Health, Food and Exercise thread

Most places serve salad with mayonnaise, and I personally need some protein too, so it's not as easy. And you can't have the same salad five days a week, anyway :)
 
I just got done mowing the lawn and by my maths it takes me about 2-1/2 to 3 miles of walking to do it pushing the mower.

Doing it twice a week, does that count as exercise? :oops:
 
I meant something a little more scientific.

From biochemistry aspect, my understanding is that lectins are the main problem. Google should provide you plenty of reading of that, such as:
Lectin-Based Food Poisoning: A New Mechanism of Protein Toxicity
Modulation of immune function by dietary lectins in rheumatoid arthritis

On the actual field of nutritional science, there isn't anything conclusive on problems with grains in diet, only hypotheses such as Agrarian diet and diseases of affluence – Do evolutionary novel dietary lectins cause leptin resistance?

EDIT: Here's a good distillation of the potential grain issues, with ample literature references:
Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword

I want to add that there isn't anything conclusive of e.g. dairy fat either - research is now turning towards to dairy fat doing more good than harm, even though for decades people have been warned of it. The whole field of nutritional research is ridden with uncertainty and questionable research setups.
 
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The hard part is to keep to that diet, IMHO.
It's surprisingly difficult and expensive to get meals using only those elements (okay, sushi also counts and it's not that expensive), it takes considerable time to buy all ingredients and prepare your own food, and it's far too easy to chose the simple solutions, especially if you're used to go out and have lunch with friends or co-workers.

If you do any cooking yourself, it is easy. The stuff I make for myself is much faster and simpler to prepare than the food I cook for the rest of the family. It only takes a few minutes to prepare a salad out of iceberg lettuce, cucumber, olives (and lots of olive oil), mozzarella/feta, spring onions etc., and maybe 10 minutes to grill/fry pork/beef/chicken/whatever with it. I typically buy ~1kg lumps of meat at a time, prepare it all at once, and once cooked I freeze it as meal-sized portions. That way, it is easy to have a weeks worth of food for immediate consumption available, making a new bunch of salad to go with it every other day. The same goes with e.g. cold smoked salmon - I buy lots of it at once, and freeze it in portions to eat with salad.

'Normal' food, such as various pasta/dressing combinations, tends to take much more effort, as there are more steps in cooking them, and the salad is (supposed) to be done in addition to them anyway too.
 
Yeah, I suppose it must be so. I've been making salads for myself for a while now, and used to buy grilled chicken instead of making it at home. I can also make good barbecue at my parents' place ;) but it's not gonna work in my own apartment. But I'll probably give the more serious cooking a try soon as well; it'll help that I'm done with the 10-12 hour days and extra saturdays for a while....
 
Modulation of immune function by dietary lectins in rheumatoid arthritis[

On the actual field of nutritional science, there isn't anything conclusive on grains in diet
The problem is dosage ... they make a compelling case for rats, if you ignore for a moment that most tests were done with amounts of WGA which would be impossible to consume with normal grain products, and people with food allergies ... but what the effects are for "normal" dietary intake in healthy humans is entirely up in the air (other than that we're not dead or dying particularly young compared to ethnic groups without WGA in their diet).
 
And by the way I don't think it's that hard to know how to eat well and keep a good average weight.

Agree. Don't overeat. Be active always - walk and bike - no need for a gym membership.

Just get rid of stuff made from grain, rice, potatoes, sugar, junk food and soft drinks and the like
I eat bread every single day in the mornings and evenings. Potatoes almost every day, rice and pasta every once in a while, always around midday. Junk food is vague but I'd say rarely or none. Sodas are disgusting to begin with, so no.

The hard part is to keep to that diet, IMHO.
No wonder. Cutting out so many staple foods must be impractical. It's the amount that matters.

In essence, fat people eat too much too often and don't physically exert themselves enough. Fix that and you won't be fat any more. :)
 
Eat mostly what we ate during the long period of our evolution before the modern agriculture came about and made as weak and ridden with decease. We use to be strong and healthy, albeit high mortality due to hazardous conditions.
Where do people get the idea that our ancient selves were strong and healthy? Have you seen ancient suits of armor? They were all jockeys in stature.

I haven't studied this, but I'm thinking our ancestors didn't live long enough to know if they'd have developed cancer, etc. Sure we have a lot of fat people in modern society, but considering most people sit all day this isn't surprising.

