Figure you all know more than me about this stuff, so I thought I would ask. In my never-ending effort to stop being a disgusting wide body, I have switched to using Egg Beaters instead of regular eggs. I gotta admit, I made a spinach omelet with mushrooms, onions, diced tomatoes, and diced red bell pepper, topped it with a little salsa verde, and it was awesome. No salt, no butter, no cheese, but still damned tasty.
So now, as always, I am wondering what the catch is- are they good for you? Are there any drawbacks to Egg Beaters (other than that they aren’t the organic local eggs I get from the general store)? Because honestly, I could eat that every single morning.
Also, my new favorite snack is frozen seedless grapes. Wash ’em, throw ’em in the freezer, and grab a handful when you want a snack.
Emdee
Egg beaters are basically egg whites with added color and thickeners (like lecithin, found in egg yolks) to make them behave like a regular egg. All of the fat and cholesterol-ly portions of the egg are in the yolk, so this is basically an egg white omelet with added flavoring, color, and thickener.
Notably, egg beaters contain about twice as much sodium as the equivalent in whole eggs.
Shana
Don’t know anything about Egg Beaters, but an old Weight Watchers leader used to say “no one every got fat eating too much fruit.”
Chris T.
As Emdee said, they’re just egg whites. Better to separate your eggs and use just the whites. Keep one yolk for color and texture, and a two or three egg omelet now has half or 1/3 the fat (and hence greatly reduced calories as well).
Svensker
Cut back on the taters and general carbs, John. You’ll notice a difference, fast.
ColleenMary
Eat real food, John. I won’t do my whole rant about our crazed contemporary pseudo-food industry, but eat real food. Eggs are good. Eat them. Look up Michael Pollan’s 7 Rules for Eating, and then enjoy your terrific omelet.
David Koch
What — No reaction to Hines Ward?
cathyx
I agree with Colleen Mary. Eat real eggs. Frozen grapes are great.
marcopolo
I am all in favor of just eating real food in moderation as opposed to “food products.” As Michael Pollan said in his book Food Rules, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” That is just about all there is to it aside from working your body into a sweat aerobically a half hour or so 4 or times a week.
JenPo
What did Michael Pollan say? Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.
Incidentally, grapes are loaded with sugar. Sorry. Better to eat an apple, an orange, even a banana. Grapes are sugar bombs. Still better than candy for vitamins and minerals and water and celluloid but effectively…full of sugar.
Eat whole eggs, with olive oil, not butter.
And let us all recall the Courtney Love diet plan: No fucking cheese!
Soonergrunt
@David Koch: Five stages of grief, dude. He’s either bargaining or in denial. Give him time.
jeff
Throwing out good furniture? Tons of books?
I’m moving soon, and I offered stuff for free on Craigslist, but everybody that responded wants me to take pictures or move for them, etc.
Is it terrible of me to just throw out a bunch of usable furniture and books? I am sure someone will take some of the stuff off the street (which is how I got a lot of this stuff).
David Fud
Omega 3s come from pastured chicken eggs. That is health food! So, while you might (?) save some calories, you will miss out on some of the best brain food (as well as many other benefits) that come from O3s – non-industrialized food, it does a body good.
Bobby Thomson
Egg yolks have an undeserved reputation. They contain about 4.5 g of fat but make up for it with choline and all kinds of vitamins (including the entire RDA for Vitamins A, D, E, and K). (The nutrition-to-fat ratio is better than for fish and chicken.) And the research that found them high in cholesterol was flawed.
JPL
I tend to eat the real thing..fresh eggs and raw cheese. Doing without the cheese though is a real calorie saver.
Ann Romney invited me to a meet and greet tomorrow. She also invited my sons so they must be robo-calling everyone in certain zip codes. I’ve voted across in primaries but my sons haven’t.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Watching Rachel currently, and getting depressed at the fully measured long term, hard right cant the country seems to have taken on the political level. :/
anaboly
I bought some egg beaters recently. I’d have to say the thing I like least about them is that they’re made by Big Agri. I was kind of confused by the coloring, as I’ve bought egg ‘whites’ in cartons in the past.
If you’re watching your cholesterol, I see nothing wrong with eating them rather than regular eggs.
(I write this as an egg-a-day person for almost the past two years, if not longer.)
Violet
I try to follow Mark Bittman’s suggestion of eating things your grandmother would recognize as food. Egg Beaters don’t really fall in that category. I think you’re better off separating your own eggs, although unless your cholesterol is high, there’s nothing wrong with eating egg yolks.
Mr. Long Form
Just eat egg whites and toss out the yolks — same thing without all the processed shit. Better yet, skip animal food most of the time — Eat to live, man.
The Dangerman
@cathyx:
I agree with both Colleen Mary and cathyx; eat real eggs and real food. Go Paleo if not entirely Raw.
JPL
@Soonergrunt: Hines had a little problem down here in GA but nothing like the other member of the team who had a big problem down here in GA. I can’t imagine he was cut because of that.
debit
It’s annoying and no one wants to do it, but keeping a food diary with actual calorie counts does work. Just being aware of how many calories are in something can help with portion control.
I use the Nutrition Menu app for the iphone. It has generic, brand name and restaurant food info already loaded in, and the ability to enter your own, custom foods as well.
But I also agree with @ColleenMary: eat real food. Veggies, fruit, and lean protein. And then move for a half an hour a day. Walk, bike, jog. I knew a girl who hated exercise, but loved dance, so she drew the blinds and rocked out for a half an hour every day and lost weight. Buy a Wii and box or play tennis. And now I will take my own advice and jump on the treadmill for a run.
