This whole foods things is catching on
 

I put this here instead of a "whole foods" section, if there is one, because I'm not really following a whole foods special diet and thought it was something we could all talk about.

I'm a calorie counter and I started out doing six meals a day, three of which were Slim Fast, Lean Cuisine, protein bar and the sixth meal is pretty much always :corn:. Yum. And I'm not knocking that plan. It was easy, my calories were already counted out, and I could focus more on getting through the day when I didn't have to worry about the calories.

Now I'm weaning myself off the easy processed stuff. I think Slim Fast was making me constipated. Something was and at first I thought it was the lowered calories, but the Slim Fast combined with protein bars and lean cuisines simply couldn't be good for me.

So this morning, I went shopping. And I had fun. I bought fruits and vegetables. For breakfast I bought steel cut oats, which I love even without sugar. I added berries. I bought flax seed, but forgot to use it. LOL!

I've noticed a lot of our 100 clubbers have lost weight by eating "whole foods". I don't really know what this means, but I think I've hit on a nugget of it. Does this sound about right?

Slimfast made me constipated too, if I didn't make an effort to drink water. I think my body kept thinking "but you just drank a glass of something" and didn't make me crave water, when really, I needed to look at the Slimfast as "food", not liquid.

I'm actually *trying* to give up processed foods for this week. (I would call that whole foods.) I blew it this morning, but it was just one snack and I can stay on track for the rest of the day.

I was looking at my diet and I eat WAY too much of the processed stuff. I eat frozen dinners, frozen pizzas, etc. A LOT! (And in the past, when I was losing weight I always ate a ton of TV Dinners.)

I've picked a handful of recipes that I want to try the next few days, all made from scratch with fresh meats and veggies. So I'm hoping that helps.

I'm really curious about how eating whole foods helps with weight loss. Yes, I eat processed food occasionally, but I cook quite a bit from scratch. So for me it has to be a balance of counting the calories in all the from-scratch foods I make. That has been the scary thing for me. At least the processed crap all has nutritional information conveniently located on the package! LOL! My cherry-chip cake, sinful really, has no nutritional information on it. But I just found a website that lets me plug in my recipe and it analyzes it for me! I even plugged in my homemade bread recipe. So I think whole foods just may be within my reach.

You can't go wrong with whole foods. Try to buy natural or better yet, USDA Organic when you are able. Your body and weight will thank you! I agree shopping IS fun! Considering recipes and new creations is FUN!

This morning I was watching Barefoot Contessa. I caught myself "revamping" every recipe she made to make it healthier, lower calorie, more nutritious. I love that it's becoming a natural habit to make better choices for me and my family.

Eliana, whole foods SATIATE me. If I eat 500 calories of cake--well, I can eat a full meal AND another piece of cake behind it--no problem. If I eat 500 calories of sockeye salmon and smashed cauliflower--I guarantee you I won't be eating for a while afterwards.

I think the main reason whole foods help so much is that they aren't filled with crap. Our bodies aren't meant to take in chemicals, and so much that's in processed food is just that. The chemicals do nothing to fill us up; they simply keep the food "fresh" longer.

Another thing I read recently was to double your chewing. When you chew twice as long, on a "whole food" you break the food down more and thus absorb more of the nutrients to help keep you full longer.

ha, good timing because I just finished chopping up 2 lbs of carrots to have in my salads all week. :carrot:

For me, the major thing about eating clean/whole as much as I can means I have so much more control over what I eat, how much I eat, all the ingredients, and the amount of chemicals I'm ingesting. I'm far, far from perfect, and I'm fine with where I am, but I've tried the Lean Cuisine and Slimfast routes in the past, and I've never felt this good and most importantly, I never felt like I changed my life the way I have now. Pretty much by definition, Slimfast is a temporary fix, and I now know that controlling my weight is a permanent situation. Sure, you can drop weight on Slimfast, but what happens when you stop being ON Slimfast? For me, and I think for the vast majority of people, that weight comes back because you have just taken a temporary break from the behavior that made you gain weight, without actually changing that behavior. I think if they can jumpstart someone into a healthy, REAL food-based weight loss program, then great! But I think it takes more to achieve sustainable weight loss.

