Danita,
We aren't vegan so we do eat cheese, eggs and milk, though from personal choice I get these from farmer friends or the local co-op which gets them from small local farms which are organic. My favorite breakfast is a whole grain cereal with fruit and toast. I don't like eating before I swim and workout in the morning so I usually eat late in the morning. If I do eat another lunch it's a salad or veggie sandwich and at dinner we have all kinds of things--soups, quiches, veggie or tofu loafs (my family has always loved tofu and I have many wonderful recipes for using it), beans & rice, burritos--lots of choices. We eat a lot of salads and whole grain breads. My daughter got us into tea time a few years ago. She never misses it, but now that she's no longer living at home I don't get to it every day, but when I do I usually have fruit, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches or some other kind of treat with it. In between those we always have lots of fruit, veggies and nuts to munch on and juice when we want it. Our traditional family holiday meal includes a vegetable lasagna and an incredibly wonderful stuffed pumpkin. My grown kids think those two things are as essential for holidays as other familes do turkey. I'm allergic to sucrose so I never eat anything with regular sugar and even honey and maple syrup are too hard for me to digest. I can use fruit juice sweetener so once in a while I'll make a pie or scones with that. I'm not a big eater--never have been except for the periods right after a weight loss diet when my body would crave things it hadn't had for a while.
People often do turn to food when we need comfort, but it should not be assumed that every large person you see overeats. Constant dieting can change metabolism and most (not all) people who diet regain the weight. There are several good books about the mechanics and social aspects of food and body size and image. I can recommend some to anyone who is interested.
Ladybug--I was feeling slightly uncomfortable with your tone until that last post to Daisygirl. Thank you for that. There were a couple of assumptions you made about what I said in my post that I didn't actually say. I didn't imply that you were starving yourself. I said that I discovered that that was what was happening to me when I was on weight-loss diets. And I'm talking established things like Weight Watchers. (Which is another whole can of worms. In my early 20's I took the training to be a WW counselor and that was quite an eye opener for me! Not one that made me admire the company much either.)
The uncomfortableness I felt had to do with the feeling that what you were saying was like someone declaring her religion to be the only right way for everyone. I have no doubt you're really healthy. So am I. I am no longer "overweight" but I was healthy before working out in the gym and still am. The gall bladder surgery was the only time I've ever been in the hospital (not even for the birth of my kids) and at 54--in 2 weeks--I can out walk, outswim and move faster than the teens and 20 year olds along with all the other ages I do those activities with. I also realize how lucky I am to have the time to do those things. I know from experience how difficult it is to be able to be physically active when you're working outside the home and, in my case, homeschooling kids at the same time. And I have a wonderfully supportive husband who's always done an equal amount of all of our kid and house duties. I can only imagine how much more difficult it is for single parents. Now that my kids have left the nest and I set up my own schedule as a writer and music teacher I can exercise as much as I want.
And actually--yes, the doctor did mean that literally about the fried foods. One thing we agree on, doctors are often clueless to what healthy eating entails.
As to your question: "If it's healthy to be over weight why does the U.S. have record numbers of people with heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, colon cancer and adult onset diabetes?"
Again, it's not the person's size, but more often nutrition and, for whatever reason, the amount and kind of exercise that have to do with those diseases. Not to mention some of the environmental causes. The studies that relate these to size alone do not differentiate between overweight people who smoke, or say, eat most of their meals at McDonalds, or get little to no exercise and those who don't.
I do take good care of myself and obviously so do you. I'd say everyone here is trying to do the same thing, we just all do it in different ways. And again (I'm big on this one-have you noticed?) no one way of doing things, either in religion, how we raise our children or how we feed our bodies, works for everyone.
Dream of the Circle of Women
by Dahti Blanchard
published May 2004 by Spilled Candy Books
visit:
www.dahtiblanchard.com