Mnemosyne
@jeff:
Did Goodwill turn your stuff down for donation? Worst case scenario, put it on the curb with handwritten “FREE!” signs on it and it will probably be gone by nightfall.
cathyx
John-
It’s hard to change habits that you got away with your whole life. You said that you already eat healthily, but that you eat too much. So start with just eating less, and taking your dogs for a walk every day. That would be a good start.
Xecky Gilchrist
I have hereditary high cholesterol and so far have managed to control it entirely though lifestyle – quitting smoking, exercising like marcopolo @8 said, and changing my diet to mostly vegan but with the occasional egg and a bit of dairy (whatever people say about cheese being evil, no matter how true it is, doesn’t make it not yummy so using it sparingly is the key.)
I like egg beaters except for the whole Big Ag angle; I don’t use eggs very often but when I do I like to get them from a neighbor who raises chickens in her yard. Again, using them sparingly seems to work.
ETA: also, what Debit @21 said, both about the calorie tracking and the eating real food thing. The calorie log helped me lose 70 pounds and keep them off for 2 1/2 years so far. I use a little paper notebook, but it’s the same idea.
JGabriel
@David Koch:
Hiney wha’? Who dat?
.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
There has been a lot of back and forth about egg whites and if they are good or bad for you. I used to use egg beaters, but since stopped. For the reason Colleen touched on, you can never go too wrong eating unprocessed, or whole foods. And there are many reasons moderate intake of eggs is good for you. I only eat boiled or poached. And I can tell you, it is my experience that eating eggs, as either breakfast or replacement supper, is when I drop the most weight. The protein is plentiful, and you don’t eat the other shit of a full meal, like bread. I usually eat quick oats for breakfast mixed with sucanat sugar or some other less processed sugars or sweeteners, mixed with crushed pineapple. It is super good for you, and is the tastiest breakfast I have ever et. I actually sometimes wake up in the night and look at the clock to see how long before I can have my oats and pineapple. The protein level and kind is not that good, so I started supplementing soy protein powder as well.
rufflesinc
This seems to have gotten light coverage
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20120229/NEWS01/120229014/Chief-U-S-District-Judge-sends-racially-charged-email-about-president
The forwarded text reads as follow:
“Normally I don’t send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.
“A little boy said to his mother; ‘Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?'” the email joke reads. “His mother replied, ‘Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!'”
Cebull admitted Wednesday to sending the email to seven recipients, including his personal email address.
lahke
You can freeze more than grapes too, though they are the most fun (try it with champagne grapes). I spend all summer freezing fruit, and then eat it all winter. Any berries work well, also cherries, mango, peaches, pineapple–all defrost tasting great. Spread them on sheets to freeze first, then bag them.
The Dangerman
@JenPo:
Good, but better with coconut oil (I’ve also been hearing things about Rice Bran Oil, but never tried; Coconut Oil and eggs and great).
Also, give your Cat some exercise by buying a coop, putting it near his favorite window, stocking it with chickens, and getting the eggs fresh.
PeakVT
@jeff: Put it out front. I live on a busy street, and basically anything I put out is gone by the end of the day. If it’s not, I bring it in at night so it doesn’t end up in somebody else’s yard. After 3 day of not being taken, the item goes in the dumpster without a bit of guilt. I’ve only had to do that a few times.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@jeff: Freecycle is your friend. Read the suggestions for how to avoid assholes. We only took 3 boxes to Goodwill of the pruned things when we moved; the rest went to freecycle.
John, eat the organic eggs. Of course I’d tell you to eat butter if you want it also. Cut some calories, and up your exercise. Don’t fear fat – inflammation causes far more heart disease and vascular issues than fat ever will.
marcopolo
@cathyx: By the way, the best trick I’ve found for cutting down those portion sizes is to eat my food off of smaller plates (10 inch or less) and out of smaller bowls and glasses. This really works. Try it.
Schlemizel
Because of the lack of saliva I have had to cut out all meat, just can’t swallow it. A bunch of other stuff. Between that & the radiation stuff I have lost a bunch of weight (I am 10lbs under my 1970 graduation weight) despite eating a high fat diet. Lots of eggs, lots of cheese, full fat greek yoghurt ice cream. Yet my BP is down & my cholesterol is very good. And I am still losing weight because I just can’t eat much.
It makes no freeking sense.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Eat the damn butter. Damn it.
khead
Dude, eat the eggs.
The only meal I know how to fix is a scrambled eggs breakfast. I figured if I know how to make breakfast, I will never starve.
Worry about the other meals later.
Kristin
I just don’t see the reason to pay for fake food. Whole eggs are so good for you, low fat, and about 70 calories, and my go-to snack when I’m dieting is boiled eggs, since they’re so flipping satisfying compared to any other food. In other words, cutting out egg yolks is just idiotic– you’re sacrificing flavor and nutrition from a low fat food. Better to cut out carbs, as a previous poster said, though I’d say eat potatoes and corn before any processed wheat product. Since life without carbs would make me gauge my eyes out. :)
Jeffro
Almost on topic: I saw this yesterday about 5 so-called health foods to avoid:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/5-so-called-health-foods-you-should-avoid/2012/01/31/gIQA6E7vfR_story.html
Printed it out and left it where Mrs. Jeffro could find it – she is big on Vitaminwater, Popchips, and Powerbars. I think we’re pretty much done with those now.
