What food do you give up for health reasons ?

56 comments

• Muddy

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  5 years ago

  It’s not something I crave but sugary drinks like soda and bullshit I stay away from. Just have water with everything.
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  None just eat less, giving up foods is not gonna really do the job, change your diet if you need to, but not eating something won’t work, unless you learn to like better quality food, never was a salt, or, fast food eater, and I think exercise is better overall.
• IceyLoco

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  5 years ago

  I really cut down on drinking. Fried foods and meats. I'm basically a pescatarian now and I'm trying to cut alcohol out altogether. The social aspect just makes it hard...
• RandomMember

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  5 years ago

  Low-fat, low cholesterol, very little red meat, salads, fresh veggies. Good for your health and good for sexual health ( so that blood goes where it's supposed to). Lots of cardio exercise.
• Huntsman

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  5 years ago

  I don’t completely give anything up because the forbidden fruit gets too tempting. But basically I try to avoid processed food. That tends to mean I eat less sugar, bread and fried foods and a bunch of ingredients I can’t pronouncr.
• Huntsman

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  5 years ago

  Or spell, apparently. “Pronounce” is what I meant.
• Warrenboy75

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  5 years ago

  Sugar and white flour overall. I lost 40 plus pounds three years ago and really the majority of it had to do with cutting out a few items ---and one thing I really don't understand but have heard for years and it turned out to be true is diet soda. Supposedly it has zero calories but as soon as I stopped drinking it the lbs started to come off. I did put on 8 lbs last year and I'm not sure why--I work out four days a week and walk at a brisk pace four times a week as well. I changed my work out routine last week to see if it helps and starting to watch more closely what I eat again.
• Subraman

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  5 years ago

  Warren: plenty of studies correlating diet soda and weight gain. At one time we thought it was just correlation -- diet soda is a bad tasting chemical cocktail that someone with a healthy lifestyle would never drink, thus it's only people with unhealthy diets who drink diet soda, and of course unhealthy diets are correlated with being a fatty. But since then there's creeping evidence that it's actual causation as well through a number of mechanisms, e.g., sweet tastes tickle your brain and make you hungry, which in most cases means you'll eat more. I'm lucky enough not to have much of a sweet tooth, and I mostly don't eat processed food or fast food (haven't eaten at a Mcdonalds/BK/Jackinthebox/KFC/etc in 15 years). I'm pretty much a follower of Pollan's "eat real food, not too much, mostly plants" philosophy. My weakness is bread and it's been a lifelong struggle; swearing off it completely is counterproductive because eventually I give in and binge in a blaze of gluteny goodness, but I have success when I save it as an occasional "feast food" and really savor it
• Warrenboy75

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  5 years ago

  ^ Subraman --I'm not much of a sweet tooth person either.....chips/pizza/cheese are my weaknesses. I used diet soda to replace juice but although the calorie count was different it didn't matter....eventually one of the guys I played baseball with years ago convinced me to stop and drink water. It seemed to be the catalyst and most of the weight I had gained in my 50's came off. I was actually down at one point to within 10 lbs of my high school weight. ( until I put the 8lbs back on in the past six months) The only fast food I have eaten in a decade is Wendy's and those are salads..........I'm still a bit baffled on how the weight gain happened but I suspect it is mixture of things--more travel and stress as much as anything.
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  Beer & pizza are two things that I love in combination. I've become good at avoiding both. I've started removing more and more carbs from my diet as a rule. I stopped drinking soda and eating fast food years ago.
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  My big weaknesses are pizza, beer, and sometimes ice cream, my trick with pizza is eat it slowly with a knife and fork, that way I just have one slice, with beer it to not get high or I slam them, and ice cream I only eat on the outside never bring any home from the supermarket that way if we’re out on a Saturday night or any evening walking around just get a small cone or cup and eat it while walking around. Drink a shit ton of water every day soda maybe once or twice a month and not much at all, I was about 275+~ just working out it’s been 4-5 years now I seem to be maintaining between 170-178
• IceyLoco

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  5 years ago

  I don't like sweets much. I'll maybe have some a few times a year at most. With fast food, pizza whatever, the thing is portion control. You don't have to get the largest sizes and don't have to eat everything in one sitting. Don't eat til your plate is empty, eat til you're not hungry....and that's it. You can eat a bucket of chicken in a day, but make 5 small meals of it and it won't get processed the same way as if you ate it at once...
• nicespice

