to eat or not to eat - that is the question

[Martain]

So recently I've been getting into better shape and health for various reasons and I've had great success!

I've gone from being a size 36 waist to 32 (YAY!) and want to continue in improving my health.

A large reason for my current focus on health is due to learning how often I eat for pleasure, comfort and when stressed to the point of overeating.

Knowing that my appatites and passions need to be within the limits the Lord has set, my problem is that I lack light and knowledge as to how much I truly need to eat and seeing as eating food is pleasurable, at what point does eating cross over the line into gluttony.

At 5'5" and 152lbs I don't feel particularly overweight (although I'd like to be able to see my ab muscles again without flexing like I could in highschool) but having been shown this weakness I'm now seeking to find out where the line is as I feel this weakness is coming between me and the Lord and I can't have such continue.

The problem is that I don't want the doctrines of men mingled with scripture/truth but just the truth and I feel it's like searching for a needle in a haystack even with a google search engine.

How much food/calories do we really need each day to be healthy?

Seeing as want exceeds needs, at what point does it become gluttony?

Since not all calories are the same, how do I determine how much to eat? How do I classify different calorie types?

Normally your body tells you when you've had enough. My body doesn't do that properly. Why not and what do I do about it?

Right now I'm looking on LDS.ORG and searching through inspired counsel with limited results. Is there anyone here who has already reached the point I'm arriving at and obtained with the Lord's aid the knowledge I seek? Anyone who feels confident that their knowledge is truth and not the precepts and doctrines of men mingled with truth?

If so I'd like your help in obtaining knowledge which I can then apply in my life after confirming it with the Lord. I feel such an approach is bound to be more successful and efficient than trying to filter the google database via prayer.

What? Someone that wants to hear all your opinions & views regarding health and eating? Surely there'll be some takers interested in such a request here right?

[Dravin]

How much food/calories do we really need each day to be healthy?

It is variable depending on body size and activity level among other things.

Since not all calories are the same, how do I determine how much to eat? How do I classify different calorie types?

All calories are the same. A calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1 degree Celsius (A Calorie, note the capitalization, is 1000 calories). The big thing is that our bodies don't react to all sources of calories the same, in particular satiation differs between foods.

[Vort]

Dravin is correct, but note that the "capital C" convention is not one that you see in casual conversation. Diet sites and other articles about food will not say that a sandwich has "700 Calories", but just "700 calories". From what I can tell, it's mostly a chemistry convention that chemists hoped would catch on, but it didn't. (Chemists are pretty much the only people who use the energy measurement of a "calorie", which as Dravin mentions is the heat energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 Celsius degree. Interestingly, this quantity is not well-defined, since the heat capacity of water varies slightly with temperature and air pressure, so various types of calories have been defined.)

[bytor2112]

If you exercise you should be able to eat around 1800 good calories per day and maintain your weight. Good calories meaning, lean meats, no processed food and plenty of vegetables, fruits and lots of water and stay away from sugar.Try a mix of 40% protein, 30% carb and 30% fat....

[dahlia]

Orthorexia nervosa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The tone of your post concerns me. While I struggle with how LDS can eat so much meat, considering the WOW, and whether the fluffy amongst us (myself included) should try harder to reach a normal weight as a part of being LDS, when concerns about healthy food and eating programs becomes obsessive, it's time to step back. If you want to lose more weight, find a program that you can life with comfortably and don't obsess about it. Everyone is different; what works for you may not work for someone else.

[Martain]

@Dravin

I'm curious as to what has lead you to conclude that a calorie is a calorie as I haven't reached that point yet. This is one of the topics that has various opinions with some stating they are the same and some stating they are not.

I don't know which is the truth but I read an article which indicates that they are different citing:

1. The energy cost to metabolize fat, carbs and protein is different

2. Calorie restriction slows metabolism

3. Protein reduces appetite

4. Fiber reduces calorie absorption

5. Timing of eating affects calorie processing

If such is true then the question of how much food isn't simply a question of X number of calories because it will not only be a question of how many calories but where the calorie is coming from and what else is coming with it.

Your response was very prompt. Thanks! I'm thinking that your "All carlories are the same" is different from the way others use that statement. Do you agree with the above referenced article? Disagree?

It is variable depending on body size and activity level among other things.

I also loved this very true yet terribly vague answer =).

@Bytor If I'm currently quite sedentary and only hitting the gym once a week for an hour of running/cycling would you change your estimate? At one point I had a friend with whom I ran daily which I'd glady resume with her if the option presented itself. Why do you feel that 40/30/30 and 1800 is a good guideline? Is this from personal experience? How did you arrive at these figures?

@Dahlia - Aww! No worries =). I'm confident my concerns are not obsessive. Rather I have received some personal revelation that is leading me this route and part of gaining further light and knowledge from the Lord entails putting in effort to finding that information out yourself via means already presented.

Based on your comment regarding meat consumption =), a product you might like that I love is SunWarrior.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Martain

[Martain]

I remember once reading of an account where captives in a concentration camp during WWII were able to survive on meager rations by adding in leaves from a wild alfalfa plant that was growing within reach. They had to ration the leaves so the plant did not die but by doing so their family lived where as many others died due to lack of food.

