quote:

Porridge is as effective as statins

but sans side effects.

quote:

Originally posted by Rosahane:
... my porridge recipe which is flavoured with a little whiskey, honey and served with cream

Now THAT'S a variation I need to try!

quote:

Originally posted by slabsides45:
May sound nasty, but once you become accustomed to it, they're pretty good: take about 1.5 cups steel cut oats, pour 1% milk over them and a squeeze of honey, drop in a couple blueberries, and into the fridge before bedtime. Next am, they're softened and taste sweet, and filling. Good stuff.

You know I've been meaning to try this approach now for a couple years I simply put it off or forget in favor of the stove top 30 minute prep routine. A net search shows this is a popular way of making steel cut oats.

I wonder what the effect would be with both. Would it drop even further, or is there a floor that is not easy to break?

I eat steel cut oats most every day. I make a large batch in my rice cooker and just nuke it each morning. I don't really care for it with fruit, so I generally add scallions and some hot sauce to mine. Some days I will fry an egg and add that as well.

quote:

Originally posted by vandrv:
...so I generally add scallions and some hot sauce to mine...

Damn man, oatmeal and scallions?...Oatmeal and hot sauce?

That's odd enough I may have to try it!

I eat a lot of oatmeal.

Regarding statins, I had a major reaction to simvastatin about 10 days ago, and am still recovering from it.

According to research done by my daughter, statins also tend to drive your blood sugar up.

Just freaking great since I am diabetic and taking glypicide (sp?)

Be very careful with statins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Could not figure out why my knees were always so damned tender/sore. Turns out about 2 days after I quit the statin my knees quit hurting, too.

Doctors are great at prescribing meds, then more meds to offset the results from the first, then more to offset the second round, etc.

I do Irish steel cut oats or oats from Whole Foods most days.

Maple Cream. A dollop of Maple Cream makes it perfect.

I am out of said maple cream at the moment...so a substantial drop of honey from my parents' farm has to do. And by drop I mean an easy tablespoon

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
Quaker Instant for breakfast. Every. Single. Day.

I tried the sooper dooper steel cut designer oatmeal, didn't care for it and definitely didn't like the fuss factor in preparing it.

Open package, dump in bowl, pour in hot water, eat. That's about as complex as I care to get in the morning.

We just put the raw oatmeal in a bowl, add water, pop into the microwave for a couple of minutes, add milk or half and half and eat. We also often add "craisins" to it as well.

No sugar or sugar substitute.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:

quote:

Porridge is as effective as statins

but sans side effects.

Yeah. If you eat too much oatmeal, especially with honey, there are side effects – they broaden.

I went the opposite direction. Dr wanted me on statins, told him to pound sand. Switched to a low carb diet (bacon and eggs for bfast, yay!) and dropped my chol 22%, so take that oats and your measly 7%.

I'd been on a statin and blood pressure pill for over 10 years. I had other issues as well, in fact I should post a "We can turn our health around if we want to" thread sometime.

Anyway after learning about steel cut oats here in one of Para's threads I gave it a try and damn if I didn't like it!

So for the last 5 or 6 years 1/2 cup of steel cut oats has been my breakfast at least 6 days a week. Usually I add a small handful of raisons and 50% reduced sugar dried cranberries in the water with the oats. After cooked I add just a little (1/2 teaspoon) maple syrup along with maybe 1/2 cup 1% milk. This along with a small bowl of yogurt and I'm good for all day.

I'm now off both drugs.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
...(bacon and eggs for bfast, yay!) and dropped my chol 22%, so take that oats and your measly 7%.

I've been eating bacon and eggs for breakfast for several months now. 4-5 pieces of bacon, two eggs over easy fried on lard, and a slice of toasted homemade bread with butter. My numbers are on their way south as well.

While I haven't ever been too high LDL wise, my cardiologist (I've had occasional bouts with Afib), suggested meds might be in my future. I told her "watch this". We looked up my latest results just yesterday and all she could do was shake her head.

If something calls for olive oil I'll use that. Otherwise, all I cook with is lard and butter. You can have your canola and margarine. That shit will kill you.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
I went the opposite direction. Dr wanted me on statins, told him to pound sand. Switched to a low carb diet (bacon and eggs for bfast, yay!) and dropped my chol 22%, so take that oats and your measly 7%.

I did the same thing. I lost 26 lbs. I ate oatmeal every morning for the last 7-8 years. Gave it up as well as any "fruit juice". Now I have three eggs with low carb sprouted bread. The oatmeal had too many carbs.

I think the wide variation in success/failure with low carb vs low fat, aerobic vs weights, etc just shows that there is no one correct answer despite our desires to find it. Some of us are going to die with clogged arteries no matter what we do and other are going to develop awful cancers despite never smoking. All men die.

I had steel cut oats with some Georgia pecans thrown in and a bit of Maple cream. Outstanding. Maybe I should add some bacon.

Cooking Steel Cut Oats

Thermos Cooking Basics

What's up with the polo over the long sleeve turtle neck?

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:
I think the wide variation in success/failure with low carb vs low fat, aerobic vs weights, etc just shows that there is no one correct answer despite our desires to find it. Some of us are going to die with clogged arteries no matter what we do and other are going to develop awful cancers despite never smoking. All men die.

I agree there is no 1 correct answer. Heck, even if technically there was, the body is constantly adapting so you have to switch things up anyway. I disagree with the sentiment that it doesn't matter because there is no predictability in this stuff.

Biology and physiology is what it is. The variation are the people doing whatever "it" is. I have found that people seem to talk a good game about how the tried "x" and it didn't work, but question them further and it becomes obvious why their half-hearted attempt didn't work. This is why DRs. hardly even bother with diet and prevention advice, they just prescribe all kinds of meds assuming people will not change their habits. My mother is a lifetime nurse, she tells her diabetic patients to think of sugar as rat poison, doesn't matter they eat whatever they want anyway and take the meds (and lose the feets).

Low carb or low fat can work. The diet needs to be based on healthy whole foods. Study after study has shown low carb to be superior to the low fat approach in regards to cholesterol and anecdotally, I find low carb to be way easier as fat is caloricaly dense so I'm never hungry the way I am on a low fat diet.

As far as fitness goes, the first step most people never take is to clearly define their goals and the attributes of fitness they want to focus on (limit strength, strength-endurance, strength to weight ratio, anaerobic, aerobic, flexibility etc.) At 43, I'm fitter than 75% of the usually much younger infantry soldiers and NCOs I work with (and this was true when I was on active duty as well as deployed, it was a little embarrassing to be smoking the 10th Mountain Div. 18yos up the mountains of Afghanistan as a Guard officer...), but I only workout typically 30 mins 3x per week. Sometimes less (much).

My workouts are very efficient and I know what attribute is being improved. All modalities (steady state cardio, anaerobic/HIIT, resistance-weights or body weight) have a place.

Today I'm going to do 5 mins of Turkish Get-Ups and then 12 mins of 2 hand swings alternated with jogging, with a #52 kettlebell. It will work total body strength and coordination, strength endurance of the posterior chain and grip, and anaerobic conditioning (which has an aerobic carryover, but not vice-versa) in only 17 minutes. I'll do a joint mobility warm up, so lets call it under 25 total.