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  5 years ago

  The worst ones that do me in are greasy food, salty food, sour candy, and liquid calories. I start to moderate once I get the headaches/stomachaches/lethargy. I’ve made some progress on trying to eat better in the past few months, but it’s a work in progress. There was a lot of good advice here when I asked for it. [view link] One individual in particular has been occasionally messaging me pics of healthy food from his day-to-day life. Which I appreciate because it’s easier to get into a mindset of “the better options” versus “bad food”
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  A friend struggles with pizza cravings. His solution is that he keeps some sliced pepperoni in the fridge. When he has a craving, he has a few pieces of pepperoni and that steps down his craving. It works for him. Not sure if that would work for me.
• Subraman

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  5 years ago

  "Eat fast food and processed food, but exercise strict portion control" is something that works for a small set of lucky people, congrats if you're one of them. Processed snacks and fast food are scientifically designed -- science, bitches! -- to be addicting and to tickle brain centers that make it incredibly difficult for most people to eat in moderation. Different people have different weaknesses, but from everything I've read, the vast majority of people are better off either not eating fast food & processed food at all, or else eating it only rarely as a "feast food"; the strategy of "I'll eat it often, but in moderation" just won't work with most people.
• Subraman

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  5 years ago

  Ish: Ya, really personal what anti-craving strategies work for people. Here's mine. Sometimes, I'd get a huge craving to just demolish a whole baguette. I mean, smash the whole fucking baguette, then jerk off on the wrapper package, and do things to it that are illegal in 27 states. My "contract with myself" was, whenever I felt this way, I had to eat a huge salad, in a big-ass bowl. Salad is the last thing you want if you have junkfood or carb cravings, but I'd fill up that bowl and start eating, enjoy it more and more, and by the time I finished, I rarely wanted any baguette after that, or else I was fine with a little piece ("feast food" after all). It's a strategy I need to start using again, it worked well for me
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  Subraman said "I mean, smash the whole fucking baguette, then jerk off on the wrapper package, and do things to it that are illegal in 27 states." It's possible that your issues are far outside the scope of "diet"...
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  ^Bread is probably the most common weakness followed be sweets, I’m glad I broke those habits years ago, it was really difficult to stop them but the trick is don’t wait till you can’t take it any more and binge, much better to keep it in balance then you don’t get the crazy cravings.
• NJBalla

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  5 years ago

  Everyone has a magical diet plan but there's a reason 75% of Americans are overweight. Lack of dedication and consistency. That being said I dont focus on cutting out certain foods from my diet. I just focus on burning more calories than I take in. All the "healthy" foods I tried over the years like salads, soups, rice cakes, smoothies, led to weight loss for a month, but it was always hard to maintain. Now I eat tasty foods but am cognizant about staying under 1800-2000 calories per day. 1-2 lbs of weight loss every week is not going to sound like fun, but if you do it for yourself and are patient you will hit your goals and be able to stay there in no time.
• GACA

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  5 years ago

  Didn't give up food, but I do then intermittent fasting (8hr eating window vs 16hrs nothing at all) Works wonders.
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  GACA... I started that a couple of months ago. Agreed. It works well all by itself. In combination with other measures, it's game changing.
• Huntsman

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  5 years ago

  Soup is another strategy for me. Like a salad, if I have it first, I eat less other stuff. Homemade soup, I should add. And there is U of Minn expert who advocates veggies first. She makes the point that humans want to reject that idea. When I employ it, it helps with eating Whole Foods rather than processed food.
• Warrenboy75

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  5 years ago

  I start with a salad probably 80-85% of the time I am home for dinner and it does help. For me personally the hardest two things are 1) when I travel for work 2) if I get hungry after 9 PM at night.
• bubba267

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  5 years ago

  Since the question is what to give up, I pretty much pass on fried foods and heavily processed surgar laden products like cookies.
• daddyfatsack

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  5 years ago

  Stay away from deep fried items and substitute sugar filled beverages for water. You will lose 20 pounds with the quickness just doing that alone
• Papi_Chulo

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  5 years ago

  I grew up being very-skinny and hating it - so I would eat anything and often eat as much as I could to try and gain some weight - I'm currently 5'10" 195-lbs so not exactly obese but would be better off at 175lbs or so especially since the extra pounds mostly go to my stomach (vs arms, butt, or legs). I def need to improve my diet more so to be healthy but also lose a few lbs - my diet is not terrible in that I don't really snack so don't do chips, candy, ice cream, etc (or sparingly so) - but I do eat a fair amount of carbs and more processed foods than I should - I don't really know how to cook too well nor have the patience/desire to prepare meals just for myself thus about 3/4 of my meals are eating out which makes it harder to eat healthy. In my 30s I was more disciplined about my diet and went thru a few years of complete abstinence w.r.t. fast-foods and soda - but in my 40s became lazier about what I ate - I currently don't drink soda regularly nor eat fast-food regularly but not abstinent w.r.t. it either.
• s275ironman

