Topic: Healthy Option section?

[Panpot]

Ramirez, there are plenty of you tube videos on making it. I found it in a low carb book years ago and have happily used it many many times. Break up the florets and put them in a food processor then whiz them till the contents are roughly the size of rice grains. Then pop them into the microwave with 1 or 2 tbs of water then nuke or 7 minutes, that's it. I've then used it for Chinese stir fry rice, for pilou etc,etc.. It works well alongside a general low card diet without changing any of your favourites from the site. I've also Successfully used it to make low carb bread but you will find all those goodies on YouTube, enjoy. PP

[976bar]

Hi Ray,

Let me first say, that it's not just about eating healthy. I like you have enjoyed curries and other foods both eating out and cooking in for over 30 years. When I was in the forces and younger I probably ate what I wanted and as much as I wanted with no worries, but since I have aged, I still wanted to eat what I wanted and probably the same portions.

As we get older and slow down a little we say to ourselves, "that's ok, I'm getting a little older I can't do as many push ups as I used to or as many sit up's or I succumb to running round the block twice now as it suits my age and not what I used to achieve, and we get into that middle age thing accepting that we excercise a little less and maybe eat the same amount and maybe while we're sitting in the armchair of an evening we enjoy a glass or 2 more of what we fancy instead of doing that extra excercise we used to do when we were a few years younger....

I', not saying for one moment that this is what everyone does, but it certainly happened to me after 17 years in the Territorial army and holding down a full time job and having 3 young kids to please as well.....

So, like you my clothes got tighter, my passion for working out became lifting my right arm to drink that wine while I watched TV, and it came to the point where I had no energy at all. My Cholestrol went up, my blood pressure went up, I was losing sleep at night (probably because I was drinking too much, which affects you're sleep pattern) and it just becomes a downward spiral pattern that a lot of people who are getting older fall into.

I felt that I needed to do something about it. So, with my Indian cooking in particular, I cut the oil I put into a single dish down to 1-2 tbsp, and changed the oil from any cooking oil I picked up on the shelf to Rapeseed Oil, I also have cut down my portions, so instead of getting out a dinner plate which I felt compelled to fill, I now get a starter plate out, which I do fill, which not only looks satisfying, but also means I take in less food, and I have also with great discipline cut my alcohol intake down to 1-2 glasses of wine an evening.

However, cutting down you're intake of food and alcohol is not really enough to combat excess weight, which could lead to further health problems, like high blood pressure, diabetes and kidney failure.....

My wonderful girlfriend who is a bit of a health freak! (Sorry baby!!), but she put me onto a workout programme which you can do at home and is both cardiovascular, muscle building and a Yoga type/core synergistics programme all rolled out into one.

It's called the P90X extreme workout. Yes it's an American workout programme built for home use. It's aim is to produce a "Beach Body" in 90 days, hence the name of the programme.

I bought this set of DVD's and started working out and within 2 weeks felt such a difference to my vitality. I was more alert, my clothes did feel looser and I slept better at night too..

The only downside was that at aged 52, I found it hard to keep up now with the daily extreme workout, my body as it is right now cannot keep up with that of say a 32 year old.

So I have now re-named this workout as the P180 Extreme Workout. Designed for the over 50's

It means that now instead of working out 7 days a week, I work out probably nearer 3-4 days a week, which not only gives me a cardiovascular workout, but also keeps my muscles tones, and I get to sleep better because of my Yoga/core synergistics workout too....

I've still got a long way to go if I want to look like Twiggy, which I don't, but when I consider what I was like 4 months ago, I am more nearer my military day fitness now than I ever was.

I guess the moral is, don't just think about what you are feeding yourself, but think about what excercise you get, the amount of relaxtion you get and the quality of sleep you get too, to have a balanced life. The only other thing I would say here is that always try and think about the positive side of any daily situation in you're life rather than the negative, you'll be surprised how different your persona will be......

I hope this helps and I am no expert on life coaching, it's only what I have deduced from life myself over the years and practiced, it will always be different for each individual......

But don't forget to still enjoy you're curries

[Razor]

Hi 976, brilliant feed, and I totally get where you are coming from.

Mine is a very similar background to yours.  Was very active as a young lad, played all the usual sports, football, boxing, rugby and so on.  I could eat what I wanted, drink what I wanted and never gained an ounce.  This was pretty much the case up until about 4 years ago whereby I had a serious ankle break.  I struggle to stand up for long periods of time, and walking anything over a mile is just painfull.  So, as you can imagine, the weight has piled on at quite an alarming rate.

