Willpower - me a&€@!

Missyelliot2

Confirmation that despite the many plaudits I feel I should receive (restraining from chocolate 'til after noon-sometimes) this young thing has stolen my thunder.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2457571/Raw-food-diet-entrepreneur-Susan-Reynolds-mistaken-teenager.html

Sweet lord for a tiny percentage of her grit (and hatred of Haribos, kettle crisps and all things yummy!)

Sauve

I think the biggest thing about willpower is detaching the emotion from the decision to eat or not eat the packet of biscuits. You have to retrain your body to see food as nothing more than fuel. Then you'll start to turn your nose up at the bad stuff, as you would at putting bad petrol in your car.
I can do that for a few days at a time, but always always slip if I'm tired/emotional, or have pms. That's when the rational "you don't need 17 hobnobs" side of my brain shuts down

The Sweeper

I do have a vegan friend who drinks 2-3 green smoothies a day (among other things) and she has genuinely the best skin I've ever seen.

I've found from a personal perspective, I find it a lot easier to consistently maintain not doing things, as opposed to actually doing things. What I mean by that is I find it near on impossible to get organised enough to shop for, purchase, take home, blend and drink the ingredients for a green smoothie on a daily basis.

However, I cut out sugar in my tea and coffee three weeks ago and don't miss it. I've never been good at breakfast in my life, but in recent weeks I've stopped buying and drinking those sugar-filled breakfast replacements. Instead I go to work empty handed, and subsequently mid-morning have to eat something that's in my office stash, like porridge with sultanas and honey.

If I could find away to take my 'just stop doing stuff' inspiration and apply it to something proactive, I'd be on a super duper health kick winner.

Missyelliot2

Sauve wrote: »

I think the biggest thing about willpower is detaching the emotion from the decision to eat or not eat the packet of biscuits. You have to retrain your body to see food as nothing more than fuel. Then you'll start to turn your nose up at the bad stuff, as you would at putting bad petrol in your car.
I can do that for a few days at a time, but always always slip if I'm tired/emotional, or have pms. That's when the rational "you don't need 17 hobnobs" side of my brain shuts down

You are me with kettle crisps!!

Brain programmed to get salty food-so crisps required. Need to have more willpower -but dwindles by 8pm.

meeeeh

Years ago a 16 year old grabbed my arse in a club thinking I was his age. I was 26 and had ten years of smoking, drinking and ****e diet behind me. I must call Daily Mail to organize the interview and pass on some tips. .

Seriously though I like good food. I don't consider over processed crap good food but you do need to use a bit more than a blender to create a decent meal. And I wish people would stop selling unproven whacky diets as a magic cure for mortality. Plus she is not even original, this ****e around since ever and not gaining any recognition. I wonder why.

Precious flower

Last couple days I've been on a slippery slope, seem to need chocolate/crisps everyday. Nearly finished a can of pringles last night!:eek: Really need to get back on track! Like another poster said it's easier for me not to do things then do them. I can walk away from the biscuit tin, but I can't motivate myself to exercise! I suppose as long as I'm doing one of them it's not so bad! :pac:

Legs.Eleven

That diet sounds absolutely miserable and doesn't sound all that healthy imo. Not much variety there and what is wrong with cooking your food?

Sauve

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

That diet sounds absolutely miserable and doesn't sound all that healthy imo. Not much variety there and what is wrong with cooking your food?

You lose a lot of nutrients when you cook food. Not that I'm defending the diet, don't get me wrong! I'd be a wreck without a bellyfull of hot food at least once a day

Legs.Eleven

Sauve wrote: »

You lose a lot of nutrients when you cook food. Not that I'm defending the diet, don't get me wrong! I'd be a wreck without a bellyfull of hot food at least once a day

True but you're also missing out on a huge amount of food that can't be eaten raw.

Missyelliot2

Does anyone have a recipe for a very healthy smoothie - needing to undo weekend damage and feeling very pious this morn - thanks!

Sauve

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

True but you're also missing out on a huge amount of food that can't be eaten raw.

Like cows and pigs. Nyom

She's veggie though, but still- pulses etc. would all need to be cooked. As would root veg, and loads more that I can't think of right now...

pwurple

I clicked on the link, she does actually have wrinkles in there... I'd say it's her demeanor or facial expression that's contributing to the teenager thing. She doesn't look 'serious'.

Wibbs

Sauve wrote: »

You lose a lot of nutrients when you cook food.

