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Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

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Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#131

Post by Tichy »

edw519 wrote: post #40

Your cravings are a signal from your body that something is wrong. You need to address the cause (whatever it is) and not the effect (the cravings). Unfortunately, the cause may be difficult to determine. Fortunately, there is a great hack that probably addresses the cause: fruit. Lots of fruit. Always raw. Preferably on an empty stomach. Not too much variety. Fruit is loaded with just about every nutrient your body…

Fruit isn't good for everybody (some have problems to digest the sugar of fruits). Also it seems to contain a lot of sugar overall.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#132

Post by kareemm »

I used to have terrible cravings for crappy foods. I got rid by making two changes:

1. Exercise hard 5 times a week. I go to a local Crossfit gym which combines high-intensity sprinting with lifting and gymnastics (squats, pullups, etc). I've always been bored by gyms but at Crossfit you track your performance over time so you see how you're improving, and the workouts they give you are always varied. The reason Crossfit helped rid me of cravings is because I knew that if I ate crap I'd feel it during the next workout.

2. Controlled my insulin. I used to eat pancakes for breakfast and be hungry / crash two hours later. The cycle continued throughout the day, often resulting in irritability, headaches, fatigue, loss of focus, etc.

The Glycemic Index ranks foods on a scale of 1-100, where 100 is pure glucose. When you eat high-GI foods, it stimulates an insulin response in the body so that glucose is removed from the blood and stored in the body as fat. When insulin isn't present, it's a cue to your body to get energy by burning fat.

It's the insulin spikes and drops caused by eating high-GI foods that cause you to binge on crappy foods and then crave them again when your insulin level drops.

When you control it by eating good sources of protein, good fats (nuts, seeds, olive and coconut oil, butter, etc), and low-GI foods instead of sugary processed stuff (most, but not all fruits and veggies)your cravings will disappear and you will lose weight since your body will be burning fat instead of glucose.

I know it's hard to believe, but I've seen the effects myself. I have pretty much no cravings (when I do have them, I'll eat some high-quality dark chocolate) and I've leaned out big time.

What I do suggest, though, is experimenting and seeing what works for you. You can read all you want about diet hacks, but while we do have the same systems, our body chemistry often responds differently. Try experiments that resonate with you and go with what works.

Also, here's a science-based PDF about changing your diet to reduce cravings, lose weight, and be healthier.

http://crossfitoptimumperformance.com/index.php?view=article...

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#133

Post by makmanalp »

niels_olson wrote: post #87
makmanalp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is high fat, high protein, low carbohydrate better? Aren't fats a sort of "permanent storage" whereas carbohydrates are more likely to be used instantly and then stored if there is extra?

Consumed fats induce a broad range of hormonal satiety signals, so your total caloric consumption is often less. The French and Mediterranean countries are famous for a few things, two being healthy living and high fat diets (butter in France, olive oil in the Med). Know any fat French people? Butter is not the problem. Carbs are rapidly burned, or rapidly converted to fat. Fat in the blood stream can still be metabo…

Thank you for this explanation, I've always wondered how this whole deal works. This also sort of explains why "eat whatever, but just in reasonable amounts and with reasonable variety" sort of diets seem to be a good approximation.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#134

Post by Mz »

cromulent wrote: post #26
Mz wrote: post #18

Buy organic chips. Figure out WHY you are craving specific things and address that underlying issue. Some examples: For me, drinking lots more sodas at work is usually due to an allergic reaction to something at work that day. I have generally gotten myself healthier and generally consume less caffeine because of it, which is something chocolate and soda have in common. A craving for chips can be due to a craving for…

> A good quality sea salt Is there often a difference between various sources of NaCl? ;)

Yes. "Table salt" generally has things like anti-caking agents. A good quality sea salt has things like an assortment of 80-some-odd micronutrients found naturally in sea water. I have found it makes a big difference for me.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#135

Post by kareemm »

gaoshan wrote: post #70
larsberg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Chinese people (at least the skinny+trim ones) have a single, small bowl of rice and eat tons of veggies and then a few pieces of meat. Not the Amero-Chinese style half-plate of rice with a heaping of fatty meat cut, slathered in some sauce composed of half-salt half-cooking oil, with a few veggies thrown in for "color."

If the problem is fatty meat or oil and salt or other junk people eat with rice then why tell people "Don't eat rice"? It isn't the rice that's bad, it's the stuff people eat with it yet I repeatedly see people say "don't eat rice" and frankly, I think that's a load of bull. Don't blame rice for bad American eating habits.

The problem isn't rice. If you're asking about optimal nutrition, rice is one of the things to cut out, in addition to processed foods, sodium, sugar (the biggest problem), grains, etc.

