Physicians should no longer recommend weight lose

[~bs]

A number of years ago, a patient of mine went to Greece. When she came back, I asked her about her trip. What impressed her? One of the things that stuck with her the most was that nobody was overweight. Their "supermarkets" where they do their regular shopping are about the size of our gas station convenience stores. They just carry the necessities and basic ingredients for cooking and baking. No 40-foot aisle of soda and another of chips and another of cookies and candy. The other thing was that everyone walked or biked everywhere. Driving was a rarity.

asia's largest mcdonalds fries/drinks are around the size of the american small. lol They probably think of our meal portions as odd as we do of theirs. Their sizes are actually the size you're supposed to be eating.

[~bs]

I hate running into cook books that are supposed to be, say a cake cookbook, when in reality all they are is cake mix cookbooks with a few add ins to make it special! I ran into one 'beginner' cookbook and the pizza recipe absolutely floored me as it was supposedly for classic pizza as most Americans know it. Instead of mozzarella cheese it had goat's cheese, and everything else was substituted as well. This was definitely not a 'beginner' cookbook and all the recipes were like that.

Most cookbooks these days will have a recipe for 1 loaf of white bread. I taught myself how to bake out of a 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook that had survived a fire in my aunt's kitchen and made it's way to our house. I taught myself how to bake bread with a recipe for I believe it was 4 loaves and I put in my notes for making 6 loaves at once. I guess in that respect I take after my grandma. when she baked bread, she baked bread! Somewhere in the vicinity of 30+ loaves at one crack in one day! At times she would make us po
Over the years it was simple things that I couldn't understand until I was watching Ming Tsai one day and he talked about getting the fishy taste out of fish by soaking it in milk. It dawned on me that over the course of years as I went from hole milk to 2% and then 1% that my tuna casserole didn't taste right. Switched back up to 2% and found that it tasted better and if I went up to 100% milk it would taste even better, assuming the tuna or man's donuts (the poor man couldn't afford a donut cutter) and she would deep fry small hunks of bread dough and then sprinkle them with sugar and we had donuts. This grandma had to bake a lot and find cheap ways to feed kids as they had 15 of them! Seeing a recipe for one loaf of bread is rather odd to me to go through all that work and end up with one loaf and depending on how many people are near by, that first loaf can completely disappear in less than 1/2 hour! I'm not sure anything tastes better than warm fresh from the oven slice of bread with some butter melted on it, unless you can homemade strawberry jam on it as well.
folks would stop canning tuna that looks like cat food in their 'chunky' cans.

Even if you get a diet cookbook or one that is for tasty treats for dieters. Every single recipe would call for artificial sweeteners so I can't use them as I'm allergic to artificial sweeteners. I didn't realize it until I had switched to diet Pepsi, and every time at the same time at work (about an hour after drinking it) I would get a headache and no nurse should be working with a headache as it means they can't focus on patient needs. So I stopped that. Then one day I complained of a headache to my son, and he said that is because you are drinking diet Pepsi! I hadn't looked closely on the bottle before bringing it home. So for sure it wasn't all in my head. I wonder how many 'dieters' are wondering why they have headaches and diarrhea (from the mannitol) etc, and don't realize that their 'diet' food is what is causing it.

Eat real food and get some exercise if you can. One of my frustrations is needing to park as close as possible to the front door of businesses as it is so far to walk anymore, but I used to park on the far edges of the parking lot to force me to walk more. I miss being able to go for a walk so very much.

my personal opinion is that cookbooks are only really useful if you don't have experience making a certain dish. once you know how to make something, it's better to simply experiment and adjust the recipe to your liking. Part of learning to cook well is understanding what various ingredients do and why theyre included in a recipe. If you understand that, then the cookbook is optional and good for ideas, and not a necessity.

I am not big on baked goods, but before I baked a few things, I never really knew how much fat and sugar went into these things. Main ingredients is normally literally fat (in the form of butter) and sugar, usually whole milk (more fat), flour, and maybe an egg. It's ridiculous. lol

[Gailete]

my personal opinion is that cookbooks are only really useful if you don't have experience making a certain dish. once you know how to make something, it's better to simply experiment and adjust the recipe to your liking. Part of learning to cook well is understanding what various ingredients do and why theyre included in a recipe. If you understand that, then the cookbook is optional and good for ideas, and not a necessity.

