People food?

[Pablo]

I'm sure you'll find plenty of support for your decision in the medical (and dental) field......as well as from Pepsico.

And rest assured, you are among the majority.
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[MatthewV]

I like the first page of this thread. My view hasn't changed much... but I did both gain and lose a fair amount of weight since my original comment. And am currently 5 kilograms more than I thought :-(. The exercise part is the part I am missing most but the current season has a large impact on that.

Personally, I feel that "diet" food items help perpetuate obesity. Switching from Product to Diet Product allows the individual to feel better about themselves without making any real changes. Sticking to occasionally breaking the diet and having some rich and delicious dessert is psychologically very different from the "diet dessert". By eating the real product, you know and feel that you made a mistake. Eating a tiny container of Ben & Jerry's probably also has fewer calories than a tub of diet ice cream.
So part of the MatthewV Diet is to avoid all products with a diet label.

[Pablo]

As I said earlier.....The FUNDAMENTAL problems here are:

1. Ignorance
2. Arrogance
3. Denial

Don't take my word for ANYTHING! Do your own research....but if you look around, you'll see a whole society who think they know something about nutrition.....it's not a pretty sight, and you're not even seeing the ones in the hospitals.
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Zag]

I believe that "diets" never work, because they are temporary. I recently made two changes in my life, which brought me from a flabby and unfit 210 to a trim and more muscled 190: 1. changed (permanently) my eating habits. 2. Added what I call micro-exercise regimen.

The change to my eating habits was mostly a change in buying habits. I have always preferred grapes, apples, bananas, pineapples, etc. to ice cream, potato chips, and other junk. Now I'm making an effort to make sure that they are always in the house. I don't restrain myself -- if I do feel like something to eat, I'll eat some fruit. If I do feel like some ice cream, I will get just a few mouthfuls and cut up a ton of strawberries on it.

My micro-exercise theory goes like this: Knowing myself, I know that if I make plans to exercise for 45 minutes, so many times a week, I'll never do it. I just can never find that sort of a block of time. What I do instead is I exercise for just a few minutes, three or four times a day. I'm absolutely convinced of its effectiveness.

There's a tree outside my house with a nice straight, firm branch for doing chin-ups. When I started this, I could do 3. Now I do 15. I also installed a chin-up bar in my house, and I rip off 20 chin-ups, or 15 pull-ups, or 10 spread-armed pull-ups, when I walk by. (I can do more on the bar because the tree is really hard to hang on to.) Or I'll pop off 40 push-ups (only 20 when I started, and now I'm doing much harder ones, either with hands lower, near my waist, or on fists, or with my feet up on the back of the couch). The point is, that I can do any one of these in under 2 minutes, while I'm waiting for something in the microwave, or for the coffee to finish brewing, etc. But 4 times a day, it becomes an effective amount of exercise. And I like it because of the competitive aspect -- I can track real improvement. And I never feel that dread that I used to feel as I was trying to work in time for exercise, because I just do it and its over.

The important thing about doing the strength exercises is that when you build new muscle, your metabolism goes up, and you consume more calories. It isn't just while you are exercising that you are burning fat, it is all the time because that extra muscle needs food. And I can see it -- I have actual pectoral muscles now, unlike the skinny white boy look I've had my whole life (well, until it was the fatty white boy look).

[extro...*]

To me, it seems like it should be common sense that a paleolithic diet should be what is best for us. What exactly that is, is up for debate, but I don't think it includes grains.

[MatthewV]

I think it would include whole grains. Kernels of wheat look delicious even for me to try.

[MNOWAX]

considering i have lost weight to 18 stone (252 pounds, i just like being able to say 18 as my weight) it did wonders for me to switch from regular to diet soda. my biggest problem isn't my diet as much as it is exercise. i used to be way more active than this, but i guess it seems like I have less time to do other things. I used to use DDR as a cure to this, but i haven't had near the amount of time i once had.
_________________
The Man The Myth The Legend
MNOWAX

[extro...*]

When an animal eats most fruits and vegetables, they discard the seeds. This helps the plant reproduce. It's good for the plant species. The plant species does well to encourage it by evolving nutritious edible parts to help in the dispersal of the seed part.