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  5 years ago

  For 2+ years I have been paying attention to labels. There is one particular word I don’t want to see on any ingredients list, and that is soy. This can be difficult as many foods and workout supplements (mainly protein powders), use soy lecithin as an additive. I stopped buying Pam cooking sprays because they use soy as an ingredient. I now use a non-GMO cooking spray by Smart Balance that does not have any soy in it. The main reason I avoid soy is because of its relationship to the female hormone estrogen. Soy lecithin may not be as bad as soy protein, and foods that use it generally have less than 2%, but just looking at the word soy instantly has me associate it with estrogen. The sad fact is, a lot of food manufactures choose to use soy lecithin simply because it is cheap. Sunflower lecithin is a better alternative, but you usually do pay a higher price for food that has it. As it is, the majority of the foods I buy are whole foods, like boneless, skinless chicken breasts, salmon filets, grass fed beef, organic eggs, organic oats, organic brown rice, organic fruits and vegetables, and nut mixes. Lately, if there is one food I binge on, it is Planters Heart Healthy nut mix, which is far from the worst thing you can snack on.
• TrapBaby304

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  5 years ago

  Its all about using up the calories you consume. I know pro and college athletes who eat tons of fast food but they use the calories up. One trick though is to treat any kind of drink with calories as a snack or small meal. Only drink water or unsweetened iced tea with an actual meal.
• crazyjoe

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  5 years ago

  I have give up most processed foods and stick to mostly fruits and vegetables and chicken and some pork
• Papi_Chulo

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  5 years ago

  I thought about becoming a strict vegetarian but didn't follow thru as I think it required giving up eating pussy
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  ^ Honestly, I'm startled it took this long for someone to make this joke. We should all be ashamed.
• Clubber

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  5 years ago

  25, As of now, I've dropped right at 50 pounds in less than 8 months. Basically just cut carbs to a bare minimum. I think one of the biggest helps was replacing beer with Jack. Not having pasta and bread are the things I miss most. :)
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  ^ Clubber I replace beer with Johnny Black it helps to forget (to eat) lol
• Warrenboy75

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  5 years ago

  You can't make this sh*t up.......last night I went to my local health club ( upper body night with weights) and it was Pizza night.......There had to be 50 boxes of pizza stacked in a row ten across, five or six per stack. Something they started the first of the year......and when I asked it's going to be a every Monday occurrence. And no I didn't eat any but there were plenty of people eating watching other people work out.........
• Subraman

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  5 years ago

  Warrenboy: you know, any strategy that gets people towards their goals is fine with me, even if it's not my thing. But, assuming you're talking about Planet Fitness or something like it, going to a club where anyone working hard is thrown out, but also they have pizza night, to me is like surrounding yourself with losers and then hoping they don't drag you down. I know the price is right for PF, but damn, talk about a club that celebrates mediocrity; most people will do better with driven people around them
• Warrenboy75

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  5 years ago

  Nice call.....and yes. Here is the problem I face. Without PF I'm at the mercy of hotel gyms when I travel. With PF I have a place my membership is honored and I can work out. For me that means literally what my name tag states.....any place in the USA on any given day. It isn't a cost issue for me. It's an availability issue. And the YMCA and Golds Gym talk and sell a good game but the fine print on walking into one of their places away from home is not as easy. I joined PF last summer. Last night was the first time I saw the pizza. The guy behind the desk saw my expression and shrugged his shoulders....sort of a yeah, I know it is messed up but it brings people in.
• Daddillac

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  5 years ago

  The YMCA has always been easy for me.... the 20 or so in the atlanta area I can swipe in. When i travel I show my pass and they give me a guest pass for however long I'm in town. I have never had an issue with them. I prefer the YMCA because at almost 50 years old I do not feel out of place
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  Crossfit for me. Expensive but very effective. It's not easy, but that's the point. I was a member at franchise gyms for years and it never really worked for me. But kudos to those who can make it work.
• s275ironman

