Well, maybe. Some of us have mad willpower and could totally be like 'I WILL NEVER EAT ANOTHER FRENCH FRY OR REESE PEANUT BUTTER CUP EVER AGAIN. EVER.'
The vast majority of us, though? Yeah right. The most I've personally ever been able to do is give up chocolate for Lent (I'm not religious, but some of my friends were. I thought I'd keep them company and give myself a challenge. I did it, too!), and to occasionally have a couple of sugar-free days when I've noticed my intakes have been amping up to the point where I have dessert after breakfast. Bit over the top, if you know what I mean.
The best way for me to break the habit is the cut it out for the couple of days. Key word: habit.
I do think breaking the habit is a massive part of the whole weight-loss, starting-healthy-eating thing. If you're used to drinking a Coke with each meal and fast food for lunch every day, sometimes...ya gotta start small. It's pretty overwhelming to stop doing everything you do all at once; why do so many people wait until next week? To mentally freaking prepare themselves for doing a complete dietary overhaul! I say, give yourself a freaking break. Is that what you'd recommend to your friends and family? Actually, maybe that's a bad question to ask; a lot of women especially are pretty hardcore when it comes to dieting and the like.
The funny thing? Look at France. Naturally, obesity rates are rising, but generally a slimmer population. Are they cutting out all saturated fat and sugar? NON, merci beaucoup. They've just figured out portion control. And looking at Quebec (what's with all the skinny francophones?). According to this article Desserts - Why Quebec is Skinny, the reason they manage to stay skinny is because they don't restrict foods.
An example: You haven't had chocolate for 2 weeks and go to a party where you're offered a plate of chocolate mousse (I'm actually not a fan of mousse, but I know it's a popular one.) Odds are, um YEAH you're going to have some - and it'll be a lot harder to stop because you've been aching for it. Same if you go to a grocery store when you're hungry, right? You buy all kinds of things that you don't need because you're hungry! (This may include a box of crappy store-bought cookies which don't even taste that great but are down the hatch in 3.4 seconds.) We have much better control if we allow ourselves to take foods off the forbidden list and let ourselves have them once in a while. I'm not saying eat a pain au chocolat daily (although I've done it), but you know what? There's nothing wrong with really enjoying a treat. On a regular basis, even! *cue fainting*
A really good post from one of my favourite blogs, Weighty Matters, is What's Your Best Worse Choice? This guy is a doc with a really interesting take on weight loss, which is very reasonable. In this post, he touches on the idea that just because you had a Blizzard, doesn't mean you 'fell off the wagon'. Was it delicious? Was it satisfying? Is that really such a bad thing, then? Sometimes making healthy choices just means getting a small fries instead of a large, or maybe getting the large fries less often. Healthy eating doesn't have to be all or nothing - we all need a little wiggle room.
So if we're not cutting out all delicious things, we're trying some ridiculous fad diet. Don't even get me started. I absolutely LOVED this article How I Lost 40 lbs Doing Everything Wrong. This guy talks about some of the current fads with dieting, and how he didn't follow any of them?
'What?' you gasp. 'He ate CARBS. And not just any carbs, he ate WHEAT.'
I know, right?
This carb thing makes me crazy. You know, in some parts of Africa, their diet is 80% carbohydrate. And yet, we're not fundraising for the millions of obese African children? Our brain RUNS off of carbs. 'But it raises blood sugar!' Um, yeah, it's supposed to. That's how the human body rolls. Carbs are awesome. We just tend to emphasize the wrong ones (refined grains as opposed to whole grains, and simple sugars in sweets as compared to fruit, etc. ) And if anyone, ANYONE, tries to tell me they haven't eaten carbs since 1999, I will probably wallop them. And then attempt to educate them; carbs are in grains, dairy products, fruits and vegetables, any flavoured drink, everything. So what you're saying is, you only eat meat? And rocks?
And wheat - wheat is just awesome. I really don't buy into the Wheat Belly thing. We've been eating wheat for thousands of years. If you're celiac, or intolerant to wheat, then yeah, wheat is not for you. Maybe even if for some reason wheat makes you feel yucky. But for the rest of us - since when did bread become toxic?
