My problem with the Swank diet is that there was no control group. Now, in modern trials, you would have a progressive group and a newly diagnosed group and also an rrms group AND a control group.
I’d be worried about the lack of b and d vitamins, which are essential. I can’t eat vast quantities of carbohydrates due to my blood glucose levels being very high. I prefer to eat less meat and a lot of oily fish and low glycaemic foods. I can’t digest oats and too much bread.
Breakfast 1/2 avocado with lemon.
lunch (my favorite lunch) Raw wild salmon with a spicy lime-based sauce and stir fried veggies and mung bean noodles.
dessert frozen berries with yoghurt.
nothing after 15:00.
I like coffee and lemon and ginger tea.
Today is yesterday’s chickpea curry with quinoa. There are some awesome recipes for chickpeas (garbanzo beans). I dont get indigestion from them.
Ive had ms for a long time and you would find if difficult to spot. I am thankful that I got onto rebif less than 6 weeks after my shock diagnosis. I have to lose lots of weight yet, so I must persist with the 5:2 diet.
Just made some courgette fritters - using gram flour[chickpea] egg- coriander-turmeric. Lovely with chilli jam - which l made last week. Grow the chillies on the window-sill.
I am/was,a dietician, we recommend the 80/20 diet, as in good 80% whatever 20%, (1940s diet) it works cos there’s no monotony, recommended!!! No cut out this & that, exactly as it is, good healthy eating & please eat butter, keep in mind how they solidify marg? Chemicals, that’s how, leave it alone!!! Oil is liquid, butter is solid, oil to solid takes intervention, butter does not!! Neither does lard, all natural Tracey x
Trust me Val, natural products are definitely the best, no hydronated poo added, that’s what makes us “large” eating c**p!!! Didn’t see big people in the war years, no maccy d,s !!! Tracey x
J, that’s good,it is proven to work, olive oil Marg is produced differently to the ordinary marg & Benecol is " cold pressed" which basically means a healthier option, “hot pressed” does not have the benefits as they are cooked out, Benecol is the exception Tracey x
I am so glad that butter is back on the menu. Not that it was ever off it in this household. I remember long ago reading a recipe by (I think) Nigel Slater - it had a note that said: ‘Don’t use margarine for this. In fact, don’t use margarine for anything.’ That has always been and remains my philosophy on the matter!
Hi Juniper & Lenney, mono/polyunsaturated fats are fine, trans fats are the problem. Transfats have been man made, they change the chemical makeup of a product by adding properties to enhance shelf life to their products, so basically they bear no resemblance to the original product. Benocol contains plant sterol, which is naturally found in, well plants! Ghee is a better alternative to butter, it is actually clarified butter, which is slightly healthier, however, on saying that, everything in moderation is the key, hence the 80/20 principle. Another thing to watch out for, is how much sugar is in a product, fat also obviously☺ but many low fat products have the fat lowered, but sugar increased, I know, very confusing!! Sugar needs to be below 5g per serving, eg shredded wheat, 0.3g per portion, honey but cornflakes, 11g!!! Not good! Pain, but I try to read the sugar content on the packet, porridge ultimate healthy breakfast, except for the golden syrup 1, pity, but unfortunately not good!!! Hope I haven’t confused you☺ mind you, things have changed since I last was a practicing dietician, but I still stick to these principles & it still works! Tracey x
Thanks Tracey . I’ve been having so many different oils and fats. Started with rapeseed oil for cooking and olive oil for cold foods as informed olive oil used for cooking is not that healthy. Then I moved onto coconut oil as informed it’s healthier even though it’s saturated fat and now ghee.
When I was waiting for my heart bypass, I got deep into this, since my cholesterol figure had to be lowered.
I got the value down from 5.5 to 5.0 by diet, and my GP (a cardiac expert) said that this was about as far as it would go.
He wanted it a lot lower, so the statins went onto the prescription.
It was down to 3.4 before the op.
Diet, well I had a fun discussion with a Cardiac nurse, who proceeded to tell me all about the best diet I could follow. Olive oil,yes, tomatoes, yes, it was what was then being promoted as the Mediterranean Diet. “It’s the best for you, you know”.
My response was that was what we had been following for several years,
Benecol? Well the view at that time was that it was worth another 0.5 - 0.7 off the cholesterol value, but the moment you stopped using it the benefit stopped just as quickly.
The big gimmick at that time was to take a spoon-full of butter, and warm it on the cooker until it melted. Then do the same with margarine - and see what debris was at the bottom of the spoon. No, you really would not want to eat that! Do the same with Benecol, and you can see why I switched to butter, and have stayed there ever since.
Butter or Olive Oil for frying depending on what you are cooking - butter for fried eggs, oil for fish - but only in very small quantities. Bacon is grilled on a wire grid, so that the fat and water falls away, then sprinkle sliced mushrooms on top to grill as well.
If you follow Tracey’s advice and read the label, you will get a shock with cheese - Cheddar has a substantially higher fat content than Camembert or Brie. I find “light” cheese has no flavour (the flavour is in the fat after all) and does not cook as well. So, its Cheddar or Camembert in Chateau Geoff,
Think about your diet - its not just about throwing food down your throat.
I totally agree Geoff, everyone should look at the things they are eating, processed food is a really big problem, easy to prepare I know, but damn bad for you! The “war diet” was good, prepared from scratch food, certain items were in very short supply, but people ate pretty well, I don’t recommend total commitment all the time, because people would get bored with the monotomy, but we all should look at what we are eating. People are getting bigger & the news today is the diabetes epidemic, you can eat very well, with variation, Aldi & Lidl veg extremely cheap, just takes a little thought Tracey x
Forgot to mention, I only eat full fat cheese, butter & milk, not been messed with!!! Can’t beat roasted potatoes done in lard either! Moderation is the key, you shouldn’t cut fat out of your diet completely, its when its processed it becomes a problem. I’ve never endorsed faddy diets either, they have to be adhered to all the time & realistically, nobody can endure abstinence from eating what they fancy, just do it sometimes! Tracey x
i have heard this before, but where is money made from people following Swank? in fact, the only diet which can be deemed a ‘scam’ are things like weight watchers, where their dietary advice is centred upon the milkshake / dinners they sell.
Swank guidelines are free online and after that, there for you to follow and adhere to.
frankly claiming ‘scam’ sounds like an excuse to justify non-participation. which is as much a scam as anything else.
what you have described is essentially Swank compliant!
the only significant dietary exclusion due to swank is saturated animal fat (which includes all cow produce; beef, milk, cheese and of course all ready made meals).
i understand your concerns about the scientific veracity behind the swank study. lacks of double blind and controlled conditions is unfortunate. however such isn’t really possible for such things; an entire lifestyle and diet is tough to fake (ie. make into a placebo). and the duration of the study, now over 50 years (FIFTY YEARS), would make it pretty tricky to ensure people were continuing to consume a controlled amount of beef steak etc… to serve as a comparison to those who are not.
fact of the matter is, those still participating and thus not cheating in the diet, are still lacking relapses and less disability progression compared to those diagnosed at around the same time in the 1950s.
but of course we are all entitled to decide for ourselves what is and what is not worth trying. if swank is bogus and my future wheel chaired self is inevitable, well i will sit there and eat all the cheese and steak sandwiches i can lay my hands upon!
No-one (or very few people) were obese when we were kids because people walked places, rather than got in their cars and because children ran around outside rather than playing on their Xbox/WII/computer. Also because there wasn’t the same amount of cheap processed food available. But life expectancy was shorter then.
