Skeptical Parents

[Korosia]

Hi all

I've been hanging around Nerd Fitness for a while, and I've been doing bits of excersising here and there. Over the last term I've been trying to get my eating habits into shape (move from an almosyt-entirely carb based diet to a more meat/veggies diet). I was focused on the "perfect" diet, so I spent most of my time looking at the flaws in my diet (the daily chocolate bar!) rather than how much it had changed for the better. Coming home, though, I've realised how much progress I had actually made.

Our diet at home is really bad. Both breakfast and lunch are almost 100% grains (cereal, toast, sausage rolls, sandwhiches, crisps, biscuits) and dinners usually involved either rice or pasta. As a consequence, both my parents are quite overweight and its beginning to have health repercusions for my dad (he's always saying how he has back pain, or muscle pain, or digestion problems). Since I've been back, my Dad's talked about losing weight several times. I figured that, with my time lurking around NF, I might be able to help him, so I wrote a big long email explaining about fat-loss; how its all linked to insulin-sensitivity and grain-consumption. (I did it in email form so I could include lots of links. I used several of Mark Sisson's articles as references, and then had various links to sucess stories at the end).

This email promptly got lost in general busy life, and was never read, so I sent another email, this time about how to implement it into our lives; I even went as far as to plan out an entire week's meals, and research the costs associated with them.

After that one, he said he would be willing to try it, but had "tried lots of this type of thing before" and commented that often they're just come from "crazy radical people trying to sell you something". There was a Johavah's witness comparison in there as well. He's stuck in the notion that our bodies "need carbs for energy" and "if we don't eat any potatoes/pata/rice/cereal we would just be a pool on the floor", after all "that's why people started eating them in the first place".

I'm not very good at off-the-cuff counter-arguements, so I completely forgot to mention the fact that human's had been living without grains for several thousand years perfectly happily. I also forgot to mention that I had been eating a low-carb diet and was actually more full throughout the day while I was at Uni.

Like I say, he said he would try it, but was still really skeptical. I'm worried that if this doesn't have a decent impact in a couple of weeks (its a kind of paleo thing, but I'm allowing potatoes and dairy otherwise they would never accept it), they'll give up and return to the carb-centric diet they're used to (and as my Dad controls the food in the house, I would probably have to return to it as well).

So I guess my questions are this:

How long would you expect to have to be on this diet to start seeing the scale go down? Does it take a few weeks to start working, or do you see the fat start to go almost immediatly? and where does the energy in a low-carb diet actually come from?

Now I've actually written all this out, I think I can see a few ways to elliviate some of my parents concerns. I might try organising a no-grain day; that is, make sure all the meals that day don't have grains at all (I'm thinking something like omellete for breakfast, salad for lunch, then Chille with cauliflower rice for dinner). That way I can hopefully prove that you don't need to eat carb-dense foods to feel full.

Has anyone else tried to do something like this? Any advice or tips you can think of? Any help you can give would be massivly apprechiated!

[Siferiax]

I don't have any experience, I'm just starting out myself.

Still I admire your efforts to help out your parents!!

I think letting them experience that without carbs they can feel full. (like you noted)

Maybe letting them be aware they don't need to starve and can eat veggies when they're hungry. (unlike other diets where you would be hungry because you need to eat wayyy too little)

Perhaps a nice tip is to have some easily accessible food around that they can pick up when they feel like eating.

I don't know your parents' habits, so I'm just throwing some things around I can think of.

A nice tip I think, if your parents love pasta, is this recipe from Steve: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/02/21/how-to-cook-paleo-spaghetti/

[Georges]

I don't know the answers to your questions about how long it takes to see a difference (it probably varies a lot), but the question about energy is easier.

Your body uses calories for energy, and the paleo diet has plenty. Fat has 9/gram, protein has 4/g, and carbs have 4/g (and alcohol has 7/g). There are differences in how long it takes for those calories to be usable by the body, and other things (i.e. insulin reactions, intoxication in the case of alcohol, etc), but it is all energy.

Also, paleo can have lower or higher carbs, depending on your needs, by using non-grain-but-high-carb foods like fruits and sweet potatoes. Your dad might feel better about paleo eating if he sees that the veggies contribute plenty of carbs and fibre (the two things people think they'll be lacking).

If your parents will let you, try to be in charge of your own food while you're home. Maybe you can be in charge of a certain number of meals/week, and then do your own separately for the other times. At the very least, if you get to cook dinner a few times, they'll learn about a few new healthy meals to mix in to their current diet. At best, they'll be so impressed with your cooking and improved health and energy that they'll be won over by you as an example, rather than the research/articles you've shared.

[Ryan Sannar]

Generally within the first month it will go down. So long as the whole diet is stuck to. IE: Food, movement (walking), exercise (this will be new, moving the furniture around can work well for an exercise), proper sleep, stress reduction.

The most dramatic change comes from only eating meat/vegetables/very few nuts/herbs/coconut milk. If they do that for 30 days they will drop calories.

If they truly stick to it, I'm 95% sure that they will experience a dramatic change. Especially if they are overweight.

[Trad_Climb]

The move over weight the sooner they will see results, then the results will slow down. Most people who don't show a whole lot of interest will soon give up, and not worth your time (even though they are your parents). I was surprised to find out that even though I've gotten very fit over the course of about a year, studied in depth: exercise science and nutrition, my family still will ask for advice but not do a single thing to improve.

Unmotivated people don't like answers like: Eat healthy, portion control, run a mile, lift some weight.