davidlynchfan

Problem for me is when I get stoned, all the junk food just turn into gourmet. I crave and attack ice cream the most. Every 8th I grab equals +10 lbs added for the week though I'm not obese in the slightest. I'm about 5'7 and 145 Lbs.

Michael Corvin

I've given up soda a few times over the years. I think longest I went was 9 months. Thing is, I don't drink, I don't smoke, don't do drugs, don't have a gambling addiction, I don't have a Starbucks addiction, I'm not severely overweight, I'm pretty fucking boring. I'm not a fan of coffee or tea. I drink a shit ton of water, but that gets pretty damn boring day in and day out.

So I have no problems having a few sodas a week. I don't drink them daily and I don't down a half dozen a day to get through work like some either.

EinCB

I got to stop it with the soda - I drink too much of it. That stuff has no nutritional value. I stop with the soda and I think I sleep better. Do drink lots of water, though, thankfully.

DJariya

Just plain old water gets really boring. Plus it passes through my system so fast.

I essentially cut out full regular sodas with sugar several years ago.

I will have a Coke Zero Sugar or a Diet Pepsi 3-4 Days a week with lunch sometimes. Night time I’ll only drink water. I have started consuming flavored soda water from Walmart. Usually I’ll have lime or lemon.

I used to have a Starbucks Frappuccino a few times a week, but those are like 90% sugar and my blood sugar levels started spiking big time. Now I’ll treat my maybe 1-2 times a month tops.

I’m probably about 20-25 pounds heavier than I should be. My biggest issue is portion size and foods with too much sugar. Being from an Asian family, it’s next to impossible to avoid noodles and white rice.

zyzzle

Certainly agree with this. I think convenience is way too highly valued in American society, even to the obvious and apparent detriment to our health. This lack of time and patience, along with the unaffordability of eating healthy, make for a deadly duo, and pack on the pounds. The notion also that we've gotten soft (mentally, emotionally, and physically) has been realized in the current puffy marshmellow obesity epidemic.

Kids today have very little freedom - all those parents' helicopter blades are cutting it off, most deleteriously. It is a broken record, but kids only one generation ago (ie Gen X'ers like myself) had the reign of the land, freedom to explore, and we got our 10,000 steps per day in *without even thinking about it*, and while having FUN, being kids. Afternoons and weekends were busy times, active times then for children, because technology didn't dominate every second of their lives, and every second of their time wasn't micromanaged by perhaps well-meaning, but quite off-base nervous Nelly parents.

majorjoe23

I’m more into the Dirty South parenting style.

But seriously, most of what you said is incorrect. I work with kids, and it’s not the ones with helicopter parents who are overweight. It’s the kids with parents who are largely absent and fending for food themselves or spending most of their time with grandparents, who understandably aren’t as active as younger caregivers would be. Some of the kids subsist largely on the free and reduced meals at school, so when they encounter food outside school (especially on weekends), they wolf it down because they don’t know when they’ll be getting more. And what they get is usually cheap and full of fat and sugar.

I stopped drinking soda about a month ago, switching over to La Croix (and store brand stuff) because what I really crave seems to be bubbles. I’ve also started working out 3-4 times a week. I haven’t had any super noticeable weight loss so far, but I feel better.

I’ve weighed almost 70 lbs less than I do now, but then I was about 20lbs under weight. I’m 6’3”, so being 225 doesn’t make me look obese or anything, but I definitively have a bit of a gut that I’d love to lose.

Brian Shannon

jfoobar

There are many examples, but the one that always gets me is to think about this:



What we have here is a very complex manufactured food product with lots of ingredients (some natural, some artificial) and substantial packaging. A whole box of these was under $1 when I was younger and can be had for $1.67 now. That's 1600 calories of complex, manufactured food in multiple layers of packaging for $1.67.

Take that same 13 oz. of weight of vegetables, even something very common like carrots or green peppers, and you'll probably pay at least $1.67. This is for something that required no manufacturing at all. It was just grown, picked, washed off and thrown in a bag (if that). Sure, refrigerated shipping costs more and the shelf life is shorter, but the Little Debbie manifestation of the amazingly cheap (and subsidized) prices of wheat and corn, that they can do all this work and still make a profit at $1.67/box...

