Fruit and Fruit
 

This is part an update on my thread in Health re Mum & I losing weight together, and part a request for the suggestions/ support/ sharing the Cellar does so well.

I saw the practice nurse on Monday and although there was very little she told me that was new, she did challenge me a little. The first you've already helped with. I have to paint my toenails (I will explain if you want to know). The second is to eat two pieces of fruit a day.

In the three days since the appointment I admit I have not done this.
I've had an apple each day. Oh, I lie - I made a fruit shake for breakfast yesterday too. But I'm just not a fruit person.

Now in this country, the healthy eating recommendation is called "5 a day". Five portions of fruit and/OR veg a day. Now that I'm in a healthy eating mindset, I try my hardest to stick to this. Try? Hard? Check this out and see if you meet it every day...

I MUCH prefer vegetables to fruit. Had it been a two veg homework I would have been fine. So my question is, can I go back and say I've switched fruit for veg?

Or is she just assuming those referred to her have no idea of healthy eating (some of the things she said point to that - for example she doesn't expect weight loss of more than 2lb a month to start with) and is just trying to move towards my five a day?

Or should I be a good girl, stop whining and eat the damned fruit - it's not going to kill me. I can do it if I stick to fruit shakes for breakfast - 1 portion of frozen berries, 1 banana, 1/2 glass skimmed milk all blitzed together. It's just some mornings I want muesli or Special K...

Answers/ advice much appreciated. I'd love to hear whether other Dwellars meet the ideal. I can think of some I would expect to, but you never know. Even if you just want to tell me what fruit and veg you enjoy it will help motivate me. It's the Food & Drink thread, go for it!

the more varied your types of fruit and veg, the better -they have different combinations of vitamins/minerals. the typical recommendation is for slightly less than half of your intake to be fruit.

didn't she ask you about your current diet before she started dishing out advice? Maybe she noticed the lack of fruit, so was trying to direct you towards a better balance?

Were you really eating 5 a day? Just because you knew it doesn't mean you were doing it, perhaps her challenge was to actually DO it and she picked fruit because it's more "instant" as it doesn't have the "preparation excuse" (in other word she was taking the more one-size-fits-all approach). In this case maybe substituting veg for fruit would still meet her challenge.

What 5 portions of veg would you typically eat in a day? 5 cups of peas? or spinach, carrots, tomato (fruit really), squash and aubergine? Describe your 5-a-day to this point. and how often you would actually achieve it. Do you try to ensure they are all different colours?

here, the current advice is for nine smaller portions, four of which should be fruit and 5 veg, because more smaller portions are easier to 'swallow" ;) and the greater number should lead to more variety.

I'm terrible, beest's great -he has about 5 pieces of fruit at work during the day, salad in his lunch and then veg with dinner. Although so far today I've had a large plum and 1/3 of a coconut and it's not yet 10am, this is far from typical for me.

She has not asked me anything about my current diet.
This really is the softly softly approach, to encourage a healthy lifestyle long term.
Most people get referred to her because they have heart problems, diabetes, or some other sort of obesity-related issue (as opposed to just obesity, like me, but I requested this). It seems to be assumed that they have never addressed their eating habits previously.

My 5 a day really does vary. Part of the recommendation here is that they must vary - there was an issue with a baked bean manufacturer (or maybe one of the supermarkets - I can't remember) having misleading labelling.

I regularly eat:
Carrot
Baked beans
Orange juice
Cabbage
Apple
Banana
Mixed berries (frozen)
Onion
Peppers
Tomato
Spring onions
Potato
Sweet potato
Lettuce
Courgette
Strawberry
Peas
Sweetcorn

More occasionally (once a week or less)
Melon
Cherries
Spinach
Aubergine

ETA - Mum & I are cooking from the WeightWatchers and Slimming Wold cookbooks and various online healthy eating sites. Seriously, we are vegelicious as well as the additional fruit (which Mum is better at that I am). Every dinner has veg in and beside it. I may not always meet the target in the strictest daily sense, but in a week I am confident I meet it.

I do see what you mean re the different benefits from the fruit though.

