Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Diet Patch Review

Question:
I'm underweight, significantly underweight, too underweight for comfort, too underweight for a male. I'm somewhat short too, around 168cms. My weight is around the 55-56Kg mark. My BMI is roughly 19, a little plus or minus. I'm 29. I've recently become obsessed with health too; i'm not sure if that helps. But stressful lifestyle of a midtwenties yuppy perhaps took it's toll on me. I don't eat red meat or chicken, i stopped that this summer, and i don't miss it much. I really started to appreciate fish, which i eat as canned, such as tuna, salmon and sardines. I also like cheese and yogurt somewhat, which i'm trying to increase my intake of. recently i switched to skimmed milk powder rather than the UHT semi-skimmed, as it's more convenient for the cereal, which is my main use for the milk. I try to eat more nuts and dried fruits too, in the form of muesli which i add to cereal. I think most of my calories come from thins such as bread, rice and pasta, perhaps in that order. The bread i eat is wholemeal and seeded, i don't eat white. The rice is ordinary basmati, to which i often try to add things like green lentils, cashew nuts, and some country mix originally intented for soup that consists of dried vegetables and lentils peas etc. I try to eat more vegetables and fruit but it's somewhat difficult. My lifestyle and tendencies mean i can't spend too much time shopping for or preparing food. I, however, got myself a tefal steamer this summer and also a nice tabletop fan convection oven. I either eat food raw, as in case of the bread, tomatoes and etc, or steam it on several levels in pyrexes, as in the rice and its sauce, or air-bake it in the convection oven, as in a pasta bake. All involve no more than a few minutes in preparation before i throw into a pyrex and into either the steamer or oven. I don't fry food. I've increasingly become interested in simplifying my diet even further. Some strange, difficult to describe, concept of purity, or simplisity, seems to be something that i like in food. I try to avoid refined sugars, i avoid fried food, i avoid burned too. I try to simplify my meals so they take as little preparation as possible. Health food that i've recently been interested in taking daily or increasing include: honey, i try to have some almost every day in some form, usually a couple of tablespoons spread on bread. Olive oil, i try to sprinkle on stuff around a teaspoon if it doesn't already come in that, such as fish. Green tea, i no longer drink coffee or ordinary tea, i now have green tea, which is especially wonderful and refreshing when it's mixed with jasmine. I'm also interested in having perhaps onions and garlic either raw or very very very mildly steamed and softened, i haven't been doing that as i worry about the smell, but i trying to figure out ways to have an onion and a clove of garlic a day without smelling, maybe olive oil or parsley, or mint gum might help. I have fiber mostly provided by Kellogg's, all bran, and fruit n' fiber. Also, all the bread i have is wholegrain, and never white. I think my food is lacking in fruit and vegetable fiber. I've also started to enjoy fasting which i found very very helpful, from the point of increasing my appetite when i'm not fasting, and it has some bizarre effect on my mood, making me a somewhat happier and content person over time, as i start appreciating food when available, and more interested in charity and helping the impoverished. I try to fast twice a week, from sunrise to sunset, sometimes as often as every other day, sometimes i might miss a whole week or go for weeks without fasting, but twice a week sunrise to sunset is my intention form now on. Healthwise that got reaffirmed with some scientific stuff that evolutionarily we aren't designed for always-available food, with might explain modern disease, though with being underweight i'm not sure if i should be doing that, though i think i've read fasting actually increases weight by 10% 'cos it increases appetite and triggers some metabolic changes. I would like to gain weight. I bought those weider muscle builder and crash weight gain on an impulse, i got them both from the health store as i couldn't figure which to take. I'm worried about them being chemical, but also aware i need to increase my weight somewhat, to be in the 65-70kg range. That'd at least be more socially acceptable, and i'm also aware the body degenerates with age somewhat, and i'd like to have some reserve. Questions are, what do you think of the diet I take. I've recently become somewhat vegeterian, except eating fish and lacking in vegetables, but it's just come to my attention that many people say food that is high in carbs is unnatural. They say something like the food introduced by agriculture is a recent phenomenon and isn't compatible with our evolutionary design. It's somewhat of a dilemma to me. Then what do you think of those powder supplments, i badly feel i want to increase my weight, at least out of aesthetic and social needs, yet that somewhat conflicts with the move towards pure and natural food i had recently.

Answer:
Hi Skinny! You need healthy (olive oil, peanut oil) fats in your diet. On the cheap: 1/2 cup oatmeal (dry) + 2 tablespoons peanut butter or almond butter. Cook oatmeal in microwave at medium for 5 minutes (add 1 cup water). My favorite: 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup lite yogurt,+ 2 tablespoons PB. PB and jelly sandwiches on whole wheat bread. Try fiber rye crispbreads soaked in olive oil. Canned herring and sardines. Lite yogurt mixed with PB or almond butter. Dry popcorn sprayed with olive oil or canola oil. Don't forget plenty of fruits and veggies.