Then there was a story regarding chinese peasants or was it railroad workers who subsisted on primarly rice alone (real rice and not the very tasty nutrient void white rice we often use) for food and yet still had the strength to labor?

Also I recall a facebook post linking a page that showed what various people and familys across the world ate in a single year. It seemed like so little! It seemed so plain! Yet they looked so fit and healthy!

Recently I read an article on Chia and how "Chia means “strength” in the Aztec language as messengers could run all day with just a small handful of chia seeds (or so they say!)" which is an amazing claim if true.

Accounts like these and others I've read lead me to feel that the human body requires relatively very little food wise to sustain good health provided it is the right food (nutrient rich and not greatly processed).

That being said, food tastes so good! It's designed that way and I'm grateful for all the flavor and savor and abundance we are blessed with in this nation! I want to eat and I'mnot trying to figure out where the minimum I can function on is but where the line is so as to ensure I'm not over doing it or being a glutton.

Q: Does anyone have a guideline other than caloric intake they use for determining how much food to eat and when to stop outside of naturally stopping when full?

Q: Have any of the brethren ever written a book regarding/expouding the subject in question?

Edited December 24, 2013 by Martain

[Dravin]

I'm curious as to what has lead you to conclude that a calorie is a calorie as I haven't reached that point yet.

It's a unit with a specific definition. This does not mean that all sources of calories are identical, thus:

The big thing is that our bodies don't react to all sources of calories the same, in particular satiation differs between foods.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Dravin

[Quin]

A calorie is a unit of measurement. Like degrees F or C, or inches, centimeters, whatever.

Proteins

Lipids

Carbohydrates

Those are the 3 major groups of edible/digestible foods (fiber is indigestible)... Otherwise known as macronutrients.

One also has:

Vitamins

Minerals

O2

H2O

That are also all necessary.

As well as some symbiotic relationships (beneficial bacteria, for examples).

That article you were reading is either full of nonsense (a lot to most diet relatedarticles are pseudoscience designed to get you to buy something, or written by an amateur who needed 500 words on her editor's desk by 5pm, so she just cobbled together something she didn't understand herself) , or it predicated an understanding of organic chem / you misunderstood it.

Nutrition is a required college class for all health care professionals, but it can also be a DEGREE ITSELF. Otherwise known as... Nutrition is a very very complex thing. Nutritional needs change over the lifespan (infant, toddler, young child, child, teen, young adult, middle adult, older adult, elderly ALL have very different metabolic needs/ nutritional needs), in different climates (England v Arizona), under different demands (offic worker vs athlete, for example.... But ALSO snow athlete vs heat athlete, and muscle athlete v bone athlete -like swimming v running, etc.), different medical conditions (pregnancy is a well known one, but also ANY illness, most diseases -ESP cancer-,, injuries, etc.).

Which is my big fat caveat for the following.

Which is a Barney Style nutrition basic. If its something you're really interested in... I suggest going and auditing a nutrition course up at your local community college. Although, mostly what it will do is to teach you how little you know AND to completely disregard 99% of "nutrition" information out there (as its mostly people selling snake oil, or talking out their wazoo to make their publication date). As there is NO way to make human metabolic needs simple. And NO way to one size fits most, much less all. Whew. Okay. That but done:

3 major nutrition sources (proteins, lipids, carbs) have different BASE calorie counts. In GENERAL (and it changes with each person's actual metabolism

Lipids = 9kcal

Proteins = 5-7kcal

Carbs = 3-4 kcal

Proteins are complex chains of amino acids.

Lipids are simple to complex fats

Carbohydrates are simple to complex sugars

Meaning no 2 proteins (lipids, or carbs) are the same. UNLESS they're literally the same. Like two lactose sugars are identical, and have identical nutritional properties... But are not identical to galactose, fructose, sucrose, etc.. Each individual type of macronutrient has many different sub categories.

They ALSO are found in different combos (like proteins in a nice marbled steak are found in closer proximity to more lipids, that a silky piece of salmon...even if both portions have 22grams of protein.

ALSO that the person eating the steak may NEED the higher fat content, or may NEED the lower fat content of the fish. (It's not necessarilly bad to be eating high fat foods... Kids under 5 should never* have low far diets, and many disorders & lifestyles require high fat diets in adults.

(* unless they have certain extremely rare medical conditions)

Or, or, or, or.

See what I mean about complex?

And this is still day 1 of Intro to Nutrition.

If you'd really like to know about YOUR ideal nutrition needs... Make an appointment with a nutritionist.

Of you'd like to learn more about nutrition for EVERYONE, go audit that class. (Again, you won't learn what each individuals needs are, but you'll learn the spectrum. And see why it's a durn 4 year degree to become a nutritionist!!

All my best!

Q

[Martain]

Yeah! That was awesome Quin! =) I really enjoyed reading what you wrote. Your literary voice style was great!

Edited December 24, 2013 by Martain

[Suzie]

Oh my goodness, I can't be reading this on Christmas Eve while baking a ham.

[john doe]

I have to pause here a moment and applaud the OP for the nice humblebrag. Well done, sir.