Health, Food and Exercise thread

[WhiningKhan]

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.

I don't think anyone disagrees that sodas and snacks make you fat. The way I see the message is that minor slippage in self control is enough to start the weight gain, and once insulin resistance develops, the rules of the game change; it will then require a lot more self control to manage bodyweight with the "regular" diet.

That "pretty much the only real increase in carbohydrates" part is exactly the problem, it starts the ball rolling.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I don't think anyone disagrees that sodas and snacks make you fat. The way I see the message is that minor slippage in self control is enough to start the weight gain, and once insulin resistance develops, the rules of the game change; it will then require a lot more self control to manage bodyweight with the "regular" diet.

That "pretty much the only real increase in carbohydrates" part is exactly the problem, it starts the ball rolling.

Yes and carbs don't work as well with our built in true self control mechanisms as protein and fat does. Protein and fat intake and their hormonal response supress hunger better. Likely the built in mechanism actually works the way intended by making you more hungry when eating carbs as carbs don't contain as essential nutrients, thus making your body still yearn those essential nutrients?

Built in self control mechanism is impaired with wrong foods and that goes far beyond what typically is meant by self control. The current world and the supermarket culture has set the bar too high for most common people. How are for example kids between 10-18 able to make well thought out decisions on these matters, when they are already risen in worst cases by candy bribes or in better cases candy reward days. When candy is a reward it makes overconsumption of them more likely later on, when you can just reward yourself whenever. Carbs itself are not a problem when your energy intake is in balance, however maintaining that balance with carbs is harder than with other nutrients and problems really start to happen with carbs once overfed. Some carb rich foods like whole wheat grains imo are bad in any nutritional state.

Thing is our body was not designed for high carb intake. It works, but it can work better. The current food recommendations are at best ok on paper, but in practise and in the climate we live in they are a disaster. A disaster that has brought in massive medical industry profiting from our suffering. There are huge structural problems in this issue and they need to crumble.

In other news. My weight was 109,7kg this morning, so I have little over 50 days to get down to 100kg. It's a tough goal, but might be possible.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I was about 119kg in February. I'm about 111kg now and it's going down. This time I really have the feeling, that once I get my weight down, it stays down. I'm targeting something like 85-90kg. July first I should be under 100kg.

That was written in April 29th

In other news. My weight was 109,7kg this morning, so I have little over 50 days to get down to 100kg. It's a tough goal, but might be possible.

That was on May 10th

I did not make it to under 100kg yet. I'm at 103.2kg, but it's ok. It is coming down. I've cut my cardio training quite a bit. I lift weights 3 times a week about 45min per session and walk two times a week for about 90min each with around 130 Heart rate. I think I did a bit too much hard cardio and it started to cause little problems, since I cut that down, my lifts went up and I sleep better, atleast until the current heat wave...

I live in the 12th floor of my building and my balcony and outer wall is towards the west. During midsummer the sun stays up at around 11pm over here and the huge wall collects warm like a mofo. The wall and direct sun light to the flat creates absolute massive heat build up to my apartment. The temperature can be 35c inside, even before direct sunlight, which hits my side of the building at about 4pm.

I have a movable AC unit, that helps a lot. With it I can keep the room temperature at a nice level, but it's so loud that I can't keep it on during the night, even with earplugs on and once you turn it off, the walls unleashes their hell on me again... I quess that could have been in the AC thread :smile:

My calories have been quite low for some time now, about 1700-1800 per day. I still eat three times a day and things are going good. I don't feel like I've lost any muscle mass and diet is going well also. I'm still eating about 60g of carbs per day, but usually on saturdays i eat about 150-200g and therefore slighty higher calories for that day. I do hope that I'll push through the 100kg barrier soon though. It was apparent early on that I wont be making it "on time" as the weight stalled a bit at the end of May. I did thought I would have been able to pull a low 102.x by now, but I think the heat wave and somewhat messed up sleeping during the last few days made me retain some extra water hehe.

I have a pretty good "before" picture in my phone where I look even fatter than I atleast thought I was and once I'm done with the weight cut I'll post it and a new picture, but that'll still be a while. :smile:

 

[V3]

I did not make it to under 100kg yet. I'm at 103.2kg, but it's ok. It is coming down. I've cut my cardio training quite a bit. I lift weights 3 times a week about 45min per session and walk two times a week for about 90min each with around 130 Heart rate. I think I did a bit too much hard cardio and it started to cause little problems, since I cut that down, my lifts went up and I sleep better, atleast until the current heat wave...

You're progressing well, keep it up. Weightlifting burns far more calories anyway compare to cardio, though 130 heart rate is high for a walk or speed walk even. What's your rest heart rate ? If you have a high rest heart rate don't be slacked with your cardio. You really need to walk 90m each day, not two times a week. Doesn't have to be in one go, 30m in the morning, 60m in the evening is good too.

