies to get to my five.

In my world there are two kinds of veg. Cooking veg and salad veg, and I often don't feel like cooked ones but can go for so many things altogether in a salad. Adding a bit of cooked chicken or chorizo, boiled eggs or baby potatoes with a home made dressing can make it more interesting too.

yarwell

Thank you so much. I'm going to make that smoothie to the letter (if we have almond milk in the UK? never seen it). For protein powder - health food shops or is in in the supermarket?

Almond milk, coconut milk in major UK supermarkets, sometimes on shelf sometimes in fridge. Different sugar contents etc so check labels. Alpro or Almond Breeze almond milk from Blue Diamond

Hildy_J

Yes to the salad veg ideas and clear soup.

THIS is why MFP is so great - supportive people with, between them, an ASTOUNDING knowledge base.

Much appreciated. :flowerforyou:

PS So THAT'S what Alpro is - I always thought it was a yoghurt drink.

yarwell

Alpro is a brand, they do soya yoghurts, soya milk and now nut milks too. Koko coconut milk is another - depends where you shop what's on sale so worth eyeballing the web site of the relevant supermarket

iechick

This is NOT good news. :sad:

My friend swears by her Jason Vale juicer & his recipes. However that means splashing out on a juicer... expensive, I think?

I'm going to buy Snickers etc one at a time from now on. The bulk buying thing made sense economically but binge-wise not so much.

Juicing is different than smoothies-I think a juicer strips the fiber of the veggies and fruit, whereas a blender just blends everything up and leaves the fiber in. I just bought a blender at the grocer store for under $50 on sale and love it

metaphoria

I think your biggest hurdle will be to get over the "I can eat whatever I want now" mentality that your mother sort of fostered in you. I make a green smoothie in a regular blender: a couple big handfuls of spinach, 1 cup of almond milk (or regular milk, or half milk half greek yogurt for more protein), a tablespoon of peanut butter,unsweetened cocoa powder to taste, 1 banana, a few ice cubes. Blend it all up, and you've got a chocolate smoothie loaded with nutrients. Add a scoop of protein powder to it, your choice of flavour.

Thank you so much. I'm going to make that smoothie to the letter (if we have almond milk in the UK? never seen it). For protein powder - health food shops or is in in the supermarket?

It's difficult with my kids sometimes knowing what to give them... don't want to deprive them but don't want them living on junk, either!

Definitely play around with the amounts to get the taste you want. The banana usually gives it enough sweet for my taste. You could add a little honey or sugar to sweeten it a bit more. Think of it as dark chocolate that isnt meant to be too sweet. Lol

Also, yiu could cook up and puree carrots to add to chili or any tomato based sauce, eat raw red, orange and yellow peppers. The red especially sweeter, and they have a ton more vitamin c than oranges. Make "ants on a log", top celery sticks with peanut butter and line raisins up in them.

I would say limit treats for yourself and the kids to one serving per day. You can pack theirs in their lunch and save yours for when you normally feel really snackish. My time is as soon as the kids are asleep. I eat half my calories in the day at dinner and afterward, and barely eat breakfast.

And learn to steam veggies until just done. Make a cheese sauce for steamed broccoli if you need something extra, but get your veggies. Find a soup or stew recipe that is loaded with vegetables. And most importantly remember that potatoes are a starch, not a vegetable, they have potassium and stuff but you can't live off of them. Have you tried yams or sweet potatoes? They're a bit better and if you make them in to fries and bake them, and make a chipotle mayo, they are awesome! I get most of my recipes through Google. Get creative with cooking and even if you don't like the vegetables, eat them in front of your kids and act excited over how delicious they are. Kids learn by example, it's up to us as parents to decide what that example will be.

iechick

I'm sorry but no. I love mange tout though - will definitely get some of those as a chaser for my spinach smoothie! Which is going to be green, isn't it.

It's my mum's fault. She couldn't cook and all she ever gave us to eat was either marmalade sandwiches or cold lumpy veg with burned fatty meat. It was like something out of Oliver Twist. She would lock the chocolate biscuits, toffees and boxes of Black Magic away in a cupboard FOR HERSELF. You wouldn't believe it - we were only allowed one grape at a time. We were always so hungry as kids... I remember my brother eating raw sausages out of the fridge. *blech*

If I add blueberries my smoothies turn purple My 5 yr old son always runs in the kitchen when he hears the blender going because he knows it's smoothie time lol. If he likes them, then they can't be to bad

And I hear ya on the crappy food as a child-we used to dumpster dive sometimes for food :frown: