Let’s Talk About Diets!

Marie Mallory said:
I do think diet is important but not as much so as genes and having a social life.He lived to be 112
Look how this old man eats.
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When I worked in retail firearms & instruction, a guy came in for a purchase. I thought he looked rather old; I estimated around 85. When he presented his driver's license, I saw that I was off by 20 years - he was 105. At the range, I saw that he had a hold that was as steady as mine; I was 50 at the time. He did well for a beginner & he fired 100 rounds of 38 special. He said, "That was really fun."
 
Yvonne Smith said:
My kidney function did go up after starting the Starch solution way of eating again, @Beth Gallagher ! They had me do another blood test in May, and my kidney function was up to 42 that soon after changing over, plus my cholesterol went down from 200 to about 175, all on just a few weeks of eating plant based.
I am due for more labs next week so I am looking forward to seeing how my kidney function and cholesterol are looking now that I have been (mostly) eating plant based and healthy foods for several months.
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Most people are fixated on "Getting enough protein." Excess protein places a burden on the kidneys, which have to filter out the excess. The typical American diet is way too high in protein.
 
Tony Nathanson said:
Most people are fixated on "Getting enough protein." Excess protein places a burden on the kidneys, which have to filter out the excess. The typical American diet is way too high in protein.
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That is what I have been reading as well. Besides that, protein that comes from animal foods is harder for our body to use than plant protein, according to what I have been reading.
I found that anytime I tell myself not to eat something, that is exactly what i will be craving 24/7. So, instead, I started by adding more veggies and plant food to my meals, and that left me less hungry for any meat that was in the meal, and I left the meat for Bobby to enjoy.

I have also been working on learning to make things that I like to eat, but with not using meat in the recipe. I have found that I like taco salad made with chili beans as much as made with ground beef .
I have also tried using TVP in place of meat, and once it is seasoned and cooked, it is hard to tell the difference. Most of meat flavor comes with seasoning, and if you try plain meat, no salt or pepper or spices, it is pretty bland.

All of this is a learning experience for me, but one that I feel is important if I want to keep my health as I am growing older. I am definitely not perfect, but I keep working at learning new information and reading books, watching videos with recipe ideas for making simple foods.
 
McDougall on the Kempner Rice Diet. (4 min.)


Note about sugar... the basic Rice Diet does NOT include table sugar. That was used in the Duke University treatment for people who had extreme kidney failure to cut the protein in the rice.
 
The Rice Diet book is on Kindle Unlimited, if you want to read it and have KU, @Beth Gallagher . I checked it out and looked at it, but I am doing okay with what I am doing now with more of the Starch Solution diet.
To start on the rice diet, you are pretty limited for the first few weeks. Here is the list of foods:

The following menu outlines exactly what you are allowed to eat during Phase I. Every day is the same in term of quantities, but the selection of fruits and rice equivalents is up to you.
You may choose any items you want from the lists of permitted foods that begin on page 55.
Breakfast = 1 fruit + Any noncaloric beverage
Lunch = 2 fruits + 1 portion of cooked rice or its equivalent + Any noncaloric beverage
Dinner = 2 fruits + 1 portion of cooked rice or its equivalent + Any noncaloric beverage
 
Yvonne Smith said:
The Rice Diet book is on Kindle Unlimited, if you want to read it and have KU, @Beth Gallagher . I checked it out and looked at it, but I am doing okay with what I am doing now with more of the Starch Solution diet.
To start on the rice diet, you are pretty limited for the first few weeks. Here is the list of foods:

The following menu outlines exactly what you are allowed to eat during Phase I. Every day is the same in term of quantities, but the selection of fruits and rice equivalents is up to you.
You may choose any items you want from the lists of permitted foods that begin on page 55.
Breakfast = 1 fruit + Any noncaloric beverage
Lunch = 2 fruits + 1 portion of cooked rice or its equivalent + Any noncaloric beverage
Dinner = 2 fruits + 1 portion of cooked rice or its equivalent + Any noncaloric beverage
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Yes, I already have the book(s) and plan, Yvonne.
 