You're targeting 85kg, just how tall are you ?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I'm 182cm, which is about 6'.0". I'll try to increase cardio only after I feel it's necessary. So far the weight loss pace has been adequate, but maybe it's soon time to increase it a bit.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I'm still under 80, lately I had a go with this special electric resistance based scales that can also measure body fat percentage (although the can of beer I drank before is supposedly affecting the results)
Anyway I was 78,4kg with 10.4% fat, not bad but should be under 10%. 184cm tall by the way, and would like to hit 80kg sometime - but more importantly I'd like to improve stuff like my 50 burpee time (about 3 minutes the last time we did the test).
The problem is that I'm still working late hours with less than enough sleep, which makes me eat more than necessary. I've also failed to progress significantly with the workout performance as well. Yeah I can do turkish get-ups with the 32kg weight but not nearly enough repetitions, I also don't think I could do more than two presses with that kettlebell, and I've been at this level for like 5-6 months by now.

So I'm taking a break from kettlebell training in July, will concentrate on jogging - there's going to be a Nike half marathon in September and I've wanted to give it a go last year already. With the extra time I might be able to do some 10-15km runs in preparation so that I can try this year. Hopefully my legs won't fail me, unfortunately regular running shoes aren't good for your joints but barefoot running is not an option for me.

On the other hand I've managed to convince a friend to join the group and he's been very very happy with it, says he won't ever go near a regular gym again

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Anyway I was 78,4kg with 10.4% fat, not bad but should be under 10%. 184cm tall by the way, and would like to hit 80kg sometime

That sounds like a really good shape already!

but more importantly I'd like to improve stuff like my 50 burpee time (about 3 minutes the last time we did the test).
The problem is that I'm still working late hours with less than enough sleep, which makes me eat more than necessary. I've also failed to progress significantly with the workout performance as well. Yeah I can do turkish get-ups with the 32kg weight but not nearly enough repetitions, I also don't think I could do more than two presses with that kettlebell, and I've been at this level for like 5-6 months by now.

Had to google those, as I figured your not talking about burping haha

I probably should give those kettlebells a try sometime as improving my core strenght is one of my top goals at the moment and I've heard they are pretty good for that also. I tore a disc at my back few years ago, and I think poor core strenght was a big reason for that. My right shoulder is also somewhat busted up, so I have to plan a little bit what I can do...

I wouldn't completely drop resistance training. Long duration running without weight training is pretty catabolic.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Heh, that's quite a strange championship... Anyway, this is what I was talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86TfhvgglF0

 

[DuckThor Evil]

"A small step for one Northern Mallard, but a giant leap for all the Dappling ducks around the world"



Pushed through the 100kg barrier this morning. About -20kg (44lb) so far and 10-15kgs to go!
I've lost almost exactly 4kg per month from the beginning of March.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

That's a pretty good run so far! Keep it up

 

[WhiningKhan]

Good job, Dr.Evil.

As a side note, I think this fresh paper will interest you, unless you have already seen it: Sucrose Counteracts the Anti-Inflammatory Effect of Fish Oil in Adipose Tissue and Increases Obesity Development in Mice.

 

[epicstruggle]

Pushed through the 100kg barrier this morning. About -20kg (44lb) so far and 10-15kgs to go!
I've lost almost exactly 4kg per month from the beginning of March.

Congratz. Whats your secret?

I'm on a similar journey. Went from 240 lbs to 195 over the last 5-ish months. I'm on something called a keto diet (ultra low cars and high protein/fat). Now I'm starting a triathlon training program to lose the last 20 lbs. Hopefully this diet & exercise program don't kill me.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Good job, Dr.Evil.

As a side note, I think this fresh paper will interest you, unless you have already seen it: Sucrose Counteracts the Anti-Inflammatory Effect of Fish Oil in Adipose Tissue and Increases Obesity Development in Mice.

Yeah thanks, although it's been quite easy and more like a byproduct of eating healthy. No suffering at all basically. My calories are somewhat low, maybe a tad too low, but I basically don't feel under fed or low energic or anything like that. After May I stopped doing any hard cardio. I do light walks 2-3 a week and lift weights 3 times a week for about 30-40 min in each session. That's not a lot compared to what I used to do and seems to work well.

Thanks for linking the paper. A good read and I had not seen it. I think some of their premises are a bit off, like grouping saturated and trans fat together and imo they speak a bit too nicely about polyunsaturated fats in general in the introduction for the study. Basically the recommendation that substituting saturated fat for polyunsaturated fat is dead wrong imo.

The study itself seems good and very interesting.

This is quite interesting quote and rhymes with what I've been thinking lately:

In our study the state of obesity rather than the n-3n-6 PUFA ratio in both feed and adipose tissues appeared to determine the expression levels of inflammatory markers in adipose tissue.