This discussion is the first time I've heard someone say whole grains are bad. I know about low carb theories, but I've never heard whole grains being singled out. I bet most people I know consider whole grains to be healthy. Heck, my doctor's been telling me to eat more.
 
(other than that we're not dead or dying particularly young compared to ethnic groups without WGA in their diet).

Yeah we live long as a precious long time customers of lifestyle drugs that help us survive instead of really living.

Just give me the citations for whatever research he referenced.

Most of Robb Wolfs theory is based on the work by Loren Cordain, the author of the Paleo diet. Those different papers contain lot of references to other research.

http://thepaleodiet.com/published-research/

Mat Lalonde references Cordain a lot, but has a fairly substantial base for his different hypothesis.

Robb Wolf is a strenght and condition coach and an expert in nutrition. He has either directly or indirectly coached and witnessed the results in thousands of people ranking from sick, general or athelete level people and the results are very good. My own experiences during these last three months has made me nodding my head as well. I like to think that I'm not too easily fooled and that I'm fairly good judge of character (I do that for living among other things) and I think these guys (Robb and Lalonde) are pretty legit.

Ultimately I can only speak about myself though. I switched to this mostly Paleo diet about three months ago and I feel great, despite quite low calories for my size and activity level. I haven't had a single serving of whole wheat grains since then. I wake slightly before the clock feeling well rested. My mood is good and stable during the day. I don't get tired or hungry my general mental and physical state has improved a lot. I get a lot more done at work/home/gym. I'm getting leaner and my performance at the gym is getting better in lifts and in cardiovascular performance, despite low calories.

This is my indoor bicycle session of this morning:

http://www.movescount.com/moves/move1840433
[size=-2](might have to view in compability mode, or in mobile devices you have to press first full site mode and then click that link again)[/size]

That is little over 90 minutes with average heart rate of 173, peak 208, +12minutes constantly at the end over 200, +30min over 180 and almost 68minutes over 160. The work rate was very high. In general peak heart rate is assumed to be 220-age, so 189 would be normal for me. Never before atleast in my adulf life have I managed to get that sort of cardiovascular performance out of me, even at high calories and compared to a low calorie high carb diet the difference is staggering. This sort of training, what I like to call "Maximum energy spending" is not something I will do constanly, but it serves my short term goal of losing the majority of excess fat I have managed to gather. Once I get down to about 100kg, my training will change and even now, I'll do maximum of one such a heavy bike session per week.

During the last three months I have "engulfed" myself with "artery clogging saturated fat" and without a single serving of "heart healthy whole grains" or other foods that I classify as garbage. The result is I perform better than ever with regards to cardiovascular performance, and that's only with one month of training. Recovery times have improved. I also feel great. Pretty much every single metric I can think of has improved.

Where do people get the idea that our ancient selves were strong and healthy? Have you seen ancient suits of armor? They were all jockeys in stature.

I haven't studied this, but I'm thinking our ancestors didn't live long enough to know if they'd have developed cancer, etc. Sure we have a lot of fat people in modern society, but considering most people sit all day this isn't surprising.

Some of the Lalonde slides touch on this subject a bit and I've read about it elsewhere also. Basically Fossil studies have shown that the pre agriculture people were bigger, stronger and healthier than people after the advent of agriculture. During the last 100 years or so, other advances and general rise in energy intake has made us gain the difference back.

Back when we were still hunting and gathering the world was a dangerous place and those people didn't have these things that help us today. Harsh conditions caused lot's of deaths among children, but if you managed to survive to 15 years old, you had a good chance to reach similar age to modern man, without modern medicine, and they still didn't develop modern deceases atleast based on what I've read.

Heck, my doctor's been telling me.

Doctors don't receive basically any education on nutrition. Good nutrition is important for our health, but not important in the drug industry. Doctors treat symptons not the cause. They know a shit ton of drugs and help distribute them well. Good health just isn't very good business on a large scale, atleast within the current environment.
 
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The problem is dosage ... they make a compelling case for rats, if you ignore for a moment that most tests were done with amounts of WGA which would be impossible to consume with normal grain products, and people with food allergies

That's pretty common practise with rat tests. Humans live quite a bit longer than rats, they can't feed and monitor rats for 30 years. The same applies to e.g. cholesterol research.

