What is a Mediterranean diet and how did I get it so wrong?

My parents are Greek and love to hold their traditions and pass them on to their kids. However I grew up in Australia where I wanted to be just like everyone else and eat their foods. So I was brought up with Greek dinners but packed a regular lunch to school and often had cereal for breakfast. Snacks were western local types too.

Here is what is a a Greek type of diet:

• Lots of meals with vegetables as their base
• A lot of those meals have tomato sauce bases which are rich in Lycopene
• Greeks love herbs, particularly oregano, dill, parsley, basil and put them in their cooked meals and fresh salads
• Main fats are olive oil (extra virgin of course) and a little margarine
• Meat isn't the main dish but incorporated into other dishes, such as stuffed peppers etc.
• Roasts and meat main courses are for special occasions
• Feta goes with everything, but only a little piece, perhaps one or two serves
• Fruit is mainly for children but adults can eat a serve often after meals
• Fruit juice is not encouraged, but sour cherry or tart cherry drinks are common for special occasions.
• Breakfast is often coffee or milk with bread or pastry or piece of fruit
• Lunch is at home and not packed, kids at school used to eat tiropita (cheese puff pastry) to hold them over till they get home for lunch usually by 1
• Lunch is the main meal of the day
• Rests often occur after lunch
• Dinner is small and accompanied by a walk in town afterwards by the whole family
• Snacking is usually seeds (or a few nuts), ie pumpkin seeds but they buy them unshelled and shell them while eating. This forces you to slow down and give you something to do
• Milk is mainly for babies or young children
• Yogurt can be a light meal or snack, usually plain with a touch of drizzled honey, delicious
• Meals are a group affair with other people or often crowds
• Fish is plentiful served more often than meat and served to even very young children
• Wine used to be made at home and everyone can have a sip even children
• A small glass is used for wine and you can have a little at meals
• Bread is allowed and served as an extra at meals but you only eat it for saucy dishes or if you weren't full with the veggie main
• Legumes are very popular and incorporated into soups, bakes, dishes and more
• Rice is used for a side for saucy dishes or in the stuffed vegetables and in soups or bakes
• Greeks eat bulgar, a cracked whole wheat
• Goat and lamb was the usual meat back in the day
• Sweets are for children or only in small quantities for special occasions
• Fasting from meats, dairy and oils was common before special occasions
• You have to sit down and eat, with no distractions just company, eating on the run is rude and uncouth
• Tea was popular and served often
• Chocolate was ONE piece wrapped and was delicious but overeating wasn't allowed
• Overeating or drinking too much were akin to sins and rude/crude behavior
• If you find that you aren't getting full by eating a regular portion then stop anyway, it isn't food that is the problem
• Water is served with all meals and for all visits

Read how I got it wrong in this post.

Nourishment while losing weight

I wanted to type 'diet' but it shouldn't be called diet cause of the negative connotations. And nutrition sounded official and clinical, of which I am neither. So the title 'nourishment' fits the bill.

I suspect that part of obesity is the expansion of the stomach. I am not a doctor and can't elaborate here, but my suspicion (cause of my health and fitness journey) leads me to believe that I eat more cause I don't get the 'full' feeling sooner. It is so hard to stop eating before you get the full feeling. However I suspect that I need to stop at 75-80% (almost) full at 20 mins post meal. That is also hard to do, eat for 20 minutes or slowly to register the almost full feeling and then stop. A lot of us eat so quickly and read/watch tv or otherwise distract ourselves while eating. No wonder we don't get the 'full' feeling sooner. Eating with others and focusing on your meal will allow you to register the almost full feeling sooner.

I don't always diet as I have tried and failed with a lot of them. However I think it is critical to feed ourselves well while trying to loose weight. If I don't feed myself sufficiently and well then I will reach for the chocolate bar. It is very important to eat plant based foods at every meal and your body will recognize them and reward you with the sufficiently full feeling sooner than any other type of food. If I can't get full during a meal I will try to eat an apple, cut fruit, more vegetables and other plant foods. Then I feel satiated.

A lot of times I am too lazy to make myself a meal, lunch for instance, since I am home often during the day. Then I find I crave sweets and chocolate, it is like my body is trying to get satiated without a meal and chocolate will do the trick. Anyway chocolate and cravings and other addictive foods will be mentioned in another post. I just want to mention that we need to feed ourselves healthily with plant and other foods and to not neglect or starve ourselves regardless of where we are, who we are with etc.

You can't feed yourself well if you don't have good food at hand. A huge part of eating well, is getting in to a food shopping routine, find a favorite store, finding a shopping list that works for you and sticking to it. If you take your favorite junk foods off the list then make sure you have something to substitute them with. Don't deprive yourself of nutrients and nourishment. Buy lots of plant based foods, whether fresh (important to have something fresh at every meal cause it helps the gut), frozen, or canned/processed. Get in to a grocery shopping routine to make sure you can nourish yourself well. There are lots of options for groceries these days if you don't or can't shop often. Shop Amazon - Subscribe & Save is great for bulk & staples, Peapod is very reasonable (they also take coupons) and in most neighborhoods nowadays, and there is the store pickup options at lots of local stores (they will collect your items and you just need to pay and take items home). Those conveniences may be worth it in saving time & money, and avoiding temptations.

Do you have something that works? Share below.

@myHFjourney

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Can Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help People To Manage Their Weight?

