How do you guys like your veggies?

[wasab]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

 Im staying away from the frozen foods. I dont really eat Fast Food any more. Im making better choices when we go out to eat. I also stopped with the snaking. No more chips and such. I got some Honey Roasted Peanuts if I want a snack. I started eating Greek Yogurt for breakfast (I like to add some type of berries as well) instead of one of those Jimmy Deans Breakfast sandwiches.

 

The biggest thing for me is I dont eat after dinner. I used to eat a nice sized snack many days. The other biggest thing is Im limiting how much sugar Im consuming. I gave up on Candy. I do get sugar from my Liquid Death teas (about 4 mg) but I choose those over the sugar free pure life because the Liquid Death's have less caffeine (30 mg vs 75 mg). But I dont drink the teas at work for lunch, helps me get through the day. I also started eating less bread. Using wraps as an alternative.

 

Basically im replacing all the bull shit I was eating with fruits and veggies. When it gets warming hopefully some walking. If I drop another 28lbs I should be able to use my mom's treadmill, because its only rated for 220lbs. Current plan its to walk Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturday and Sunday. Im also going to try to get out of the house more this year instead of being a shut in.

thats fair but dont starve yourself. the ideal weight loss is 2-4% of your total weight per week. anything more than that starts to eat into your muscles so avoid that.

 

you may want to get away from your enabling family if they just keep on shoving junk foods in your face btw. my parents did that four years ago when i began my 2nd attempt. i just graduated college so i decided to move in with my parents for a year until I save up some money and build up a solid career. i was grateful for that but they were serious obstacles to me losing weight. they would keep bringing home cakes, sweets, chips ect and ask me time to time if i was hungry.  heck, they would cook up meals like breakfast and get pissed if i refuse to eat these, saying things like breakfast was the most important meal of the day beacause they fuel my day's activity and dinner should be skipped cuz i burn no calories when I go to bed.

 

this would make sense if not for the fact that i was working from home as a junior software engineer so my day's activity was me just sitting on my ass all day staring at a screen. I went to the gym in the evening and that's when i became hungry after a workout and needed a large meal. they flipped that upside down by giving me the biggest meal as breakfast and the tinniest portion when i was the hungriest after an hour of running and weight lifting at the gym. it was a bit infuriating.

 

I learned one should take control of his own meal preps and food purchases. Don't let others do it for you because if you are obese and rely on someone to cook for you, they are most likely enablers. You need to get away from enablers.  they would seriously sabotage your weight loss. if you live alone, this would be a non-issue. you can just throw all the snacks, junk food, and fast food you have at your place into the trash. if you live with someone who handles the cooking, the meal prep, and on top of being an enabler, this becomes very much impossible. you need to have them stop enabling or get away from them. 

Edited February 16 by wasab
i think 2% per week should be the most ideal. more than that becomes iffy. it can be more agressive if you are morbidly obese but people who are just overweight instead of obese should stick to the 2%

[Donut417]

Just now, wasab said:

you may want to get away from your enabling family if they just keep on shoving junk foods in your face btw.

My mom is also trying to loose weight. She stopped smoking 15 years ago and gained a bunch of weight and has been trying to loose it ever since.  My dad doesn't give a shit, hes actually has Diabetes and takes a pill before he eats to help stabilize the sugar, he seems to be cool with that.

 

For the more part my mom does make veggies with all dinners. I just got better at making sure I eat them. Most of the weight I have accumulated over the last 25 years of my life is on me. Food is my vice. I used to eat when ever I was stressed, and back in the day when I worked fast food I was always stressed. Used to leave work, head to a store and buy bags and bags of candy and consume them over the next day or two. Used to eat fast food all the time.

 

For lunches its all on me. I do buy my own food, I take my mom grocery shopping each week and she buys her and dads stuff. I help with dinners in terms of covering some of that cost. I buy all my lunch items. All my beverages and such. Dinner is on her, as I really never learned the skill of cooking, maybe I take that up this year.

 

7 minutes ago, wasab said:

thats fair but dont starve yourself.

I eat 3 square meals a day at least during the week. Dont always eat breakfast on the weekend. I know I was over eating because your not suppose to eat dinner 1 and then dinner 2. I was buying two big bag of chips each week to eat on the weekend, as well as Jerky and beef sticks. Not to mention some candy.  Id say I was eating well over the 3000 calories a day. Plus I didnt eat much if any fruits or veggies. Ate lots of prepackaged shit. Now Im trying to eat more fresher things.

[wasab]

16 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

snip

 

cool, then your environment is of no obstacle. best of luck man, hope you succeed. 

[emothxughts]

Stir fried with belacan (spiced shrimp paste).

[Stahlmann]

On 2/14/2024 at 1:04 PM, Donut417 said:

Let me be clear. I didnt ask about how to loose weight. I asked about how to make veggies more tolerable. I have probably lost 20 lbs since January. As far as other stuff is concerns I will differ to the advice of my primary healthcare provider.