Grains and beans, however, are seeds. Plants discourage those being eaten by infusing them with toxins. Eat 5 or 6 raw kidney beans if you want a memorable lesson about that (just don't blame me for the results). Grains and beans contain much higher concentrations of lectins, which have been associated with "leptin resistance" (one cite: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6823/5/10 ... but google will find you much more), which in turn is associated with the so-called "diseases of affluence" (aka fat bastard diseases).

Just think about putting yourself out in the wilderness to live like a "caveman" for a while. Without expert knowledge, eating plants at all is risky. They are loaded with poisons, many fatal. Animal sources of food that are toxic are a rarity. But assume you've learned from your parents which plants are edible, which are to be avoided. Now run around picking grass seeds (i.e. grains of wheat) with your fingers. Grind them. Cook them. How much food are you getting for your effort? A slice of bread, whole grain or otherwise, is the product of technology that didn't exist for most of our evolution, and hence not something we're adapted for.

The one nice thing about grains is that with some degree of agricultural and processing technology, they are suitable for planting and harvesting by the acres, and for storage, and thus for providing calories to whole cities of people. They were good for the birth of civilization. That doesn't mean they're good for the individual.

(my 2 cents)

I still love a good lasagna though. I just don't believe the carb portion of it is healthy.

[Lepton*]

What's this about lepton resistance?!

My boss and his wife are on a paleo diet. They seem pretty healthy, he's shed some pounds, and they will occasionally treat themselves to something modern like cheese. It's certainly better than the staple dishes of most cultures I know.

The counter-argument is that our ancient ancestors typically died before 50: without modern dental care, even the best diet will surely result in nasty teeth; there was no tolerance for the (moderate) physical weakness that comes with age; and even the female's ability to procreate -- the central function of an organism, in evolution -- is lost. To an extend, the paleo diet idealizes paleolithic humans whose life were "nasty, brutish, and short" (Hobbes).

On a different intellectual level, American women have posteriors that are incomparably larger than those of their peers elsewhere in the world. It's almost a different shape.

[jesternl]

there is middle ground between a paleo diet and eating ridiculously processed food.
I agree with Extro, most grains and seeds are not meant to be eaten in large quantities. the fact that we have to process it in order to make it edible for us is a good indicator.

[Pablo]

[Zag]

I agree, from the point of view of people making money off of diets and diet food. You're right: I was assuming that the point is to lose weight, keep it off, and be healthy. For that purpose, I stand by my claim that diets don't work, by definition.

[extro...*]

Depends on how you define "diet". To me, it's what you eat. Everyone has a diet. Some work, some don't. Temporary changes in diet will only bring temporary changes.

[Pablo]

I might still have a problem with what you're (Zag) saying. When a person falls off the wagon, it appears you are saying it is the "diet" that failed. Maybe it is the person who failed. Maybe diets work just fine, but people are too undisciplined to apply them. You could say the same about exercise programs or any other endeavor that is difficult. Is it the endeavor that doesn't work? Or is it the person? Or is that a semantic argument when we really don't disagree on the matter?

Anyway, to eat healthy (healthily?), you need to take that on as a value and do it because it's important and the satisfaction exceeds the sacrifice, not by sheer will power motivated only by what you "should" do.
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Zag]

I should have capitalized Diet. I'm referring to the Diets with names, like "Atkin's" or "Weight Watchers." These are, by definition, temporary.

If someone decides to change their diet, in the sense of the word that extro means, that is the only change that will work. (Well, and exercise.)

[Mackay]

[Pablo]

Mck, you make a good point, but I would stand by my 3 causes and exclude poverty for the simple reason that it is not fundamental.

There are people for whom poverty is a factor, but America is not obese and unhealthy for the reason of poverty. There are WAY too many affluent obese people to consider this a fundamental problem. Further, among those in poverty, I would propose that ignorance (of nutritional science) is a greater factor than their actual economic circumstances.

