14
votes
Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
Does anyone else struggle with, or has overcome, being raised to eat all the left overs and finish all the portions?
I'm not hungry. At all. I'm thinking I am at an age when I need to take better care of myself, and maybe even one day returning to size 0. What I've read so far indicates I should stop eating.
But these are left overs. They need eating up. But I'll be going out for dinner tonight. What am I supposed to do, let them get thrown out?
You're a homesteader that raises some animals already, right? Have you ever considered getting a pig? I remember watching a VICE documentary a few years ago about how the leftovers from Las Vegas buffets get sent to a local pig farm. So doing something like that, using your own leftovers to feed your own pig, might help you avoid feeling guilty about not eating it yourself, since at least it won't be going to waste.
That's a really good idea! Pig might be a bit much for us but you reminded me we already have omnivores!
our geese won't hardly eat anything but fresh grass, but the chickens will for sure eat any odds and ends. I looked a little bit on the backyard chickens forums, do's and donts. And apparently they do very well eating omnivorous whatever's, even leftovers with some cooking oil in it. Supposed to be good for their feathers. I won't feed them chicken of course: seems immoral. But I think I can get rid of a lot this way!!
Thank you!
Ah, right. I always forget that chickens are basically mini-dinosaurs of the omnivorous variety, so it makes sense that they should be able to eat most table scraps! :P
I needed the reminder: I have been in the habit of giving them food prep scraps (apple core sans seed; strawberry tops; veggie peels), but growing up we were always told to eat everything....so yeah it's a weird mental hurdle. If you had directly suggested feeding the chickens I might have even hesitated because "table food is for people". But to the pigs is okay because slop and we'll eat the pig later. Further hack : we won't eat more of the chickens but it's still okay because we'll eat the eggs. Ugh why are brains so weird.
I love the thought of taking scraps to our dino ranch! "It's okay, it's for the mini-raptors."
The true long term solution though, is to cook smaller portions. That's a whole other "I'm being stingy and starving the family" mental hurdle to get through.
I also came from a "you're not leaving the table until you finish your dinner" and "leftovers must never be wasted" type family. Throw in the occasional bit of good, old fashioned "there are starving kids in Africa!" Catholic guilt-tripping, as well as regularly being served giant Italian-Canadian sized portions of pasta too, and that was basically how I developed most of my unhealthy eating habits... all of which contributed to me eventually ballooning up to 300lbs when I was in my late teens. It's taken me decades to undo all that damage, and I'm only finally starting to get a handle on it now (25 years later, I'm down to 162lbs as of this morning). So I totally understand where you're coming from. :(
That's a really big change!
Family + elders : I hate how they are making comments about my weight nowadays, but at the same time insist I keep eating even after many polite refusals. I need to remember if I have weird mental hangups, they do as well due to hard times in their youths + addiction to the endorphin hits of providing for youngsters.
But man. Italian Canadian sized portions of home cooked pasta. That'd be my preferred way to die, if I had to choose
Ooof, that would be painful, and super annoying. Sorry you have to deal with that. :(
I thankfully never got antagonized with my weight by anyone in my family, but always being pressured to eat more by someone saying "mangia, mangia!" (eat, eat!) while being offered seconds/thirds, and them not really taking no for an answer unless I was extremely adamant was the norm for me too. :/
LOL, yeah, I definitely can't complain about the type or quality of the food growing up... only the quantity and the social pressure to always eat more of it... Which is definitely a first-world problem so I can't be too bitter about it, I suppose. :P
I'm a finish-all-portions person. Since my partner works from home more than I do, I often miss out on finishing up the leftovers (sad but not sad?).
I've started doing the "eat off smaller dishes" trick when I can, and critically eyeballing my portions. I'm hoping that this will make a difference over time. My activity level has increased, my amount of boredom-eating over time has gone down... I weigh about 10-15 pounds more than I want to, which isn't a lot, but reducing it would be better for me in the long run.
Boredom eating, absolutely. >..< My goal weight is, shall we say, higher than yours. But yeah I want longer term better habits that will, like you said, make a difference over time.
I feel like I start off with reasonably sized portions, and then when dinner is winding down it feels not worthwhile to pack "just a little bit" away instead of just finishing..... Maybe if I begin dinner by putting some away immediately?
How does your partner feel about having left overs at home?
