Looking for...German health and nutrition books, websites, courses etc recommendations

[emkay 10,338]

Approaching his late fifties and after several heart attacks, my husband is looking for health and nutrition resources that can help him.  Any recommended German books, websites or online courses would be much appreciated.  

 

He acquired many bad eating habits during his childhood, his time in the army and during his body building phase.  He’s been to nutrition advisors as recommended by his Hausarzt but they really weren’t helpful.  The approach of...well, just don’t eat this or that was about as helpful as when my daughter was considered underweight and she was advised to eat pizza and drink hot chocolate.

 

He would appreciate anything that shows clear structured plans without appearing to be torturous.  Also, any that include exercise recommendations would be great.  Many thanks in anticipation.

 

[LeonG 14,855]

I once saw a word of advice if you want to change your diet.  This was actually on a program about heart disease.  So what they said was that most people cook the same 10 meals over and over so what you have to do is take your unhealthiest meal and swap it out for a healthier version of the same or even a completely different one that you also like.  Repeat slowly until you are eating healthy.  

[emkay 10,338]

Just in case this might help someone else...we found a very good NDR series called Die Ernährungs Docs. The principle being that correct nutrition can cure all manner of chronic illnesses and also aids any desired weight loss or gain. There are several books too that cover individual illnesses.  My husband has preordered the heart health book. There are also lots of episodes on YouTube.
https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/die-ernaehrungsdocs/index.html

 

 

[White Rose of Yorkshire 1,100]

I also watched Die Ernährungs Docs, it is amazing how many illnesses can be cured or mindered through what you eat.

 

Some health insurance companies have an Ernährungsberater? You could ask there. 

[Gambatte 980]

How about this:

 

More fruit, vegetables, fibers

Less fat, salt, sugar, caffeine

Very little animal products

Mostly wholegrain

Zero alcohol, tobacco

Minimum 1hr/day outdoor exercise and 8hr/night sleep

 

But mostly the first two lines

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tap 8,460]

7 minutes ago, Gambatte said:

How about this:

 

More fruit, vegetables, fibers

Less fat, salt, sugar, caffeine

Very little animal products

Mostly wholegrain

Zero alcohol, tobacco

Minimum 1hr/day outdoor exercise and 8hr/night sleep

 

But mostly the first two lines

 

 

I agree 100% with the above, even half an hour a day to start with will make a difference, but it's almost too simple for many people to accept.

 

The more complicated a regime, the less chance there is of people sticking with it. The above is a simple life plan and will help you stay healthy for years

 

(Maybe just a little alcohol now and again, as a treat!) 

 

[robinson100 12,854]

@ Emkay - not sure if you do all of the shopping and cooking and stuff, but if so, you should only buy healthy products or the ingredients to make healthier options. If the "bad" stuff isn´t around the house, it can´t be consumed!

 

As Tap said, the more complicated a regime is, the more difficult it is to stick to it.

 

For me, personally, I would never buy a book about dieting, as I know that I would read it once (maybe!) and then leave it in a corner of the room collecting dust. Maybe it´s just me though

[emkay 10,338]

12 minutes ago, robinson100 said:

@ Emkay - not sure if you do all of the shopping and cooking and stuff, but if so, you should only buy healthy products or the ingredients to make healthier options. If the "bad" stuff isn´t around the house, it can´t be consumed!

 

As Tap said, the more complicated a regime is, the more difficult it is to stick to it.

 

For me, personally, I would never buy a book about dieting, as I know that I would read it once (maybe!) and then leave it in a corner of the room collecting dust. Maybe it´s just me though

Husband and I ...very different! I do pretty much always eat healthily and exercise regularly. Getting close to being vegan. My husband just buys the bad things himself. He likes books and it’s presented very simply...that helps!

[Gambatte 980]

58 minutes ago, Tap said:

The more complicated a regime, the less chance there is of people sticking with it.

Maybe true. But I also have the impression that people very often try to substitute their lack of will with unnecessarily complicated plans. I wonder if the thinking goes like "...this is very elaborated, how cool, it's got to be very scientific and therefore very effective..."

 

I remember visiting a cardiologist months ago (btw, I'm healthy, touch wood). I asked him: "please give me some general advice. And should I visit a cardiologist regularly?" His answer: "follow a healthy lifestyle. If no symptons, don't bother seeing a cardiologist. And soon he almost started cursing at people that don't give up smoking AND visit him"

 

emkay, all the best to your family!

[robinson100 12,854]

26 minutes ago, emkay said:

Husband and I ...very different! I do pretty much always eat healthily and exercise regularly. Getting close to being vegan. My husband just buys the bad things himself. He likes books and it’s presented very simply...that helps!

 

- Can you reduce his "pocket-money"?

[emkay 10,338]

19 minutes ago, Gambatte said:

Maybe true. But I also have the impression that people very often try to substitute their lack of will with unnecessarily complicated plans. I wonder if the thinking goes like "...this is very elaborated, how cool, it's got to be very scientific and therefore very effective..."

 

I remember visiting a cardiologist months ago (btw, I'm healthy, touch wood). I asked him: "please give me some general advice. And should I visit a cardiologist regularly?" His answer: "follow a healthy lifestyle. If no symptons, don't bother seeing a cardiologist. And soon he almost started cursing at people that don't give up smoking AND visit him"

 

emkay, all the best to your family!

