MENA diet/exercise thread

[S and S 12]

Yeah, I can't imagine you were happy about it. My husband has this habit of trying to force feed me more than what I can eat. Did your husband do that? It is one reason I worry that when my husband comes he will make me gain too much weight. I already told him no force feeding. I informed him it makes me gag and if he keeps doing it I swear I will throw it up and then where will he be? He promises to not do it, but we will see, lol. I swear I will have a full mouth and he will keep trying to make me eat more before I am done chewing so it really does make me gag. I like to eat slow.

Well, he insists he won't eat unless I am eating, and what happens is he starts starving because we're on opposite schedules.. so i eat something, antyhing, to get him to eat. Then he'll insist we need tons of rice or whatever. he doesn't make me eat things I say I cannot eat because I'll vomit though. We went through that with peanuts and coffee. he tried to force feed me peanuts and I got really sick and just threw up. Next time, he insisted I needed coffee-- I hate it to begin with, and he kept insisting I drink more. I also threw up everywhere for that too. So, after having me throw up (once on him), he's learned his lesson and more or less leaves me alone now. So, you may ctually jsut go ahead and throw up on him-- who knows, it may work. I think they think we're exaggerating.

I also inadvertantly taught him the American meaning of putting your empty, palm-up cupped hand under someone's mouth.... you know how a mom wants you to spit your gum out and does that? Or whatever is in your mouth? Apparently, for them it's that they want some of whatever you've got, from the bowl or whatever... like if you're eating pumpkin seeds they want you to hand them some pumpkin seeds. instead I looked at him really confused while I was chewing and he made the facial indication to "go ahead" (raising his eyebrows, which he meant to indicate towards the bowl on the table). So I just spit out the entire contents of my chewed up pumpkin seeds in his hand. The look on his face was priceless. I immediately asked him WHY he wanted MY seeds. he calmly tossed my seed mush, washed his hand, and said he wanted non-chewed seeds from the bowl.

Your story really made me feel better, lol. Now I know I'm not the only one and I have your advice for how to deal with him. That is too funny. Thanks for sharing that!

[chaishai 1]

OK, so a few posts ago I asked if anyone had any good low-fat/low cal recipe ideas and all I got was a pizza pic. Does anyone do anything with fish much? I remember Chaishai posting something about Mediterranian Sea bass? Anyway, I have some cod and am thinking about using it with some dill, basil and parsley from my garden, maybe some steamed swiss chard on the side, and?? I can never really think of what goes with fish other than rice. I'm trying to avoid the rice...

we (ie my husband) take bronzino (mediterranean sea bass) and prepare it whole, head on tail on. slice each side 3 times in parallel lines, only going through about a 1/4 inch. either pan flash fry over high heat (olive oil only!) or forgo that and grill or broil. he then makes a little pan with a few TBSP olive oil, few cloves garlic, handful of chopped parsley, salt, pepper, white wine (probably not necessary) and cook it for a while. sometimes we add a little butter if we dont care about diet that evening, usually not. oh and lemon juice. cook it until its a sauce then when the fish is done pour it over the fish. its awesome! he also sometimes makes a sauce like what i described above but adds avocado and purees it? i dont know - he is a really good cook.

sometimes we have rice with fish but usually we just have israeli salad (finely chopped up cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado if you have it, green or regular onion, red pepper with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper)

i also like making mushroom sauces for fish i think mushrooms and fish go very well together.

[chaishai 1]

Do those of you who are muslim or ramadan sympathists (ie fasting with your husband) lose weight over the holiday? If I fasted all day I would definately lose weight than is when I do most of my eating. I think about yom kippur and we fast all day and after that I eat a few biscuit cookies and a brothy chicken soup and cant eat anymore so its not like I eat all of the calories at night. I know in mena people stay up all night and sleep all day so could do all of their eating at night but Im thinking most people here work during hte day so its only a limited period during the night, no? Just curious.

[Jenn! 918]

Do those of you who are muslim or ramadan sympathists (ie fasting with your husband) lose weight over the holiday? If I fasted all day I would definately lose weight than is when I do most of my eating. I think about yom kippur and we fast all day and after that I eat a few biscuit cookies and a brothy chicken soup and cant eat anymore so its not like I eat all of the calories at night. I know in mena people stay up all night and sleep all day so could do all of their eating at night but Im thinking most people here work during hte day so its only a limited period during the night, no? Just curious.