Yvonne Smith said:
The Rice Diet book is on Kindle Unlimited, if you want to read it and have KU, @Beth Gallagher . I checked it out and looked at it, but I am doing okay with what I am doing now with more of the Starch Solution diet.
To start on the rice diet, you are pretty limited for the first few weeks. Here is the list of foods:

The following menu outlines exactly what you are allowed to eat during Phase I. Every day is the same in term of quantities, but the selection of fruits and rice equivalents is up to you.
You may choose any items you want from the lists of permitted foods that begin on page 55.
Breakfast = 1 fruit + Any noncaloric beverage
Lunch = 2 fruits + 1 portion of cooked rice or its equivalent + Any noncaloric beverage
Dinner = 2 fruits + 1 portion of cooked rice or its equivalent + Any noncaloric beverage
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Yvonne, this looks like a gulag diet. No spice, no flavor but lots of supplements. Without medical oversight a hard no.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
@John Walker -- have you followed the Rice Diet plan and did you see any improvements in your blood work results?
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Perhaps a brief history can be helpful. In 1974 at age 28, I purchased the booklet Raw Vegetable Juices by
Norman Walker for $1. I purchased a Champion Juicer (his invention) and began making his potassium drink
on a daily basis, drinking a minimum of a half gallon a day, my version consisting of organic carrots and celery.
Continuing with his program, my running kept getting better, going from 30 to 100 miles a week over the next three
years and getting quite a bit faster in races. My blood pressure when going to CSLA around 1977 was 98/66 and has
been in the same range ever since then. Around that time I met Nathan Pritikin, and obtained his book Live Longer Now.

Upon moving here in 1987 I was briefly gorging on ice cream after running, eating at least a half gallon at a time,
which was an absolute terrible thing to do, and I was addicted to it for awhile but fortunately broke that bad habit.
At that time I got a $15 finger blood test at a drug store which showed my total cholesterol was 199, the highest that
it's ever been. Immediately I stopped the bad habit and started juicing again. Around that time we also got this house,
I found Judy Moscovitz's book The Rice Diet Report and started with Walter Kempner's program. My self selected diet
consisted of cooking 1 cup of white rice a day, and eating 1/3 respectively for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, along with
5 red delicious apples, 1 for breakfast, then 2 each for lunch and dinner, Along with Kempner's diet I drank plenty of water.

Six weeks later I got another $15 finger blood test that showed my total cholesterol had come down to 123.
My weight was 170 at the start of the diet at age 42, and several months later my median weight for a week was 134.
By the way, Walter Kempner was 5'8" tall, the same as my height, and weighed 134# at age 83, when the book was written.
He lived for 94 years. Judy Moscovitz is 83 now, and still lives in Durham, North Carolina.

My current diet the last few years has been a combination of pinto beans, white rice, and organic oats, two scoops
of each in a bowl, having probably 6 or 7 bowls full each day, along with an unlimited amount of bananas. Also I add
a plentiful amount of garnet sweet potatoes to each 8 quart pot of pinto beans.

At age 80 I've been gradually starting the portion control again, starting from 170#, and so far am down to 148#.
I have gradually reduced the bowls from 6 or 7 a day, to 5 and then 3, and from unlimited bananas to 7, and now to 6.
This seems like more than I was eating in 1988, but so far it's working and that's what counts. I'm fine at 148 but we'll see.

My resting heart rate is in the mid 40s to low 50s. 5 years ago I could keep it over 180 for an hour on the bike.
I briefly tested my glucose levels in the 1990s during an hour long session of repetitions going hard during exercise,
and the levels kept snapping right back to around 80 or so. The finger stabs hurt, so I've never tested it again after that.
 
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John Walker said:
Perhaps a brief history can be helpful. In 1974 at age 28, I purchased the booklet Raw Vegetable Juices by
Norman Walker for $1. I purchased a Champion Juicer (his invention) and began making his potassium drink
on a daily basis, drinking a minimum of a half gallon a day, my version consisting of organic carrots and celery.
Continuing with his program, my running kept getting better, going from 30 to 100 miles a week, over the next three
and getting quite a bit faster in races. My blood pressure when going to CSLA around 1977 was 98/66 and has stayed
in the same range ever since then. Around that time I met Nathan Pritikin, and purchased his book Live Longer Now.