And, of course, I am speaking globally....not in reference to your particular (curvaceous, voluptuous) circumstances
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Mackay]

Hm. It wasn't my intent to deny that obesity is a problem for other demographics - I would imagine that it is the availability of processed, unhealthy food that makes it very easy to become obese in the USA, and the ease of access to (and preparation of) such foods is the reason for the disproportionate growth of obesity rates among the poor.

How is "arrogance" a fundamental problem? "Denial" seems awfully judgmental, unless there is an interpretation other than "fatties don't think they're fat" that I'm not getting, and it also doesn't strike me as fundamental.

"Ignorance" is closer to the mark, but I would rephrase it as a lack of access to nutritional resources - both informational and edible.

It's obvious what you would think/say about me if you saw me in the street and didn't recognise me. So thanks for the flattery and all, but I'm not going to eat it up (heh heh) the way I normally would.

[extro...*]

I agree ignorance is the primary problem, but I suspect we'd disagree on what exactly constitutes ignorance ... or perhaps information, versus disinformation.

The government food pyramid, based on grains, and limiting meats and especially saturated fats, is bogus. Conventional wisdom that red meat and saturated fat is bad, is bogus.

Here's an article on an interesting study: http://healthland.time.com/2010/05/17/cured-smoked-meat-linked-with-heart-disease-risk/?hpt=T2/

[Pablo]

Mck, after further thought, I've decided the problem here is non-dairy creamer!

(and lack of vegemite)
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Mackay]

In what ways are "arrogance" and "denial"* fundamental contributors to obesity?

How would you go about combating the pervasive ignorance that we both agree is a problem?

^{*also, denial of what? I still don't understand.}

[extro...*]

[extro...*]

It's also worth noting that when foods are actively promoted as healthy, this creates a statistical correlation between those foods and good health which is often misinterpreted as causation. If a successful propaganda campaign includes misinformation saying that food X is good for you, then people who are more concerned about their health, among all the other things they do for their health (exercise, other dietary choices, etc), will consume more of food X. Food X may be detrimental to one's health, but the detriment is offset in these people by all the other beneficial things they do. A study that looks at health versus consumption of X would show a positive correlation with good health when X causes poor health, and when a negative correlation would be seen if other factors were taken into account.

[extro...*]

And similarly the converse. If meats and fats are popularly, but falsely, maligned as bad for the health, then the people who will tend to eat more of them will likely be people who don't take good care of themselves in other ways.

[Mackay]

[Pablo]

Purely empirical....my observation that younger people have a sense of immortality.....that there are no consequences to unhealthy habits.....that they will escape the diseases that result from poor diet (diabetes, heart attack, cancer, etc) despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. (Similar to smokers)

Also, a large percentage of people (again, empirical) talk about nutrition as though they are experts, purely based on their own experience or taste or wishful thinking. Then there's also the "macho" attitude: "Beef! It's what's for dinner!" I have no beef with beef, but this attitude ignores the very significant difference between natural grass-fed beef and industrial, hormone laden, corn fed animals.

I categorize these as denial and/or arrogance. I don't mean that to be offensive, so I'd be happy to reconsider and find other descriptors, but I hope this clarifies my statement(s)..
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Quailman]

I think there's a good deal of rationalization involved, whereby people either consciuosly or subconsciously make excuses for their behavior. I know I do it. If I get a bag of those itty bitty candies that get you labelled as a cheapskate if you give each kid one piece at Halloween, i can tell myself that each piece is so small as to not have any calories at all. Before I know it, the entire bag is gone and I'm wondering where they went.

[Mackay]

[Pablo]

"Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels" is just a slogan. It is a refrigerator magnet or a bumper sticker, and its intent is not to demean those who are not thin, rather to remind oneself of the goal he or she has set in reaching a lower weight. At least that's how I interpret it....not to beat others with, but to use as a reminder and a motivator.
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Mackay]

It's not that I found it personally demeaning per se - it's that I object to the attitude that "thin" is an aspiration in its own right, coupled with what appears to be the implication that one should stop eating/eat less appealing things in order to achieve said goal.
It could be my definition of "thin" that is the problem, it makes me think of catwalk-model build, which is a whole other discussion of unhealthy eating habits on its own. I'd much rather have the body of a Serena Williams than, say, a Kate Moss, and I'm pretty sure that it would be a hell of a lot healthier - but with a "thin = good" mindset such a build would be considered inferior. Substitute the word "fit" for "thin" and the slogan is a lot closer to a healthy mindset.

