In praise of the bean - diet/wt loss

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I know several folk here have discussed diet/fitness. Just wanted to add my datapoint in progress.

I’m 57. 6’3", have weighed betw 205-210# for the past 10 years or more. Reasonably fit/active. I never tried to diet or anything - seem to have a high metabolism.

My wife has long struggled to lose weight and improve her blood pressure/#s. One of her big problems is that when counting calories and such, she always felt hungry. And I have always needed some bulk (pasta, rice, bread, etc) to fill me up.

I won’t go through the whole process that led us here, but for the past month or so, we’ve been eating pretty much veggie, and trying to avoid refined grains. Not being strict at all. For example, when we had company, we cooked a pork roast. And at my sister’s over Easter, we had ham. But at home, we generally avoid meat.

We long had difficulty eating enough greens/salads. Once the bowl of salad gets to a certain size, we feel like cows chewing away.

Not sure why it took us so long, but we recently started cooking beans. Peas, lentils, black, black-eyed… Without making this post too long, we are eating AS MUCH AS WE WANT, yet we don’t feel hungry. My wife’s blood pressure is better than it has been in years AND she stopped taking her BP meds. And BOTH of us are consistently BELOW our historic 5# weight ranges. Weighed myself this a.m. - 201#! And I don’t feel any loss of energy or anything - just got back from a hard 30 mile bike ride. Interested in seeing how my bloodwork turns out during my annual physical in June.

Just wanted to toss this out there. Maxing out on the beans and whole grains seems like it might be a no effort/no pain way to reduce weight and improve blood pressure/chemistry. Cheap, tasty, and easy to prepare as well. If folk want to discuss recipes or literature or anything, I’m up for that.

2

Okay, but doesn’t eating all those beans make you… musical?

3

Yeah, somewhat, but not in a way that seriously cramps my style. Seems like mostly in the evenings - when my wife and I are home alone. And after 33 yrs of marriage, we are WELL past the point of caring if we hear each other fart. And they aren’t necessarily loud and smelly. You asked!)

But it isn’t uncontrollable or anything. I (and people around me! ;)) haven’t noticed it being an issue at work, or when I go out places.

And, from what I understand, it is quite common for that effect to lessen over time, after your body gets used to the diet. We’ll see.

4

Oh, good, time for a shameless bit of horn tooting…pun intended

http://https://www.vegparadise.com

Scroll down on the right hand side and click on the “guest contributor” column, Using Your Bean.

Backstory: I was diagnosed with Diabetes Type 2 on my 50th birthday. Happy freaken birthday, right?

I was given the HORRIBLE American Diabetes Association diet, the one with exchanges. Along with following that damned diet, I started researching everything I could get my hands on. The most profound piece of information was a study by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Using control groups, these guys discovered that a VEGAN diet did the best job for control of blood sugar, reducing blood pressure and lowering cholesterol levels. I figured, “What the Hell, why not?”

Further research into Veganism found me at the webzine “Vegetarians in Paradise.” I met the people there (NICE folks!), and when I explained my situation and said I wanted to explore heirloom beans, they offered me theopportunity to write a column on my search!

The column also explains my journey with Diabetes, as well.

I stayed Vegan for a couple of years, then I switched to Vegetarian, all total, eight years.

Then I fell for the siren call of pork, alas… that was about ten years ago.

I’d like to eventually return to at least Vegetarian. I felt a lot better when I eliminated meat.
~VOW

5

What I like is that we seem to be experiencing benefits w/o going to extremes. Like I said, if we feel like meat, we’ll eat it. But not as regularly as before - and likely not as much. And I’ll use butter. Or I’ll eat chips if I go somewhere and they have them - I just don’t buy them for home. Eating sensibly 15-18 or so meals out of the week’s 21 seems to be doing the trick.

My wife just completed a year-long pre-diabetes class at the local hospital. They said the ONLY way to lose weight was to count EVERYTHING you put in your mouth. Who the hell wants to live like that? And - like I said - when reducing intake like that, my wife always felt hungry, so she would binge and lose any advantage. Punchline - after a year, NOT A SINGLE participant had lost weight! :smack:

She is showing more benefit after the past month or so, than over a year of that program.

6

I don’t want to rain on your parade. Beans are delicious and a great grain for balancing out and bulking up meals.

But, honestly, the best science we have is that, in order to lose weight in a sustainable manner, you gotta keep track of what you eat. It is a big part of why Weight Watchers works. Humans in general are terrible at estimating how much they eat so, in order to reduce their calories, they need to measure it in the first place. Tracking helps people reliably reduce their calorie intake and, therefore, lose weight. It takes a lot of discipline though.

Which is why most of the information on the internet about diet is about dealing with how to be disciplined. How to deal with hunger, how to avoid binges, how to time your meals to keep from being hungry, that sort of thing. And more vegetables, including beans, are frequently recommended due to their lower calorie density.