One thing that might be worth considering, if you have a little bit of something left, would be treating it like a "mini side" or seeing if you can use it as an ingredient in another dish. (Thinking like a few spoonfuls of mashed potatoes or whathaveyou.) So you're not eating them on top of your reasonably sized portions, but you can feel like they'll be put to reasonable use later. But yeah I think putting things away early on so you don't have to think about them sounds reasonable. And then it's a bonus if you end up adding more to those containers.
My partner lives on leftovers for lunch so he finds them convenient, but he also somehow has fewer qualms about making sure they all get eaten. (His upbringing makes me think he would probably have more qualms, but that doesn't seem to be the case.) Sometimes we do end up throwing them out because reasons, but if we have to do that, we compost stuff, so it feels less bad overall than just tossing it in the trash.
Yesterday I did a set up where I paired Stardew Valley and an audiobook with my stationary bike - I was on it for 80 minutes (20 minutes more than usual) before it felt like time to get up and move around. I imagine this will probably be my set up for days when I want to do a 40k (Garmin challenge) going forward.
That's how I started my fitness/weight loss journey about 5 years ago too. I bought a relatively inexpensive exercise bike from Amazon, and watched shows, movies, youtube and played computer games while using it. :P
I don't think I could have kept it up had I not been able to keep myself entertained while doing it. It made the process so much more enjoyable! And I still do that, the watching stuff part anyways, but on an elliptical now.
That sounds fun, but how did you overcome the motions on stationary bike to successfully game? Handheld on deck? Do you have a stationary bike model recommendation or purchase notes? I could benefit from it while working desk job.
I have it hooked up with an Xbox controller! It's dying, so it being attached to a cord was a bit inconvenient, but I managed. I think it helped me maintain a better posture, too!
I bought my bike on Amazon two or three years ago. I wanted one that would take up as small a footprint as possible due to the amount of space I was working with, and the other thing I was going for was as cheap but as solid-looking as possible. I ended up with the Xterra FB150. So far it has worked well and I think I've put at least 2000 miles on it. It just makes a clicking sound every once in a while. I've considered taking the handlebars off or setting it up so I can work while on it, but I've found that at least for me, there's too much movement for me to easily mouse around while on it. I do occasionally read while on it, though, and that has been okay, but I could see it not working for everybody.
Interesting, I like the small footprint but I can't work on it :) interestingly Canadian Costco has an Xterra for sale....
I had to take a deload week for the dumbest reason.
I needed some deodorant and I tried Old Spice for the first time, turns out that it gave me a chemical burn on my armpit, I thought that maybe my skin was sensitive but after searching a bit online, lots of people had the same experience with the blue type I was using. Insane that this product can be sold.
Needles to say I had to throw the bottle and take some rest to not make the injury worse.
I did practice handstand pushup since it does not cause friction in the dameged area while doing it.
I have really sensitive skin too, and use old spice (Fiji) deodorant. Absolutely every deodorant I've ever tried (including the Fiji) irritates my armpits though. Not chemical burn levels of irritation, they just make my armpits super itchy. So my solution is to lather up my armpits with a bit of lotion before applying the deodorant, and that seems to solve the issue.
I get this too, but the only deodorant I found I can use is Old Spice Pure Sport. I never had any problems until I tried to switch to a different brand, but everything else gave me chemical burns. I tried like 5-7 brands before giving up and sticking with Old Spice. I was even looking into the ingredient list and trying to find what was causing it, but I have no idea.
I never had issues before with any other product, I believe I was using Nivea for a while now.
Weightlifting while dieting is a giant PITA. It feels like I have to get 80% of my calories from protein just to avoid losing progress on my lifts. [Footnote - afab, over age 50, taking arthritis meds which can cause muscle loss through increased protein metabolism. I'm aiming for 1 g protein/kg/day. 75 kg now, trying to get to 62 kg, in the "healthy" BMI range. Losing ~ 2 kg/month on current intake of 1500 calories/day.]
Eating has become so uninspiring that I'd rather not eat at all, which is dangerous for me (history of anorexia). I've seen numbers like 1.6 - 2 g/kg/day protein intake for weightlifting, and just the thought makes me nauseated. Doctor also tells me full-on keto diets aren't advisable because the meds are already putting a strain on my kidneys.
