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Why call it a diet?

I think I absolutely realised on New Years Eve, that this is now my lifestyle choice and no longer a diet. We were out dancing the night away and there was a buffet. I had no desire at all to eat the sandwiches, sausage rolls, cheese straws etc. There was very little low carb choice..( next year I'll take my own.) but I nabbed the salad garnish off the sandwich plates, a couple of chicken drumsticks and some peanuts and skipped the dessert... I did go and have a look but nothing tempted me... Before LCHF I'd have never had the willpower to do this, but it just felt right for me.
I will also add that I eat a much better variety and quality of food now. My cooking skills are improving and I find it a fun challenge to look at low carb ingredients and think what to create next. I'll be trying a lamb tagine this week :)
 
daisyduck said:
I think I absolutely realised on New Years Eve, that this is now my lifestyle choice and no longer a diet. We were out dancing the night away and there was a buffet. I had no desire at all to eat the sandwiches, sausage rolls, cheese straws etc. There was very little low carb choice..( next year I'll take my own.) but I nabbed the salad garnish off the sandwich plates, a couple of chicken drumsticks and some peanuts and skipped the dessert... I did go and have a look but nothing tempted me... Before LCHF I'd have never had the willpower to do this, but it just felt right for me.
I will also add that I eat a much better variety and quality of food now. My cooking skills are improving and I find it a fun challenge to look at low carb ingredients and think what to create next. I'll be trying a lamb tagine this week :)
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Wow, that's impressive. All the more so because you weren't even tempted. You've (perhaps subconsciously) made the decision that a sausage roll just isn't worth it. LCHF works in so many ways. I'm really, really impressed and happy for you. :joyful:
 
daisyduck said:
I think I absolutely realised on New Years Eve, that this is now my lifestyle choice and no longer a diet. We were out dancing the night away and there was a buffet. I had no desire at all to eat the sandwiches, sausage rolls, cheese straws etc. There was very little low carb choice..( next year I'll take my own.) but I nabbed the salad garnish off the sandwich plates, a couple of chicken drumsticks and some peanuts and skipped the dessert... I did go and have a look but nothing tempted me... Before LCHF I'd have never had the willpower to do this, but it just felt right for me.
I will also add that I eat a much better variety and quality of food now. My cooking skills are improving and I find it a fun challenge to look at low carb ingredients and think what to create next. I'll be trying a lamb tagine this week :)
Click to expand...

Don't forget to post your lamb tagine recipe. Hubby loves a bit of lamb and I wouldn't say no ... ;)
 
kittypoker said:
Don't forget to post your lamb tagine recipe. Hubby loves a bit of lamb and I wouldn't say no ... ;)
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I'm investigating it. It will depend on what veg I have in the fridge and I need to find out what spices I'll need. I'm planning on adding a couple of chopped dried apricots , not low carb I know but it will be a big casserole ( freezing portions for later) so will be balanced out with the rest of the dish. I'll let you know how it works out
 
daisyduck said:
I'm investigating it. It will depend on what veg I have in the fridge and I need to find out what spices I'll need. I'm planning on adding a couple of chopped dried apricots , not low carb I know but it will be a big casserole ( freezing portions for later) so will be balanced out with the rest of the dish. I'll let you know how it works out
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Yep, a dried apricot or two is essential for flavour but spread out over a meal for at least four or six, shouldn't rock anyone's meter. Cayenne, garlic, paprika, ginger, turmeric and cinnamon seem to be in most recipes and some are often cited as lowering blood sugar, another plus. Not sure I believe it, but can't hurt. ;)
 
Hotpepper20000 said:
I left out the raisins and Honey but this is a great tagine.
I used lamb instead of beef.
http://www.bordbia.ie/consumer/recipes/beef/pages/beeftagine.aspx
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Okay, I'm now officially drooling. Lamb is definitely the right tagine meat, and that leg is coming out of the freezer right now. A couple of dried apricots, to be eaten by hubby, will be added. Luckily, he's perfectly happy with cauli rice rather than the real thing. I'm not sure he knows the difference. ;)
 
carol43 said:
I call my 'diet' as my eating regime. I has taken me a while to see myself as slim, I still looked in the mirror and saw a fat person but over the last few weeks it has now entered my brain. Went to Asda this morning and got a swimsuit for up-coming holidays in a size 10. I got a proper hula-hoop for Christmas and have now mastered it's use, haven't used one for over 50 years.
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That's so great! Well done! I hope to follow in your footsteps :)
 
Interestingly, the word 'diet' originally comes (via Latin and French) from the Greek 'diaita' meaning 'a way of life'.