'He didn't eat pomegranate or acai every day for breakfast!' you shriek in dismay. 'And what about supplements? SUPPLEMENTS, I say!'
Just a word about superfoods. Don't get me wrong, I love pomegranate and acai, but I love them because they're delicious and pretty nutritious, not because they're 'super'. I wrote an article on wheatgrass once. You know, the 1 oz green shots of juice that are supposedly equal to 2 lbs of veggies? So not true. 1 oz equals 1 oz of veggies. And all these supposed magical health benefits? These, my friend, are based on a scientist in the 1930s giving wheatgrass to his sick chickens. They lived, and the crazy started. I did some pretty extensive research into any scholarly article I could find on wheatgrass. There's no proof of this magic, dear ones. I emailed all the wheatgrass producers in Canada and got VERY few replies, but the ones I did get said 'Yeah...there's no proof. But people want it, and at least it's a vegetable.' True dat, I say, if it takes a bit of crazy to get people to get 1 oz of vegetables, and Booster Juice (delicious!) and the like profit, awesome. That said, I have been known to have a fit when I see the wheatgrass posters saying the 1 oz=2 lbs thing. I have irritated a store into taking them down in past. False advertising is bad, yo.
I won't go into the sugar sub thing here; that's a personal choice, as far as I'm concerned. That said, do they make you GAIN weight? Erm, no. I mean, Splenda does technically have some calories, but less than plain sugar and it's something like 60x as sweet, so if you manage to eat enough Splenda to put on weight, you maybe have some other issues that need talking about. I'm a real sugar person myself, I'd rather just eat less, but it's easy for me to say that when I'm 25 and work out every day and am not concerned about overindulging in sugar for the sake of, say, diabetes.
Ugh, I'm a bad blogger for making you read all this without any pictures. And I still haven't really taken any from around PG. It's for the same reason I'm blogging a lot less - it's amazing how much less time you have when someone isn't doing the cooking and grocery shopping for you. Not that I don't love doing that, I really do, but now I'm a bit more scatterbrained so I forget my camera and have a lot less time to tramp around and find something to take pictures of. SOON. Maybe. Hopefully.
Sunday 25 November 2012
Sunday 18 November 2012
Since when do kids need 'kid' food?
I read this interesting article the other day: Kids Don't Need Kid Food by Marion Nestle. Marion Nestle, as it turns out, is a prof in the nutrition department at NYU. She seems like an interesting lady, and in this article/interview, she brings up the idea that if adults are eating healthily, shouldn't their kids eat the same way?
Before I really launch into this, I should say: I don't have kids. We're thinking 3-4 years from now if everything goes as planned, because I am so not ready yet. That said, I was a nanny for years - we're talking from 8 am to 6 pm at times, up to 7 days/week during the summers, as well as being a regular babysitter. Do I know what it's like to fight with your kids to eat every day? Absolutely not, so take this all with a grain of salt.
I recently stayed with a lovely family with 2 gorgeous and adorable kidlets. (Seriously, they made me actually want children, how cool is that?) These guys are pretty starch-fixed; the younger will eat beans and some vegetables and meat, but the other one lives off of noodles and fruit. They regularly get offered other foods, which they sometimes accept but like most kids, spit it out if they aren't into it. Some may say 'GASP! HORROR! COMMUNISM!'. But really, this is going by Ellyn Satter's principles of 'Feeding with Love and Good Sense.' I won't go into too much detail, but you can go here: How to Feed Children by Ellen Satter. This lady's pretty fab in my opinion; she's a registered dietitian who also has a few other sweet credentials, including a master's degree and a social work designation. A lot of what she says makes sense, including 'if you take the joy out of eating, nutrition suffers.' Making your kids eat something they don't want, even if they're just being stubborn, isn't really helping. 'Yes April, that's easy to say when you don't have kids.' How many of us, though, don't like a particular food because it's associated with feelings of pressure or resentment? I was lucky, we were never forced to finish our plate, and while we had to try everything we didn't have to eat it all. Ergo, I'd say my sister and I have a pretty good relationship with food. However, I know quite a few people who were made to eat brussel sprouts, for example, as a kid, and who have vowed never to touch them again. Creating that situation of pressure at the table seems like it would be detrimental to the whole experience of eating.