I’ll finish up with saying that, for most people, losing weight is really really hard, even if you find some “easy” way to do it.

For me, you talk about just not being hungry. I don’t think I’ve ever really experienced that except when I’m sick. My only “off” switch is when I get uncomfortably full. I don’t get that 80% full feeling that you are supposed to get. I’m probably never going to “naturally” eat just the amount I should. It will probably always be a bit of work for me.

7

Hey - rain away.

First off, I’m more concerned with health, than weight loss. I’m not someone who really needed to lose weight. And my blood pressure was always rock solid. Cholesterol coulda been a bit lower.

And the science of nutrition always confused me. How the body processes different sugars and such. So many ostensibly informed people offering directly contradictory advice. Wait - are eggs good or bad for me today? :rolleyes:

My wife did TONS of reading, and from what I read and what she told me, I’m surprised that someone could say that there is a clear consensus as to what “the best science” says. :wink:

Like I said, I’m only a month or so into this. There might be some other explanation for why my wife and I have consistently felt pleasantly sated, yet weigh less than either of us have for a decade or more, with her blood pressure lower than it has been in at least as long. But for the life of me, I can’t think of any other aspect of our lifestyles that have changed.

And we DO keep track of what we eat. Just our experience and understanding is that if you are eating the right thing, you can eat as much of it as you want. There IS a lot of science out there to support that. Whether anyone considers that to be the “best” is up to them.

I should point out that I’m the kinda person who just views food as fuel. I’d eat people kibble if it were nutritious and tasty enough. Don’t get me wrong - I like tasty food, but I don’t need a vast variety. We’ve found several simple dishes that we both find very tasty. Probably wouldn’t serve them to company (yet!)

8

Wow, so was I. That was over 23 years ago, and I just became vegan, due to kidney disease. Not just vegan, but with reduced sodium, potassium, tomatoes and many other foods. I’m barely allowed to eat anything but boiled cabbage and cauliflower, and berries.

9

I probably should have mentioned that diet science is not the best. We don’t really have a good way to study it long term and a lot of the science out there is biased by the various economically interested parties. It’s hard to say there is a ton of consensus because of this. But we do know that tracking works.

With that in mind, it’s hard to say what exactly are the “right” foods. And, if a person is like me, they will find a way to overeat even those foods.

(Did you know I can eat a whole pound of carrots in one sitting like it’s nothing? This is not a skill I want.)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

10

I’ve just returned to the holy beany way. I suddenly realized that I am really deficient in my protein intake and need to up the ante. When you hit your 70s, muscle loss becomes a real problem. Tonight’s dinner was a seasoned chicken burrito topped with black beans (seasoned with onion, garlic, cumin, oregano, cayenne), and a cup of said beans on the side. Huge protein hit. I’m also a carb addict (Hi, Chefguy!) and have got to pare back on that shit.

11

This post reminds me of a recipe you once posted - I don’t recall what you named it, but in my files it’s “Chef Guy’s Black Bean Chili with Chicken.” That recipe introduced me to smoked paprika, which is now a staple in my kitchen. (How did I live so long without it, I now ask myself.) The chili is delicious! I haven’t made it in a while, maybe I’ll cook some up tonight. Yum.

12

Have you ever TRIED a Vegan diet???

Honestly, your jaw gets tired of chewing before you hit the max calorie intake!

All of the fattening goodies you can think of-- well, if you are Vegan you ask yourself, “Is their dairy? Are their eggs?” And damn near most of the time, you answer “Yes.” And then you tell yourself, “Can’t have it, it’s not Vegan.”

Even if you haunt the supermarkets and health food stores, and buy the fake meats, and fake cheese, you still come out ahead.

Try it!
~VOW

13

And, by the way, if you visit “Vegetarians in Paradise” the link to Using Your Bean is on the LEFT hand side.

One of these days, I’m going to get left and right figured out!
~VOW

14

Vegan food can be fattening too. A local cafe in my neighborhood serves a delicious vegan cheesecake which is quite rich; I think the principal ingredients are coconut oil, cocoa, tofu, and maple syrup. Your jaw absolutely does not get “tired of chewing before you hit the max calorie intake.”

I’ve personally made vegan dips, primarily from pinto beans and olive oil, to serve with whole wheat crackers. Tasty? Sure. Low calorie? Not so much.

.

15

I made chili and corn bread for my Japanese wife a couple of times. She loved it! But the aftereffects made her declare that I’m no longer allowed to make and consume chili. Nor anything with beans. In fact, I’m not even allowed to look at beans any more.

She was fine. I’m the one who gets gas bad enough to nearly end a marriage.

