What to eat

[777777]

What should I eat? it is hard to change I have just had sausage and egg for tea. All I buy is either in a tin or frozen food, I can't buy fresh food and cook it every day. Does anyone still eat normal food?

[10gingercats]

If you want a healthy lifeand to give your AF the worst chance of 'getting you down' one of the things that helps is to eat fresh vegetables and salads and fruit as often as possible.......and heed all the rest of the good advice that will follow .Of course you can only do your best in your circumstances in terms of location and finance.

[CaroleF]

The NHS 'Eat Well' guide is as good a starting place as any for what one should eat. See here:

nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pa...

Tinned and frozen veg are supposed to be as good as fresh in terms of nutrition (and count as your 'Five a Day'.)

Caffeine and alcohol can be triggers for AF for many people.

Heavy meals in the evening are not a good idea.

Try to avoid processed foods if you can (so sausages not a great idea) and also avoid take-away meals.

I'm not at all sure that any particular foods or diet are 'good for AF' but certainly eating as healthily as you can will help, especially if you could do with losing weight.

Myself I try to do the following (I don't always succeed!):

Eat a mostly plant-based diet, but have 2 fish-based meals a week and only rarely eat red meat and occasionally eat chicken. I do use soya mince quite a lot

NO processed food (eg. no ready meals, no pre-prepared packet foods or sauces, no sausages/ham/bacon, no tinned meals, no pies/pasties/sausage rolls etc)

NO cakes, biscuits, sweet desserts, jam (ie as little sugar as possible, though I do eat quite a lot of fruit)

NO fried food ( I 'dry fry' things in a non-stick pan and steam all veggies)

NO cheese (I eat Quark instead) or low-fat yogurt (it's heavy on sugar)

If cooking from scratch with fresh foods is a hassle/not easy for you to do every day, have you tried batch-cooking and then freezing portions for another day? I do that a lot eg, make a panful of soya mince chilli, or vegetable curry, or sauces for pasta, or soups of different types - enough for several meals. That way you only need to cook properly 2 or 3 times a week!

If money's tight take a look at Jack Munroe's website. She has loads of great, cheap ideas and everything's costed.

cookingonabootstrap.com/aut...

Like I said, I don't think there is any particular diet that will 'sort' AF, but eating as healthily as you can will improve your general health and well-being and that can only help.

Good Luck!

[doodle68]

Hi Seven My diet is similar to Carole's, I cook everything from scratch too.

Today I had organic jumbo porridge for breakfast, lunch of potato salad/tomato and basil salad/steamed leeks cauliflower and broccoli with white sauce and plums.

Tonight home made leeks soup and olive bread, some almonds and an apple.

This is the diet on the AF site...

careaf.org/topics/healthy-l...

I have always eaten a healthy diet but even more so since being diagnosed with AF.

I was reading yesterday about the latest research into diets called the 'Pure study'

sciencedaily.com/releases/2...

there has been a turn around on fats and carbohydrates are now the baddies.

[Rosy_Holly]

I have had a good summer. My main change in what I eat has been going organic as much as is possible. Also I swapped eating potatoes for sweet potatoes and have been gluten free for over 2 years. Our bodies are not designed to cope with foods covered in chemicals . I also have an underacticve thyroid and am a member of Thyroid UK. In their recent magazine an article tells the story of a lady able to come off all thyroid medication by eating mainly organic foods. Makes sense. It is more expensive, however some items are the same price and can be even cheaper. Going organic I have found it easier to eat smaller meals, don't feel hungry so not spending much more on food.

[Izzle]

For interesting meals I would recommend the CSIRO (Commonwealth, Scientific and Industrial Research Org) diet designed in Australia for diabetic patients after a lot of research. The book (Ebay / Amazon) comes with lots of recipes and weekly meal plans.

It also works well my AF. I can even lose weight on it without feeling hungry and my colesterol is about 4. My partner (and therefore me as well) started it 4 weeks ago and we've each lost 2+ kgs....nice and steady.

My main AF trigger is with eating, either during or shortly after eating which I'm putting down to slow digestion. I've recently taken porridge out of my diet (my favourite breakfast) as I suspect it contributes to that problem and it's had an immediate improvement, jumped from 7 day intervals to 17 days and still counting. Woohoo. Haven't been that lucky for ages.

A

[TonyToo]

I'd listen to what your body tells you. You've made the start by asking "What should I eat?" and now see what you do eat

[Sunshine89]

To 777777: Changing your diet could extend your life but I definitely understand how hard it is to change habits. I have found that deciding on just 1 easy change and developing it into a habit is the best way to go. Once the habit is well established you can move forward. Just remember that it takes a minimum of 21 days to form a habit. I started with breakfast, choosing an easy, cheap concoction of porridge with applesauce. Not my favourite food but at least edible. At first it was like taking medicine but over time I noticed that besides curbing my urge to feast on rubbish I actually felt better. I've also found that planning a weekly menu and developing the routine of prepping each morning for that day's meals is helpful. Of course that's another habit you first have to decide to develop then stick to it... Good luck!!