Ok, so I've basically said 'Don't make your kids eat large amounts of stuff they don't want to eat.' The second part of that sentence though, is not 'So give them kid food!' Somewhere along the line (oh hey, corporate marketing), someone came up with brilliant idea of marketing to kids. Look at the commercials! Go to your average restaurant and there's likely a kids menu. What's on that menu? Is it smaller, maybe a little blander versions of the 'adult' menu?
Often not.
A lot of times it's: mac and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiched, cheeseburger, spaghetti, or something a lot like that. Since when did kids need to eat something different than adults? I'm not saying go out and feed your kids the spiciest curry available, but how about introducing new foods early? It seems to me that by encouraging a separate menu, it's like we're reinforcing the idea that kids need different foods than adults. This my friends, in my opinion, is crap. Did kids 50-100 years ago grow up eating chicken nuggets while mum and dad ate cabbage? Not likely. Odds are, whatever the regular adult meal, there will be something the kid will eat - even if it's just the coconut rice with a piece of chicken you sucked the sauce off of. Maybe they can try a little sauce if it's mild. Kids often need to be offered food 5-20 times (per Ellyn) before they'll start to like it. If we give up trying and pass the grilled cheese, how is this going to happen?
The idea behind feeding kids is that we as adults decide what to serve and when, and the child decides what to eat and how much. It's probably good to provide something Junior is familiar with - even if they want to fill up on bread, which may some counter-intuitive. It's a balancing act, for sure, and I've seen how frustrating it can be. Even my very smart and lovely boyfriend has said things along the lines of 'Kids won't eat that stuff.' How do you know unless you try once in a while? What's so wrong with a food, say lentils, that kids won't eat it? Maybe it's not appealing; maybe they'll never like it. But maybe they will. Naturally, sometimes you're going to be out and about and not feel like a fight. Fair enough, I say, I have enough experience to say sometimes, you need deserve the freedom to have a bit of fun and not worry about getting your kid to eat fried okra. Get the mac and cheese and enjoy your night out. Sometimes, though, maybe get an appetizer and share your entrée with your kid. The idea that kids consistently need a different menu than adults seems counter productive.
I understand, and fully expect this post to be brought to my attention in 5 years or so when I have a 2 year old who won't eat anything but chicken nuggets. Fair is fair.
Now for something more fun: Gingerbread houses!! My friend came to visit and we made her first gingerbread house (and two more for us) from scratch. BOY is that time consuming, but infinitely tastier than the cardboard-tasting gingerbread house kits. Better icing, too.
Before I really launch into this, I should say: I don't have kids. We're thinking 3-4 years from now if everything goes as planned, because I am so not ready yet. That said, I was a nanny for years - we're talking from 8 am to 6 pm at times, up to 7 days/week during the summers, as well as being a regular babysitter. Do I know what it's like to fight with your kids to eat every day? Absolutely not, so take this all with a grain of salt.
I recently stayed with a lovely family with 2 gorgeous and adorable kidlets. (Seriously, they made me actually want children, how cool is that?) These guys are pretty starch-fixed; the younger will eat beans and some vegetables and meat, but the other one lives off of noodles and fruit. They regularly get offered other foods, which they sometimes accept but like most kids, spit it out if they aren't into it. Some may say 'GASP! HORROR! COMMUNISM!'. But really, this is going by Ellyn Satter's principles of 'Feeding with Love and Good Sense.' I won't go into too much detail, but you can go here: How to Feed Children by Ellen Satter. This lady's pretty fab in my opinion; she's a registered dietitian who also has a few other sweet credentials, including a master's degree and a social work designation. A lot of what she says makes sense, including 'if you take the joy out of eating, nutrition suffers.' Making your kids eat something they don't want, even if they're just being stubborn, isn't really helping. 'Yes April, that's easy to say when you don't have kids.' How many of us, though, don't like a particular food because it's associated with feelings of pressure or resentment? I was lucky, we were never forced to finish our plate, and while we had to try everything we didn't have to eat it all. Ergo, I'd say my sister and I have a pretty good relationship with food. However, I know quite a few people who were made to eat brussel sprouts, for example, as a kid, and who have vowed never to touch them again. Creating that situation of pressure at the table seems like it would be detrimental to the whole experience of eating.