Lean Cuisines are a little bit different IMO. I think they can be a good way of learning portion sizes and to recalibrate your eyes and your stomach to appropriate amounts of food. And they are certainly a better alternative to many other quick and no effort foods you could eat. So to me, they can have a place - I have a couple in my freezer, just in case. But they are very high in salt and other chemicals, and I don't think a ideal choice from either a health or weight loss perspective, at least not in to have regularly. One thing to keep in mind is that the nutritional info is not always completely accurate - I just saw a news story yesterday saying that the amounts were about 10% off (saying that a LC had 300 calories when it really had 330). And same thing with the nutritional info that restaurants and fast food places provide - the FDA considers it accurate if it's within 20% of the actual amount.

As for tracking calories in homemade food - I weigh and measure all the ingredients before I cook and then figure out how many portions I've made and use that to calculate my calories when I eat a serving. It takes a bit of extra time and effort but as a couple of people pointed out on another thread yesterday, I used to spend a lot of time thinking about how much I wanted to be thin. Now I'm putting that same amount of time into actually getting there! :)

I agree that the main reason to eat whole foods is that they are so much more satisfying!! I ate 4oz of broiled salmon and a baked yam three and a half hours ago, and I'm not hungry at all. If I had had a slim fast I'd probably want to bite your arm off.

As I've gone along in my journey, I've noticed several things.

1. The longer I eat this way, the more concerned I become about what I'm putting in my body and my family's bodies. I've started buying organic and baking my own bread. I think I'm turning into what I used to call "a health food nut..." The more I think about it and read about it, the more I feel like I was poisoning my body before.

2. When I don't eat any crap or processed food, even the low calorie kind, I appreciate simple food so much more.
Now, I sit down to every meal hungry and I truly savor my vegetables. That was not the case before. I have always cooked vegetables for family meals, but broccoli did not taste as good when I had eaten some salty chips an hour before dinner.

I just went grocery shopping!

I'm on about a 90% whole foods diet.

I love to cook, so it's more pleasurable for me to sit down to a home cooked meal instead of something frozen I guess.

Yup. I think it's important to realize there is no one, true definition of "wholefoods." First, you get to decide, and second, you don't have to do it all at once. You change more and more as it becomes part of you and as you learn.

Also, it is not only more filling. It really helps to make really junky processed foods taste gross in comparison!

Ok, what is whole foods then? I thought it was unprocessed, boxed stuff. I can make a cake without a box. So are whole foods items that already are? (awkward sentence) Something you can eat all by itself as in one item? I was thinking of "from scratch" being whole food as in containing items my grandmother would understand. ;)

I just used Slim Fast as meal replacement, pure and simple. I knew how many calories it had. I'm not big on breakfast. For me, it was sustainable and something I could do for life as a 200 calorie breakfast. I wasn't "doing Slim Fast". ;)

I agree. I can thank Lean Cuisines for adjusting my eye balls. It made me realize just how small 200 calories is! I saw the same story both here and on the nightly news.

I just found a recipe analysis site today! I love it! I plugged in several family recipes and I realize I can cook again!! I'm getting really tired of cooking a slab of meet and nuking or roasting frozen veggies. BORING! I just need to learn that Mom's chicken casserole serves 15...not 6. LOL!

I would suggest you read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. He talks quite a bit about nutritionism as a reductionist science, and the attempts of modern scientists to isolate nutrients in foods and thus increase (influence) health. And also, how this has failed, and why it has possibly failed. Quite simply, the value of a whole food may be much greater than the sum of its nutrients. There is something in whole foods that we cannot isolate--be it the way that nutrients coexist and influence each other, how our bodies processe them, or simply something that we have not yet discovered. IMHO it's not really important to figure out WHY a whole foods diet is better for our body, but more important to simply accept that it is. This is one of those things that I don't have trouble taking on faith. Our bodies evolved eating these foods, and processed foods are foreign to it (having only existed, really, for the last 50 years). Seems like a good enough argument to me. :D

Yes, I like to know what's in my food, I really do. I'm very much a from-scratch person I'd say 80% of the time, maybe a bit less. Real mashed potatoes, cakes and brownies from scratch, and boy am I sounding unhealthy! LOL! We eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and casseroles have become a rare treat instead of a nightly course. I think my problem has always been more about portion control and choosing foods wisely and sparingly. I guess I'm trying to say, I look at all the boxed options in the supermarket and I've never bought into any of that, with the exception of mac and cheese. :D And now, here lately, my family has eaten super healthy as mom's been a health kick.