SJ
Dr. Terry Wahls – Minding Your Mitochondria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc
Gus
Off topic and has probably already been pointed out by someone, but the Onion does it again. Of course it’s pretty low hanging fruit, but still.
Dick Weathers
Not to go all shill on you but I lost 50lbs on WW. Which is basically a $18 a month payment to let you know you are just eating too fucking much. So basically what cathyx said. Cut back on the amount your eating and try to exercise a bit more. There are a bunch of free apps that will track calorie intake that work just as well.
debit
Also, too, I don’t believe in being hungry or dieting. I eat all the time, I just pick and choose my food battles. If I want chocolate covered toffee bars, I’ll make them and eat them. I just have to log them into my calorie intake for the day and exercise accordingly. It’s hard during the winter and my treadmill is more tedium than fun, but spring is right around the corner and I’m dying to resume my bike commute. Because when you ride hard for 20 plus miles every day? You get to eat whatever the hell you want.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Ha Ha Wingnut fail circus fails
Sammi
If you want to keep your wine cool, freeze grapes and use 2-3 as “ice cubes”.
Jimbo316
@Chris T.: Yes, this is the route to go. Eggs are not bad. All things in moderation. Egg beaters are a gimmick. Walk and run instead of driving when realistic. Cut down on useless carbs. Fruit, fruit. Tea. I’m sure others have already said these things. Still true.
cathyx
@Schlemizel: r. Atkins has already proven that eating a high fat high protein diet doesn’t raise cholesterol. It’s when you combine them with carbs that it raises it.
Jimbo316
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): That’s all great, especially the oatmeal sans sugar (I use cut up bananas or blueberries to supply a much tastier equivalent) because oatmeal discourages hunger pains and also builds power.
Fruit and animal protein (in this case eggs) can be very complementary.
RalfW
Whole Foods (and some other natural foods stores) sell a 99% egg white product that has less crap in it than Egg Beaters. It costs more, but acts about the same.
My partner ate the stuff nearly daily for years. Hint: shake the container vigorously before poring into pan – it makes the omelet or scramble fluffier.
And my fav (though I lack the discipline to follow thru as often as I’d like) is to separate out 2 egg whites + one whole egg for a ‘three egg’ omelet – and you can go organic or cage-free this way. My housemate in Taos turned me onto the idea. Plus, we had two dogs who had the shiniest, healthiest coats you ever saw because each one got a whole yolk on their kibble each day. Yum!
And, the kicker for the stories above: both my BF, and earlier my housemate, are at least 6 feet tall and each have a freakin’ 34 inch waist. Not me. So maybe they’re onto something with the egg white thing.
beergoggles
Egg beaters always ends up watery. Organic eggs otoh have a firm spring to them and the difference in taste is very noticeable. As has been mentioned, the few grams of cholesterol and fat you get from the yolk is offset by all the other good nutrients from it. You are better off with portion control if you want to lose weight. Portion control and cutting down on sugar and simple carbs. Not entirely sure about getting addicted to popping grapes – fruits contain fructose and your liver will still convert it to glycogen and then tell your body to start depositing free blood glucose as fat.
Comrade Mary
Eggs are good for you. Unless your doctor tells you otherwise, have 1-2 eggs with a huge lashing of boxed egg whites. No Frankenfoods, no lashings of sodium.
My daily breakfast is a full skillet of veggies sauteed to barely tender-crisp (onion, sweet pepper, green pepper, maybe mushrooms), then a tiny potato the size of an egg (nuked for 1:20) sliced and set in among the veggies. I beat the eggs and egg whites, pour them in, and add a heap of sliced baby spinach on top. (I hate slimy spinach: this way, it ends up barely cooked).
I then add several spoons of salsa and a little bit of grated REAL cheddar, then cover with a lid and keep it on medium until it’s set.
This is so goddamn good I sometimes have it for supper, too.
cathyx
John-
Don’t be a Davy Jones and die young of a heart attack. I’m glad you’re being proactive.
pseudonymous in nc
Real eggs from happy chickens. And you can go pretty well on flipping the meals around: breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a pauper.
Watership
John, it’s a numbers game. Calories in, calories out. It’s not sexy, but that’s about as complex as you need to make it. Fruit is great, but a lot of it is still calorie rich. If you allow yourself a big bowl of fruit for 800 calories, or even if you’re not counting the grapes and eating lots and lots throughout the day to prevent you from raiding the snack cabinet, you’re still putting calories in.
You need to spend or cut 3,500 calories to lose a pound. It’s easier to cut (with diet) than spend (with exercise). Try the calculator here to get your calorie baseline, then look for the easy ones in your diet and target them first. Soda (get rid of it all), booze (I know, I know) fast food, etc.
You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to cut 1.000 calories per day (not from your maintenance baseline, but from what you’re actually consuming) for a total weight loss of 2lbs. per week. Drop me an email if you like, and I’ll pass you some more info and tips.
noodler
JC,
Get a bluetooth enabled pedometer and link it to this blog, then we’ll see how active you are every day. And, consider signing up for the Army 10 miler in October (registration opens soon) we’ll be able to get a large BJ cheering sectiont for you, and also, too, have a giant BJ party here in DC pre election. I’ve run it several times, save for last year when I was preoccupied with military operations overseas. Screw the beaters. Eat what you want and get active!
EL
I have just started using eggbeaters because I can’t stand the idea of throwing the yolks away if I do it myself. My recent breakfasts are eggbeaters mixed with cooked steel cut oatmeal and chopped green onions and then cooked in a little olive oil.
