The dietary habits of HERO Forum members.

[Sidume]

I eat out too much, probably 20-25% of my meals.  Probably 3/4th of that is fast food, but that's including stuff like Subway, and fast casual stuff like Chipotle.  It tends to be high salt, but that doesn't mean constant burgers and fries.

 

The other 75-80% is home cooked, though not always eaten at home.  There's no such thing as "left-overs," there's only "plan-aheads."  I'm often doing meal prep for several hours on the weekend to have lunches and dinners ready to just stick in the microwave for most of the week.  I probably cook 70% of the time, and my roommate does the other 30%.

 

And I do it partially because of the pesky restrictions.  At 15 I discovered I had some food allergies that flared up and I had 5 shots of adrenaline in a 10 hour period to keep breathing.  Now I have to avoid anything with peanuts, tree nuts,  coconut, sesame seeds, and MSG.  I also need to avoid caraway, poppy seeds, melons, mangos and mustard, but those won't kill me, just make me wish I was dead.   I don't mind cooking.  I grew up with a mom who catered regularly and I can hold my own in a commercial kitchen.  

 

But I can be a pain in the butt when visiting a new restaurant though.

[IndianaJoe3]

My wife and I hardly ever eat out, once or maybe twice a month from a local fast food place (pizza, etc).

 

I do about half my own cooking, although the chocolate Breakfast Essentials that I have before work hardly qualify as such. I tend to make my own lunches for work, and my wife normally makes dinner. It's usually conventional American cuisine, although we've been known to get idiosyncratic with the flavor combinations sometimes. We normally make a half-hearted attempt to grow tomatoes every year.

 

I have some non-life-threatening food allergies (almonds, and raw apples and related fruits). I also make a deliberate attempt to eat two relatively meatless meals every day.

[Hermit]

I do need to cut down on soda. *sigh* I'd switch to diet, but most diet drinks are not my thing.

[Ragitsu]

17 hours ago, Hermit said:

I do need to cut down on soda. *sigh* I'd switch to diet, but most diet drinks are not my thing.

 

My gut tells me you're better off with the occasional sugary treat (so, sodas made with cane/beet sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup) as opposed to a steady diet of, well, diet soda and the artificial sweetener that's part of the package.

[Old Man]

I made the switch to diet but I’m sure tea or coffee is better. Trouble is I hate most hot drinks and tea and coffee are undrinkable when cold. 

[Ragitsu]

39 minutes ago, Old Man said:

tea and coffee are undrinkable when cold. 

 

[tombrown803]

2 hours ago, Old Man said:

 tea  are undrinkable when cold. 

 

You must not live in the Southern part of the US. Ice tea is very popular down there

[massey]

Sweet tea is awesome.  Unsweet iced tea sucks.

[Old Man]

I mean, yeah, you can load anything up with enough sugar to be good, but the point of the exercise was to reduce empty calories...

[Doc Shadow]

20 hours ago, Hermit said:

I do need to cut down on soda. *sigh* I'd switch to diet, but most diet drinks are not my thing.

 

I used to drink two liters a DAY!

 

Now a single two liter bottle will last me more than a week.

 

It can be done, Hermit. Good luck with your struggle.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I have a different struggle. I was diagnosed with a gluten allergy last week, and trying to adjust my diet has been challenging. The first weekend, with several failures to find something edible, had me thinking "I never want to eat again!". It's not quite that bad now (intellectually I realize I have no choice), but it still isn't fun. And I spent a lot of money I really don't have getting GF stuff that's very difficult for me to eat. Gluten, after all, is what makes bread and pasta taste good.\

 

So I don't really know what my new routine will be. I have a doctor's appointment next week to go over the issue, a training in two weeks at Natural Grocers, and a lot of stuff I'm rearching online to see what I can make that I have a chance of liking. I need a reorganized kitchen, so I can work there -- ordering out is not really an option on m current budget, although I want to try the GF pizza agt Papa Murphy's because they worked out those issues (at least partially).

 

So I don't have a real routine yet. I'm working on it.

[Old Man]

Sounds like it's time for you to go on the keto diet I've been dying to try for months.

[lemming]

Michael, at least you're in a good city for doing gluten free.

[massey]

On 4/27/2018 at 4:24 PM, Old Man said:

Sounds like it's time for you to go on the keto diet I've been dying to try for months.

 

As of this morning, I've lost 28 lbs since starting the keto diet 2 months ago.  I'm very pleased with it so far.  That's even with me taking a few breaks from it during that time.

[Cancer]

On April 20, 2018 at 6:42 PM, Hermit said:

I do need to cut down on soda. *sigh* I'd switch to diet, but most diet drinks are not my thing.

 

Get a 12-pack of unflavored soda water, and then a half gallon of your preferred juice (orange, e.g).  A large glass, half full of ice; fill to 2/3 with juice and top off with the carbonated water.  As you drink it down add the rest of the water and ice.

[Ragitsu]

33 minutes ago, Cancer said:

 

Get a 12-pack of unflavored soda water, and then a half gallon of your preferred juice (orange, e.g).  A large glass, half full of ice; fill to 2/3 with juice and top off with the carbonated water.  As you drink it down add the rest of the water and ice.

 

Nutritionally speaking, is this substitute much of an improvement? If not, I assume it is part of a method to help reduce the consumption of soft drinks (as one incrementally decreases their dosage of sweet drink every day/week/month/etc, of course).

[Cancer]

Well, you do get the nutritional benefit of the juice, if any; I use o.j. for this much more often than not, so that's a bit more vitamin C and potassium than ordinary soft drinks provide.  I have not done this as a means to taper off anything in particular, merely to give me carbonation in a slightly more benign form than cola or beer.

[Old Man]

 

So I did keto for a little over two weeks.  Pros: Dropped maybe ten pounds, so it works.  Cons: Carbs are really hard to avoid.  They're everywhere, lurking even in foods that really shouldn't have any.  Eating out becomes an exercise in guessing what to order that will have the minimum number of carbs.  (Fortunately I like caesar salad.)  No cheat days or the diet doesn't work.  Even if you don't live with someone who openly disapproves of your attempt to improve your health, like I do, it's difficult to do right--ideally you would home cook everything you eat for the duration of the diet, which is nearly impossible in my situation.

 

Anyway, life is going to prevent any further dieting until the end of July at the earliest.  Hopefully I won't gain those ten pounds back by then.

[Ragitsu]

Skipping carbohydrates entirely seems like a trial of gastrointestinal misery. No noodles? No rice? No bread? Count me out.

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Ragitsu said:

Skipping carbohydrates entirely seems like a trial of gastrointestinal misery. No noodles? No rice? No bread? Count me out.

 

No noodles.  No bread.  No rice.  No corn.  No potatoes.  No sugar.  No fruit.  No beans.  No breaded chicken.  No carrots.  No corn starch.  No corn syrup.  No shoyu.  No soybeans.  No tofu.  Waitress refills your glass with regular instead of diet?  Bam, you're out of ketosis.  Like I said, it's hard.

 

Hope you like meat, cheese, and salad.