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  5 years ago

  Planet Fitness is actually good for the price. Pizza night is nothing new. It has always been the first Monday of the month. There is an obvious reason why my local PF was busier last night than it usually is. The pizza arrived right as I was on my way out last night. I didnt bother to stop and have any since I already planned on grilling chicken breast for dinner. But yes, it purely is a move to get people into the gym, despite how contradictory it may seem. I have had no issues working out hard at PF. All they ask is that you don’t slam weights. Sometimes while I’m working out, I get a nice view. Nothing like running on a treadmill and then a girl with a toned body and very nice ass gets on the elliptical machine right in front of you. If there is one thing that is annoying, it is the occasional person hogging a machine you want to use and all they are doing is texting/playing on their phone. I am one of those people that don’t like to rest more than 2 minutes between sets, so sometimes it gets on my nerve if someone just sits there for 5 minutes not using the machine at all.
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  No doubt, places like Gold's and PF are more cost effective. It just never worked for me. I'm much more motivated in a small class / team setting. Also, in that setting I'm motivated to work much harder than if I'm working out on my own. It's just how I am. It's not for everyone; I'm not a crossfit evangelist. But, if you've struggled to find your groove in a franchise gym, then crossfit or a good kettlebell gym might be the solution. There's no "one size fits all" for diet or exercise.
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  I used Lifetime Fitness for years and the gym and facilities were always first class, I quit them after they raised their monthly cost to $135.00 because it was ridiculous, I now use the treadmill in my community clubhouse, early morning it’s empty I can tune the TV to whatever I like, then I go swimming in my own pool it’s heated and comfortable. When I’m away I never have a problem I either go for an early AM walk of a few miles often on a beach. Then I’ll swim in the ocean or a pool connected to wherever I’m staying.
• Papi_Chulo

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  5 years ago

  I'm an LA Fitness member - club has all I need, I'm not necessarily a hardcore workout freak- I like that they have gyms all over in my area and nationally and I have no issues walking into any LA Fitness gym anywhere and just swipe my card - I was originally a member of Scandinavian which was bought by LA Fitness and I have a lifetime $99/year renewal which carried over when LA Fitness bought Scandinavian. And many females in the Miami LA Fitness gyms look and dress like Tootsies strippers (mostly Cuban chicks).
• Papi_Chulo

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  5 years ago

  This link kinda shows gyms with the most locations: [view link]
• datinman

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  5 years ago

  Studies show male vegetarians live 7.28 years longer than meat-eaters. Seven long miserable bacon-free years.
• ime

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  5 years ago

  It wasn’t worth it, says 103-year-old vegetarian [view link]
• Daddillac

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  5 years ago

  Elephants are vegetarians too and they are fat asses
• Clubber

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  5 years ago

  25, Forgetting to eat would be OK and I used to fast at times, but with my situation now, I can't forget.
• Call.Me.Ishmael

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  5 years ago

  I have no problem with vegetarians, for the most part. Vegans can be problematic, though. They're the dietary equivalent of Jehovah's Witness filling up your mail slot with leaflets. Not all of them, but enough where I brace myself when someone announces themselves to be vegan.
• Daddillac

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  5 years ago

  Vegan is a native american word for pussy that cannot hunt or fish
• Papi_Chulo

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  5 years ago

  ^ wow - I didn't know that You learn something new every day
• TrapBaby304

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  5 years ago

  you should drink green tea
• Warrenboy75

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  5 years ago

  I drink green tea............but most experts now are back on the coffee bandwagon, especially if you lift weights. As for PF--it's weird I've had a membership since this past summer and never saw or heard anything about pizza until this past Monday. It certainly brought more people into the place --more than I like since I am not one to socialize much when I am working out.
• Hank Moody

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  5 years ago

  I limit carbs during the week and try not to eat after 8p. Friday/sat/sun I eat what tastes good. I work out at home. It takes self motivation and discipline but it keeps me where I want to be.
• s275ironman

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  5 years ago

  @Warrenboy, maybe not all PF locations are the same, but I’ve been a member for almost 6 years and going regularly during the week, at my home PF, they make it a point to post flyers at the entryway into the lockeroom a week in advance. For as long as I’ve been a member, the first Monday of the month has always been pizza night, and the second Tuesday of the month has always been bagel morning. At my home PF, I don’t see very many people socialize. Most people are focused on their workout. They are wearing earbuds listening to music while getting a workout, and they don’t talk to anyone. That is how it should be when you’re at the gym.
• Warrenboy75

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  5 years ago

  Ironman I agree --and I've always been that way about working out.....and I also admit I never pay much attention to the flyers, but I knew something was different when I saw the mob up front by the entrance and the tables and chairs all in use. Over the years I've been either a YMCA person or belonged to a local club and not a chain. I finally got fed up every time I went to a YMCA that the rules were different for what my membership covered and what it didn't.
• RandomMember

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  5 years ago

  Back to the original topic, eating processed meats like hot dogs, bacon, ham, lunch meats, jerky, sausage is about the worst thing you can possibly do for your body. Any of these "foods" with sodium nitrites will cause colon cancer, even in moderate amounts.