I am a ramadan sympathist. I usually lose a few pounds the first week of ramadan, but then gain it back before the month is over. In fact, I'm a little bit nervous about ramadan this year with my improved eating habits and exercise regimen.

[amal 4]

Yeah, I can't imagine you were happy about it. My husband has this habit of trying to force feed me more than what I can eat. Did your husband do that? It is one reason I worry that when my husband comes he will make me gain too much weight. I already told him no force feeding. I informed him it makes me gag and if he keeps doing it I swear I will throw it up and then where will he be? He promises to not do it, but we will see, lol. I swear I will have a full mouth and he will keep trying to make me eat more before I am done chewing so it really does make me gag. I like to eat slow.

Well, he insists he won't eat unless I am eating, and what happens is he starts starving because we're on opposite schedules.. so i eat something, antyhing, to get him to eat. Then he'll insist we need tons of rice or whatever. he doesn't make me eat things I say I cannot eat because I'll vomit though. We went through that with peanuts and coffee. he tried to force feed me peanuts and I got really sick and just threw up. Next time, he insisted I needed coffee-- I hate it to begin with, and he kept insisting I drink more. I also threw up everywhere for that too. So, after having me throw up (once on him), he's learned his lesson and more or less leaves me alone now. So, you may ctually jsut go ahead and throw up on him-- who knows, it may work. I think they think we're exaggerating.

I also inadvertantly taught him the American meaning of putting your empty, palm-up cupped hand under someone's mouth.... you know how a mom wants you to spit your gum out and does that? Or whatever is in your mouth? Apparently, for them it's that they want some of whatever you've got, from the bowl or whatever... like if you're eating pumpkin seeds they want you to hand them some pumpkin seeds. instead I looked at him really confused while I was chewing and he made the facial indication to "go ahead" (raising his eyebrows, which he meant to indicate towards the bowl on the table). So I just spit out the entire contents of my chewed up pumpkin seeds in his hand. The look on his face was priceless. I immediately asked him WHY he wanted MY seeds. he calmly tossed my seed mush, washed his hand, and said he wanted non-chewed seeds from the bowl.

Your story really made me feel better, lol. Now I know I'm not the only one and I have your advice for how to deal with him. That is too funny. Thanks for sharing that!

baaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ohhhh myyyyyyy gooooodness!!! that is hilarioius! not so much for him though i guess.....

I've decided diet schmiet. Although I haven't completely given up on it...I'm really tired of falling off the wagon and feeling guilty ... why can't we all be like my father? No, not a hairy dude with danglies... but rather.. a person who stays perfect in shape and eats enough at each meal to feed an entire army. We're talkin he will eat out of the serving bowls and go for seconds! He will eat out of a large butter tub sized bowl and get 2nds!! He eats 2 large pizzas all by himself and I swear he doesn't weigh more than 135lbs!!!!

[Jenn! 918]

Amal, how about coming up with some ideas that you think might be easier for you to stick to. I'd hate to see you quit now - you were making such great progress!

[amal 4]

oh i've made wonderful progress.. 28lbs gone woohooo but i'm so sick of not eating what i reeeeally want to eat. I'm not actually hungry when I follow my diet but I start rebelling after a month or so and want to forget counting calories/carbs/points/whatever and just stuff myself silly and be a gigantic ball of miserable human rolling on the floor in pleasurable agony lol is that too much to ask

[Sassy1natl 0]

oh i've made wonderful progress.. 28lbs gone woohooo but i'm so sick of not eating what i reeeeally want to eat. I'm not actually hungry when I follow my diet but I start rebelling after a month or so and want to forget counting calories/carbs/points/whatever and just stuff myself silly and be a gigantic ball of miserable human rolling on the floor in pleasurable agony lol is that too much to ask

28 lbs...thats awesome. Good job!! I need motivation. Or like some comedian said...maybe I just need bigger friends.

[S and S 12]

Do those of you who are muslim or ramadan sympathists (ie fasting with your husband) lose weight over the holiday? If I fasted all day I would definately lose weight than is when I do most of my eating. I think about yom kippur and we fast all day and after that I eat a few biscuit cookies and a brothy chicken soup and cant eat anymore so its not like I eat all of the calories at night. I know in mena people stay up all night and sleep all day so could do all of their eating at night but Im thinking most people here work during hte day so its only a limited period during the night, no? Just curious.

