Trying to reduce weight!

In the news today: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5093277/Just-10-Americans-eat-fruit-vegetables.html

Well, I dunno. The USDA should be jolly pleased that everyone is religiously following their guidelines - ie., massive amounts of starch, no fat at all (apparently), dangerously inadequate sodium, plus what appears to be an exhortation to overeat:

ā€œLook out for foods with added sugars or solid fats. They fill you up so that you donā€™t have room for the foods that help you eat smart and play hard.ā€

Which in any case is rubbish - far from filling you up, sugary foods tend to make you want to eat more, and while fats do make you feel full, surely thatā€™s exactly what you want to happen if youā€™re overweight? And how many Americans ā€œplay hardā€ anyway?

Eating a few more veg isnā€™t going to ā€œprotectā€ you from the damaging effects of this stupidity: the Inuit were doing just fine on a meat-and-blubber diet until they started getting shipments of sliced white bread and pop-tarts from Civilization. They now have one of the highest rates of diet-related deaths on the planet.

It must have been quite a uphill struggle to convince 300 million people to eat themselves to obesity and ill-health, but by jove theyā€™ve done it. Hurrah!

Never in the field of human nutrition has so much bullshit been flogged to so many by so few.

https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/

Incidentally, the main reason vegetables are comparatively expensive is that farmers are encouraged to grow grains and soybeans with enormous subsidies, while being discouraged from the kind of mixed farming that can economically produce quality vegetables. Grains and soybeans are the primary inputs for junk food, because theyā€™re not much use for anything else thatā€™s palatable, and they can be marked up handsomely when put in pretty boxes. The incentives and disincentives are put in place by ā€¦ the USDA.

2 Likes

Thatā€™ll do it.

Green juice today is not so great. Cantaloupe, spinach looking vegetable, lime, cucumber, celery. it needs more lime. green

1 Like

What in the world is that? Never got into veggies in liquid form.

I think you mentioned that everyone reacts differently to different weight loss strategies (too lazy to look and was probably said more than once). I wholeheartedly agree.

My wife and I are going about things in very different ways - very low calorie meal once a day for me versus a low carb diet for her. And weā€™ve both tried our significant otherā€™s approach only to fail miserably (or only to maintain current levels- excuse the hyperbole). So to anyone reading this, try different approaches until you find the one that works well for you.

After going back to a low calorie meal once a day, I am now down one more kilo. I met my goal! Now Iā€™ve got to be very careful and make sure I donā€™t go crazy with the beer and tacos this weekend.

tacos

2 Likes

The thing about veggies in liquid form is that you can take in so much more nutrients in a glass. Thereā€™s no way I can eat a bag of spinach, 3 cucumbers, a lime, celery, and 1/2 a cantaloupe. Thatā€™s in addition to other vegetables that iā€™m eating.
This morning was coconut milk, protein powder and a banana.
Some dumplings for lunch and I couldnā€™t finish them because iā€™m not too hungry.
Just trying to consume more good stuff so thereā€™s no room for the bad stuff.

2 Likes

@marasan: I agree that people need to find something that works for them personally, but Iā€™m curious what went wrong with the low-carb approach. In controlled studies low-carb works for 90%+ of experimental subjects and low-calorie works for about 20% (ie., 80% lose an insignificant amount, or gain weight). Was there some particular problem with low-carb that you couldnā€™t cope with?

1 Like

I guess it comes down to how I like to intermingle moments that really screw with a low carb diet. For example, I do love my beer. And a good meal involving pizza or beef noodles, etc. is hard to pass up sometimes. And how about a piece of cake now and then? So, for me, I would rather have a bread based breakfast, have a low carb lunch, go hungry all afternoon, have a beer or two after work, then a dinner with low carb intake (no rice, for example). Iā€™ve been at it 7 months. I feel this works better for me.

LOL ā€¦ got it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SLdg0BGGQ0

1 Like

The beer, pizza, beef noodles, cake and bread based breakfast dietā€¦I like it!

1 Like

I need to fit into my winter clothes. Right now, 2 out of 6 pants fit. :sob:

I meant low calorie lunch. Very low. Then starve all afternoon in anticipation of the beer buzz to come!

Starving is bad. it means the metabolism slows down and then every drop of beer/any morsel of food will be stored, not spent. You will be weak and fatter. :persevere:

But my swimming, cycling, running times are okay. At the pool now in Hualien. Letā€™s see how the beers last night will affect me!

My dinner. On vacation but typically the same basic idea. Today, low carb with intermingled high carb goodness (I all but avoided the potatoes). All this after some good intervals in an outdoor, unheated 50m pool. Life is good.

P_20171124_174100_vHDR_AutoP_20171124_180237_vHDR_Auto

P_20171124_181424_vHDR_Auto

2 Likes

Oh man, youā€™re killing me (except for the salad).

1 Like

It looks nice! Is that your dinner? Iā€™m not sure about how healthy such a heavy dinner would beā€¦

Can I suggest the -cheap- bag of pure oats for breakfast (or anytime you feel hungry) ?
I have been trying the 39 NT$ bag of oats from PX mart recently, and I like it !
A bit of sugar inside in the morningā€¦ and salt before bedā€¦ Have a try!
Healthy does not mean expensive. It means give your body what it needs.

Yeah, the corn. But the oil and vinegar dressing is good.

Shared with three others. Very heavy but isnā€™t that the nature of low carb?

Two different questions:

  1. Marasan (or anyone else!), any suggestions for interval swimming? Iā€™ve looked around a bit online and the options Iā€™ve found seem ā€¦ intense, and really long. My standard swim currently is 2000 meters total, in a 50m pool: basically 400m freestyle + 100m kickboard flutter kick, repeated four times. I absolutely suck at consistently pushing myself and Iā€™m not sure what tricks I can use to improve that. Fortunately the pool has a big digital clock I can use to monitor times.

  2. A couple months ago I started lifting weights, finally! Putting on a worrying amount of weight over summer is what pushed me to do this. And, um, Iā€™ve put on more weight. I like to think this is because Iā€™ve put on muscle mass - well, thatā€™s definitely happened, but Iā€™m no longer sure what metric to use, if any, for figuring out (hopeful) fat loss versus muscle gain. Do those who start lifting weights just sort of have to discard earlier weight data? How can you figure out a new baseline?