Excersise is certainly an option but I have to go with something very low impact such as swimming or cycling.  Swimming was never my strongest field but cycling is certainly an option and I have just purchased a decent mountain bike, so that's going to be my excersise regime along side my healthy eating.

I've never been one to count the calories as such but taking a long hard look at my diet really made me think.

Typical weekly menu for me;

Sunday:  Full breakfast, Sunday Lunch, Chicken and stuffing sandwiches

Monday: No Breakfast, 4 sandwiches 2 bags of crisp, chocolate bar, Large Donnor Kebab with seekh kebab starter.

Tuesday: No Breakfast, 4 sandwiches 2 bags of crisp, chocolate bar, Full english

Wednesday: No Breakfast, 4 sandwiches 2 bags of crisp, chocolate bar, Mid week BIR style curry, with starter.

Thursday: Full english breakfast, no dinner, Chinese TA

Friday: No Breakfast, 2 greggs sausage rolls and a meat & pot pasty.  Friday night curry with starter washed down with a good6 - 8 cans of lager.

Saturday: No Breakfast, Meat pie, chips, peas & gravy, Hot & spicy pizza from Pizza Hut, again washed down with similar amounts of ale.

All of that with no excersise whatsoever

I figure by reducing my fat intake, getting a good balance of different foods, and drinking moderately, I should lose a fair old bit of timber, along side some gentle excersise and hopefully, I can get back to a weight of which I'm comfortable with.

Incidentally, I'm 5ft 7 and currently at 14stone
Ideally, I want to get to 11.5 stone, i'd be more than chuffed with that. ;D

Ray

[martinvic]

I think a Healthy Eating section would be cool.

Ray, I'm sure you realise this, but without the exercise, you are going to have to cut back foodwise a great deal to actually lose weight.

From what you are eating at the moment, it is obviously making you gain weight.
So if you cut the oil and sizes of portions a bit, the other health benefits aside, at best you will stay the same weight, no loss or gain.
It'll need quite a reduction in your diet to actually lose weight.

The bike exercise would be great, and of course not only for the weight loss but obviously all round well being.

Martin

[Ramirez]

Ramirez, there are plenty of you tube videos on making it. I found it in a low carb book years ago and have happily used it many many times. Break up the florets and put them in a food processor then whiz them till the contents are roughly the size of rice grains. Then pop them into the microwave with 1 or 2 tbs of water then nuke or 7 minutes, that's it. I've then used it for Chinese stir fry rice, for pilou etc,etc.. It works well alongside a general low card diet without changing any of your favourites from the site. I've also Successfully used it to make low carb bread but you will find all those goodies on YouTube, enjoy. PP

Thanks Panpot.

[Ramirez]

To be honest Ray, I think you're doing well to be only 14st with that diet and no exercise. I think you would see quick gains by being stricter during the week with a bit of exercise and then having a few treats at the weekend (curry, lager, etc.).

Any news from Stew?

[Panpot]

Ramirez, I had Abdul's Madras and his Chicken Ceylon together with my lowcarb pilou. I Prepared the cauliflower rice as above then having heated 1&1/2 tbs of oil I placed in a heaped teaspoon of cumin seeds, 3 Bay leaves, 1 stick of cinnamon, 6 cloves and 6 green cardamon pods slightly crushed. I waited till the cumin was popping and the fragrance of the spices was being released before stirring in the nuked " rice" and stirred it through for about three or four minutes as I gently brought both curries back to serving heat. The wife and I like the rice in the middle of an oval plate with half of each curry either side. Marvellous and to be honest I don't miss the real rice but can really savour it when I do my real version coloured as well. Endless uses of the "rice" to be honest. PP

[Ramirez]

Brilliant! Definitely going to give this a go. Thanks PP!

[natterjak]

Great post 976bar, think a lot of people will get something from reading that 

[976bar]

Hi 976, brilliant feed, and I totally get where you are coming from.

Mine is a very similar background to yours.  Was very active as a young lad, played all the usual sports, football, boxing, rugby and so on.  I could eat what I wanted, drink what I wanted and never gained an ounce.  This was pretty much the case up until about 4 years ago whereby I had a serious ankle break.  I struggle to stand up for long periods of time, and walking anything over a mile is just painfull.  So, as you can imagine, the weight has piled on at quite an alarming rate.