Actually this is a fallacy, if a commonly held one. Unless you're cooking in a blast furnace(and even then) minerals are unmolested by cooking, indeed by cooking and breaking open the cell walls in plants more minerals and vitamins become available. Vitamins? Most are perfectly fine with cooking temperatures. Even with vitamin C which is sensitive to heat, you lose some, but not all. Generally speaking you increase the amount of bioavailable nutrients in food by cooking. It's external digestion as it were. It's why we can eat meat without having the strong stomach acids(or big teeth) of predators and why we can eat many plant foods without growing three stomachs. Quite the number of foods are poisonous in the raw state. Cooking also kills pathogens. Basically without cooking we wouldn't be human.

It looks like another fad diet. Popular things they are too. Paleo was the new black a while back(do not get me going on that one :)). I think that one appealed to blokes more, the oul hairy heman caveman diet Previously it was Atkins and the like. IMHO it boils down(no pun) to this; we all have a fair idea which foods are crap for you in high amounts and that variability, not going to extremes, easing back on portions and a little of what you fancy won't do you any harm is the way to go. That doesn't sell diet books though.

Sauve

Makes sense Wibbs, I'd always just blindly belived that cooking food boils/bakes the good out of it

(Says she currently eating microwaved baked beans and baked brown bread that's 3 days old and is hurting my jaw :pac: )

Wibbs

Sauve wrote: »

Makes sense Wibbs, I'd always just blindly belived that cooking food boils/bakes the good out of it

Well to be fair cooking can, but as a byproduct. Those who boil veggies and throw out the soup left over which has a load of good stuff in it are daft.

Even animals will "cook" their food, well predigest it. If you got taken by a crocodile, he'd jam you under a log underwater and leave ya for a week to tenderise you. Tigers do similar and leave meat in trees and the like until it gets a bit niffy. Hell humans do it. Pheasant is "aged" as is venison.


I'm personally convinced that people differ in what works for them(or doesn't). I tried veganism for a couple of months(ex of mine was into it so...) and it wrecked me. Physically I felt low, but mentally and emotionally I felt really drained. Very anxious, even low level depressed. Got back on the meat and literally overnight I felt so much better. About the best I've felt on a diet was an atkins type protein and fat diet, yet others I know who've tried it felt rough as a badgers arse very quickly with ketosis and the like. Maybe because we all have different ecosystems in our guts and my particular kinda bacteria dig that while others with different bacteria may not? All I know is that while I was all vegan I was doing that thing you see in tom and jerry cartoons where peoples heads started to look like steaks and turkeys.

The other thing I noted with raw veganism type stuff was you had to eat a lot of food every day to stave off hunger

Rubylolz

ah here, she might look young but sure she's not happy! lol!

What happened to everything in moderation???

iguana

I don't think she looks especially young for 29 tbh. I looked about the same age when I was her age and I don't think I'd look that different now if I wasn't awake most nights with a teething baby. She is also smiling a huge grin which has a youthful effect on her face, while wearing her hair pushed back with a hairband which is a girly style. Fair play to her if her diet makes her happy but she doesn't look magically young in a way that the headline suggests.

I also think Nigella Lawson looks fab for a woman in her 50s and she eats plenty of cooked food. Sure your diet and lifestyle will have an impact on your looks (like my puffy sleep deprived face) but the biggest factor is genetics.

iguana

iguana wrote: »

I don't think she looks especially young for 29 tbh. I looked about the same age when I was her age and I don't think I'd look that different now if I wasn't awake most nights with a teething baby. She is also smiling a huge grin which has a youthful effect on her face, while wearing her hair pushed back with a hairband which is a girly style. Fair play to her if her diet makes her happy but she doesn't look magically young in a way that the headline suggests.

I also think Nigella Lawson looks fab for a woman in her 50s and she eats plenty of cooked food. Sure your diet and lifestyle will have an impact on your looks (like my puffy sleep deprived face) but the biggest factor is genetics.

She actually looks quite old for 29, IMO. She looks way older than me (I'm the same age as her) - I eat whatever I want and drink far too much and have no wrinkles or lines.

Some girls in my university halls were doing this diet 10 years ago - nothing new about it at all. I think it's just faddy and in many cases, a good cover up for an eating disorder. I also couldn't think of anything more dull than eating raw food forever.

beks101

The thing about willpower though is that it's finite and will always eventually crack because of the mentality that surrounds it. The language used around it says it all; being "naughty" because you've eaten "bad" foods instead of "good" foods, "falling off the wagon", "falling off track" etc etc. No-one wants to live like that, so eventually, because they're human, they'll "cave".

Personally I think enjoyment of food is pretty important to healthy living. Food is one of the few joys in life that is there for the taking and there's so many ways to get your nutrients in the most enjoyable, delightful of ways that there's no need to follow some fad like a "raw foods diet" or avoiding all carbs or drinking nothing but green juice etc etc if you know it's going against your personal sense of happiness or equilibrium.

