Rab wrote:Do any of you bother giving anything more than a "standard" short answer to people who ask you about what they should be eating etc?

I cant be arsed anymore.

My aunt wanted me to give her a sheet of things to eat...i aint bothered my arse. I just told her to stop drinking cans of lager every night and thats it. Cant be arsed anymore with people in general!

May be me and Simon will give you early membership of the ESN grumpy old man club

Me neither. It does get a bit tiresome after a while. I think mainly because noone actually heeds your advice. Waste of time.

Resurrected wrote:

Rab wrote:Do any of you bother giving anything more than a "standard" short answer to people who ask you about what they should be eating etc?

I cant be arsed anymore.

My aunt wanted me to give her a sheet of things to eat...i aint bothered my arse. I just told her to stop drinking cans of lager every night and thats it. Cant be arsed anymore with people in general!

May be me and Simon will give you early membership of the ESN grumpy old man club

Once i get married send me an invite

Ollie - I just say to folk eat less crap nad exercise every day.

Another thing. If we all had a quid for everytime someone said they are "gonna" do sit ups every day to "sort out this belly"

Fuck off and geez peace!

Them: "Why am I fat?"

Me, "Because you eat too much and don't exercise enough."

Them, "That's no fair!"

Me: "No it isn't, you should pay more on flights you fat c-unit!"

simon m wrote:Them: "Why am I fat?"

Me, "Because you eat too much and don't exercise enough."

Them, "That's no fair!"

Me: "No it isn't, you should pay more on flights you fat c-unit!"

Fat cunits and planes - thats a whole topic of its own

I've been watching a few of the diet programs that have been on since the new year and what shocks me still is the general ignorance people seem to have towards junk and convenience foods as the manufacturers become more clever ans sneaky with their labeling touting things like good source of calcium in confectionery and the low fat goods that are just high in sugar and/or artificial sweeteners instead. Instead of really reading the food content on the label they see these highlighted pieces of nutritional information and take the assumption that it's not too bad for them.

The reality should be that trading standards doesn't allow such boasts as although they are fact they are at the same time somewhat misleading as to how bad for us the product is.

I think that going down the calories in calories out route is best for that reason Alex - for people who aint in the scene kinda thing

Its confusing for them as they think its ok to eat something cos it says ont eh packet its good for you in a roundabout way like you say.

Just saying to people...eat 500 calories less per day and burn 500 calories more and you will lose weight just fine, is as simple and easy to follow as anything.

Another one is that calories and sugar in fruit dont count or dont matter cos fruit is good for you....burst my chops that does trying to tell them that fruit is good for you but a calorie is a calorie!

I'm agreed with you guys here. I cringe terribly at how I used to eat, but at the same time I did try and get the right advice and help. I sought advice from an NHS nutritionist, looked online, in books etc etc. The part that scares me is how poor the advice generally is, even for those people who are willing to get off their arse and look for it. It wasn't until I met our GB and Scott, and subsequently the rest of you here, that I actually started to get somewhere.

Certainly Rab's comment about the fruit is very true. Why isn't the message eat 5 a day but make it 1/2 fruit and 3/4 veg because fruit is basically sugar? No wonder people put on so much weight thinking that drinking smoothies and getting 10 a day in one go is good for them!

But yes, a simple calories in calories out plus exercise is probably all most people want to hear, if that at all. They tend to glaze over when you start trying to explain things to them. I'm way behind you guys but I've learned so much this last couple of years. It pisses me no end listening to stupid women (its usually women) twitter on about how they can't lose weight blah blah blah then when you say cut out the wine and chocolate and do some exercise they look at you like you have three heads!

I've given up too.

I just think the "official" advice should be so much better, that way people can see the food manufacturer's claims for what they really are.

Has anyone seen the latest advert from Galaxy? Galaxy Probiotic Drink. Good for you and chocolate. FFS!!!!

The fruit thing really gets me as fructose is the bastard of all sugars.

