Lifestyle change, how to go about it?

I wouldnt recommend drinking loads of OJ or taking multi-vits. A reasonably balanced diet will give you plenty of VitC. If I were you I'd concentrate more on water, leafy veg, brocolli, whole grain bread or rice. Getting enough water will give you more energy (oddly) and generally make you feel "better" as will getting enough fibre. I generally avoid milk it cloggs me up in my lungs and I generally feel a bit off in the guts when I eat too much of it.

 

One problem I seem to have is that I dont like most vegetables. I can get away with potatos, carrots, beans, peas, cucumber, but pretty much most other things I'm not all that keen on really.

Funny what you say about milk clogging up your lungs, whenever i have milk or dairy products, it seems to make me want to "cough it up".

 

I know what you mean. I suffered with catarrh all my life until I cut down on milk. Now I dont get it much if at all. I havent cut milk out entirely, but generally avoid eating it on cereal and would never drink it. If I do have milk in porridge I generally have Goat's milk which seems a lot gentler on the guts and doesnt cause any congestion in my lungs.

 

Lactose intolerance isn't too suprising. The fatty globules in cows milk are apparently hard for human stomachs to ingest. Unless there is a way of collecting milk from lactating mothers we will always have to get milk from other sources. Apparently milk from goats and sheep is better for us than from cows. Unfortunately they taste wierd IMO so dried skimmed milk seems the sensible way forward to those with a lactose intolerance or those wishing for a healthy alternative.

 

More than just lactose intollerance though - cow's milk is full of hormones humans might want to avoid. Especially non-organic milk - growth hormones and anti-biotics to keep the cows producing at fullest yield possible. Nasty.

 

Try the soup recipes earlier. Can stick any old veg in there and you won't necessarily taste it. Just tastes like a spicy soup (which it is) rather than a collection of veg (which it also is).

You don't have to become a total veg head. Its dead easy to make recipes that you wouldn't have thought of as that healthy but which have plenty in there. Instead of buying a Dolmio sauce you can make a tomatoey sauce pretty easily. Fry an onion, add a tin of tomatoes and a couple of cloves of crushed garlic and some basil. Let it simmer a little bit, boil some pasta, fry some bacon pieces and chuck it all together with some grated cheese. Much better than a jar of sauce and still a couple of portions of veg in there.

A portion of fruit and veg covers alot of options. I think a handful of nuts or a couple of plums count. Google what counts and you'll probably find its not that hard to get em in. Don't have to go for 5 staright away. Sounds like 2 or 3 would be an improvement for you.

 

What counts as Five Portions a Day

And I've just found The Abs Diet homepage. Well worth looking into if you want to change your body shape for the better.

 

http://www.5aday.nhs.uk/about/default.aspx

crikey....a 2 inch piece of cucumber, one medium tomato, a handful of grapes, a glass of orange juice and a heaped tablespoon of mixed dried fruit = 5 portions...thats not very hard considering the first 2/3 would go nicely in a salad!

 

Spot on! Thats a good help

 

Yes the recommended fruit and veg is not actually a lot. What is scary is most people are not even hitting this target.

Regarding Orange Juice. Its tasty and not likely to do you any harm however the body will only take a very small amount of VitC and it usually gets that from food, as such that 6 quid will just come out as pee.

Do a little research into food and most importantly do not take it too seriously. what you should take seriously is getting off the processed foods and have a go your self.

The best and easiest place to start is stir fry, cut some veg up into strips and fry it, add some soy sauce and cooked noodles. Its hard, infact very hard to get this wrong and in one meal you can get 3-4 of you five a day, follow up with an apple and feel pretty good about yourself.

do not then pig out on chocolate

 

That's the hardest bit

 

Another thing to consider about OJ is it is really bad for decaying your teeth - acid and sugars in one tasty tooth rotting treat.

 

Another thing about cows milk is that about 90% of adults in the world are deficient in the enzyme needed to digest it properly and get any goodness from it! This enzyme is present in babies for digesting their mother's milk, but it disappears after about four years.

Anyway people here are right, don't try to do all this super healthy eating, just be sensible about it. The main thing is to cut down on the things that are bad for you, not pump yourself full of magic good things.

Editied to add: Wow 900 posts!!!

 

Hey Garyi - that's ANOTHER meal I *can* cook - yeah, stir fries are excellent so long as you don't use too much oil

I never used to be able to drink milk at ALL when I was at school (remember when you got free milk???) - I used to barf it straight back up. I was the only one at school who got to drink orange instead - well, I always liked to be different!

 

Let me refer you back to the keyword you used in your original post - "Lifestyle". You need to see this as a long term thing which means adopting changes you can live with. These might be small at first. I usually make the mistake of getting too scientific about this sort of thing and then losing my motivation and feeling I've failed.

Possibly the simplest piece of advice I was given which you can apply to anything you are trying to achieve - "dont let a bad day become a bad week or a bad week become a bad month".

Dont abandon a change in your eating just because you blow out one weekend.

Dont abandon an exercise plan just because you lay off for a week.

By not expecting results and being relatively consistent even small changes over a long period make a big difference.

Think of it like this - just an extra 30 calories extra per day over what you burn adds up to a stone gained every ten years. An extra 300 per day is a stone gained in 1 year! Reverse this equation and bingo you'll lose weight slowly but surely.

Also on the subject of exercise - the magic starts around 6 weeks into a program because over that period your muscle tissue increases its blood supply and the number of Mitochondria in each cell are doubled - which means each cell can burn double the fuel compared to 6 weeks earlier, which means every session becomes more and more effective. The trick is to get through the first 6 weeks and then keep going.

 

That might be so (I haven't checked) but it's more likely to be down towards only 5% for the Europeans that tend to hang out here http://nutrigenomics.ucdavis.edu/lactoseintolerance.htm. But as a vegetarian I agree with you if you feel in pricinple that it's weird as a grown man to be indirectly sucking an animal's tit for infant food.

 

we as humans are (as far as I know) are the only animal to drink milk as an adults, and drink milk from species other than our own...

 

From what I read its about 20% of British adults. Its still a lot though! And as far as I know its even less people who can utilise the calcium for some reason I forget.

 

but we are also the only animal to make cheese and refined foods. Most of us arre fortunate to have an adaptable and robust digestive system. The only danger is when there is no restraint. Thirty years ago meat was a luxury for most of us, especially prime cuts, so was chocolate, factory produced foods such as cakes were rare, yet now we have plentiful access to these treats. We eat better everyday now than many did at Christmas. As with all things freedom comes with responsibility. We are free to eat whatever we want in what ever size portions. Before we had little option but to be abstemious, now we have to make a conscious choice.