Imo (heavily influenced by Mat Lalonde :smile this means that while keeping the ratio of Omega 6/3 to something like 3/1 to 1/1 is important, it's more important to actually achieve that by lowering the omega 6 intake and only moderately increase the omega 3 intake, keeping the total levels of polyunsaturated levels low, instead of eating more of them in place of saturated fats.

Even more important is not to be fat and yeah keeping some "humane" control on your insulin production with smart and/or natural eating habits will go a long way in that. I recently read Mark Sissons Primal Blueprint and that's a good book to learn few things about health, exercise and eating great tasting food!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Congratz. Whats your secret?

I'm on a similar journey. Went from 240 lbs to 195 over the last 5-ish months. I'm on something called a keto diet (ultra low cars and high protein/fat). Now I'm starting a triathlon training program to lose the last 20 lbs. Hopefully this diet & exercise program don't kill me.

There is no secret. I just decided to pay more attention to stuff like health and exercise after years of yoyo dieting and doing things with very little actual understanding behind my decisions. I spent little bit of time reading and listening people whom I found to be most cabable and close to the mark with their theories and started doing what they were saying.

Now I'm converted into thinking that human beings work optimally mentally, physically and internally when they are lean, decently muscular with around 10% bodyfat for males and are fed versatile natural food, high in all necessary micronutrients and good amounts of protein and mostly saturated and monounsaturated fats, supplementing only few things that are hard to get/find due to modern food industry ruining the nutrion values in foods. Stress management skills and good amount of sleep are crucial for proper functioning.

Great to hear about your weight loss as well. Nice job, however the triathlon thing doesn't sound very good to me, as long duration endurance training is not really something that promotes lot's of good things in your body, of course if it's something you really like to do, then one must count some value for that. Lifting heavish things and doing short intense sprints or High intensity intervals etc. is a good way keep yourself in great shape, externally and internally. I'm not going to go very deeply into details here, but comparing the figure of a 100m sprinter to a 10k runner is a hint.

 

[WhiningKhan]

I think some of their premises are a bit off, like grouping saturated and trans fat together and imo they speak a bit too nicely about polyunsaturated fats in general in the introduction for the study. Basically the recommendation that substituting saturated fat for polyunsaturated fat is dead wrong imo.

That paper, as pretty much every other paper, must be read against the context of official dietary recommendations. With the amounts of fat recommended in 'normal' diets, polyunsaturated fats are verifiably generally good stuff, and people don't get enough of them without substituting some saturated fat into them. However, if you eat generous amounts of fat, as you should, you get enough of PUFAs anyway.

The omega3/6 discussion is exactly why I linked you this paper, as I knew you'd pick it up from the text...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

That paper, as pretty much every other paper, must be read against the context of official dietary recommendations.

Yeah I know, it just sometimes feels like those few lines of text actually shoot arrows into my eyes
I did greatly enjoy reading the paper through.

Done any exercises lately?

 

[WhiningKhan]

I don't really exercise - I've never liked the idea of physical effort unless it gets something concrete work done (like shoveling a few tonnes of gravel to the driveway, which I'm doing today)...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I don't really exercise - I've never liked the idea of physical effort unless it gets something concrete work done (like shoveling a few tonnes of gravel to the driveway, which I'm doing today)...

Heh well I hope you have to do something like that more than once a year
Did you get stuff done? Are you building a new driveway or fixing the old one?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Completed my first half marathon today, at the Nike Budapest event.
My time was about 2:10 - officially a little more, but I went backwards for about 200 meters after the refreshment point when I thought I lost my car keys (luckily they were in my pants though)

Haven't trained well enough, started to run again only in late april and missed some weeks in the beginning, only did 2 sessions in July and August, and I've ran ~18K only twice. So the remaining part of the 21K was quite a wreck...
Oh and it was 30 degrees Celsius through the day (saw at least 4 guys collapsing here and there) and the first refreshment point ran out of water after about 1/3 of the runners (more than 7000 people ran the full distance). Of course I drank too much at the second, point and poured too much water over myself as well, my shorts got pretty heavy So there were a lot of things I could've done better. But all in all I'm still quite happy that I made it.

Now after the race I was quite sure I never want to go through this again. But after sleeping a bit and eating a lot of my uncle's fish soup (hungarian speciality, amazing stuff) I'm beginning to think about next year...

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Oh and I picked up some excess weight in the past months too, I'm about 81kg - put kettlebells on hold because of the heat, job became more demanding, went through some personal stuff, all this lead to loosening up my previouos diet a bit.
But I'll be back to the 'bells starting thursday, I hear we're doing snatch VO2max training again so I expect to drop the surpluss reasonably quickly. Then it'll be time to get stronger again - I'd like to do push presses with 32kg and turkish getups with 40kg some day, like within a year...