I've gone back to eating fish, eggs, and some dairy plus protein supplements, but how do people manage high-protein diets without extreme boredom? I can only eat so much hot sauce... Day before lifting is a dietary high point because I can carb load with noodles or rice.
I'm also on a calorie restricted diet while also doing strength training (3/week) and yoga+cardio (2-3/week) so trying to consume 100-120g of protein/day too, and haven't found it particularly monotonous. I enjoy eating protein heavy meals (seafood especially) and snacks (0% yogurt, prot bars/shakes, etc) though, so that certainly helps. But I can actually answer your question with example meals, because I track all my caloric intake using cronometer, and have for over 4 months. :) Proof, here is the last 4ish months in chart form (the gap is a cottage vacation). And here are yesterday's specifics:
Note: "Breakfast" for me is at noon, since I intermittent fast until then. Not for weight loss reasons, I just have a super touchy stomach in the morning. My "Lunch" is actually most people's dinner time (~5pm). And "Dinner" is usually a light late night (8-9pm) snack since eating past 10pm makes me even more queasy in the morning.
A protein shake is my "Breakfast" pretty much every day. It's the only thing that is monotonous in my diet, but that's why I bought myself a CREAMi last week... which has definitely helped make consuming protein powder way more enjoyable! I do occasionally mix it up by eating yogurt or overnight oats with a bunch of fruit too though.
For "Lunch" I made myself egg fried rice with leftover white rice from the night before, and also threw in some of the leftover grilled trout from the night before too. Using the same ingredients but re-configuring them into different forms really helps it feel less monotonous, IMO.
"Dinner" was just a grilled sausage on a bun (leftover from my father who had that for his dinner), and a cut up keilbasa. The keilbasa is actually venison, and was given to me by my Uncle who hunted it himself. cronometer unfortunately doesn't have lean venison keilbasa in its database though. ;)
The protein bar "Snack" I had at around 2pm just to hold me over until my "Lunch" at 5pm.
And here are a bunch more samples of my "Lunch" meal macros just to give you an idea of the variety I eat:
Chicken Kebabs, Mexican Rice, Tzatziki Sauce - 385 kcal (42g Prot, 25.7g Carb, 10.5g Fat)
HelloFresh, Chicken Chow Mein-Style Noodles - 820 kcal (53g Prot, 102g Carb, 20g Fat)
Factor, Spicy Turkey & Black Bean Chili + Oikos 0% Yogurt (which I use in place of sour cream) - 558.6 kcal (41.2g Prot, 49.9g Carb, 18g Fat)
HelloFresh, Pan-Seared Baja-Style Fish Tacos - 650 kcal (43g Prot, 64g Card, 27g Fat)
Grilled Salmon, Zucchini, Mixed Roasted Veg - 678 kcal (82g Prot, 21.6g Carb, 25.8g Fat)
2x Beyond Meat Burgers, Bun, Macoroni Salad - 812.6 kcal (48.9g Prot, 57.2g Carb, 42.6g Fat)
p.s. Oikos 0% high protein yogurt is a lifesaver for hitting the 100-120g protein per day, especially when you're falling short that day. And HelloFresh / Factor is a lifesaver when it comes to introducing variety into your diet too. You just have to be very careful about what meals you actually pick from them since the macros on some of them are god awful.
p.p.s. If you have any other specific questions, or want some actual recipes or recipe ideas for anything, feel free to ask. :)
Thank you so much for the detailed breakdown!
Fat-free yogurt would definitely improve my diet, if there was a lactose-free version... Lactaid tablets just don't work well enough, thanks to the antibiotic side effects of RA meds. I take a probiotic supplement daily just to keep up. Most of my carb choices are as fibrous and unprocessed as I can manage, so farro instead of rice, whole-wheat pasta, potatoes with skin, oatmeal/grains mix, etc.
I've looked at meal prep services, but I'm far enough out in the sticks that there are many complaints about actual freshness by the time the meals arrive. The vegetarian/vegan options are generally not appealing and the macros aren't great. I'll eat fish about once a week, otherwise it's eggs and soy protein products; dairy if I can live with the consequences. I'm about to experiment with adding poultry back into my diet, since there's locally pasture-raised, organic available (I'm struggling with the ethics of eating animals, which isn't helping).