I highly recommend the Livestrong MyPlate site, a good calorie and exercise tracker.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeff: Where do you live?
TuckerDawg
Best non-indulgent meal on the planet? Pizza eggs: Egg whites, naturally low fat pizza or tomato sauce, topped with fresh grated parmesan. Awesome food. Lose weight.
beergoggles
Also worth mentioning – if u want to be healthier but not necessarily lose weight to fit into size 6 jeans, you might want to consider actually lifting some iron. Putting on muscle mass will help you burn more calories and stay healthier as opposed to just trying to control your weight and health through food (and plain cardio).
parsimon
@JenPo:
Red grapes, like raspberries, are full of folic acid, and are rather good for you. Anti-cancer.
Like several people upthread, I’d probably not find much weight-loss value in using Egg Beaters over regular eggs, which provide all sorts of nutritional value in their own right.
Carbohydrates (simple ones) can be the real killers, in terms of weight-gain/loss.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Comrade Mary: Very nice! Since you care, my often breakfast is a two egg omelet with cheese, mushrooms and sliced jalapenos inside.
And half a pound of bacon on the side.
cathyx
@beergoggles: I don’t think John wants to fit into a size 6 jeans.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: Size 2?
dug
When I was on the South Beach Diet I ate two real eggs with some fat-free cheese and chopped peppers mixed in every morning for breakfast. Lost 20 pounds in a month and my doctor was amazed (in a good way) at my cholesterol levels afterwards. My dad had heart issues, so I grew up on a low-cholesterol diet and used to avoid eggs, but the guy who created the SBD is a cardiologist and said that the balance of good and bad cholesterol was just fine in eggs. Empty carbs are the real culprit. Especially with no fats or fiber to slow your digestion. Foodwise, the worst thing you could possibly eat is a baked potato with nothing on it.
Mark
Man, everyone’s a critic. I lost 30 pounds last year and am around 15% body fat – like @debit suggested, I kept a diary. I counted calories, fat, protein, carbs and sugar. I went high on protein and at RDA for carbs and fat; tried to go low on sugar. And there’s not a goddamned thing wrong with eating egg beaters. My old roommate ate those all the time and he finished in the top 30 in the world in the Ironman. Dude’s like 5% body fat.
Anyways, like I said, everyone’s a critic. People told me to eat more nuts, eat less fruit, eat more fat, eat less fat. After I lost the 30 lbs, all kinds of people told me that my system would never work. I said, um, hey, I just did it, are you telling me I didn’t lose the weight?
So John – cut the calories, stop eating in restaurants, do your own cooking, up the veggies and the protein…But most of all, find things you actually like to eat regardless of what the haters say, otherwise this won’t go anywhere.
rikyrah
Egg beaters are good for omelets. IF you let them cook all the way through on low low heat, you can’t tell the difference
but as a substitute for scrambled eggs?
don’t even begin to try and lie to yourself…the answer is no.
I can use egg beaters and egg whites for omelets – as long as they cook all the way through – hint – on very very low heat.
but, there IS no real substitute for good scrambled eggs.
jeff
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thanks to all who offered advice. I’ll look at freecycle.
Siubhan, I live at 30th and 8th Avenue.
Comrade Mary
@Just Some Fuckhead: Bacon is health food. I will believe this to my dying d–
Chris T.
@Schlemizel: That’s because blood cholesterol is not a result of eating cholesterol … nor even of eating fat.
Cholesterol is also not actually a bad thing. For one, your body is made out of it. More specifically, each cell is held together by a “cell membrane” that is made in part out of cholesterol. This is why plant-based foods have no cholesterol: they hold their cells together with cellulose instead. Hence all animal-based food products contain cholesterol, and no plant products do.
The tricky part is that there are dozens of different molecules that all fall into the “cholesterol” category. Specifically, cholesterols are proteins that have little alcohol molecule handle (a CO-OH) sticking out of the edge somewhere. This makes them dissolve in sea water, AKA blood. That’s how you get nutrients that don’t dissolve in blood—including proteins and fats—to move around instead of just clogging up the tubes (blood vessels): you dissolve them in alcohol, i.e., cholesterol.
One can, and labs do, categorize various different cholesterols according to their “density”: High Density Lipoproteins or HDL, Medium Density ones (MDL), Low Density (LDL), and Very Low Density (VLDL). It’s thought, with a fair bit of reasonably convincing evidence, that HDLs generally help clear plaques out of the middle layer of heart-attack-and-stroke-prone arteries, and that LDLs and LDLs generally help the plaques build up. It’s not known exactly how or why, except that inflammatory processes have something to do with it as well. (It’s particularly weird that the plaques occur in the medial walls of the vessels.)
Lab results giving you HDL and LDL numbers have not actually measured the various densities of the various lipoprotiens, either. Instead, they’re like the drunk looking for his keys under the street lamp, because it’s easier to see there: they look at reactions that are “associated with” certain lipoproteins, as those are cheap to test for. They then interpolate and guess at the HDL and LDL numbers. It works well enough though, given that they are only looking for (quite wide) ranges in the first place.
While diet does affect HDL and LDL values (as does exercise), for the most part, your “set point” for HDL and LDL are mainly genetically determined. Your body makes its own cholesterol, as it must since you’re made out of it, and puts it to work as it sees fit, including recycling the old stuff to make bile in the liver so that you can digest new food.
So, if you have familial heart disease (or more generally “cardiovascular disease” which includes strokes as well), it can be worth monitoring cholesterol and working a little bit to control it. But it’s more a matter of staying healthy overall, than eating (or not eating) any particular macronutrient (“macros” = protein, fats, and carbs).