Upon moving here in 1987 I was briefly gorging on ice cream after running, eating at least a half gallon at a time,
which was an absolute terrible thing to do, and I was addicted to it for awhile but fortunately broke that bad habit.
At that time I got a $15 finger blood test at a drug store which showed my total cholesterol was 199, the highest that
it's ever been. Immediately I stopped the bad habit and started juicing again. Around that time we also got this house,
I found Judy Moscovitz's book The Rice Diet Report and started with Walker Kempner's program. My self selected diet
consisted of cooking 1 cup of white rice a day, and eating 1/3 respectively for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, along with
5 red delicious apples, 1 for breakfast, then 2 each for lunch and dinner, Along with this I drank plenty of water.

Six weeks later I got another $15 finger blood test that showed my total cholesterol had come down from 199 to 123.
My weight was 170 at the start of the diet, at age 42, and several months later my median weight for a week was 134.

My current diet the last few years has been a combination of pinto beans, white rice, and organic oats, two scoops
of each in a bowl, having probably 6 or 7 bowls full each day, along with an unlimited amount of bananas. Also I add
a plentiful amount of garnet sweet potatoes to each 8 quart pot of pinto beans.

At age 80 I've been gradually starting the portion control, again starting from 170#, and so far am down to 148#.
I have gradually reduced the bowls from 6 or 7 a day, to 5 and then 3, and from unlimited bananas to 7, and now to 6.
This seems like more than I was eating in 1988, but so far it's working and that's what counts. I'm fine at 148 but we'll see.

My resting heart rate is in the mid 40s to low 50s - 5 years ago I could keep it over 180 for an hour on the bike.
I briefly tested my glucose levels in the 1990s during an hour long session of repetitions going hard during exercise,
and the levels kept snapping right back to around 80 or so. The finger stabs hurt, so I've never tested it again after that.
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Holy cow, that's impressive, John. I'll probably be doing good to keep this up for 2 weeks. :D
 
Yvonne Smith said:
My kidney function did go up after starting the Starch solution way of eating again, @Beth Gallagher ! They had me do another blood test in May, and my kidney function was up to 42 that soon after changing over, plus my cholesterol went down from 200 to about 175, all on just a few weeks of eating plant based.
I am due for more labs next week so I am looking forward to seeing how my kidney function and cholesterol are looking now that I have been (mostly) eating plant based and healthy foods for several months.
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Just to circle back on the lab results, I sent my doctor the info on the Rice Diet and she thinks it will be fine as a short-term solution. She's checking my labs again in 2 weeks so I should see whether this is of any benefit. I expect at least some improvement since I am removing added salt and animal-based protein.

I pulled out my copy of Starch Solution to review that again. After a couple of weeks of rice I will probably be more than ready for a potato. :D Of course, the Rice Diet adds them at about that stage as well.
 
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Beth Gallagher said:
You can use any kind of rice, except wild rice which is not true rice.
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I was asking because it seems to me that brown rice with some nutrients would be better than white for dieting for medical purposes.

I knew about wild rice, years ago, and had a friend in Minnesota (RIP) that sent it to me after harvest. It is a whole grain with protein, other nutrients, fiber, and not a starch.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Well, that didn't last long. I couldn't even make it a week on the Rice Diet; it is just too restrictive. I don't know why I always think "I can do anything for a couple of weeks" because apparently I can't. :D

Back to the old drawing board.
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That is what I thought when I started reading the book, @Beth Gallagher . When ever I have tried one of those restrictive eating plans, no matter what kind of food it allowed, I didn’t like it.
I did the best with the Spud-Fit potato diet, amazingly enough, because there were so many different way so have the potatoes, and I like them either hot or cold. But I still got tired of that , and changed over to a less restrictive diet, like the Starch Solution.

