Excellent nutrition with small portions

[Izbiz]

So, I'm about to hit 40 and I want to sort out my excess weight out once and for all, and I'm scared that as I get older everything is slowing down and this is getting hard. I don't have a lot to lose, only 9 or 10 pounds, and I want to lose fat and not muscle. I don't even mind not losing weight if it means I lose inches and fit into my old clothes size again.

The thing is, I want to eat well, and get my portions of fruit & veg (is it supposed to be 9 now?) and limit myself to wholegrains, and small amounts of meat/cheese/fish, as well as getting my two portions of dairy - for my bones, and my omega 3s for my heart etc, and watch my sugar/refined carbs intake for my insulin and stuff - but because I am naturally small and don't have much to lose I'm really scared that it's going to be so difficult to do - how small will my portions have to be to be normal for my age/height/build? Can I eat healthily, and eat all the things that are good for me, without also eating too much?

Please, if there are other small women out there who are able to do this, please tell me how! Just how tiny are your plates?! How strict do you have to be?!

[NoelFigart]

Can I eat healthily, and eat all the things that are good for me, without also eating too much?

Nope.

I do have a recommendation. Stop taking advice on nutrition from popular magazines. Those things have advertisers. Advertisers are out to sell stuff, whether it's oatmeal or diamonds. Writers really are cautioned to reword things to make their material more strongly in favor of whoever is buying advertising that week.

WE DON'T KNOW what the perfect diet is. The most we do know is that a diet with a wide variety of mostly-unprocessed food seems to be the best path to health.

[Izbiz]

I had a suspicion that was the case.

I do try my absolute best to eat real food (just read Michael Pollan as well) - I bake my own bread, cook from scratch not with scissors, get a weekly organic veg box, buy fresh meat not processed direct from the farm butcher and not very much of it anyway, sustainably-sourced fish and shellfish, eat pulses and wholegrains and all that kinda stuff....just too much of it, it seems...

[wosnes]

Ohmygosh! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read your post. I think only English-speakers who have read too much about a healthy diet would think like this or think to ask a question like this.

I agree with NoelFigart, except that I think that there is no perfect diet. But there are lots of very good ones. No one (except possibly me) found them in a book or a magazine. Many of them don't eat a wide variety of foods.

[NoelFigart]

I agree with NoelFigart, except that I think that there is no perfect diet. But there are lots of very good ones. No one (except possibly me) found them in a book or a magazine. Many of them don't eat a wide variety of foods.

I'd agree that there probably isn't a perfect diet. As far as lack of variety, could you elucidate? I'm guessing you mean many traditional diets, but I'd love to get your perspective.

[Starla]

No one (except possibly me) found them in a book or a magazine.

OK; this made me laugh. I'm frequently amazed by all the helpful and interesting articles you link to, and I usually wonder "How did she find that?" I enjoy your research.

[clarinetgal]

I'm a small woman (5'1), although I do have a larger frame with more muscle, so I suspect I might be able to eat a little more than you (not to say this in a bad way, but just to explain where I'm coming from). Anyway, I normally eat my meals on a 10 inch plate. I try to make sure the plate is full, but not too full. I've read enough on portion sizes now, so that I have a pretty good idea of what to put on my plate. As for foods, I feel my best when I have protein, fat, and whole grains at each meal, fruit with breakfast and lunch, and veggies with lunch and dinner.

[ThomsonsPier]

You know that five-a-day thing the government threw down our throats? It's an approximation based on poor diet and is largely without value; a lowest common denominator approach to making people eat vegetables without actually educating them. I'd say it failed, as a sizeable proportion think that a portion of chips counts as a vegetable.

As a suggestion, before you start depriving yourself, have a look at this site (or find a similar one) to give you an idea of how many calories you might need. Then remember it's only an idea, not a hard and fast ruling. Measure out some portions and eyeball them to ensure you know roughly how much you can eat, then put the scale away.

When I read or hear about the latest superfood or dietary requirement, there's now a filter in my brain which translates it to "Blah-de-blah-de-look-at-the-media-reporting-what-they-feel-like-for-headlnes-wibble". Health and well-being in the UK has never been higher than at the end of World War Two, when no-one had any notion of micronutrient control, pro-post-hypervitamin Q9 or the harmonising effects of Guatemalan hippyberries on the immune system. They just ate less.