Thanks for your best wishes.  Regarding what you said about elaborate diet plans...that reminds me of when a friend used to sell Herbalife.  As MLM products, it is expensive. When I asked her how she felt about selling often to people that could ill afford the products, her simple answer was that if it weren’t expensive, they wouldn’t adhere to the strict regime. Indeed, most of her customers achieved great success. I’m not sure how sustainable the weight loss was though.

 

One of my biggest gripes is that little to no nutrition education is included in children’s education.  Bring back cooking classes too!  Apparently equally little during the many years of doctor’s medical training.  Food manufacturers still get away with including cheap and unhealthy bulking ingredients in their products. As adults, it can be very hard to break old bad habits.  I think most of us are aware of the relatively simple health equation you mentioned earlier.  Putting it into practice is harder for some than for others.  

[Gambatte 980]

29 minutes ago, emkay said:

One of my biggest gripes is that little to no nutrition education is included in children’s education.  Bring back cooking classes too!

emkay, I often agree with you on many points, but not at all on this.

 

I think healthy nutrition 1) is very simple, and 2) should be taught within the family. Formal education framework should teach maths, grammar, science, geo, history, maybe sport and politics and economics... but not nutrition.

Look at this: does it take long professional training to be able to teach math or grammar? Heck, yes! And does it take years of professional training to be able to tell people: "more fruit veg fiber wholegrain, less fat salt sugar alcohol caffeine"? I'd say no.

 

 

[robinson100 12,854]

@ Gambatte - not sure if you are familiar with the TV series "Jamie`s School Dinners", which was screened about a decade ago on British TV, but it dealt with the super-low nutritional value of what was being offered to kids at lunchtime.

That, added to the availability of chocolate and crisp was going an awful long way towards producing a generation of fat, unhealthy kids!

 

Whilst it might not really be a school subject that should be taught for years on end, at least once per school year, I think the kids should be assisted in recognising what is healthy and good for them, and what is not.

[Gambatte 980]

robinson,

yes I'm familiar with it.

Well, maybe ok for the school to lecture "a little bit" on nutrition. But come'on, the bulk of it should come from the parents EVERY MEAL.

 

Once thing that angers me very badly is the belief that crap food costs less than healthy one. It does not, it costs more. I'm very angry on this.

How much you pay for spinach, tin tomatoes, bananas, tin beans and lentils, dinkelmehl, white fish?

Or soda cheaper than tap water?

 

[emkay 10,338]

1 hour ago, Gambatte said:

emkay, I often agree with you on many points, but not at all on this.

 

I think healthy nutrition 1) is very simple, and 2) should be taught within the family. Formal education framework should teach maths, grammar, science, geo, history, maybe sport and politics and economics... but not nutrition.

Look at this: does it take long professional training to be able to teach math or grammar? Heck, yes! And does it take years of professional training to be able to tell people: "more fruit veg fiber wholegrain, less fat salt sugar alcohol caffeine"? I'd say no.

 

 

I agree with the principle that healthy nutrition should be taught within the family.  But, this just doesn’t necessarily happen.  Parents themselves may have little idea. Modern life often causes financial and time pressure.  There’s a lot more to nutrition than simply telling a child do this and don’t do that. Understanding how the body functions in relation to what we consume is key.  I don’t see it being out of the realms of reality for sport and science teaching to include nutrition in the curriculum. 
 

My cousin is a drama teacher at a secondary school. When she saw how many pupils were regularly off school sick, constantly tired, suffered headaches and behavioural problems, she introduced nutrition education into her curriculum. She asked each pupil to write an honest food and drink diary for a week and to add when meals were shared with the rest of the family.  She also asked about sleep and exercise. No big surprise that most pupils had a very poor diet mostly relying on convenience food, hardly ate with the family and often slept less than 6 hours per night and hardly exercised.  She did a lot to help change the bad habits including outings to fresh produce markets, supermarkets etc.  The pupils enjoyed the education with very positive results.

[emkay 10,338]

Just to mention, back to my husband and health advice....during his doc appointment recently, he told his doc that he often only eats once a day and that often includes unhealthy food. The doc just told him that that is fine and therefore don’t worry about being overweight! Even my husband realised that that can’t be right hence his search for better advice.  

[sluzup 271]

The GU series has a lot of books on nutrition.  My local library is full of them.  There is one called 'Die richtige Ernährung bei...'  which looks like it might cover what you are interested in.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, emkay said:

Just to mention, back to my husband and health advice...during his doc appointment recently, he told his doc that he often only eats once a day and that often includes unhealthy food. The doc just told him that that is fine and therefore don’t worry about being overweight! Even my husband realised that that can’t be right hence his search for better advice.  

 

People who are doing very little low level activity who begin walking or bicycling may find that until they develop some efficiency of energy management and a bit of condition, a 30-60 minute walk will use up a lot of their glycogen and they will immediately want to eat something. 

 

A gradual approach to increasing activity might help him stick with the exercise routine and keep him from nullifying the gains of exercise with post exercise recovery food.  

 

Good luck.

[Fietsrad 432]

I just finished my copy of 'Rentner-Bravo' (Apotheken Umschau), someone reports taking kostenpflichtige Ernaehrungsberatung at the pharmacy. It has recipies with pictures in every issue.

 

'Schrot & Korn ', from health food stores is good too, recipies beautifully foodstyled. But it does lean to exotic expensive ingredients.

 

Both journals are free.