As long as I give my self “vacation meals” occasionally, or not quite all vegetarian, I do pretty well with this. I have been watching YouTube recipes to make plant based meals, and how to use substitutes for meat, like the TVP.
Sometimes I add meat or cheese, but it is more like a flavoring and not the main part of the meal for me anymore. Making a soup or stew and I have just the broth and veggies and leaving the meat for Bobby and Poodle works well for me, and Poodle loves sharing my dinner when he gets the leftover meat.

It seemed like the portions on the rice diet were small, too. It said one fruit for breakfast, and that is just not much to eat. And even with a portion of rice for the other meals, I was pretty sure that I would not be able to stick to that. With SS diet, Dr. McDougall says to eat as many veggies as you want, and be satisfied but not overfull.
 
Yvonne Smith said:
That is what I thought when I started reading the book, @Beth Gallagher . When ever I have tried one of those restrictive eating plans, no matter what kind of food it allowed, I didn’t like it.
I did the best with the Spud-Fit potato diet, amazingly enough, because there were so many different way so have the potatoes, and I like them either hot or cold. But I still got tired of that , and changed over to a less restrictive diet, like the Starch Solution.

As long as I give my self “vacation meals” occasionally, or not quite all vegetarian, I do pretty well with this. I have been watching YouTube recipes to make plant based meals, and how to use substitutes for meat, like the TVP.
Sometimes I add meat or cheese, but it is more like a flavoring and not the main part of the meal for me anymore. Making a soup or stew and I have just the broth and veggies and leaving the meat for Bobby and Poodle works well for me, and Poodle loves sharing my dinner when he gets the leftover meat.

It seemed like the portions on the rice diet were small, too. It said one fruit for breakfast, and that is just not much to eat. And even with a portion of rice for the other meals, I was pretty sure that I would not be able to stick to that. With SS diet, Dr. McDougall says to eat as many veggies as you want, and be satisfied but not overfull.
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My biggest complaint was that the diet allows no seasonings. Plain white rice without even a sprinkle of salt is 'hard to swallow' after a couple of days.

I am just not cut out for plant-based diets. I need at least a couple of ounces of meat, even if it's just bits of chicken in a broth. So, I'll be restricting meat and salt but not eliminating them. I'm also cutting back on high potassium foods like potatoes, bananas, spinach and tomatoes, but eating pretty much everything else including dairy.

If my blood potassium remains high I will probably be trying the Big Pharma route next.
 
@Beth Gallagher - is your doctor asking you to restrict protein?My kidney issues have never even been discussed with me.
You would think 70 percent blockage on right side and 30 on the left, they would bring it up,but never have. Except to not take meds with NASID.. too hard on kidneys. I am trying to cut back on protein and drink more water. I am not even a big meat eater.
Like all diets -they only bring on tension, and failure. The key is to find something you can live with. I doubt that be rice:p
 
Hedi Mitchell said:
@Beth Gallagher - is your doctor asking you to restrict protein?My kidney issues have never even been discussed with me.
You would think 70 percent blockage on right side and 30 on the left, they would bring it up,but never have. Except to not take meds with NASID.. too hard on kidneys. I am trying to cut back on protein and drink more water. I am not even a big meat eater.
Like all diets -they only bring on tension, and failure. The key is to find something you can live with. I doubt that be rice:p
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Yes, people with reduced kidney function should cut back on protein, alcohol, salt, etc. My doctor is more concerned with the rise in my blood potassium because it can cause heart issues. She said to avoid high-potassium foods, discontinue any supplements, and drink more water and I will have another blood test in 2 weeks.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Yes, people with reduced kidney function should cut back on protein, alcohol, salt, etc. My doctor is more concerned with the rise in my blood potassium because it can cause heart issues. She said to avoid high-potassium foods, discontinue any supplements, and drink more water and I will have another blood test in 2 weeks.
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Could there be a lot of potassium in your water supply? It seems unlikely in a municipal water supply, but who knows? You mentioned that you drink a lot of water. Bottled maybe?
 
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