Definitions vary. Basically, you're doing good if you're eating foods your grandmother or great-grandmother would recognize.

Example: wheel of cheese vs. Cheez Whiz. Wheel of cheese would be considered a "whole food" because it's recognizable, contains ingredients that we could conceivably use ourselves and thus make the food ourselves, and doesn't contain chemical additives (depends on the cheese you buy, but you get the point).

Another example: homemade ice cream vs. low-fat no-sugar-added ice cream from the grocery store. Homemade ice cream is the product of milk and sugar and whatever flavor/additions you put in, fruit or whatever. Low-fat no-sugar-added ice cream from the store is a chemistry set, really. Barely food at all. Therefore, homemade ice cream is considered more of a "whole" food. That is not to say that a diet of homemade ice cream is a good choice! ;) But if you're going to have ice cream, a better choice in terms of your body knowing what to do with it is an ice cream made as simply and "purely" as possible.

Plants are good to eat! :D Salads, veggies, fruits, whole oats...things that grew that way, or very close to that way (I'm really seriously not suggesting you eat, say, banana peels ;) It's okay to peel your food! Although potato skins contain most of a potato's nutrients...). Meats that were raised the way the animal would live if it was wild. Dairy products that haven't had a whole slew of chemicals added to them. Good rule of thumb: if it contains an ingredient you cannot pronounce and could not identify if it slapped you upside the head, it's not a food. Why would you want to eat something that's not food? ;)

BTW, your cake sounds yummy--I wish I could eat wheat, I'd raid your house! :lol:

You said all that MUCH better than I did! I tried but just made myself sound really unhealthy. Right, IF you're going to have ice cream, make it home made. It's why I prefer butter over margarine and sugar over sweeteners. But I'm not saying I'm going to make my diet of ice cream, sugar and butter. :D I'm just coming up with bad examples. :dizzy:

I like the idea of whole foods - knowing what I'm eating, recognizing the ingredients. We try to eat whole foods most of the time - although I do like some of the options talked about here. I don't think an occasional lean cuisine is a bad thing as long as it's occasional.

I guess it's like the movie/book "Supersize Me". McDonald's didn't used to be a horrible thing for us when the only time you ate it was once a month when you made the two hour drive to Grandma's house or once each sports season when you played the team closest to the big city. The problems started when we became such a mobile society and McDonald's (and all the others) figured out if they moved to each and everyone of our small towns or neighborhoods we would eat it ALL THE TIME! That became a big problem! If all you eat is McDonalds, you're not going to be too healthy. The same with the chemicals in all the processed foods. An occasional chicken tv dinner never hurt anyone. Living off of processed food takes it toll.

Whole foods to me...

these mean lots of lean proteins, lots of lean dairy, TONS of organic fruits and veggies, WHOLE GRAIN for any cereal/bread type products and REAL fats like butter, olive oil, grapeseed oil etc.

It means I cook EVERYTHING from scratch. I don't eat ANYTHING that's been bleached white (bread,flour,rice etc) and I don't eat the junk. No chips, candy etc. I don't drink pop, juice etc.

That's what whole foods means to me... brown rice instead of rice a roni, pasta and homemade meat sauce instead of Hamburger helper.

this morning I sat down to an incredibly delicious breakfast of homemade bread and natural peanut butter, and I was wondering how it was that I used to eat donuts in a convenience store for breakfast?!?!

Who knew that healthy and delicious was also easy to prepare and impossible not to enjoy.

Soooo tasty :)

I think the description of whole foods has been given better than I can, but I would like to add that I use the hunger meter with it. Whole foods are filling and don't have chemicals that alter our hunger hormones so that when we eat them they fill us up. Add in the plate proportions rules - for me 50% fruits/veggies, 25% complex grains/fiber, 25% lean protein. Finally, the hunger scale. Get in the habit of checking in with yourself constantly. On a scale of 1 - 10 with 1 being so famished you'd eat the stuffing from the couch and 10 being so full you think you're going to explode, keep yourself between a 3 and a 7. That means don't let yourself get to a place where you aren't going to make good decisions and also while you're eating remember it takes 20 minutes for your brain to register that you're full. Slow down and check in frequently so you don't go past satisfied. If you do that on whole foods, keeping the simple carbs and non-lean protein to a rarity, you should be fine. I keep a rough estimate of my calories as well - trying not to go over 1500. I like www.calorieking.com for looking up calories and nutritional content of whole foods. Finally, a book to reccommend would be the Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno.