BethanyAnne
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): Hey Stuck, how did that Truvia work out for you?
beergoggles
@cathyx: I wasn’t judging! If he prefers jammies or cargos, that’s his right.
Chris T.
@beergoggles: Yes, although it takes a whole lot of muscle to burn off very many calories. Add 25 pounds of muscle and you’ll burn about 150 more Calories (big c for food calories :-) ) per day even when idle, or one can of Coke(R).
On the other hand, hauling around all the extra muscle mass is a lot of work. (I know this from experience: I’m in the gym nearly every day, on a “3 days of full body lifting, 4 of aerobics work” program.) Maintenance for me is over 3000 Cal/day….
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@BethanyAnne:
Hey back. Stevia works just fine and I don’t notice a bad taste, so no need for Truvia. I use it mostly for things like iced tea and coffee
Chris T.
@Chris T.: Oops, too late to edit for typos. That should say “LDLs and VLDLs” are thought to build up plaques.
parsimon
@beergoggles:
True this. Resistance or weight training in general: speeds your metabolism so that you burn off what you eat more efficiently. Makes you feel a lot better, of course. Diet and cardio can get you so far, but resistance/weight training help tremendously. I can personally attest.
beergoggles
@Chris T.: I know the feeling – right now I’m supplementing with whey and caesin shakes 4 times a day to not lose mass… must break 20″ bicep barrier before summer again.
You should be able to tell how much higher your metabolism is from regular people by needing to wear a t-shirt to remain cool while everyone else is in sweaters.
Also, u sound pretty – attach pictures ;)
ramalamadingdong
You should eat whatever you need to eat to reach your goal. It will change over time as your body starts to adjust. If Egg Beaters work for you now eat them. You can move to eggs later. Do what you need to break the cycle.
mzrad
Dude man, eat less and exercise: then you can eat whatever you want (in moderation). Take the piglets for a run!
Go go go!
Chris T.
@parsimon: It (resistance training) has a longer “post-exercise calorie burn” than does aerobics (as measured by VO2 studies and such).
To put it another way, you might jog however many miles and burn 400 calories, and then when you get home and rest your metabolism returns to baseline pretty quickly. Or, you can go lift weights and burn 300 calories, but when you get home, your body keeps burning extra calories (above normal baseline) for about the next 36 hours and may well get you past that 400 mark you would have gotten from jogging.
The main thing about exercise, though, is: do something you like, because otherwise you’ll stop. :-)
Culture of Truth
Real eggs! Eat them!
Chris T.
@beergoggles: I’d love to break the 20 inch biceps barrier. Probably never going to happen though, I’m stuck around 17 or 18 and I’m old now (rapidly approaching 50).
As for photos, well, here’s an old self portrait taken when I was at significantly lower bodyfat% than now (I think I weighed 220 then, currently bumping up against 250):
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2156/1814461737_1d80b277cb_m.jpg
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Or even 0. Nah, probably 2.
@parsimon: Interval training, and some lifting. I’d be doing more myself, but at the end of a work day my balance sucks from MS. My neurologist, however, assured me that fat is not to be feared. Not that I was anyway, but now I have medical authority for using as much damned butter as I want, and none of these sissy low-fat thingies.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): The Ex wears size 0; I bet Cole at his thinnest would have had trouble fitting one leg into one of her skirts.
boss bitch
Eat the real thing and eat the entire thing. Just eat one.
And banana’s, apples, etc. have just as much sugar as grapes. If you’re gonna take the advice on sugar in fruits then stick to berries as they have way more fiber and less sugar.
different-church-lady
More cardio, less starch. There’s no other formula.
Omnes Omnibus
@boss bitch:
Steer?
beergoggles
@Chris T.: ur definitely running way less bodyfat than I am. @240 right now, was just 5# more in that pic and then had a bad neck injury which meant no bench or squats..
The working out should make you look decades younger than ur actual age.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Hell, I’d have trouble fitting a leg inside one of her skirts. Muscular quads from years in the saddle (more technically, out of the saddle with my weight supported by said quads, to be pedantic). So it’s out of the question for Cole. Though the image of him with a skirt on each leg is … something.
parsimon
@Chris T.:
Thanks for the more technical explanation: it’s certainly borne out by my experience.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Horsewoman? English?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup. You read between lines well.
Chris T.
@beergoggles: Well, the girlfriend likes it. :-) Apparently other people are surprised to find I’m, well, as old as I am, too. Alas, looking younger has no effect on the natural fall-off in testosterone levels.
(I’m often half tempted to ask for T level testing and supplementation if it’s allowed, but on the other hand, my family has that familial CVD thing, and my doctor already hates my “excess mass” regardless of its composition.)
master c
No fake food. No one has talked about sugar, none of that, or flour.
Single ingredient foods. It’s simple. Eat all the grapes and eggs you want.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I have ridden a bit in the past. During my lesson the kept trying to steer me toward nice old mares and geldings, but the only horse who really responded to me at all was the really bitchy mare that people were afraid of. Touch her with a boot and she went. I never liked kicking hard.
BethanyAnne
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): Cool – I had wondered how that ended up working out for ya.
master c
white refined sugar I should have said.
beergoggles
@Chris T.: A lot of doctors I know that treat HIV+ friends of mine have no problem prescribing test injections even to those without HIV as a quality of life improvement – especially those of us getting up there in age. I’ve found that those doctors are far more interested in how much we r enjoying life than in just making sure we r disease free and getting us out the door.