I've never been one to count the calories as such but taking a long hard look at my diet really made me think.

Typical weekly menu for me;

Sunday:  Full breakfast, Sunday Lunch, Chicken and stuffing sandwiches

Monday: No Breakfast, 4 sandwiches 2 bags of crisp, chocolate bar, Large Donnor Kebab with seekh kebab starter.

Tuesday: No Breakfast, 4 sandwiches 2 bags of crisp, chocolate bar, Full english

Wednesday: No Breakfast, 4 sandwiches 2 bags of crisp, chocolate bar, Mid week BIR style curry, with starter.

Thursday: Full english breakfast, no dinner, Chinese TA

Friday: No Breakfast, 2 greggs sausage rolls and a meat & pot pasty.  Friday night curry with starter washed down with a good6 - 8 cans of lager.

Saturday: No Breakfast, Meat pie, chips, peas & gravy, Hot & spicy pizza from Pizza Hut, again washed down with similar amounts of ale.

All of that with no excersise whatsoever

Ray

Hi Ray,

Certainly looking at your old menu, is definitely a recipe for disaster. Firstly, Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and depending upon what you choose, will determine the way the rest of your day pans out.

Full English breakfast? I love them, but now I discipline myself to one a week, which I normally have at weekends, it gives me something to look forward to.

Secondly and my girlfriend introduced me to this is an Omlette. Except it's made out of egg whites and not the yolk. Now I battled hard with this as I can't stand the taste of egg white believe it or not it makes me heave. I can eat it in scrambled egg or an omlette as long as it's camoflouged with cheese

So, we compromised, and I now have 4 egg whites scrambled in a pan, and I use the yolk from one. I put the slightest oil in the pan add the beaten eggs and just scramble them. As they are near complete, we add a little grated cheese and when it's on the plate I add a dolop of Ketchup.

Now what I am getting here for breakfast is a rather good portion of protein to set up my day with a little bit of fat from the cheese and ketchup, so if you can eat just egg white, all the better for you. I normally wash this down with Black filtered coffee, no sugar.

You can reserve the yolks in a cup and stick them in the fridge for something else later.

Also, eat a banana, which releases it's energy slowly into the blood stream. You'll find that you probably won't want anything until lunchtime.

Another good breakfast is a nice bowl of porridge made with 2 percent semi skimmed milk. I add chopped strawberries, bluberries, raspberries or even a chopped up banana to mine and NO SUGAR!! It tastes wonderful and is really healthy for you.

When buying bread, buy granary bread, not only is it more healthy for you as it's a low GI product as compared with wholemeal and white bread which are both high in GI factors, but it also tastes far better too. As for fillings, go for chicken breast with light mayo, I mix mayo with french mustard to make a mustardaise which goes lovely with chicken, and just stuff some salad leaves in with it as well.

Try and avoid crisps, yes I know they are lovely but incredibly fattening. Instead, buy a bag of natural almonds, or walnuts or brazil nuts or a combination of the lot. Add some dried cranberries to them and have them instead of crisps.

These also make a good snack which everyone should have between meals, just a small handful. This keeps the meatoblism going which stops you from storing fat. If the body thinks it's only going to get fed 3 times a day at the same time, then it stores whatever you eat, until you have the next meal. But if you have a small snack of healthy nuts and some fruit it tells your metabolism to keep going, thereby telling your body not to store so much fat as well.

Don't buy cashew nuts, peanuts, pistachio's etc as they have a far higher fat content than the ones I mentioned above.

Tuna, mixed with a little vinegar and light mayo then freshly ground black pepper is another great sandwich filler.

Try and avoid the Cheese/ham/bacon/sausage sandwiches etc......

You can still have these once a week as a treat, which is not going to do any great harm  and I think it also stops you from getting bored with a diet too.

Evening meals? I love Greek salad with feta cheese, green pepper, red onion, tomato, olives and i sprinkle some dried oregano over the top then drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil (another oil that is good for you) I also love beetroot with feta cheese too.

I have some really nice healthy Italian dishes as well if anyone is interested for dinners. Just let me know and I'll post them.

But whatever you eat, as I said previously try and cut your portions in half by using a starter plate and soon your stomach will shrink to a size whereby if you do eat a large plate of food you will actually feel rather uncomfortable

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Bob