I fast and like you said I can't eat that much at the end of the day because my stomach shrank. My husband told me to eat a little, then pray the maghrib prayer and then eat more. That didn't work out so well. Its like my stomach is shrink wrap and was happy with the little I ate and wouldn't let more in. So after that I just ate as much as I could fit (still not as much as normal) and then tried to eat a small snack before bed. I've never been a big eater when first getting up so that meal was small too. I am really small to begin with so I probably only lost 2 pounds in the first couple weeks (and I had lost about 8 pounds before that which I didn't need to be losing but my stress was high). Then when I went to the middle east we stayed up all night so I could eat more. I gained back the 2 pounds then, lol. This year I will be in America the whole time so I'll probably lose weight again. I put on about 5 pounds since Ramadan so it will not be as big of a deal.

Edited August 1, 2008 by S and S

[Nasturtium 500]

I like broccoli with fish. My husband bakes fish in a glass dish on a bed of sliced onions and covered in sliced potatoes, carrots, zucchini, whatever. He uses a little butter with a lot of paprika and a little garlic on the fish itself. I really like it this way. I could probably substitute cauliflower for the potatoes. Last night we cooked shrimp in the butter/paprika/garlic sauce, and most of the butter drained off.

We've also made tuna stuffed peppers with tuna, rice, green onions, green olives, parsley, tomato, hot sauce (we use harisa), salt, and pepper. I love it, but it does have a little rice. There might be a substitute for that, maybe chopped cauliflower again (I have cauliflower on the brain this morning).

Thanks! I am going to copy down your suggestions. You know how sometimes you just get in a rut and even one new things will be all it takes to get you out...

Edited August 1, 2008 by julianna

[Nasturtium 500]

My husband did the force-feeding for a long time, but then I think it occurred to him that I wasn't getting any smaller! Now he'll push veggies on me, but he'll also tell me straight up that I'm "forbidden" to eat this or that, and he watches my eyebrows go up. He's learning how many calories oil adds to things also. Yesterday he made fries to go with our shrimp, and I baked a small potato for myself instead. A few months ago, he would have pushed the fries on me, but this time he just nodded when he saw what I was doing.

I've been walking 2 miles a day every day for a couple of weeks, and he usually plays soccer during this time. Yesterday, he couldn't find anyone to play with, so he kicked the ball around by himself for a while. When I finished my course, he suggested that we do one more short loop together, so in all I did about 2.8 miles yesterday. So the bar has been raised. I also just read a study suggesting that 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days isn't really enough for weight loss (doncha hate those studies?), and I've been walking for 35 minutes a day as well as counting calories, so we'll see if extending the time will rev things up a bit. In any case, I feel a difference in my energy and mood even if I can't see any physical changes yet.

Same for me. Ammar is so much better now at letting me be in charge of my diet, and he's no longer insisting I need to eat this or that, meat, etc.

So was that 30 mintes 3 times a week or 30 minutes 7 days a week in the study?

If you're talking whole fish, I just throw some herbs, olive oil and lemon and wrap it in tin foil and bake it. I'm guessing you don't have a whole cod though!

LOL no, I don't.... but that's like what I do normally... minus the oil and substitute butter.

Thanks! I do stretch a good amount, I think. But I feel there's only so much I can do with my arms and spend much more time stretching my bottom half. I should look up some different arm stretches.

Yeah, I think I need to lighten the weight and up the reps, actually. I'm up to 100 lb lat pull downs, for example, and I'm sure that's not the best way to not bulk up. I do 2 sets of 12 reps at the highest weight at which I can compelte the reps. Maybe I need to step away from the machines and just use the dumbells.

Yeah, I have these DVDs... by Jari Love? (sp)... anyway, she does light weight, lots of reps, with lots of stretching and it really does thin you down and not cause the bulk.