Yeah sorry i went so far in another direction with my post.

 

Anyways i found the best way to eat vegetables, especially the ones you don't noremally like, is to mix them in with other food while cooking, so for example leek or avocado isn't something I'd eat on their own, but adding leek to a sauce or putting the avocado slices on a burger are great ways to up your veggie consumption while also refining your meals.

[Agall]

16 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I don't remember who said it, but I heard someone say "Diet determines how much you weigh, exercise determines if that weight is muscles or fat", which I think is true in the general sense. 

 

Don't exercise because you think it will make you lose weight. You should exercise because it makes you feel better, live longer, improve your learning capabilities, sleep better, less stressed, improve your mood, and make you look more attractive.

Its also nice being useful in picking up/moving heavy things with ease. An even simpler way to describe the second half is that exercise determine body composition, something that's increasingly being shown to have substantial health consequences, if not equal to bodyweight. 'Skinny fat' being a prime example of someone who might be not considered overweight, but with an incredibly unhealthy body composition and likely only not considered overweight by traditional standards because of muscular atrophy.

 

17 hours ago, wasab said:

trust me, if you eat like the holocaust concentration camp inmates, soon enough you won't have any fat in your body at all. it is not healthy of course but it shows how much the food you eat has a drastic effect and the most effectiveness on your weight and fat percentage, in both ends of the extremes. 

And you'll also loose a substantial amount of muscle mass while being in a deficit without exercising. Muscle is more costly for the body to maintain, so if you're not using it, the body will get rid of it before fat deposits. 

 

Which aspect is singularly more important really doesn't matter when they're both necessary for proper health. A lot of the accurate information related to nutrition and exercise is relatively new, which also has to fight decades of misinformation sponsored by the state and billion dollar companies.

 

I simply point out the practical experience I have in how its easier to convince someone to start exercising regularly than to fundamentally change their dietary habits, which may directly linked to a mental disorder. Whether or not someone can start exercising is usually obvious, they either have the physical capacity to start or not. Whether or not someone can fundamentally change their relationship with food is a minefield of uncertainty that the individual might not even know yet. Usually when someone starts exercising regularly, it'll dramatically improve their life enough to where they might be able to tackle any mental health issues that affect their relationship with food.

 

There's also plenty of people who don't have the luxury of controlling every aspect of their diet which can be environmental or economical. Most people in the west have enough wiggle room to start making better choices but in comparison, someone can achieve an impressive body composition without any equipment or cost by simply using their bodyweight and household items.

[Needfuldoer]

On 2/15/2024 at 6:15 PM, Donut417 said:

Im staying away from the frozen foods.

Don't worry about frozen fruits and vegetables, as long as they're just frozen fruits and vegetables with no added sauces. Most of the time, they're just blanched and flash-frozen.

 

On 2/16/2024 at 3:48 AM, Stahlmann said:

Anyways i found the best way to eat vegetables, especially the ones you don't noremally like, is to mix them in with other food while cooking, so for example leek or avocado isn't something I'd eat on their own, but adding leek to a sauce or putting the avocado slices on a burger are great ways to up your veggie consumption while also refining your meals.

This helps a lot. For example I absolutely hate raw celery (tastes like black pepper), cooked squash/zucchini  (tastes like mushy, watery nothing), and spinach (yech) on their own. But if they're an ingredient in something? That's completely different. 

[dalekphalm]

Seasonings are your friend.

 

I'd start by suggesting you go to the grocery store and stock on up all the essential seasonings (spices and herbs), including but not limited to:

- Salt (Obviously, but you might want to get some Kosher or Rock salt)

- Black Pepper

- Garlic Powder (NOT Garlic Salt - similar but different)

- Onion Powder

- Basil

- Parsley

- Paprika

- Oregano

- Thyme

- Rosemary

etc

 

You'll eventually need to learn what spices and herbs you like and what combinations are good.

 

For veggies, what I recommend is to roast them in the oven, seasoned heavily. I generally go for Broccoli and Onions, roughly chopped.

 

Throw them into a large mixing bowl, and oil the crap out of them with a neutral oil (I recommend Canola, because I'm Canadian... sue me) - you can use something like Olive Oil instead if you prefer the taste. Once the veggies are coated in oil, toss in a bunch of seasoning (For a full bowl of veggies, maybe use 1 Tablespoon worth of each seasoning (Except for Salt, Garlic, Onion and Pepper - these are much stronger than most of the others).

 

For Veggies I'd do something like:

1/4 Tsp of Kosher Salt

1/4 Tsp of Pepper

1/4 Tsp of Garlic

1 Tbps of the following:

Basil

Parsley

Oregano

Thyme

 

Preheat the oven to 350F, then roast for 30+ minutes (you can go longer to make the veggies more crispy if you like that).