More here:

http://crossfitoptimumperformance.com/index.php?view=article...

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#136

Post by benatkin »

Sukotto wrote: post #29

Personally, I have to have clear, simple, and hard-edged rules when it comes to my eating diet. If I give myself any wiggle room, I find myself wiggling more and more until I'm back where I started. I've had great success cutting back on junk by following Reinhard Engels' "No S" diet. http://nosdiet.com/ No Snacks No Sweets No Seconds Except, sometimes, on "S" days (Where "S Day" is defined as "Saturday, Sunday, or s…

Thanks for the links! I had seen the NoS diet before, but forgot about it. I hadn't seen Joe's Goals before. I was impressed and I created an account.

While I was looking around, I noticed that Reinhard Engels has his own information tool for keeping track of things like the NoS diet:

http://www.everydaysystems.com/habitcal/

I also find his alcohol "glass ceiling" interesting, and it looks to me like habitcal is better suited for tracking things like that than Joe's Goals, though Joe's Goals has a nicer UI and seems better to me for tracking things like the NoS diet.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#137

Post by cambrianboom »

burke wrote: post #114
illumin8 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you put brown rice in a smoothie, if you blend it enough to break the husk of the rice, it changes from a low GI carb to a high GI carb because your body can absorb the sugar much quicker. Breaking fruits down into juice definitely changes the GI index of the carb. Check out the difference between eating a whole apple and drinking apple juice. Apple juice is almost like pure sugar, where the fiber in the whol…

I don't quite buy this. You're still getting all the fiber in a smoothie, it's just pre-chewed. By the time I swallow a chunk of apple, it's pretty well juiced. The only difference is that actual juice has the solids removed.

It is essential to understand GI not as the contents of an ingredient, but how your blood sugar reacts to you ingesting it. If it is pre-chewed, your body will have an easier time consuming it, and your blood sugar levels will change in a different way then if it is not pre-chewed.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#138

Post by dctoedt »

niels_olson wrote: post #100
paulsb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if it's 100% true or not. I was told to do this by a nutritionist because I was drinking a pint at a time. I would drink this all in one go, but I imagine sipping would be fine. But drinking later ensures that I don't feel uncomfortably full. But surely a large, sudden, water intake will dilute the stomach (not intestine where most of the nutrients are absorbed) juices and pH?

doc here: anything remotely close to normal water intake will not effect the efficacy of the digestive process. A big slug of cold water might be a skosh uncomfortable, but I've never heard of water intake causing diarrhea.

> A skosh uncomfortable

Are you military or ex-military, by any chance? They're the only other people I've ever heard use "skosh" (from the Japanese skoshi, a small space or time). (I'm an Air Force brat and Navy vet.) EDIT: Looks like you might be a Navy doc?

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#139

Post by jules »

evo_9 wrote: post #130
metamemetics wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

low GI meals are the important staple of anyones diet, but nearly ANY type of fruit is a healthy substitute for junk food. I think the fruit proponents here all realize you can't be a fruititarian and are simply saying fruit is the easiest way to quit a junk food addiction. Also a simple hack to lower the glycemic index of anything you eat is to consume it with additional fat or fiber. So a salad\baby greens with oli…

Yeah this is a really important point for sure that I didn't really capture in my original post. Anytime you can choose healthy fresh food - fruit or otherwise - you are doing your body good. It's just important to keep in mind that even fruit can cause you to be more hungry if you aren't careful.

Are you saying that some fruits, like bananas, can make you more hungry when you eat them? I have certainly never experienced this myself. When you're cycling and you haven't eaten enough you can sometimes get incredibly hungry and tired in a short amount of time. I take a ripe and mushy banana with me for when that happens. It fixes the hunger and tiredness very quickly.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#140

Post by cma »

illumin8 wrote: post #96
niels_olson wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted, glycemic index is a useful measure. I don't recommend it, initially, only because I find most of my patients glaze over at that point. If you grok it, more power to you. > husk of the grain takes a lot longer to digest Well, most husks don't digest at all. That's "fiber", which is good for you for a whole different reason. > your rules Incompletely capture the conditions of your weight loss. How long have yo…

Sorry I meant 3.5 hours of exercise a week, not 2.5. Married, no kids, commute 1 hour each way to work every day, work about 8 hours with occasional overtime. Live in the Northeast so cold winters, warm but brief summers. I've kept it off for 1 year now and still manage to eat out once or twice a week - you don't have to follow the rules all the time. I also like to eat a lot during holidays.

That is a hellish commute; 30+ waking days a year spent in your car to or from work. Move closer.
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