Talking to friends about cutting grains page 2

[primalprincess7]

my friend just told me the other day that she was giving up meat and all animal products. said she was gonna eat beans,veggies, and lots of grains. i didn't even try to explain things lol

[noodletoy]

i work with a couple of vegetarians. one lives on cereal, nutri-grain bars and those lil snack packs of 100-calorie things, like goldfish crackers. in months and months of seeing her several days a week, i can't recall ever seeing her eat protein. and she wonders why she is always starving and having to eat every 2 hours.

[Jena]

I have encountered similar reactions just from telling people about my food choices. They say that I will be unhealthy and that it can't possibly be good for me to eat so much animal fat, etc... All I have to know is how good I feel. I think that people are so resistant because it goes against everything we were taught growing up. We are still taught this crap... Have you ever watched a cereal commercial. They have done everything they can to make the words "healthy" and "whole grains" synonymous with each other. It takes a certain kind of person to go against all of that propaganda in my opinion.

[Artbuc]

You can offer your friends some help and preach about Paleo but honestly if people don't want to make changes about their diet/lifestyle there is nothing you can do about it.

Truer words never spoken. This morning I opened our frig and there was a 90 calorie pack of Hostess chocolate cream filled donuts. My wife has been on the WW roller coaster for 10 years. Two weeks before weigh-in she starves herself and two weeks after weigh-in she binges. To give her credit, she works out religiously at the gym and has maintained her goal weight for 10 years. BUT, she survives on junk food and is always hungry. She sees how easily I dropped 20 lbs, how easily I maintain it and how I enjoy my food and am never hungry. She loves her refined carbs and lo-fat 90 cal packs. She does not want to hear anything I have to say, period. I don't even want to think about how much HFCS and PUFA's she consumes everyday. Brought home some grass fed ground buffalo from WF last night and she said "I can't eat that - it has too much fat."

[Vega]

Most people may not want to hear what you have to say, but everyone here heard about paleo somehow before deciding to give it a try. Maybe you're not making an impact on these people, but you might be the first time they hear about. Maybe someone else will mention it again, and repeated hearing about it will eventually cause them to wonder and go do some googling.

I haven't really tried telling too many people, other than very general sort of statements about cutting out sugar and processed food. My husband was starting a traditional diet at the same time I was first attempting paleo a few months back. He was eating tons of carbs all the time. I've been telling him things about paleo here and there, and over time he's started believing more. He stopped eating 6 times a day like he was told to, and he's really cut back on carbs and processed food, although not totally paleo. He's particularly enjoying the bacon and eggs with fruit that I'm making for breakfast on weekends.

[kkratz57]

my friend just told me the other day that she was giving up meat and all animal products. said she was gonna eat beans,veggies, and lots of grains. i didn't even try to explain things lol

^ME TOO!

I have a friend who lost a ton of weight with Nutrisystem (ACK--that's sh*t isn't even food) and shoved it in everyone's face. Now she's leaning more toward vegetarianism (double ACK). I had to hide her FB pic of her tofu stir-fry. Made me wanna puke! I'd be picking out all of the processed GMO soy globules.

Anyway, she is way more stubborn than I am (and I'm extremely stubborn) and there is no way on God's green earth I'd say a word to her.

[CarlaC]

What works for one person may not work for the other. Some people cannot stand the taste of meat- possibly this is their body telling them not to for some reason. I see my son come here with a huge rash on his face -he believes it's from eating red food ("I ate a strawberry today"). Obviously I want to lecture him for an hour about the inflammatory effects of grain.

However, one thing I learned a long time ago from AA: you can bring the message but if the person doesn't want to hear it there is nothing you can (or should) do. But bring the message. The person won't forget. Gee, I wonder how many people "brought me the message" about quitting smoking? When I decided to do it those messages finally started to play in my head. A lot of people are addicted to food, or they are in denial about weight, or hey- they are making a personal choice.

So plant the proverbial seed and step back .

[Artichoke]

My 18 yr old niece was moaning that she is fat and when my mother told her I'd gone from UK size 22 to UK size 14 (average size in UK is now size 16) by going low carb she just looked horrified and told her that she couldn't give up carbs.

[June68]

Most people are stupid and weak.

Yeah, I'm cynical. But to shoot down and idea, untested, because they believe they couldn't do it in the first place? Weak.

[solstice]

agree that it is frustrating. Have a friend with colitis but after years of trying to "help" her with my advice on health and nutrition, I stopped. She is on IV meds now and has always claimed that diet makes no impact on her disease. We all have one life to live, not the lives of all these other people, no matter how much we want to! My hubby, on the other hand, is slowly converting! I have merely led by example. He has dropped 30 pounds in the past year merely by not eating bread anymore ...and less beer (keep trying to get him off the beer---for digestive distress reasons, but I think I have to shut up about that too.)