I always had bad gas as a kid. Not just the toots, but room-clearing, paint-stripping, blame-it-on-the-skunk-eating-dog gas. I could never “sneak” one; everyone always knew it was me. My mom went through a health phase for a couple of years that included near-vegan eating and juicing[sup]*[/sup] because it was the late 80s and fat was teh evulz.[sup]†[/sup]

The only time in my life I’ve been even close to gas-free is a few years into doing CrossFit[sup]‡[/sup] when I went more or less Paleo with my food. Turns out, grains and beans do Very Bad Things to me. I went from pooping 2–3 (or more) times a day, with horrible gas and frequent cramping on a nearly-daily basis — which was my “normal” for most of my life — to having what most people consider normal gut health.

I wasn’t doing the “Atkins with a twist” version of paleo (i.e. meat and cheese, with shots of nut-encrusted lard on the side) but actual-factual paleo: eating metric shit-tonnes of veggies along with adequate animal protein. So, I found out it isn’t dietary fiber that gives me gas, it’s any kind of beans and many starches[sup]§[/sup], especially bread or pasta.

YMMV, but going vegan would destroy me.[sup]‖[/sup]

[sup]*[/sup] Making fruits and vegetables into horrid shake-like theoretically edible substances, NOT doing steroids.

[sup]†[/sup] I was doing gymnastics regularly until I was about 13, off and on until about 15, and joined the swimming and diving team during my freshman year, so I now wonder if this impacted my growth. I was by no means food-deprived at the time (we finally had a lower middle-class income by then) but I remember always being hungry. We had to track our food intake for a week for biology class once. I was taking in 3,000+ calories a day … as a scrawny 5’8" 140 lb. kid.

This was what it took to provide enough energy for 2–3 hours of practice in the pool. The pool was heated, but outdoors, and even in California it’s cold during the “spring” season; from January to about early April, you’d have a decent chance of having ice on the end of the board at morning practices. With more meat and fat, I might have had better fueling and therefore better growth, or at least more muscle than I had on that high-carb low- fat and protein diet.

[sup]‡[/sup] I’m a CrossFit-hipster. I started doing it around late 2005, early 2006. I was CrossFitting before it was “cool” :stuck_out_tongue:

[sup]§[/sup] Rice seems to be pretty benign, at least for me. Lucky me, or my wife probably would have thrown me out. Not eating rice in Japan is practically like declaring a religious war.

[sup]‖[/sup] … or at least my guts. And make the area around me extremely unpleasant for other life forms.

16

When I find a food I like, I tend to gorge myself. Like pizza. Or Italian beef at parties. And like I said, since I was a kid I always felt the need for large quantities of “filler” - potatoes, pasta, bread - to fill me up.

My personal experience (others might well vary) is that a big bowl of beans/lentils/vegies and grain fill me up quite nicely - AND stick with me such that I don’t immediately feel the urge for a snack. And if the first big bowl doesn’t fill you up, go ahead and have a SECOND big bowl! :smiley:

FWIW - I just had a big old piece of a coffee cake that was in the office break room this a.m. So I’m not at all about going strictly vegan, or avoiding fattening foods. :cool:

17

For the gas generators: take a trip to an Asian market and look for dried seaweed. There will be many types, what you want is a “leaf” that looks like it could be used to shingle houses. It’s called KOMBU. Put a two-inch piece in with the dried beans when you soak them overnight. Drain the beans the next morning, keeping the KOMBU with the beans. Add water, veggies, cook as usual. The KOMBU will disintegrate during cooking, and will make the beans more “digestible.” Ahem.

If you can prowl around a local Mexican market, look for a dried herb EPAZOTE. It can bd either with other dried herbs, or even with the teas. It also tames the bean. Since it is a stronger flavored herb, it is best in more seasoned bean dishes. EPAZOTE can also be brewed as a tea for stomach woes.

The “pinch of baking soda” does nothing for potential gassiness, IMHO.
~VOW

18

To CairoCarol

If you want to eat Vegan cheesecake for every meal, yeah, you can thwart any dieting attempt.

I’m talking about day to day eating. Vegan casseroles, soups, salads, I even made Sloppy Joes with my own Seitan that were damn good. ALL Vegan food is not loaded with calories.

I’ll take a guess and say that Vegan cheesecake was expensive.

As an aside: eating Vegan will also BURN calories, spending all that time in the kitchen, cleaning, chopping, and cooking vegetables, LOL!
~VOW

19

That’s true. Beans are great filler. I love them.

However, like I said, I won’t eat them in moderation unless I’m consciously trying. The point I am getting at is that, for some people, maintaining a healthy weight and diet may never be “effortless.”

But, dude, get me some black bean soup. I love that stuff.

20

I still make that, but I’ve upped the ante for most all my stews and soups by adding umami bombs like unflavored gelatin, anchovy, Worcestershire and the like, usually a combination of two or three of them.