I am not big on baked goods, but before I baked a few things, I never really knew how much fat and sugar went into these things. Main ingredients is normally literally fat (in the form of butter) and sugar, usually whole milk (more fat), flour, and maybe an egg. It's ridiculous. lol

There is actually a big difference between cooking things like soups, meals, etc. and baking. Cooking allows for lots of experimentation. I do look at cookbooks for ideas. I rarely follow a recipe completely. However, baking involves chemical formulas that if you don't get the right amount of baking soda (or some other ingredient), then your whole thing can go in the trash. I always follow baking recipes to be sure that I am getting the formula correct, but if the baked good with have 'add-ins' then I can deal with that without measuring as long as I am close. For instance, I never measure walnuts if I put them in a baked good. 50 years of baking has taught me to measures by my eye. I also measure salt that way and put only about half of what it called for other than a bread recipe. If you don't have the proper amount of salt in the dough, it won't raise correctly.

I think you are implying that the ingredients that goes into baked goods is ridiculous, but as I mentioned, I truly think that if more people would start cooking from scratch, including baked goods, The eaters will feel full for a longer period of time and thus don't give in to eating a bag of chips an hour after dinner. Although at this point that bag of chips every night can be a bad habit that needs squelched. But baked goods in and of themselves are not ridiculous.

[~bs]

^

Sorry, I was referring to cooking only for the experimentation. I agree for baking you should follow the instructions carefully, substituting only when an appropriate substitute is available. Experimenting while baking may lead to a home run, but more likely result in a failure. lol Subs that would work would be things like skim milk for whole milk (will affect flavor) or sweetener for sugar.

Regarding baking ingredients, it really does depend on what you're baking, it was just an eye opening example for me. I wasn't trying to say that ALL baked foods are unhealthy for you, I was thinking mostly of certain dessert type items, which wasn't really clear in my post. And I do think baked goods can be healthier than fried potato chips or other foods, depending what it is. Baked potatoes are healthier than deep fried wedges, baked chicken vs fried chicken, etc.

[disneysteve]

Perfect example of what I said earlier about people no longer viewing obesity as an issue and losing sight of what a normal weight is:

A friend posted on Facebook today that she went for a checkup and her cholesterol was a little better and everything else was okay but she's still obese. I like my friend a lot. She's a great person, but she is definitely obese. I don't say that as an insult or to "fat shame" her. It's simply stating a fact.

Here are the comments others have made:
1. Girl...one thing you ain't is obese.
2. You are so not obese. BMI may say you are, but BMI sucks.
3. F*** BMI. If you are healthy, you are a healthy weight.

This is how people think today. They simply don't think weight matters anymore. It has become a non-issue. It doesn't matter if they weigh 100 or 150 or 250 or more. If they're happy, the number is not important.

We will never solve the obesity problem unless we first get people to accept that it is, in fact, a problem.

[~bs]

^

Being told harsh realities and criticisms, and facing the consequences for behaviors are things that can make you stronger if you decide to take action to do something about it. However, in today's society, entitlement and narcissism are the rule, and not the exception. And certain things in today's society like social media and reality tv fuel these disorders. Hence "this is how people think nowadays", as you put it.

[Gailete]

^

Being told harsh realities and criticisms, and facing the consequences for behaviors are things that can make you stronger if you decide to take action to do something about it. However, in today's society, entitlement and narcissism are the rule, and not the exception. And certain things in today's society like social media and reality tv fuel these disorders. Hence "this is how people think nowadays", as you put it.

Unfortunately too true. To be PC you can't say anything against a person unless it is what the popular vote is saying. Somehow we are supposed to know what the correct PC thinking is at any given moment so we don't stick our foot in our mouths. For the most part, I'm rarely PC and I know it. I grew up in a different era and in a different way. I know I'm obese and I know how hard it is to take it off.

We don't have cable and so don't get much in the way of 'reality' TV which in no way mimics reality. However, the people featured in the programs suddenly become media stars, not for having done anything important, but because some TV guy decided they would be the people on the show. So the people become famous and everything they do apparently, in the world of PC, is wonderful and praise worthy. I've never watched the show with the Kardashians, but if Bruce Jenner, hadn't been an Olympic athlete and had his family on a reality show, would any of us have ever heard of his changing who he was? Would anyone care or plaster his face all over magazines? Not on your life! I know someone that just did the same thing and they sure aren't getting any media attention. But it is the media's way of making some seen so superior than the rest of us. You notice that they didn't go to the hills in Kentucky and do a reality show on some poorly educated family out in the boonies, and show the real reality of families with not enough food, not enough blankets in the winter, not enough schooling, etc. Nope, PBS might do a short special on people like that but never long term enough for them to get enough money to dig themselves out of poverty.

And that is only the tip of the iceberg. What people don't understand that the 90% of the iceberg that we can't see is ripping away at the hull of our societies foundation just like it did the Titanic. I doubt if it would be even 20 years from now when people will be standing around scratching their heads wondering how our society had gotten to the place it had become much like Orwell's 1984 (he only had the date wrong).