I routinely use the Pure Protein bars as a breakfast main or for snacks, they're just too convenient. For protein supplementation, I'm using the very expensive, unflavored fractionated whey protein isolate powders, again avoiding lactose. I'll mix them up with flavored electrolyte powder, Amazing Grass Greens powder, creatine, and flaxseed meal, so it tastes like... something?
The biggest hurdle for me is cooking more often than weekend batches. I've cut out carry-out and restaurant lunches, so daily meals are often the same thing day after day. We've gotten better about freezing small containers of the weekend binge cooking, so I can mix those up more easily. Still a work in progress.
Ah, damn. That sucks. Lactose intolerance definitely makes it way harder to get your 100+g protein/day. :(
And living out in the sticks where you can't get reliable meal kit service delivery sucks too. You can find the HelloFresh recipes on their site if you want to do the shopping yourself though. See: https://www.hellofresh.ca/recipes/most-popular-recipes
You will just have to do some guesswork with the spice blends they use, since they don't list the ingredients of them... but it's all pretty standard blends, TBH, so you can just google them and get close enough. But yeah, my caveat about the macros was mostly aimed at their vegetarian/vegan options. They're all suuuuuuper low on protein. :(
Ditto. I don't eat red meat anymore because of that (other than the meat sent to me by my uncle, since it being wild game he hunted himself makes me feel better about it). I was actually getting close to being pescatarian at one point, but seafood is just so much more expensive than poultry and pork that I couldn't really afford to keep it up while also hitting my 120g/day of protein. So I had to reintroduce those cheaper meats back into my diet too. :(
LOL, tell me about it. They're actually incredibly tasty too, which makes them even harder to resist as well. :P
I basically just buy the cheapest regular whey protein powder I can find with decent macros. I looked at the premium isolate stuff at one point but it's almost 2x as expensive (~$55/kg vs ~$30/kg for regular whey powder). So I definitely don't envy you having to rely on it. That's some expensive muscle tissue you're building on that body of yours! ;)
Ah, yeah, that makes it harder too. I have the luxury of being able to cook every day so can mix it up more often. I'm lazy so still meal prep a fair amount though, e.g. by making 3-5 overnight oats for the week, making the CREAMi batches, etc. And a lot of times I will just throw something together with leftovers or whatever I can find in the fridge. I know even that is not something everyone has the time/energy/ability to do every day though. :/
It's definitely not easy when you have to reduce your overall calorie intake while also restricting the foods you actually enjoy.
For me personally, greek yogurt is a cheat code with its higher protein to calorie ratio. I slap it on top of vegetables when it makes sense or mix it with protein powder for something sweet. I even enjoy it plain too, but I understand that the kind of tart flavor isn't for everyone.
Something that has been super useful to me is using ChatGPT for my food related questions. This could be looking for plants with higher protein sources, finding more ways to make chicken interesting, asking for recipes that are higher in protein and vegetables but lower in calories, etc. It's been useful to ask very specific questions and in return getting good suggestions or at minimum a narrowed down Google search term that can be used.
I actually love Greek yogurt, but it doesn't love me anymore. You'd think those lactobacilli would chew up all the unfriendly lactose, but not quite well enough.
I'll see what LLMs can come up with for my somewhat constrained ingredient list, thank you!
I remember being pregnant and told to eat way more protein. It's one of my least favorite food groups well behind carbs and veg for sure.
Is there a kind of high protein beverage that's tasty for you? What about bone broth or collagen broth? Like from chicken feet - I can't imagine eating tuna and breasts every day but I can probably drink my weight in chicken feet soup. The collagen is good for folks our age too, keep skin supple. 14g of protein in 70g of feet is pretty decent right? :l we'd only have to drink / eat about 300g to get the days worthy.
It's been difficult to come up with vegetarian options that have a high protein/calorie ratio, and I'm actually considering adding poultry back in. Tofu and seitan aren't bad, they just require more time and effort to prepare in interesting ways than animal proteins.
Hm yeah keep me in the loop if you find the vegan holy grail. I find tofu too filling but not satiating, and don't always enjoy the texture of seitan.
I'm going to try four ingredient gluten keto noodles (egg, oil, gluten, oat) when I get home in a few weeks, because I bought a pasta maker at a thrift store recently. I'll try to report back what I think
There are mycoprotein options depending on where you live. The Quorn trademark (expiring mycoprotein patent, current fermentation patent) is only 10% protein though.