If ur already on lipitor or similar, getting test supplementation shouldn’t be a big issue – definitely have a chat with ur doc about it.
Chris T.
@beergoggles: They had me on zocor for a while, but took me off again due to elevated CK enzymes (which were probably from the weight lifting and micro-tears in the muscles, but, who knows).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: With really strong legs kicking isn’t required. And of course spurs are quite helpful. I ride everything in spurs.** There if I need them and harmless if I don’t. Not for novices, obviously.
** Horses ya buncha perverts; that’s how we talk. I often forget when I’m talking outside the group, heh.
Comrade Mary
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I once rode an Arab/Quarter cross who didn’t understand that there could be any gait in between a dead stop and a full gallop. After circling the house like a champion barrel racer a couple of times, I pointed him toward a hill in the hope that he would take the hint to, you know, ease up. He didn’t. Stopped like a dream, though, and was a sweetheart to dismount.
(This was the horse whose owner had bragged could reach 45 mph. That seemed very plausible to me.)
JohnK
There are some positive articles at livestrong in the foods section on eggs as well as red grapes. Within a balanced diet, they can be good for you. Egg beaters are an industrially processed food and it’s up to you if you want to trust industrial food.
Set some goals and then figure out your diet and how to balance the foods you like to give you the best nutrition. You have to make some choices on where you are going to invest your calorie budget. You might find that Omega 3 eggs are a good fit for you. You can’t eat everything you want but you can narrow your choices to the foods you like the best. Myths abound but The Dude abides.
beergoggles
@Chris T.: Did they re-test that about a month later after a week of rest? My brother had a similar issue (re-test was normal so he went back to his drugs).
mcd410x
Hmm, very little documentation in this thread!
Personally, I believe you should vary your diet so that your body doesn’t get used to a set of foods. As I have no scientific evidence, take it with a grain of salt (not literally!) like everything else here.
jeff
The Bullet blender is awesome. Peel and freeze bananas and different berries, and blend with yoghurt and almond milk.
http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Bullet-MBR-1701-17-Piece-Express/dp/B001WAKFDY
I really think if you do that for one meal a day, you’ll get a little better.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Comrade Mary: Probably not 45mph, as the TBs who race the Grade I stakes get to 35mph, but he sounds like fun. :-) Arab/QH can be a tricky cross; Arabs are very clever and QH are very stubborn. But can also be interesting, as you encountered.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): No one was judging, and I am sure a few were looking for your contact information,
Chris T.
@beergoggles: No, my conveniently close doctors’ office doesn’t really do a good job on follow-ups. Could perhaps try to find someone else, but they sure are conveniently close (and it’s a group practice so there’s someone to see when the doc is on vacation, and for blood-draw-only stuff they’re pretty prompt, and it’s covered by my insurance, etc…).
Fidella
My husband makes a 2 egg omelet by usin one whole egg and one egg white. And always fiber with every meal, be it apples, raspberries, etc. He’s lost 35 pounds in 2 months still eating foods he likes, but far less, no sugars, whole wheat breads sparingly, 1% milk. And a speedy one mile walk twice a day.
FormerSwingVoter
Sigh.
This thread has taught me that all the ways I thought I’ve been eating right over the last few years have instead been completely wrong.
debit
@FormerSwingVoter: Don’t take that away. Everyone has a style/strategy that works for them. If yours works for you, stay with it.
Comrade Mary
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): This was the one and only Quarter-esque Horse I ever rode — never threw my leg over a Thoroughbred — but from what I’ve read, top Quarter Horse racers (not stock horses) can hit 50-55 mph for short distances. And while this horse had an ass to die for, he was more gracile than stocky.
So while I can”t swear that the horse could hit the speed his owner claimed (she said she ran him beside someone checking the car’s speedometer), my memories of my life and much of small town Ontario flashing before my eyes, and what authorities have said about QH racers, make her claims plausible to me :-)
Mary Jane Leach
Eat real eggs. I discovered that if you shred some zuccinni and saute it with onions and whatever else you want, and then add eggs, that not only will the volume increase so you use/eat less eggs, but the flavor isn’t changed, and the eggs always stay moist.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Moving here as well and what hasn’t gone on CL or yard sale that had little resale value but was useable, printed up FREE signs, set stuff out side and only one piece lasted longer than 2 hrs. That was a heavy desk. Two guys in a Scion managed to stuff it inside and drive off. Free is a great price.
Stan
Eh, eat real eggs if you want. They’re yummy and they’re healthy.
To manage weight you just have to remember two words: glycemic index.
Firewomon
Please think about how much sugar you are consuming. My spouse and I have eliminated the most common forms of sugar from our diet a year ago and have lost about 10 lbs of weight – mostly from our waist line. For sweeteners in our cooking and baking we use xyltol and dextrose. My spouse writes and teaches about problems with sugar, and sweet alternatives in cooking. She writes “The problem is that sugar itself is harmful in the quantities consumed by most people today. On average, Americans are eating more than 100 pounds per year of added sugar and HFCS, which is some 25 times what people were consuming a mere 300 years ago. We didn’t evolve with a high-sugar diet, and we’re not well equipped to handle it.” and
“What’s Wrong with Fructose?
Thirty percent of the fructose we eat turns into fat (compared with only 2% of glucose). Much of this fat ends up in the bloodstream, causing dyslipidemia (high triglycerides and low HDL, or “good,” cholesterol), which plays a part in atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.