... but what the effects are for "normal" dietary intake in healthy humans is entirely up in the air (other than that we're not dead or dying particularly young compared to ethnic groups without WGA in their diet).

It is up in the air when it comes to research results, just like I said, but to claim it baseless is foolish when LCHF diet and other grain-free diets are used for treatment of autoimmunity problems quite widely with good results. If you just look around in the web, you will find countless cases of people telling how their joint pains, rash issues, asthma etc. are under control after dropping the grains from diet.
 
That just turns it into a previously undiagnosed food allergy though ... still doesn't tell you anything about magnitudes.

I still don't quite see how sourdough is supposed to make things better, if WGA survives bread baking and stomach acid I don't see a bit of lactic acid making a difference.
 
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That just turns it into a previously undiagnosed food allergy though ... still doesn't tell you anything about magnitudes.

Magnitudes of what?

I still don't quite see how sourdough is supposed to make things better, if WGA survives bread baking and stomach acid I don't see a bit of lactic acid making a difference.

Sourdough is allowed to ferment usually around the clock before baking, and the whole bread of course is not usually eaten immediately after baking. There's plenty of time for the lectins to disintegrate, a big headstart compared to letting your digestion handle it all. How is that so unbelievable?

Before you ask, the scientific bits:
Proteolysis by Sourdough Lactic Acid Bacteria: Effects on Wheat Flour Protein Fractions and Gliadin Peptides Involved in Human Cereal Intolerance
 
During the last three months I have "engulfed" myself with "artery clogging saturated fat" and without a single serving of "heart healthy whole grains" or other foods that I classify as garbage. The result is I perform better than ever with regards to cardiovascular performance, and that's only with one month of training. Recovery times have improved. I also feel great. Pretty much every single metric I can think of has improved.

Becareful about this, when I was doing heavy lifting, I was upping my protein intake so much that I couldn't fit in any grains into my diet so it was steak and steamed veg with fruits inbetween. Sure cardio and strength imrpoved on that diet but after 3-4 years of doing that, it sort of start to catch up to me. My immune system wasn't as good, I get sick like 4-5 times a year. After that I sort of change my diet and training to the way it is today, way less protein, more fruits and veg and a bowl of rice with plenty of water, haven't been sick in 10 years or so.
 
Becareful about this, when I was doing heavy lifting, I was upping my protein intake so much that I couldn't fit in any grains into my diet so it was steak and steamed veg with fruits inbetween. Sure cardio and strength imrpoved on that diet but after 3-4 years of doing that, it sort of start to catch up to me. My immune system wasn't as good, I get sick like 4-5 times a year. After that I sort of change my diet and training to the way it is today, way less protein, more fruits and veg and a bowl of rice with plenty of water, haven't been sick in 10 years or so.

I'm taking something like 150-180g of protein per day. 60g of carbs and about 150g of fat. Basically I'm more about healthy nutrients instead of absolute macro nutrient balance whether it's 40/30/30 or 20/30/50 or whatever. Like I've mentioned for example white rice and peeled potatoes are something I'm ok with and once I down closer to my goal weight. I'll probably experiment with them. Whether I'll end up just doing carb loading, targeted or cyclical ketokenic or just take them as a daily food is still to be determined. If I don't feel getting any benefit from them I might drop them. We'll see...

Can't really speculate about your sickness, but great to hear you have now been healthy for so long.
 
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Nice going! Did you do some form of exercise, or just the diet? Did the weight come off slowly during that time or was there periods where the weight loss was more rapid?
Thanks, I do pushups and crunchs sometimes, but not often.
The weight came off rapidity at first, from water weight and then slowly went down, though had some fluctuations when I would have to "cheat" and eating easter candy :LOL:
I'd say my current diet is extremely easy to maintain btw, if I want a burger I just skip the bun and have green beans with it, instead of fries and no steak and potatoes, steak and salad or green beans hehe.
My energy levels are still quite high btw, some of it is definitely mood related btw.
 
My parents ate more meat than their parents. Pretty much the only real increase in carbohydrates in latter half of the last century diets has come from sodas and snacks over here ... for the "regular" diet I just don't see any way you can blame carbohydrates for the increase in obesity. You can blame the carbohydrates in sodas and snacks ... but that just goes back to blaming the lack of self control in the fat people themselves more than the carbohydrates IMO.
 
Has anyone studied if being fat as a kid alters the type of diet and exercise that work as an adult?
 
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