Good luck and enjoy all the yummy foods out there that make you feel good!

We have all been brainwashed into buying alot of foods that are not good for us. It is a big part of the reason that we are overweight and a have so much diabetes here in the US. Industrial foods need to be replaced by fresh, local, home-made, and organic.

If you want to look at the Whole Foods forum, here is the link:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/whol...lifestyle-209/

I think others have said it in that there is no one right way to eat a Whole Foods diet. I started simply following the guidelines of the South Beach Diet which just meant a lot a lot of more natural type foods.

I was just discussing this yesterday with my husband but if I pick up a product and it has more than a few ingredients in it, I don't want to bother reading it, I just put it back. I eat lots of veggies, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, etc. I do eat some packaged products occasionally but it isn't every day and make sure the ingredients are recognizable and isn't a long list.

And everyone really does have their ideas of whole foods but for me, I don't consider dairy to be a whole food due to many factors such as the fact that most milk comes from hormone induced, stressed cows and then the milk is pasteurized which kills off enzymes and then it really when I thought about it, it seems like an unusual item for humans to eat. Also since it is linked to type 1 diabetes in kids and prostrate cancer in men, it does seem like it isn't entirely harmonious with our bodies.

Then again, even if you are eating whole foodish, it doesn't mean every item you eat has to be considered a whole food, I think it is just that it is your main focus.

Oh, I should have been more clear. I was actually referring to eating my old way--plain old box cake and a non-whole foods meal and comparing it to my whole foods lifestyle now.

I do not consider white flour whole food. I do not use it in my cooking at all now--at all. It is definitely an ingredient my grandmother would recognize though. So, in my book any cake with white flour is not whole foods.

Whole foods is a term that is still being defined for the vast majority--much like anything that goes mainstream.

I am not a complete purist by any means but my thoughts lie with Nelie and CF.

I didn't come across whole foods because I was some kind of, for lack of a better term - health nut, not at the time anyway.

I came about it in a kinda backwards fashion. I wanted to lose weight. I needed to lose weight. I devised a plan. I was very methodical. I stopped and figured out which foods WOULDN'T work for me. I knew there were certain foods that I overate. They brought on a can't shovel it in my mouth fast enough feeling. I had a hard time stopping to eat them once I started. I decided to not START eating those. That eliminated a whole lot of foods - rice, white flour (for me any grains, even whole, pretty much do that, but to a lesser degree), anything with added sugars, chemically altered foods, fat laden foods - especially when combined with sugar. I also knew I couldn't/didn't want to be hungry. I wanted my sugar levels to remain on an even keel. I wanted energy and not that horrible carb stupor that I lived with for so long. I wanted my foods to pack a nutritional punch, since I would be sticking to a calorie allotment. I knew I needed to get the most from my calories, the biggest bang for my buck so to speak I also knew I needed to eat a lot of food - volume.

So what could I possibly eat that won't send me into a feeding frenzy, will allow me to eat loads of it, will satisfy me and keep me full and will stave off cravings for the *wrong* foods? What foods will taste good while I eat then and also BE good for me, long after I'm done chewing. Whole foods - wholesome foods. It fits the bill just perfectly.

For me, a calorie is not just a calorie. Where my calories come from - and DON'T come from is very, very important.

I agree that I feel much fuller and just physically better now that I'm on a diet of primarily whole foods.

Long gone are the days of processed frozen foods (I found that Lean Cuisines, etc. really don't taste good to me), "diet" anything, and fat free cheese. If I can't pronounce it, I don't want it in my body.

We switched over to a vegetarian lifestyle a couple weeks ago, and the joy I'm getting from discovering new recipes and trying vegetables and ingredients I never would have dreamed of tasting is immense. I like that I can taste the earthiness in fresh vegetables and fruits, and the kind of energy I get from nuts and beans.

Although there's constant debate over what exactly constitutes something that is "organic", we still try to buy organic milk and cheeses and free range eggs.

It's taken me a long time to come around to eating this way, and I'm glad I finally have. It takes forever for me to food shop now, but it's well worth the tradeoff.