In addition, some of the fat is deposited in the liver where it causes fatty liver disease, the same as is seen in alcoholics. In fact, fructose is metabolized by the liver in much the same way that alcohol is. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is thought to affect as much as 25% of the adult population…”
I would love to send you the whole article.
John Cole
@Firewomon: I don’t eat sugar. Ever. I don’t even have any in the house, other than confectioner’s sugar that I use once every 3 months for whipped cream. In the summer, I use a little sugar to create simple syrup for mojitos, but other than that, there is no sugar intake in my life anymore. I used to eat ice cream and other frozen desserts, but now that I can not longer find my one true frozen passion, Hola Fruta, I just quit.
I do eat fruit though. Lots of it. I just bought six beautiful papayas because they were on sale for 98 cents a piece. Can you beat that?
I’ve also, in the last month, cut all wheat and other flours from my life, as well as all grains, with one exception. I eat quinoa almost every day, and I use quinoa flour.
Comrade Mary
Huh. How does wheatless feel to you, John? I cut it out completely in September and found I really didn’t miss it at all, which shocks me, because I know that I still love good bread and dumplings. I haven’t had any pork dumplings since last summer, which still amazes me.
I really adjusted remarkably quickly. I haven’t lost as much weight as I wanted this winter, but OTOH, I didn’t gain my usual winter weight, either. Not eating wheat meant that I cut out a lot of opportunistic eating — no Timbits, no “just one cookie” at Starbucks, no late night, deadline related pizza orders.
I started eating a little again at Christmas again (just once a week), because I felt so guilty about social eating and the people who felt compelled to juggle their menus to feed me. Still no distress or uncontrolled cravings, though.
means are the ends
Frozen blueberries are a fabulous snack.
Weight Watchers is tried and true, keeps up on the latest research, and works.
And I also vote for real food: eggs, steel-cut oats, organic butter,veggies galore, nuts. The body has a true hunger that lies underneath the super-stimulus-craving we now call hunger. When I take time to feel what my body wants, it tells me: real food. Doesn’t hurt to supplement with Vitamin D during the winter, either, IMHO.
KNNJ
it can be surprising exactly how many calories you take in. myfitnesspal app for ipad/phone is free and is really easy and quick to use. The thing is that, after a lifetime of counting calories and crap to no good use, this one counts down… to zero and negative. Which interestingly works for me, psychologically, i get close to zero and i stop. I’m limited to 1480 calories so for me it’s pretty important to watch that line. It also shows nutrient content. Just fyi.
Another Halocene Human
You’re missing out on the choline and the vitamins (although vitamin content varies) when you use Egg Beaters. I buy my eggs from a local chicken farmer (shut up, it’s a rural area) and they have very orange yolks, meaning more vitamins.
Choline is really, really important. You can also find it in beet greens (surprisingly tasty), beets, mustard greens (I think?), and wheat.
I think Chris Masterjohn did a post on choline and lists good dietary sources of it.
Joey Maloney
More fun than plain old frozen grapes is to put them in an empty 2-liter plastic soda bottle along with a (small!) chunk of dry ice. The result: frozen FIZZY grapes!
Lumpy
If you like Egg Beaters, then eat them. The most important thing is to make changes that you can live with, rather than take drastic steps that are only temporary because you hate your food. Good advice to find an online calorie tracker (you will be surprised at how little food will add up to your daily allowance.) If you exercise, you can eat a little more and still be in a deficit (key word: a little). Without exercise, your diet would likely seem to severe. You want to make lifestyle dietary changes (Hint: substitutions you can live with) rather than go on a “diet” which by definition is not maintainable over the long haul.
IMO, the hardest thing is if you like to cook a lot, because figuring out the calories for all the ingredients (and appropriate portion sizes) is a lot of work, and it’s very easy to cheat with bigger portions, second helpings etc. I’ve personally found that stuff like pre-formed burger patties (etc) are helpful… IOW, get the portion control built-in, from the start.
TL;DR? If Egg Beaters fit into your total daily calories (and I bet they do!) then enjoy them.
Oh, one more thing… now there is some evidence that 2 ‘very’ low calorie days per week is as good as 7 days of reduced calories. In other words, your weekly calorie load may be just as influential (or more so) than your daily calorie load, for weight loss. Something to research, maybe.
JR
When I needed to cut weight for the Army, I ate Egg Beaters with fat-free American cheese slices and hot sauce two or three times a day. Worked wonders, until I stopped and began ballooning back up.
I just got back on a fitness kick after having been out of commission for nine months following a fall down some stairs. Found a local gym with good cardio and weight equipment and not much else, and starting going 4-5 times a week. No weight loss to speak of yet, but I can run eight miles on the elliptical without keeling over.
MosesZD
Fruit and vegetables John. Fruit and vegetables. Learn to cook fruit and vegetables.
You don’t need to be a vegetarian. Just cut down on the starches, meat and processed foods (full of extruded fats) and eat more fruit and vegetables.
And don’t count calories. Or eat diet foods. Diet foods, paradoxically, cause people to eat more.
Ksmiami
Dude I’ve been raised on mediteranean food all my life : tomatoes, whole grains fish etc. If you eat this way you won’t feel hungry and the pounds come off. You just have to abandon cream butter and most red meat. Combined with moderate exercise you will find the pounds come off and stay off
MosesZD
@marcopolo:
John, that was good advice and I live by that.
I’m 51, 5′ 11″ and I weigh 182lbs, the same I weighed in my mid-20’s. I could still fit in my old pants if I hadn’t worn them out. And I still have clothes older than my 15-year-old youngest because I seldom wear them and I haven’t outgrown them.