I seen that Galaxy Pro-biotic. Thing is that Galaxy aint no fools. they dont spend cash on products and advertising if there isnt fools out there that will buy it. Plenty fools out there!

Thing with fruit is that by all means eat it woman..just dotn think that somehow it has no calories or doesnt count cos it good for you!

Pingu wrote:
Has anyone seen the latest advert from Galaxy? Galaxy Probiotic Drink. Good for you and chocolate. FFS!!!!

Fuck me. Stuff like this is why I don't watch telly any more, never mind the actual programs.


As I good rule of thumb, I think that if a product makes 'healthy' claims on its packaging then it almost certainly isn't (the fact it comes in packaging with space to print said claims is quite a good indicator in itself).

I agree to an extent, but with most fat people fruit isn't going to be the problem. People aren't going to get fat on real fruit, it's the dried, processed, juiced, smoothied fruit that's the problem and all the other junk in their diet which they believe is healthy (7 go-ahead bars etc)...

This fella in my work claims i made him a 'smoothie-holic' cause i once told him i blend mixed berries, yoghurt and a banana for a nice smoothie. Now he's drinking litres of supermarket smoothies a day and getting fatter by the week. It's quite funny.

As for the galaxy pro-biotic, haha! It's like nutella, it's healthy cause it had 2 hazelnuts per serving

FatboyGinger wrote:He basically argues that although the law of conservation is correct, we interpret it wrongly. Hence, he argues not that we eat too much and don't exercise enough and therefore get fat, but actually we eat more, move less and have less energy to expend because we are metabolically or hormonally driven to get fat (i.e the arrow is actually the other way round; we our beliefs about causality are wrong).
He argues that all government recommendations are based on association trials, such as the Framingham Heart Study, hence have completely misinterpreted the data.
He also looks at why the obesity epidemic has started- not down to eating more, exercising less, or eating more fat, but actually eating more fast carbs and sugar.

It is also interesting to know his fiercist critics have been funded by General Foods, Coca Cola, and the sugar industry, hence a rather large conflict of interest.

I understand the claim that carbs are a 'moreish' food, and that we eat them, eat too many, get fat and are driven to do less through hormonal changes bought on by the obesity (increased leptin levels but reduced leptin sensitivity, effects on insulin etc and also the increased effort when an obese body does have to move is very offputting to doing exercise).

What the claim doesn't recognise is that it's perfectly easy to become obese on any macro split if you eat too much (any hormonal predisposition that excessive carbs may give you to get fat is equally given by excessive nutrients in non carb diets) - my ex housemate Andy is a good example. Great friend of mine but crap at listening to advice. For the four years i shared with him hardly ever ate a carb - bacon, eggs and sausages for breakfast, grilled chicken for lunch with ketchup & a single slice of bread, mixed grill for dinner would be a typical days feed.

During the time I knew him he went from 12 stone to seventeen stone, and developed high blood pressure and early diabetes symptoms despite a low carb (but high calorie) diet. It took six-twelve months of retraining to eat veg & fiber and control calories to get things back under control. He now eats probably around 40/35/25 C/P/F nicely calorie controlled and is in much better shape.

His example is one of the reasons I get so annoyed when told (almost always by anti carb people) that the single causitive factor of obesity and ill health in the modern diet is the carbohydrate. It isn't. Excessive crappy carbs definitely contibute and are over eaten by mos westeners and are certainly incorrectly pushed as healthy, but its still not down to them alone. My friend Andy was eating the way he did after being convinced of that same untruth about carbs by some retarded 'expert' making very similar claims to the headlines of that book and certain other people we know on various forums.

There can be many positive effects for many people in readjusting macros and altering food choices within those macros, but at the end of the day calories in vs calories out is always a vital consideration, and the most important one. Am convinced that if i were able to eat 50,000 kcals of anything per day it would kill me quick, even if of the most healthy foods you choose to think of.