Ok, so I've basically said 'Don't make your kids eat large amounts of stuff they don't want to eat.' The second part of that sentence though, is not 'So give them kid food!' Somewhere along the line (oh hey, corporate marketing), someone came up with brilliant idea of marketing to kids. Look at the commercials! Go to your average restaurant and there's likely a kids menu. What's on that menu? Is it smaller, maybe a little blander versions of the 'adult' menu?
Often not.
A lot of times it's: mac and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiched, cheeseburger, spaghetti, or something a lot like that. Since when did kids need to eat something different than adults? I'm not saying go out and feed your kids the spiciest curry available, but how about introducing new foods early? It seems to me that by encouraging a separate menu, it's like we're reinforcing the idea that kids need different foods than adults. This my friends, in my opinion, is crap. Did kids 50-100 years ago grow up eating chicken nuggets while mum and dad ate cabbage? Not likely. Odds are, whatever the regular adult meal, there will be something the kid will eat - even if it's just the coconut rice with a piece of chicken you sucked the sauce off of. Maybe they can try a little sauce if it's mild. Kids often need to be offered food 5-20 times (per Ellyn) before they'll start to like it. If we give up trying and pass the grilled cheese, how is this going to happen?
The idea behind feeding kids is that we as adults decide what to serve and when, and the child decides what to eat and how much. It's probably good to provide something Junior is familiar with - even if they want to fill up on bread, which may some counter-intuitive. It's a balancing act, for sure, and I've seen how frustrating it can be. Even my very smart and lovely boyfriend has said things along the lines of 'Kids won't eat that stuff.' How do you know unless you try once in a while? What's so wrong with a food, say lentils, that kids won't eat it? Maybe it's not appealing; maybe they'll never like it. But maybe they will. Naturally, sometimes you're going to be out and about and not feel like a fight. Fair enough, I say, I have enough experience to say sometimes, you need deserve the freedom to have a bit of fun and not worry about getting your kid to eat fried okra. Get the mac and cheese and enjoy your night out. Sometimes, though, maybe get an appetizer and share your entrée with your kid. The idea that kids consistently need a different menu than adults seems counter productive.
I understand, and fully expect this post to be brought to my attention in 5 years or so when I have a 2 year old who won't eat anything but chicken nuggets. Fair is fair.
Now for something more fun: Gingerbread houses!! My friend came to visit and we made her first gingerbread house (and two more for us) from scratch. BOY is that time consuming, but infinitely tastier than the cardboard-tasting gingerbread house kits. Better icing, too.
 |
| S's first gingerbread house! |
 |
| We're starting a village. |
 |
| My pretzel roof with 'skylight' |
 |
| Eeeee! |
 |
| Had to work in the Terry's Chocolate Orange to rationalize getting it. Naturally. |
 |
| You can tell we have similar idea in regards to front windows and doors. |
 |
| Boyfriend's got a bit...torched. We were mixing icing (crucial!) and couldn't hear the buzzer. Maybe shan't eat this one. |
 |
| The candy post-scourge. Keep in mind those bags were all VERY full prior to decorating. So...much...candy. |
 |
| Just a small portion of the mess. |
 |
| Leftover dough? NO WORRIES. |
Thursday 8 November 2012
Jab 10 times daily for better results.
Am back in PG! Was actually a bit weird to be back at first - I was only here for a couple weeks, and then I was gone for almost 2 months. Will have to get some pictures up of my lovely neighbourhood and the hospital here; bear with me, PG seems less novel than the northier north. In fact, to most people in BC, PG is positively southern.
So right now, I'm starting Clinical 2. Sounds impressive, yeah? I'm doing diabetes ed - something I did quite a bit of in my last two rotations by total fluke, so I figured this would be a snap.
Right?
WRONG!