Jaymole

They have a new logo:

slop101

I'm the same, but for me it's chips - the crispier, the saltier, the cheesier, the better! And yeah, that shit's like gourmet when you're stoned. My solution... don't get stoned (too often)

Thankfully, I don't have a sweet tooth - a little sugar goes a LONG ways for me (I've read that different people taste sugar differently from each other - it's not as sweet to those who have a "sweet tooth"), and I know I taste it different, because I'm always taken aback by how too sweet something is, only to have someone tell me that it's not that sweet.

If I had a sweet tooth, and sugar wasn't as overly sweet to me, I'd probably be obese as well.

Sdallnct

I only agree with this to a point. I like to cook for groups and I regularly make breakfast for a dozen people (to take to my favorite bar or Brewery).

I can make “egg McMuffin’s” at home for less than McDonalds and w/higher quality ingredients.

I make egg casserole dishes that are penny’s per serving.

While I make these for groups I also due to freeze and save.

I’ll often buy a whole pork shoulder at Costco and smoke it for pulled pork sandwiches (you could also use a crock pot) make a basic potato salad and again it turns out to be penny’s per serving.

And just about anything you crock pot (pork green chili stew is my favorite) is Penney’s per serving.

To me it is all about effort. My daughter does the “meal prep” thing. She takes a couple hours on a Sunday and make meals for a week. And this ends up being cheep.

Hokeyboy

THIS. Absolutely true. I do meal prep every other Sunday, place each in the freezer, thaw overnight when needed, and have crockpot meals that'll last 2 weeks or so. Very healthy, very tasty, very satisfying, and we're looking at $3-$4 a meal.

Plus it's so damn easy. Throw it in the pot, set to low and slow, and when I get home all I have to do is make rice, steam veggies, whatever sides I need.

Giantrobo

Man I've been wanting to do this FOREVER I love Slow Cooker Cooking.

Sdallnct

My daughter is a fitness nut so she does for that that plus she has UC. So she does it for health reasons. But I quickly saw how cheap it was.

She will get the “family” chicken breast package and throw them all in a cookie sheet. Little olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe Italian herbs. Bakes it in oven. Then each of the larger breasts end up being 2 meals.

When she is home, I’ll grill them for her as a change.

She adds rice and veggies and cheap, easy, healthy meals for relatively little.

Hiro11

I have a hard time being judgmental about this.

I'm 5'10", 160lbs, a fairly "normal" weight. I have a sedentary job.

I eat a balanced diet and rarely overeat but I have to do a lot to maintain this weight. I get up at 4am most mornings and either do a group bike ride (with racers, 30-40 miles at 20-22MPH avg) or a run (5-9 miles a day, averaging 7:00 - 7:30 min/mile).

I'm well aware that I have HUGE advantages that allow me to do this. I have no health problems. I don't have a lot of stressful demands on my life. I can sleep through the night each night without issue. I have enough time and money to support my hobbies. I also truly enjoy exercise and I see these workouts as a high point of each day.

If you don't have the time and money, if you have a health problem (even a mild one), if you really just don't like exercise, if you had an elderly parent or a sick child to take care of etc, etc, etc if would be really easy to gain a bunch of weight quickly. I get how this happens. Everyone's doing their best.

zyzzle

That does make a lot of sense, especially in the case where both parents must work just to make ends meet, and leave kids on their own. They're probably among the poorer classes and / or working class jobs. Those kids are going to grab calories any way they can, load up on carbs, and "cheap" comfort food, since they can't afford healthier options. And pack on the pounds. Food provides psychological validity to these kids also, perhaps substituting for their absent parents.

