Quote: "so eating a piece of fruit before a meal will help you digest the meal better.
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I didn't realise I was eating bananas the wrong way.
No, it's not a euphemism. I just always eat it after I've eaten my sandwich or soup or whatever.
Quote: "I have been cutting down on fatty foods and eating more fruit and I feel much better. I have never been that health conscious, although I tend to like healthy food anyway (in addition to cakes and lard!), but since last year we had a really big crop of apples so I started eating three or four apples for breakfast and whenever I felt hungry I'd grab an apple just because they were there, and I felt pretty good after a few days. That made me research into fruitarianism and raw veganism, I don't think I will ever go that far but I've incorporated some of it into my diet and it is having a positive effect. I always used to feel drowsy and low-energy, now I know that it was my diet causing that."
I don't think you have to health 'conscious' so to speak, but I think a few habitual changes are all you need. I think one of the issues with dieting and one I've found first hand is that the more you focus and try to structure your diet based on some system, particularly calorie or points counting the more it becomes a chore and it's hard to be motivated. Seems the emphasis is put on "dieting", rather that making habitual or lifestyle changes and you generally are limiting yourself in some way and it will certainly feel like it, because you're limited by how many calories you eat in a day, you're limiting the size of your meals or the things on your menu. But you can make changes and substitutes to how you eat and cook that still taste great and it feels a lot less limiting. I've found a substitute for every single one of my vices. Eating out is the biggest challenge, but there's even ways of minimizing the damage - first week on my diet I went out drinking with colleagues, still managed to lose my 6lbs, at the restaurant I had a Lamb Rogan Josh (which is a lot less damaging than say a Chicken Tikka Masala) and at the bars, I kept to spirits because they get you drunk quicker and are lower in calories. That said, I did over do it at the Christmas party...there's a point when you forget how much you're drinking.
Changing a few habits and making a few substitutes makes a big difference. Lean meat, don't cook with oil (oil can be substituted for low calorie cooking spray, but there's ways to cook without the need to use oil), instead of frying, grill, eat extra lean meat, cut the fat off of meat when you can (even bacon, you can actually buy bacon medallions where the fat is already cut off), eat fibre and get your calcium (milk/cheese), have some starch (potatoes, pasta, parsnips, noodles) cut out bread - though if you rely on bread, replace white with wholemeal and you'll cover your fibre content too (I have my fibre from cereals instead), but of course, moderate how much bread you eat, sugar can be replaced with sweeteners, but I can't bring myself to it - I love my tea with sugar. Diet Coke is disgusting at first because your taste buds ain't used to the sweeteners, to be honest the sweeteners they use aren't technically healthy, so really the only healthy alternative is to give up soft drinks all together, but I find if you can't, Pepsi Max and Dr Pepper Zero have been the diet drinks to get it right - given my taste buds no longer sense the initial revolting taste I found with such drinks there isn't a big difference in flavour for me between the sugar free stuff and the real stuff.
The other habitual change is to introduce more fruit and veg, I don't buy the 5-a-day nonsense but a banana with lunch isn't a chore, adding celery & carrots to a bolognase doesn't feel like dieting, throwing in peppers and pak choi into a Chinese enhances the flavour, a roast isn't a roast without cabbage or brocolli - perhaps reduce or cut out stuff and don't eat the fat, and you can pour vegetable gravy over it and eat the veg with your meat to feel less like Linda McCartney. Like a good Curry? Add peas, I hate peas, but there's usually something I can put in it. Perhaps hold back on the cream if you like a creamy curry, but there's no/low fat substitutes - some curries I'll add free free yogurt.
Just about every item has a substitute, my main vice was sausage rolls, but you can get low fat sausages (I like the Weightwatchers ones best as they actually taste nice) and cook them wrapped in wholemeal bread, it makes a huge difference, sure it's not the same as having pastry but they fill the niche nicely.
However, if like me you suffer from a major sweet tooth, you're pretty much open to an infinite supply of Muller Light Yogurts. Sure they have calories, but I don't count calories, I just use these as a substitute for anything sweet and go through these quite quickly without suffering for it. I eat the toffee flavour a lot. They're incredibly light, but taste awesome as Muller yogurts always do, frankly I can't tell the difference in flavour between light and non-light Muller.