Don't get me wrong, some parts of it are much easier. For example, on my very first day, I got there at 8:30, and was putting on a group class on eating for diabetes by 10:30. Sort of badass, don't you think? I was pleased with myself. I'd never even seen the PowerPoint before, but I admittedly tend to do better in group settings so I breezed through it. Naturally, there were things I could've done differently, but then I gave a class the following 2 mornings and am starting to feel I've got the hang of it. There was a group for brand new type 2 diagnoses, an impaired glucose tolerance group (pre-diabetes!), and a Senior's Survival group. I enjoyed the crap out of it. To be fair, it was partly luck; if you have a lousy group, you could be the awesomest awesome who ever awesomed, and your class will still bomb. My groups were awesome and talkative and at least half of them really wanted to KNOW. You must realize how rare that can be. So many people are just shunted off for diabetes ed by their doctor when really, they have no interest. So what if they should eat more fibre? Changing eating habits is one of the harder habits to change, and sometimes the results are so subtle (man, my kidney feels WAY better today) that it can seem pretty thankless.
That said, type 1 diabetes was still a bit of an enigma at the beginning of this week.
A) You have no insulin. No matter what I tell you to eat, you will still have no insulin. Dietary changes can only go so far.
B) The vast majority of the clientele are kidlets, and all the ones I've seen are about 10-14. It's an...interesting age.
C) Teenage boys. Ugh.
I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, though. It seems like the hardest part is really for the parents. I mean, yes, the kid is getting poked with needles several times a day (I have one of the pens! See previous post!), but mum and/or dad is worrying CONSTANTLY. Kid, for the most part, at least in a lot of cases, is not overly concerned with their blood sugar level. I don't know if you can really grasp potential nephropathy at age 10.
Think about it. How many foods can you think of that DON'T have any sugar?
Even things that don't taste sweet converts into sugar in the body. ALL carbohydrates - that includes some veggies, mes amis! Bread, cereal, fruit, potatoes, rice, pasta, yogurt, milk, granola bars, chips - that doesn't even include the really sweet stuff. (Don't even get me started on some of the myths, 'organic potatoes don't have sugar.' PLEASE.) Counting carbs, poking your kid with insulin or getting them to do it 4 times per day PLUS the blood glucose checks before AND after supper. SO MUCH POKING.
This is a pretty good video for just a glimpse of how much of an ordeal it can be. It takes 6 minutes just to explain how they figure out breakfast for this little nipper.
Kids will be kids. We had a teenage boy who ate...well...like a teenage boy. Fibre? WHAT? WHERE? And vegetables: you've got to be kidding. Ridonculous amounts of protein and refined flour without a carrot in sight. Another problem especially with older kids is missing meals *guh*. This is one of the worse things you can do, since your body runs a lot better if it has regular energy and carbohydrate coming in.
***Feel an eating-breakfast-sermon coming on? DAMN STRAIGHT. DO IT. For reals, just have a smoothie or something, it doesn't have to be the whole shebang with eggs and pancakes and so on. I don't care if you have diabetes, I may just poke you until you get my drift. Also the first thing we recommend for weight loss, just saying!***
Anyway, back to the kidlets. Sometimes, you get one in who is rather depressed. Think of sending your kid to school every day, coming in 2-3 times to check their blood sugar if they're little, or them having to check their blood sugar before and after meals. They probably don't have all the stuff the other kids have; not like I think kids SHOULD have chocolate bars and chips in their bags, but it's got to suck a bit being the odd one out. And having your parents fuss about your sugars and nag you constantly about them, and always having to analyze everything you eat until you're not sure a 2nd helping is even worth it? It's not like it's ever going to go away, either. If you're lucky, you'll get on a pump so less poking, but you still have all the other hassle. Sometimes the kid just says 'I don't want diabetes today.' They don't want to check or inject, and they just want to eat every doughnut and chocolate bar in sight. Burnout is the sort-of technical term for it, when the person is just so tired out of the counting carbs and calculating insulin and insulin pens or beeping pumps that they hit a wall. Even if you let them take a day off (not recommended, for the record), it'll still be there tomorrow.
Bit depressing, this, isn't it? One of my very good friends is coming to visit this weekend, so will try to get out and take some pictures so I can talk a little less :P.
So right now, I'm starting Clinical 2. Sounds impressive, yeah? I'm doing diabetes ed - something I did quite a bit of in my last two rotations by total fluke, so I figured this would be a snap.
Right?
WRONG!
