Originally Posted by Lynn R

Yes, I have porridge with skimmed milk and cinnamon (it's supposed to be a 'superfood' for lowering blood sugar) for breakfast most days in winter, with a croissant or bacon butty for a treat on Sundays! Oats are a low GI food which means you feel full for longer.

Originally Posted by Lynn R

You may not like 'working out' but if you continue to consume more calories than you need to maintain your ideal weight, without exercising, then you are going to continue to pile on the pounds - simples! And no 'diet' is going to make any difference in the long term if you go back to the same way of eating after a few weeks or months.

I love food as much as anybody and am blessed with a fairly fast metabolism (all my family are tall and thin and I can't recall any of them ever watching what they eat), but I had to accept years ago that I couldn't continue to stuff my face and not put weight on. I switched to a low fat diet (with occasional treats as life wouldn't be worth living without the odd cream cake, woudl it?).

There are a few changes you can make which, after a short while, you won't even notice, eg swapping full fat milk for skimmed (or semi skimmed with cereal, skimmed is just too watery for that), if you take sugar in coffee or tea either learn to drink it without or switch to sweeteners, change to diet mixers as has already been said, do not put butter or margarine on the bread for sandwiches or toast (you can have a small amount of low fat mayonnaise on sandwiches or just put tomatoes on them for moisture, and have marmalade or jam on toast), regard things like burgers, sausages, anything with pastry and cakes as something for an occasional treat rather than a regular part of your diet, and give up snacking. If you don't keep crisps, biscuits, peanuts etc. in the house you can't eat them!
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I think not driving helps me with exercise as it seems many people are conditioned to get into their cars to travel even ridiculously short distances and have lost the habit of walking anywhere. We live uphill from the town centre and in fact you can't get into our area by car, and people always say "But how do you manage with your shopping?". Well, we walk down and back and carry it, that's how!

I always hated exercise as a child and a teenager and would do anything to get out of playing sports at school (except for swimming). But in my late 20s I got into exercise (aerobics mainly) and now, in my mid '50s I swim 1km twice a week and do 4 fitness classes a week, as well as a lot of walking. I am fitter than I was in my early '20s and certainly fitter than many women half my age who come to my gym. Try to find some kind of exercise you do enjoy, could be swimming, dancing, hiking cycliing, anything - but get moving!
It helps to keep all kinds illnesses like heart disease, strokes, diabetes and even depression at bay, as well as helping to control your weight.

Sorry for the sermon, but having seen my Dad die from the complicationi of Type 2 diabetes (and he wasn't overweight but didn't have a very good diet) it's something I feel passionate about.

Originally Posted by steviedeluxe

Porridge's good though.

Originally Posted by bil

Porridge is good, but just have a look at the calories. A satisfying bowl, with some dates or dried fruits is calorifically a very heavy load.

If you look at a simple cheese sandwich, the calories in that are terrifying.

500 calories would give you a quite a small sandwich with cheese and a little chorizo......

Originally Posted by jimenato

Cheese is processed, and chorizo. Difficult isn't it?

Originally Posted by cricketman

If you need/want to lose weight and are not prepared to do exercise then your life will be hell and you will lose all enjoyment of food.

Exercise is the way to lose weight. All the diet and low fat products are fads that try and fool the body and leave it still hungry.

Eat well, eat what you enjoy, eat a range of different food types, but always do some exercise afterwards, even if this is just a half an hour walk.

Originally Posted by bil

Porridge is good, but just have a look at the calories. A satisfying bowl, with some dates or dried fruits is calorifically a very heavy load.

If you look at a simple cheese sandwich, the calories in that are terrifying.

500 calories would give you a quite a small sandwich with cheese and a little chorizo......

Originally Posted by bil

Yeah, so what do you call the process by which foodstuffs go beyond the basic processing that cheeses and meats go thru?

Originally Posted by HBG

I won’t mention the diet my wife and I are pursuing at the moment, but it appears to be a sensible one. I daresay I could have produced a similar one with a bit of thought, but sensibility goes out of the window if you like your food, to excess.

We all know what’s right and wrong, but I was hungry at elevenses this morning and should have had a lettuce leaf and a slice of carrot, but something drove me to get out the frying pan and fry up four sensible slices of Spanish black pudding, which I had on toast, but without butter. I did put on some tomato ketchup for extra flavour.

I guess I’m doomed. I might get to a fat and happy eighty as opposed to a thin and miserable ninety. So be it.

Originally Posted by jimenato

Wish I knew. 'Processed' (i.e. BAD) is as misleading as 'Natural' (which means GOOD).

Originally Posted by HBG

I won’t mention the diet my wife and I are pursuing at the moment, but it appears to be a sensible one. I daresay I could have produced a similar one with a bit of thought, but sensibility goes out of the window if you like your food, to excess.

We all know what’s right and wrong, but I was hungry at elevenses this morning and should have had a lettuce leaf and a slice of carrot, but something drove me to get out the frying pan and fry up four sensible slices of Spanish black pudding, which I had on toast, but without butter. I did put on some tomato ketchup for extra flavour.

I guess I’m doomed. I might get to a fat and happy eighty as opposed to a thin and miserable ninety. So be it.

Originally Posted by bil

Nope. I don't think you grasp the size of the problem. A half an hour's vigorous exercise can burn off a whole digestive biscuit. I think that a comparatively small slice of xmas pudding will fuel you for a 25 mile walk.

A low fat diet is, as you say madness. A zero fat meal of 1000 calories will go thru you in an instant, leaving you hungry soon after. A 1000 calorie meal that contains fat will sit in your stomach far longer and keep you from being hungry.

Exercise is good for you, but as a means of losing weight, it isn't that good unless you are prepared to put long hours in each day.

Look at the cheese sandwiches. 1 small one is 500 calories. That means you can have 1 for breakfast, one for lunch and two for an evening meal. No desserts, nothing else, and only water to drink, or diet soft drinks. You won't put on weight with that, but you won't lose either.

Does that put it into perspective?

Originally Posted by cricketman

Oh, I do, and I have a degree in biochemistry where I learnt some very useful things

Whether you gain or lose weight is about the balance of calories each day. Now, unless someone is morbidly obese the balance in calories is only actually slightly out for most people i.e. someone who is overweight is probably only eating 50-200 calories extra per day too much.

For example, I remember that we worked out at uni that if someone ate one of those tiny 25g packet of crisps extra each day, then in a year they would put on half a stone.

A half hour walk burns between 100-200 calories, so that makes all the difference. Plus when you exercise you are not eating and most people do not feel like eating for half an hour or so afterwards.