The dictionary gives more than one definition for the modern meaning:-
Diet:
  1. The kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats
  2. A special course of food to which a person restricts themselves, either to lose weight or for medical reasons
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/diet

Someone with coeliac disease follows a gluten-free diet for life. Similarly, for me, a diabetic diet is just the way that someone eats to control their diabetes. Probably some confusion arises because people who are overweight when they are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes are usually advised to lose weight - they may follow a 'weight-loss' diet initially which would be replaced by a 'maintenance' diet after the weight-loss occurred. Obviously, the maintenance diet that someone with diabetes follows may be very different from a maintenance diet followed by someone without diabetes.
 
Diet is fine. The problem, particularly at this time of year, is folks declaring, "I'm going on a diet"
Erm, NO! You go on holiday, not diet. Going on a diet implies you will be returning from it, and that where the problem starts and magnifies IMHO of course

Like the tagine recipes btw, will give them a whirl
 
Bill_Dundee said:
Now living with T2D and medically controlled, I have had to wake up and start living in the real world. I have now changed to a low carb way of eating and I do admit that it has not been easy. I'm not the greatest eater of vegetables - or at least I wasn't - and like the majority of everyone else, I loved my larger portions, of bread and rice and curries etc. However, what I will NOT say is that I am now on a diet. I am now on a life changing exercise. To me, the word diet implies a temporary change in lifestyle to lose some pounds and feel a bit better. There are multi million pound diet companies that exist because of one simple fact - diets don't last! Yes, there will always will be a percentage of people on a diet who will lose weight and keep it off but let's be honest here, it's not many. For example, my last 'diet' treated baked beans as a 'free food' and advocated eating as much of them as I wanted between meals. There are 55g of carbs in a single tin of beans! (or 51g if you go for the low sugar version.)
The only person responsible for my diabetes is staring back at me in the mirror. I have spent 50+ years shovelling the wrong kinds of food down my throat and ignoring the threats of T2D that I read about. It was always 'Someone Else's Problem', not mine.
But not any more.
Like many with T2D, I now have a chance to change myself and hopefully come off the medication, but that's a long term outlook and not a quick fix. Will I miss the old ways? Being honest, I initially thought I would, but not now. My doctor summed it up perfectly to me. He said I could either "sort this out or face the possibility of dying young, but do not believe that being given medication will allow you to carry on as before."

For me, then, there are four phases of T2D:

1. Getting my blood sugars under control
2. Sorting out my food intake to keep no.1 ok
3. Dropping my weight to where it should be
4. Just keep looking in that mirror.
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I've had to correct a few people.
I'm not "on" a diet. This is what I am eating for the rest of my life. I will never be "off" this way of eating.
I need to loose more weight perhaps as I reach my goal I will have better BG control but I can not go back to eating high carbs.
 
kittypoker said:
Yep, a dried apricot or two is essential for flavour but spread out over a meal for at least four or six, shouldn't rock anyone's meter. Cayenne, garlic, paprika, ginger, turmeric and cinnamon seem to be in most recipes and some are often cited as lowering blood sugar, another plus. Not sure I believe it, but can't hurt. ;)
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It was amazing. I made 6 portions and froze 4 of them . Worked out at about 10 carbs a portion but you could do less as I did add 4 apricots and some chick peas. Mine was rather veg heavy as I just used up what I had.. Celery, yellow pepper, courgette, carrot, butternut squash, onion. Fried the lamb chunks a little in olive oil. added about 1tsp each of cumin, cinamon. nutmeg. tumeric. smoked paprika, celery salt and garlic granules.. I also put in 2 cloves of fresh garlic. As I was frying I threw in some sesame seeds. Put it all in my big Le Creuset casserole with a tin of chopped tomatoes, 4 chopped apricots and topped it with boiling water. Into a low oven for 2 hours. I then added some flaked almonds and a tin of drained chickpeas, Put it back in the hot oven and turned it off and left it there. We ate it the next day and the flavours had really developed .. yumm I'll def do this again.
 
walnut_face said:
Diet is fine. The problem, particularly at this time of year, is folks declaring, "I'm going on a diet"
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The supermarket shelves are full of New Year diet books and CD's, rich pickings for the authors :)

I suppose the word 'diet' is open to interpretation to those who here the word.
 
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