How did I get the Greek diet so wrong?

I think I covered most of the main points of the Greek diet in my previous post here. Well how did I do it so wrong to get to a pre-diabetic stage? Well I grew up in Australia leaning toward a western diet, just like everyone else.

• I ate cereal for breakfast
• By 11 am I was usually starving
• I ate a regular packed lunch (since eating away from home or a cold meal isn't really a Greek thing)
• I snacked on western snacks after school
• We ate our Greek dinners but often had dessert afterwards
• We didn't walk after meals, in some towns there is nowhere to walk to
• We gravitated towards the western diet of more meat for meals, it was more affordable after all
• Since we ate like it was a special occasion every day, for special occasions we would go overboard
• We didn't fast as much
• Sweets were for everyone not just children
• Fatty meats were used not just lean goat and lamb, ie beef and pork
• Legumes gave you gas and hence were unpopular
• No rest after lunch made you hungry again by 3
• Pastas and noodles were popular fusion cuisine when I was growing up
• Fruit was popular and healthy and not limited
• Snacking was chips and cookies instead of nuts/seeds
• Yogurt had sweeteners and additives
• We gravitated towards processed prepared foods often
• Snacks can be eaten alone, or sometimes meals too
• Snacks can be eaten on the run, in the car, didn't sit for meals
• Chocolate was ONE whole bar and often not as delicious as that one/first piece
• If you weren't full you keep eating till you were

So it is unsurprising that I developed complications, in fact a lot of immigrants that move to a Western country will eventually develop problems similar to the locals.

So now my goal is to try to go back to the original Greek diet and avoid processed foods as much as possible. I also have to give up on my sweet tooth and just let sweets go from my diet. Hopefully pre diabetes is reversible or manageable and I haven't done permanent damage.

What are you eating in your home?

@myHFjourney

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How I dropped my cholesterol over 50 points!

I've always had high cholesterol numbers since I was a young adult with normal weight. But I've always loved food and chocolate and snacks. Growing up my mother cooked traditional Greek vegetable dishes mostly, so why was my cholesterol so high? My parents had high cholesterol most of their lives too. Doctors told me it was genetic and I need to be cautious with lifestyle. I would also have periods of activity bursts throughout my life lasting for weeks or months at a time.

I went for a blood test physical a few years ago and my cholesterol was in the high but normal range! My cholesterol was usually in the mid two hundreds and on this occasion it was 187! I was amazed, and looking back there were some major changes I had made but didn’t know they contributed to this drop.

We had joined a farm co-op that summer and prior to that we had a veggie share box from a co-op in the spring so I had been eating a LOT of vegetables for most of the year. We ordered the full box share and my kids are picky eaters so I would get more than my fair share of the veggie boxes so I would be eating a LOT of vegetables on a daily basis.

I was focusing on organic and natural products too but I suspect the amount of veggies I was eating had more impact than the organic nature of the vegetables. However I would recommend you minimize your exposure to chemicals and buy organic when you can.

I was gardening and spending a lot of time outdoors with my kids. Perhaps vitamin D also contributed. But I suspect the amount of vegetables I was eating was a bigger factor in my unusual cholesterol drop than vit D or activity levels or anything else. I was still overweight and still trying to fit activity in my lifestyle. So I suspect the amount of veggies I ate daily was the major factor in surprising me with such a major drop in a key health number.

Do you have high cholesterol? Any interesting findings from your history?

@myHFjourney

Welcome!

Hi folks,

This is my very first post in my new blog. Previously I had a blog called NJmum.blogspot.com and it did well, but now I want to write more and created this blog.

I need to get fit and healthy. I wanted to write about diet and exercise and blog my diary but didn't want to limit myself on just diet and exercise. After all my end goal is being healthy not weight loss alone. So my initial posts may include diet alterations, exercise improvements, shopping tips, fitness tips and more.

I need to tell you my background and statistics. I have high cholesterol, I always have, and my diet doesn't help (chocolate anyone?) but some improvements I have made have done WONDERS for my cholesterol and it won't be a surprise which ones. I am clinically obese, wow being obese is so easy ie the level for obesity is SO low (or does it just seem so to me?) anyway I am not just overweight but yes, ahem, obese. I have high bloodsugars, at the prediabetic level. Yep let it get so out of hand that I joined the scary ranks of those that are waiting for diabetes. That scares me a LOT, diabetes is no joke, my uncle had it and it was horrible, I will tell you about that later on. I've checked my thyroid umpteen times and it working like clockwork. My hormones could use a little work but it is what it is as I am in the peri-menopause stage (when did I get middle aged?).

I recently made some changes, actually it has been years of changes all contributing to this point and I will explain the background changes in another post (so much to write). I started exercising well actually getting steps in, and will tell you how I did it with snow and ice outside yet managed to get 10,000 steps everyday. My cousin took a photo of me and I was horrified at the picture, I hate taking photos of me, as anyone in denial does. I denied my image and can't see obesity when I look in the mirror (Katie Hopkins, it is true). Perhaps it has been that changes have crept up gradually but I do see some weight that needs to come off my middle but I don't seem horrendously fat as I would have thought at my weight.

I will also make diet changes but will do those in the future as first I want to commit to my 10K steps to get the ball rolling. Rome wasn't built in a day.

I will tell you all the shortcuts that work for me. Lets do this folks. Join me.

@myHFjourney

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