I've struggled relentlessly with food and lived most of my life with a "diet mentality", beating myself up for my "crap willpower", and funnily enough, it was the times when I quit following some stupid rules and just tried to just balance my meals to quench my appetite and keep my blood sugar levels low that, in conjunction with regular exercise, made me feel most at peace and at ease with my body.

Life isn't about depriving or neglecting your body's needs. If drinking lettuce juice five times a day and living exclusively on raw foods makes you happy, and doesn't cause massive, soul-crushing cravings for a hot stew, then I'm all for it - personally it would make me dread the act of eating and I'd probably slip back into disordered eating because of how out of sync my body and mind would be. But each to their own.

April O Neill

Kynlee Itchy Pussycat wrote: »

She actually looks quite old for 29, IMO. She looks way older than me (I'm the same age as her)

A hell of a lot of people claim they look younger than they are, when they actually don't. I am also 29... and I look... 29. Sometimes I get the "You look so much younger" comments, but I take them with a pinch of salt, TBH. She looks 29. I don't agree she looks older than 29 though. IMO she looks her age. But if she looked at a pic of herself at 21, she'd see the difference, and realise she has indeed aged.

bluemagpie

A lot depends on your genes, lots of people look a bit younger than their age.

One of the hypothesis out there is that man developed its larger brain as a result of the discovery of fire and being able to cook food... Nobody will be taking away my nice hot dinners! I notice how only she ate lettuce for her main course for Christmas dinner... not a chance.

kylith

Her big grin makes it impossible to gauge what she actually looks like, imo. I don't think she looks like a teenager, in fact I'd say that she and I look about the same age, and I'm a couple of years older and I drink, smoke, and eat all the red meat I can get my hands on.

Of course, one could just as easily pick out a picture of Gillian McKeith and use that as evidence that these fad diets make you look years older than you really are.

Legs.Eleven

April O Neill wrote: »

A hell of a lot of people claim they look younger than they are, when they actually don't. I am also 29... and I look... 29. Sometimes I get the "You look so much younger" comments, but I take them with a pinch of salt, TBH. She looks 29. I don't agree she looks older than 29 though. IMO she looks her age. But if she looked at a pic of herself at 21, she'd see the difference, and realise she has indeed aged.

I agree. What does 29 even look like? 29 is hardly over the hill. She looks whatever 29 looks like imo. She wouldn't pass for 16 but there's nothing at all wrong with that.

April O Neill

April O Neill wrote: »

A hell of a lot of people claim they look younger than they are, when they actually don't. I am also 29... and I look... 29. Sometimes I get the "You look so much younger" comments, but I take them with a pinch of salt, TBH. She looks 29. I don't agree she looks older than 29 though. IMO she looks her age. But if she looked at a pic of herself at 21, she'd see the difference, and realise she has indeed aged.

Well, I suppose you need a perception of what the average 29-year-old looks like to be able to say if someone looks older or younger. This woman has wrinkles under her eyes, which makes her look far older than 29 to me. The only people I know who are my age with wrinkles/lines smoke like chimneys and drink all the time. In the pic where she's facing the camera eating the carrot, I'd take her for at least 35. She may look young from a distance due to being petite, having a childlike demeanor and that kind of innocent face, but up close, she looks quite old to me.

April O Neill

Kynlee Itchy Pussycat wrote: »

Well, I suppose you need a perception of what the average 29-year-old looks like to be able to say if someone looks older or younger. This woman has wrinkles under her eyes, which makes her look far older than 29 to me.

Wrinkles are very much down to genetics as much as the things you mention. I have a pretty clean-living friend who start to develop wrinkles at around 23, including fine lines. She said she had expected it as it runs in her family. Whereas you'll see much older people with very few.

I think we can all agree she doesn't look 16 though!

meeeeh

Does it really matter how old she looks. She is selling this nonsense as some sort of youth serum which is completely unproven.

I just wonder what happened to the healthy medium. On one side you have people propagating this nonsense(and many more silly diets) and on other side you have people gobbling down any rubbish they can find. Usually both done by the same people at different stages of their life.

Wibbs

beks101 wrote: »

But each to their own.

Nail on head B. People can differ a lot and this includes food in a big way. IMH a lot if not most of the people on extreme diets actually aren't that pushed about food. They see it as fuel, rather than a pleasure. I'd be one of those. I could do a juice diet or whatever, so long as it was fueling my body. Other than the odd choccy bar or juicy steak which I'd miss, food for me is something I swallow to keep me going. So going extreme would not involve any willpower for me and no way could I claim that those who couldn't follow such a diet are lacking in "willpower".

On the other hand you have people who love food, cooking food, trying different foods, even taking instagrams of food they're about to eat(what's that about?) etc and for those people going on some extreme type diet is doomed to failure and then they'll feel guilty and rinse and repeat and they'll likely do actual damage to themselves.