I was probably generalizing more to the case of upper class and the McMansion kids where both parents probably work also, income is high, but freedom and space to explore is probably much more limited than what I knew as a kid (in "dangerous" LA, still with plenty of open space in those days). So, those kids sit on their phones and watch Netflix, use social media, rather than being outside playing, exploring. And they gain weight as a result of being sedentary. Sure, they're taken to plenty of scheduled activities by parents and / or nannies. But the safest place is at home where they can be watched and monitored. At home, in their gated communities.

hbilly

There's an alternative called one pot meals. I just made myself Mexican Beef and Rice, and it was delicious. Most single guys don't cook but those one pot meals are super easy, you just add your ingeredients in one pot and that's it.
It's less messy, you'll only have to clean up one pot (and one plate or bowl) afterwards.

Sdallnct

I also think this is a product of a failed education system.

Our school “pour” facts into our kids minds without teaching them how to think. And the schools teach almost zero practical day to day skills. “Home Economics” was treated as a joke and “free class”. During PE we were measured on doing something. Not on why were doing it why we should continue to do it.

Along with health issues I’m comvenced so many people have financial trouble because they were never taught how to budget how to save (I’m talking about those that have the money/income to budget and save. Those that don’t need a different kind of education).

slop101

Are doughnuts pretty much the worst thing you can eat? I mean, fried dough and sugar... can't think of anything worse to put in your body.

Sdallnct

There are a handful of things I avoid at all cost. Even tho a single doughnut would not detail an otherwise heathy week of eating I just don’t think that is what I would “splurge” on.

But yea, I never ever eat a doughnut, real cokes, mayonnaise, cream dressings of any kind, fried food.

Regarding fried food there are a couple places in town that make incredible French fried. I occasionally share a small order. But even that is rare.

I believe anything in moderation can fit into a healthy life style (I’m assuming no one here is trying to be a fitness model). But your a guy on a 2,000 calorie diet, and chew up 400 on a doughnut, you now have to eat less good foods. It had a chain reaction for the rest of the day. And even if willing to do that, I’d rather have a quality beer.

Sdallnct

I agree with “no judgement”. However I do think some people do make unnecessary excuses. And I fully admit before I started my journey, I was one of those guys. I had very legit reasons for not eating healthy or exercising. I did and do travel 200+ days a year for work. I live out of Hotels that rarely have anything more than a microwave. This means I eat 80% of my meals out. It also makes exercise harder. What if there is not one of my gyms in town?

Yet I found a way to get into very good overall health while doing this. I found the “less bad options” at restaurants. I took up running so I could run anywhere and joined a nationwide gym membership that includes a lot of different branded gym. My gym bag that doubles as a race bag always goes with me.

When I got plantar fasciitis earlier year I bought a bike and rack for my Jeep. I’ve been taking that with me when I can.

I’m not bragging. It took me a long time to get into the mental frame work of “no excuses”. I’m not perfect. And I always consider better health a “work in progress”.

To me a major turning point is realizing exercise is just like brushing your teeth or showering. It should be automatic. I mean few people would say “I think I’ll skip brushing my teeth today since I’m running late”.

You run 5-9 miles daily is impressive. But running 3 or 30 min of vigorous daily exercise can have a major impact on ones life and overall health. Regardless of weight (I’m not talking the extremely obese).

jfoobar

That or pancakes. I remember hearing stories about a couple of Hollywood men who needed to gain weight for a role and did it by eating lots of pancakes. Copious amounts of white flour topped with sugar, basically, and people who would scoff at eating more than two doughnuts will sometimes gladly polish off a whole stack of pancakes covered in syrup.

cultshock

It's funny, I used to get mad munchies, especially for something crunchy and salty (mostly potato chips, which I already have a weakness for anyway) and eating that stuff while under the influence was like heaven! But now if I get a bit stoned, the munchies aren't too bad. But just in case, these days I stick to something like a couple dill pickles or some nuts, to satisfy the crunchy/salty craving (those still are bad for sodium, I know) or just make sure I have some carrot sticks ready.

slop101

I've found Honey Crisp apples to be a healthy and delightful snack to crunch on while stoned.

cultshock

Thanks, I'll give those a try. Anything is better than the chips that I want to eat.