I don’t eat badly. In fact, I eat all kinds of great food. I eat steaks, salami, pastrami, eggs, you name it. But I eat them in moderation as I eat mostly fruit and vegetables and I keep most processed food, besides breads and condiments, out of my diet.
Honestly, it’s hard to go wrong eating bags of apples, bunches of bananas, tons of frozen fruits and berries (I love frozen peaches) as snack foods instead of four or five ‘100 calorie packs’ because four tiny cookies just isn’t going to do it… You’ll feel better. You’ll lose weight. You won’t be on a ‘diet’ (which is stupid) doomed to failure as you obsess over what you can’t have.
Just stock your freezer with frozen fruit, you refregerator with fresh fruit and vegetables and avoid anything ‘prepared’ that’s not a condiment, bread or deli-lunchmeat (in moderation – 1/2lb week of anything you want, no matter how fatty).
MarkJ
@Violet: the problem these days is for a lot of young adults, eggos, poptarts, and other heavily processed food products are things their grandmother would recognize as food.
My adage is if it comes in a box or prepackaged pressurized airfilled bag you’re generally better off not eating it. Exceptions to this rule include whole grain cereals, and some frozen dinners (Amy’s organics tend to be pretty healthy). Also – I eat canned beans but anything else in a can I avoid. I suppose canned veggies are OK but you get much more nutrition from the frozen or fresh ones.
Another good rule of thumb – try to eat mostly food that doesn’t come with a bar code on it. The harder your cashier is working punching in codes rather than scanning barcodes, the healthier you are probably eating.
I agree with others on eggs. They got a bad rap for awhile but they are considered to be very healthy by most nutritionists these days.
MosesZD
@Ksmiami:
Cream in my coffee (3 cups a day) and I cook with butter. I eat meat, and I don’t mean ‘lean meat.’ I eat lamb, pastrami (brisket), salami, steaks…
I have no problem at all. But I don’t eat giant gobs of meat and mostly eat fruit and vegetables and while I tend to cut-down on grains/starches which tend to be calorie dense for volume.
In short, I tend to make my the majority of my food bulky for any given value of calories eaten. And starches/grains are a bit dense for any given value of calories eaten.
TheronWare
Whole eggs are one of the highest quality foods you can eat and they’re very satisfying unlike whites or Beaters.
4jkb4ia
Dares greatly–
That’s really impressive to cut out all grains. 8 days a year is enough for me, and I lean on eggplant being seasonal, although you can have corn, beans, and peas. (IIRC cumin is kitniyot too. Yes, that is right.)
There is nothing wrong with Egg Beaters–they are the only egg product my husband will eat because of the cholesterol factor. I don’t notice any difference between them and regular conventional eggs. A conventional egg you can separate, but that’s irrelevant if you’re not baking or doing souffles AFAIK.
4jkb4ia
And soybeans! Could not forget those.
Morgan
I’m late to the party and haven’t read the whole thread, but for the love of FSM, Cole, don’t ditch eggs for processed substitutes. Eggs are fantastic. Cut the refined carbs before anything.
http://www.tonygentilcore.com/blog/whats-worse-eggs-or-mens-figure-skating/
sally
You asked, so all the folks preaching the Gospel of Pollan are just answering your question. And they’re right as far as it goes.
But personally, I know what it is like to simply be physically unable to eat “not too much.” I don’t know if this is really the case for you, JC, but it is for me, so that’s what I’m going to run with here. It doesn’t matter how wholesome and nutritious and theoretically filling the food is – the reason I got fat in the first place was not because I couldn’t stop eating HoHos, but because I couldn’t stop eating period. When you chronically overeat, you have a disordered relationship with food, and for all the virtues of Pollan, he doesn’t have the solution to eating disorders. If it was as simple as just flipping the “not too much” switch, wouldn’t we all have done it already?
Folks mean well, but I think the theory that all of your food problems will solve themselves if you just eat whole foods is dreadfully ignorant of the drive to overeat that some of us have. I have, for instance, literally gorged myself to the point of vomiting on carrots. Carrots! You don’t lose weight gorging yourself on anything, even stuff that grows in the ground.
I don’t know if you’re that bad, Cole, but you’ve already told and shown us that you like real food, all else being equal. So my fellow-real-food-liking-but-chubby person take on it is this: if weight loss is your goal, take in fewer calories. Do whatever you have to do to take in fewer calories, even if it means eating non-upper-middle-class-liberal-approved “frankenfoods” here and there. And move more. Always.
As time wears on, once you get your appetite under control, THEN you can focus on making New York Times-approved food choices.
I’ve also find TNC’s writing on weight and overeating to be really inspiring, though unfortunately he doesn’t go there all that often. He is also someone who believes in real food and cooking meals from scratch, but he has struggled with eating too much as well. He knows all about eating being the most pleasurable thing about your day, so you just hit that button too often. His process of calorie reduction sounds excrucitatingly slow – it’s taken him years to get the extra weight off – but he just…gets it…in a way that a lot of well-intentioned people don’t. It helps to have a toolbox of inspiring people who have been there when you’re debating another helping of something.
4jkb4ia
@4jkb4ia:
You == Cole. Basically because of rice, my husband has tried to put over being Sephardic for a week, and Gil Student had to intervene by saying if he is going to be ill by not having rice, he can have it.
Mr. Furious
I think the three-egg omelet minus a yolk for each dig is your best option in just about every possible angle… Cost, local, health, and benefit to your pets.