Don't get me wrong, some parts of it are much easier. For example, on my very first day, I got there at 8:30, and was putting on a group class on eating for diabetes by 10:30. Sort of badass, don't you think? I was pleased with myself. I'd never even seen the PowerPoint before, but I admittedly tend to do better in group settings so I breezed through it. Naturally, there were things I could've done differently, but then I gave a class the following 2 mornings and am starting to feel I've got the hang of it. There was a group for brand new type 2 diagnoses, an impaired glucose tolerance group (pre-diabetes!), and a Senior's Survival group. I enjoyed the crap out of it. To be fair, it was partly luck; if you have a lousy group, you could be the awesomest awesome who ever awesomed, and your class will still bomb. My groups were awesome and talkative and at least half of them really wanted to KNOW. You must realize how rare that can be. So many people are just shunted off for diabetes ed by their doctor when really, they have no interest. So what if they should eat more fibre? Changing eating habits is one of the harder habits to change, and sometimes the results are so subtle (man, my kidney feels WAY better today) that it can seem pretty thankless.
That said, type 1 diabetes was still a bit of an enigma at the beginning of this week.
A) You have no insulin. No matter what I tell you to eat, you will still have no insulin. Dietary changes can only go so far.
B) The vast majority of the clientele are kidlets, and all the ones I've seen are about 10-14. It's an...interesting age.
C) Teenage boys. Ugh.
I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, though. It seems like the hardest part is really for the parents. I mean, yes, the kid is getting poked with needles several times a day (I have one of the pens! See previous post!), but mum and/or dad is worrying CONSTANTLY. Kid, for the most part, at least in a lot of cases, is not overly concerned with their blood sugar level. I don't know if you can really grasp potential nephropathy at age 10.
Think about it. How many foods can you think of that DON'T have any sugar?
Even things that don't taste sweet converts into sugar in the body. ALL carbohydrates - that includes some veggies, mes amis! Bread, cereal, fruit, potatoes, rice, pasta, yogurt, milk, granola bars, chips - that doesn't even include the really sweet stuff. (Don't even get me started on some of the myths, 'organic potatoes don't have sugar.' PLEASE.) Counting carbs, poking your kid with insulin or getting them to do it 4 times per day PLUS the blood glucose checks before AND after supper. SO MUCH POKING.
This is a pretty good video for just a glimpse of how much of an ordeal it can be. It takes 6 minutes just to explain how they figure out breakfast for this little nipper.
Kids will be kids. We had a teenage boy who ate...well...like a teenage boy. Fibre? WHAT? WHERE? And vegetables: you've got to be kidding. Ridonculous amounts of protein and refined flour without a carrot in sight. Another problem especially with older kids is missing meals *guh*. This is one of the worse things you can do, since your body runs a lot better if it has regular energy and carbohydrate coming in.
***Feel an eating-breakfast-sermon coming on? DAMN STRAIGHT. DO IT. For reals, just have a smoothie or something, it doesn't have to be the whole shebang with eggs and pancakes and so on. I don't care if you have diabetes, I may just poke you until you get my drift. Also the first thing we recommend for weight loss, just saying!***
Anyway, back to the kidlets. Sometimes, you get one in who is rather depressed. Think of sending your kid to school every day, coming in 2-3 times to check their blood sugar if they're little, or them having to check their blood sugar before and after meals. They probably don't have all the stuff the other kids have; not like I think kids SHOULD have chocolate bars and chips in their bags, but it's got to suck a bit being the odd one out. And having your parents fuss about your sugars and nag you constantly about them, and always having to analyze everything you eat until you're not sure a 2nd helping is even worth it? It's not like it's ever going to go away, either. If you're lucky, you'll get on a pump so less poking, but you still have all the other hassle. Sometimes the kid just says 'I don't want diabetes today.' They don't want to check or inject, and they just want to eat every doughnut and chocolate bar in sight. Burnout is the sort-of technical term for it, when the person is just so tired out of the counting carbs and calculating insulin and insulin pens or beeping pumps that they hit a wall. Even if you let them take a day off (not recommended, for the record), it'll still be there tomorrow.
Bit depressing, this, isn't it? One of my very good friends is coming to visit this weekend, so will try to get out and take some pictures so I can talk a little less :P.
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