One thing I do find it handy to hold in the brain is that the body doesn't need everything every day. If you have to count something on a daily basis (but really, I wouldn't bother), make it calories, because those are pretty much burned as they come in. Other nutrients accumulate and are used at varying rates; your body will let you know if it needs something specific.

In summary:
Eat. Don't worry too much.

[wosnes]

I agree with NoelFigart, except that I think that there is no perfect diet. But there are lots of very good ones. No one (except possibly me) found them in a book or a magazine. Many of them don't eat a wide variety of foods.

I'd agree that there probably isn't a perfect diet. As far as lack of variety, could you elucidate? I'm guessing you mean many traditional diets, but I'd love to get your perspective.

Yes, I mean the various traditional diets. Some have quite a bit of variety, but others have very little. Well, over the course of a year there's more variety, but at any one time there's very little variety.

I'm frequently amazed by all the helpful and interesting articles you link to, and I usually wonder "How did she find that?" I enjoy your research.

I have entirely too much time on my hands! But I've always enjoyed research and learning -- whether I pay attention to it or not.

When I read or hear about the latest superfood or dietary requirement, there's now a filter in my brain which translates it to "Blah-de-blah-de-look-at-the-media-reporting-what-they-feel-like-for-headlnes-wibble". Health and well-being in the UK has never been higher than at the end of World War Two, when no-one had any notion of micronutrient control, pro-post-hypervitamin Q9 or the harmonising effects of Guatemalan hippyberries on the immune system. They just ate less.

I agree! Americans, too. In addition to eating less, they didn't eat so much manufactured food.

[DaveMc]

Izbiz, I'll agree with Noel, here: With all the various sources trying to tell you what you "should" eat, you could easily end up with a mountain of anti-oxidant, pro-biotic, neutral-ion (or whatever) foods that you're "supposed" to manage to eat every day, and it'll drive you crazy.

Your selection of foods sounds very healthy, to me!

[getoka]

Health and well-being in the UK has never been higher than at the end of World War Two, when no-one had any notion of micronutrient control, pro-post-hypervitamin Q9 or the harmonising effects of Guatemalan hippyberries on the immune system. They just ate less.
.

Actually there was a little more to it than simply eating less.

You mention government interference today but never has the government interfered so much with our diet than during the war. The Ministry of Food was run by Lord Woolton and Sir Jack Drummond its scientific advisor. Drummond was a nutritional biochemist and had studied the effects of malnutrition in Liverpool. He saw his role in the MofF as an opportunity to put into practice all he had learnt about nutrition.

The ration was very carefully formulated to provide the best nutrition possible. Posters, leaflets, broadcasts and demonstrations educated the public about how to eat healthily on their rations. Vulnerable groups were given extras. We were encouraged to make sure we got our 'body-building foods' (calcium, iron and protein) , our 'protective foods'(vitamins) and our 'energy-giving foods' (carbohydrates). Advice was given on how to plan balanced meals and on how to cook vegetables in order to retain their vitamins. Raw salads were advocated, oily fish praised and wholemeal bread (the national loaf) was all that was available. Children were given free milk in school (stopped in the 1980s by Thatcher-bless her), School dinners were introduced and they grew taller and stronger than ever before.

And of course everyone had a much more active lifestyle during the war-not just because of a lack of cars, TVs etc but the extra warwork many many people took on.

I'm afraid it wasn't just a question of eating less

I'm strugging with my weight so I can't really advise Izbiz except to suggest you carry on with your healthy diet but cut your portions of the energy dense food?

[ThomsonsPier]

I'm afraid it wasn't just a question of eating less :)

You are, of course, correct; I was grossly oversimplifying to make a point, which is rather hypocritical of me because that's what I just accused the government of doing. My apologies.

The education campaigns run to assist people in making the most out of rations were, I've noted, a great deal more useful than the dribs and drabs of half-baked third-hand media reporting of research we get seem to get today, focusing as they did on a balanced diet (and it's surprising how much exercise sprouts from growing your own dinner). I can only imagine it was easier to plan a week's meals when dietary advice didn't change its mind every fourteen seconds.