An apple a day is halfway there, isn't it, to your current goal of 2 a day.
Add a smoothie now and again for breakfast ... a banana occasionally, the odd glass of orange juice, a handful of cherries and you're there ...

Suck it up and eat the 2 fruits would be my vote. The reasons for that recommendation are; not couching your diet change in negatives (stop eating this, that, and the other thing), and also it acts as replacement for something else you'd likely eat that would be less healthy (I need a snack... cookies? no, I've got to eat that other piece of fruit still).

I'm with you though, I eat a lot more veggies than fruit.

I guess my issue is that the approach does not fit the stage I am at.
I need a snack?... No I don't.

3 out of 3 so far. I am leaning...

Eat the damn fruit

Ah c'mon Classic.
You can give me better than that.

What fruits do you eat a day?
Not a challenge, just asking for feedback.

I love frozen fruit, especially blueberries and blackberries. They sell them in big bags, and they're less expensive than fresh. I pop them like candy, although they will stain my fingers blue for the rest of the day so I have to be careful to only use my left hand so I don't mess up my laptop touchpad.

I don't like apples, never have, but I'll eat the remaining pieces if Minifob doesn't finish his, just because I hate seeing it go to waste. Other than that I sometimes do bananas or strawberries at breakfast, and very rarely we'll have a box of mandarin oranges and I'll eat 2-3 a day until they're gone. I hate drinking orange juice. I love pears, but for some reason I never end up buying them.

If you're not that keen on eating fruit, why not get a bottle of juice and stick it in the fridge. On the days you just can't face another piece of fruit, have a glass of juice instead. As long as it's pure fruit juice with no sugar or preservatives etc, and you can vary the type you keep in the fridge.

If you don't eat the actual fruit though, you should probably take some kind of fibre replacement because that's one of the benefits of fruit. We usually eat them raw, and lots of them have lots of fibre.

Apples - one for breakfast - EVERY SINGLE DAY. I also have a banana and/or an orange, well tangerine actually.
Grapes when they are in season & black or raspberries.... but thats not year round.
Oh and I love my OJ too!

Where is the large photo of Sheldon holding grapes?

:bolt:

We tend to follow the harvest with fruit. When apples come in we pretty much go hog wild and taper off through out storage season. During blueberry season we eat right form the bushes in our yard and supplement with farm bought or at our friends or we go picking or D) all of the above. We freeze a fair amount and sometimes make jam. Strawberries come in and it's the same damn thing. We usually buy about 40 qts from the farm and freeze them (about $100) and make strawberry banana smoothies all winter and spring. In the winter oranges come into season and we eat those until they start to taste like winter tomatoes.

For me I love food too much to eat shitty food. I used to be a bread whore, now I will only eat really exceptional bread. If it's not a party in my mouth then it's not invited or something like that. We freeze a lot of swiss chard, beet greens, collards, etc. and eat those all winter. In the spring we have tons of sugar snap peas and we eatthose until we are sick of them which coincides with when they have gone by. It seems to work out well that way. Just when you can't stand to eat another bite of something it is no longer in season and the next thing is.

Especially in winter, eating all those storage crops like carrots and squash and parsnips, and beets and grains and meat, by the time spring gets here you can see why people would eat dandelion greens. They're the first friggin green thing in six months. Eat those fuckers on down!

Yeah, most days I do my five and a couple of the ones the rest of you missed.

urp.

Im not good at getting fruit or veggies into my daily diet. I have to consciously choose them and I do a couple of things that help me. First of all I bought one of these apple doohickies that slice an apple into wedges when you push it down over the apple. I then put the pieces into a baggie and and keep it near me...I will munch on them druing the day till they are gone. (Now, if I would only do that with veggies, I'd be home free, but I have to remember to cut them up and for some reason, that just doesnt happen. ) I also buy bags of frozen blueberries like Clod, but I mix them with plain yogurt. One bag with one big size container of yogurt and then I can scoop some into a bowl whenever I want. It makes a great snack when I'm slumming on the computer.

You can buy precut celery and carrots at the grocery store these days.

We all want what we can't have, I guess.

I can't have fruit or vegetables due to intestinal scarring from Crohn's disease. I miss them.

(Except brussel sprouts. They just smell ugly.) :D