[Nasturtium 500]

we (ie my husband) take bronzino (mediterranean sea bass) and prepare it whole, head on tail on. slice each side 3 times in parallel lines, only going through about a 1/4 inch. either pan flash fry over high heat (olive oil only!) or forgo that and grill or broil. he then makes a little pan with a few TBSP olive oil, few cloves garlic, handful of chopped parsley, salt, pepper, white wine (probably not necessary) and cook it for a while. sometimes we add a little butter if we dont care about diet that evening, usually not. oh and lemon juice. cook it until its a sauce then when the fish is done pour it over the fish. its awesome! he also sometimes makes a sauce like what i described above but adds avocado and purees it? i dont know - he is a really good cook.

sometimes we have rice with fish but usually we just have israeli salad (finely chopped up cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado if you have it, green or regular onion, red pepper with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper)

i also like making mushroom sauces for fish i think mushrooms and fish go very well together.

A whole fish must be expensive? I had always wondered. Anyway, I saw MSB for sale at the fish market, but it was like $15/lb. I wanted to try it, but I didn't. Lemon juice usually does what the wine will do as far as somewhat similar flavor and tenderizing... although yeah there is a difference. i could subsitute that out though. Thanks!!

Do those of you who are muslim or ramadan sympathists (ie fasting with your husband) lose weight over the holiday? If I fasted all day I would definately lose weight than is when I do most of my eating. I think about yom kippur and we fast all day and after that I eat a few biscuit cookies and a brothy chicken soup and cant eat anymore so its not like I eat all of the calories at night. I know in mena people stay up all night and sleep all day so could do all of their eating at night but Im thinking most people here work during hte day so its only a limited period during the night, no? Just curious.

I did the first time, second time, no. it depends on if I am sneaking food or not lol. I don't know if I'll do it this year or not-- but I do more or less not eat during the light by default since I am getting off work at 7am and then wake up at 5-6pm, then maybe I'll have something then but most of the day it's not a big deal.

[Nasturtium 500]

baaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ohhhh myyyyyyy gooooodness!!! that is hilarioius! not so much for him though i guess.....

I've decided diet schmiet. Although I haven't completely given up on it...I'm really tired of falling off the wagon and feeling guilty ... why can't we all be like my father? No, not a hairy dude with danglies... but rather.. a person who stays perfect in shape and eats enough at each meal to feed an entire army. We're talkin he will eat out of the serving bowls and go for seconds! He will eat out of a large butter tub sized bowl and get 2nds!! He eats 2 large pizzas all by himself and I swear he doesn't weigh more than 135lbs!!!!

Awwww, don't quit now! You are really close to your minigoal. Think about all the time you've spent already, and how much closer you are now, and think about your health and your son, etc. Hey! my mom is about 100lbs and has been her whole life. I feel ya!

oh i've made wonderful progress.. 28lbs gone woohooo but i'm so sick of not eating what i reeeeally want to eat. I'm not actually hungry when I follow my diet but I start rebelling after a month or so and want to forget counting calories/carbs/points/whatever and just stuff myself silly and be a gigantic ball of miserable human rolling on the floor in pleasurable agony lol is that too much to ask

It's psychological addiction! I get the same way. I'm not hungry but oh, I totally crave cheese and bread and all kinds of things.

[Nasturtium 500]

OK! Well.... I feel thinner today and that counts, right? LOL! Yesterday I ate so many things out of my garden, and I felt really good.. but today when I added up my calories I had only eaten 1216! I did a count at:

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

and it shows you what you need to maintain or diet. So I was right on thinking I needed about 1500. Today I have about 1600, so I figure it kind of makes up for yesterday! And yay for falling pants! My pants are getting really loose. I can't wear my other work pants yet though, gotta keep wearing these for a couple more size changes before I can get into those. I think i may have gone down a size. I'm scared to check, though, and get depressed.

[S and S 12]

OK! Well.... I feel thinner today and that counts, right? LOL! Yesterday I ate so many things out of my garden, and I felt really good.. but today when I added up my calories I had only eaten 1216! I did a count at:

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

and it shows you what you need to maintain or diet. So I was right on thinking I needed about 1500. Today I have about 1600, so I figure it kind of makes up for yesterday! And yay for falling pants! My pants are getting really loose. I can't wear my other work pants yet though, gotta keep wearing these for a couple more size changes before I can get into those. I think i may have gone down a size. I'm scared to check, though, and get depressed.

I'm so happy for you Julianna. That is so great. Keep up the good work and you will be there in no time!