[extro...*]

[Mackay]

Wow, that went right over my head. My apologies!

[extro...*]

My list of causes of obesity would be:

1) ignorance / misinformation

2) I can't find a word for it, or even a concise way to describe it, but it's a simple common human weakness that often has us not do today what we know is in our long term best interest.

3) apathy / depression

(2 & 3 may be related)

2 is aided by procrastination.

"Tomorrow I'll reform the fool doth say; today's too late, the wise did yesterday." -- Ben Franklin
[I first came across that in an R. Crumb Mr. Natural comic book]

[Pablo]

Extro, I don't deny that grains are toxic. Fact is, I don't know. It seems to contradict what I mostly hear and read, but I'm in learning mode on all of this. I'm trying hard not to be, or appear to be, a know-it-all. My wife and I are on this journey together of learning and practicing a healthy life style and while there are some basic and easy elements of truth (e.g. 50% body fat is unhealthy, trans fats are bad, you need vitamins), there are lots of areas that are mysterious and that we know very little about.

We''ve watched several documentaries lately and it mostly has shown us how little we know....and I'm guessing we know more than most, simply because we've sought information.
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Mackay]

This is pretty tangential, but seeing as we're speaking about weight loss/fitness/healthy eating habits and I'm only just beginning my journey into the world of exercise, this seems like a good place to chat about it.

About a week and a half ago I decided to track what I ate for a couple of days using http://www.livestrong.com/myplate/ - my intent at the time was to "fix" what I was eating to healthier stuff where necessary so that I could make sure I was actually taking in fewer calories than I was putting out, now that I've been exercising in earnest for a few weeks (holy crap exercise is satisfying BTW, how did I only just figure this out? It's so horrible and difficult but I make myself do a tiny bit more every day and it makes me feel like such a badass whenever I achieve it [I always achieve it, they are very small milestones ]).

Anyway, it turns out I don't eat nearly as much as I thought I did. After filling in the first day's meals, I went back through, racking my brain for things I might have missed (milk in my coffee, the dressing on my salad, parmesan cheese on my pasta? Did I drink any fruit juice? Did I make sure the portions on the site were as big as what I ate? etc) I fell short by a couple hundred calories, and have had no problem staying under quota* - in fact, I've been snacking extra and have gotten hooked on the website because I have to make sure I record absolutely everything that goes into my body so that I don't fall too far short! I can only assume that I have a sluggish ol' metabolism from years of being fat and lazy. There's certainly been a huge uptick in the frequency with which I get hungry since I've started exercising.

I guess that's part of why "nothing tastes as good as..." annoys me, too. Admittedly my processed food consumption** is really quite low nowadays, but I eat a whole lot of absolutely delicious food, and I'm confident that I can continue to do so and still lose the weight I need to lose. Why imply that people need to deprive themselves in order to meet the ideal?

*On the one day we ordered a pizza, I went way over the recommended caloric intake, and it's the only day I've had any trouble whatsoever. Bit of an eye-opener re: junk food, and a huge reminder of how much better I eat now than, say, two years ago.

**extro, I like your fundamental causes of obesity better than Pablo's, but I think "the availability of unhealthy processed food" has to be right up there as well. It's so easy, so it ties right in to apathy, procrastination, poverty, and even ignorance ("healthy" prepackaged meals are often loaded with sugar, etc).

[Zag]

Grats on your success, Mackay, and on your new healthier approach to living.

I have only one piece of advice, which you are probably doing anyway: Make sure your exercise regimen includes some strength exercises, to build more muscle. Aerobic exercises are important (I know this, even though I don't do them.) but they only raise your metabolism while you are doing them. Putting on more muscle raises your metabolism full time, even while you sleep.

[Pablo]

[Thok*]

[extro...*]

[extro...*]