At the simplest level, however, the level of health improved thanks to a balanced (albeit by lack of choice) diet and more physical activity. Nutrition was a simpler science then, and health didn't suffer because of it.

On a related note, I just Googled "five a day" because I couldn't remember the source of the initiative, and was informed by Google that
five a day = 5.78703704 × 10-5 hertz, so that's the frequency at which you have to eat vegetables. Take note!

[Izbiz]

Wow! Thanks for all the comments - yup, I know that the media hype things too much, but l'm a bit of a perfectionist and want to get it right...

My grandmother, parents (now all deceased) and my step-mother were/are nutritionists (proper research scientists, my Dad had a paper published in Nature about his work on brown fat etc, not "nutritionists" a la Gillian McKeith) so I have always had nutrition science kicking around in the background as well, and it just gets a bit confusing - information overload! Step-mother's advice since I was a teen and worried about being fat was always "eat less" - which always seemed a little simplistic, and completely contradicted by the mountains of food she now serves us whenever we visit!

The advice that we don't need to eat everything that's good for us everyday is the very best, and I'll try and always remember that to preserve what's left of my sanity...

Meanwhile, I've had a GREEN day so far today - the first in ages - eating good food in sensible ie. small portions.

[getoka]

On a related note, I just Googled "five a day" because I couldn't remember the source of the initiative, and was informed by Google that
five a day = 5.78703704 × 10-5 hertz, so that's the frequency at which you have to eat vegetables. Take note!

I've been doing it wrong then!

Of course we were much more willing to be nannied by the govt during the war because we were all engaged in a common purpose.

Having experimented with living on wartime rations for a short time, I sometimes wish the govt would impose them on us. The limited choice of foods made meal planning simpler, my purse had more money in it, I ate locally produced food and I did actually lose a bit of weight. There was also less packaging in my waste bin.

[wosnes]

Wow! Thanks for all the comments - yup, I know that the media hype things too much, but l'm a bit of a perfectionist and want to get it right...

One of my all-time favorite quotes -- author unknown -- is "Perfectionists waste too much time trying to be perfect. Good enough is good enough."

If you think about this in terms of diet, nutrition and health, it's only been the last few decades that we've had all this information. People did very well, and often better, than we're doing now without the information. Certainly wars and other political problems, economic problems, droughts and other things that have affected the food supply, but people have survived, and often thrived, without this information. Just do as Michael Pollan says and "Eat food."

[Izbiz]

Thank you Wosnes! I do find "good enough" very very difficult...

And re. the wartime diet - I even have the "ration book diet" book, picked up in the Imperial War Museum! But I find it frustrating, since they have "modernised" the recipes...so not as realistic as it could be. My Gran cooked like it was wartime up 'til she died in the 90s; my Dad always complained that she never cooked enough potatoes.

[oolala53]

I'm not sure that I think your idea of wanting to eat vegetables, milk, and whole grains is so weird or faddish. It's just that it's a little early to be worrying about it. No one can predict if your natural hunger is going to match the amount you need to eat in order to lose weight. As I'm sure you've read, you don't come to No S to try to lose weight in the short run. Give yourself a chance adopt the habits doing your best to choose a variety of foods that are delicious and satisfying. If after a few months of vanilla No S you aren't happy with the changes in your body, you can make your mods.

[getoka]

Thank you Wosnes! I do find "good enough" very very difficult...

And re. the wartime diet - I even have the "ration book diet" book, picked up in the Imperial War Museum! But I find it frustrating, since they have "modernised" the recipes...so not as realistic as it could be. My Gran cooked like it was wartime up 'til she died in the 90s; my Dad always complained that she never cooked enough potatoes.

That book is terrible! OK, there is lots of good background info and reproductions of posters but as you say the recipes a definitely not wartime and not realistic at all.

This is from The Ministry of Food proving that NoS principles are nothing new. I think we can even take on board the comment about shipping although with regards to saving food miles rather than munition space.

Grow fit not fat on your wartime diet ! Cut out ‘extras’; cut out waste; don’t eat more than you need.
You’ll save yourself money; you’ll save valuable cargo space which is needed for munitions and you’ll feel fitter than you ever felt before.’

Ministry of Food Bulletin