Diet/Exercise/Health/Wellness Support Thread

Parent Cafe
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<p>Just touching base, I am now down almost 30 pounds from when I started this journey, but more importantly I am actually starting to see muscle definition! My workout is a relatively simply body weight strength training program that alternates on the 'active recovery days" with cardio using intervals on a treadmill, and it is working incredibly at 3 weeks in (yep, it is all those wonderful lunges, planks, rows, inverted rows, Rumanian deadlifts, you name it…). </p>

<p>More importantly, I am learning more and more about nutrition and fitness, and rule number 1 is if you want to lose fat and become fit, 80% of it is in nutrition, that no amount of exercise is going to overcome a less than stellar diet (a misconception I held, “Oh, I am eating well, if I just exercised I would be okay”). What I am seeing tells me that is true, I am not spending hours a day in the gym, yet I am finding myself starting to move out of ‘blob’ into ‘still blah, but getting better each day’ <em>lol</em>. </p>

<p>Dietarily, with getting rid of sugar and grains (that part is for now), and limiting starchy carbs and eating a diet predominantly lean protein and greens, I am eating to where I am full, I am not afraid to eat healthy snacks in the right portion of nuts, fruit or maybe a small piece of cheese, and I don’t feel hungry, yet I am building muscle and losing fat and dropping in weight as well, if slowly. </p>

<p>One other thing I am trying seems to fit me well, too, and that is what is known as I believe intentional fasting. I have never been a big fan of breakfast, despite all the blather about it being the most important meal of the day, so what I am sort of following is the idea that I skip breakfast (okay, i do have coffee:), then have a pretty decent lunch, a decent dinner, maybe snacks, then there is a period of fasting until lunch the next day. The ‘schedule approach’ is you have an 8 hour eating window from roughly noon to 8, but I am not quite that dogmatic, I usually eat lunch at work around 1:30, get home and eat dinner around 8 (cost of my job and commute), I will have snacks until bedtime (around 11 or so), so I am prob 12 or 13 hours fasting, not the 16…and it seems to work for me, too, I don’t really miss breakfast. It seems to work…</p>

<p>To give you an idea of how nutrition can work, the guy whose advice I kind of follow, the program I have mentioned on here, has about 5% body fat, as do his friends who are fitness guys. They only exercise about 5 hours a week total (least that is what they claim), yet they are in that kind of shape (to be fair, they also aren’t trying to lose fat, they are already there, but still)…it just seems like if you have to concentrate on one thing, if you are trying to get fit, nutrition needs to be huge…and of course, the other thing with nutrition is to find out what works for you, too. I have heard advocates of the Paleo diet proclaim it is the bomb for everyone, others found that it caused them problems with digestion and with hormones, others proclaim the low fat/high carb nutrition method, and it works for them, and the one thing I am learning is experiment and see what works. For me is it lean protein, vegetables and fruit while minimizing starchy carbs and eliminating sugar routinely, and if that isn’t working, I will shift things, and see what works. Hopefully one of these days I’ll wake up, look at myself and say “ya know, you really did well”, though it more likely will be 'ya know, I look great, feel great, but maybe there is something better" (this stuff is addictive, if I find myself craving planks and burpees, I know I really have gone off the deep end <em>lol</em>).</p>

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<p>ohiopublic- Glad to see you back! Take care of the knee. Sounds like you are doing well!</p>

<p>The BMBM (Beer Mile Before Monkey) this afternoon was something to behold. The guys wore running skirts and so did the women. There were 2 kilts and one Swiss dress (on a guy). No one puked. Winner was 8:10. 2nd place was a bartender/ultrarunner female in 9:00. The course went up a hill, so wasn’t easy- not to mention chugging the 4 beers. I was a judge.
People are petrified of the weather forecast for Sunday morning Monkey- especially the southerners. 23 is seriously cold for a marathon start- high of 36 that day.</p>

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<p>Musicprnt, nice progress! Sounds like you really have a handle on things and because of that, you will stick with it. No can do the no breakfast thing here though- I need breakfast!!! </p>

<p>Best of luck MOWC on Sunday and the cold temps. The beer run - a sight I might pay to see!</p>

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<p>It matters what kind of exercise. 5 hours of high intensity exercise is a lot different from 5 hours of slow walking.</p>

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<p>Heard about this on NPR today - “Now, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that people in the habit of eating a daily handful (a 1-ounce serving) of nuts are more likely to live longer compared with people who rarely consume nuts.”</p>

<p>I am going to buy some walnuts as a holiday treat. We usually keep almonds in, too.</p>

<p>More of the story is here [Nuts</a> For Longevity: Daily Handful Is Linked To Longer Life : The Salt : NPR](<a href=“Nuts For Longevity: Daily Handful Is Linked To Longer Life : The Salt : NPR”>Nuts For Longevity: Daily Handful Is Linked To Longer Life : The Salt : NPR)</p>

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<p>Standing ovation for musicprnt. Awesome to figure out an approach that is working and see the results.</p>

<p>I think exercising 5 hours a week should be plenty. That’s an hour a day with a couple of rest days.</p>

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<p>Go musicprnt!</p>

<p>I walked into a clothing boutique near my work that I hadn’t visited in a few months and the owners said, “PG, what happened to your butt?” Except they used another word lol. They could easily tell that I had lost weight - they were surprised to hear that it was only 25 pounds - and I have to say, it gave me a nice ego boost. These are the kinds of store owners who are quite blunt if something doesn’t look good, so they weren’t just blowing smoke.<br>
And then, my pilates teacher said I was the “poster child” for lifestyle change! That made me feel good too. </p>

<p>Signed up for that 15k next year so here goes.</p>

<p>My alma mater does a dance marathon every year (it’s the largest private u dance marathon in the country, it’s a huge deal) and I plan to dance the alumni block this year. </p>

<p>Doing one of those Turkey Trot 5ks too on Tgiving day. It’s going to be cold and I typically run indoors so it can’t hurt to reward myself with some kind of cute performance wear, right? It’s funny, I now go to running stores instead of boutiques!</p>

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<p>Great job, musicprnt! Pizzagirl- calls for Lululemon, for sure!</p>

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<p>

I’m sure nuts are healthy, especially if you can limit yourself to such a small amount.</p>

<p>The problem with studies like this are in the details, which are always buried near the bottom of the articles, and never make the headlines:</p>

<p>

Self-reported consumption is pretty unreliable.</p>

<p>

You’d never know this from the headlines.</p>

<p>

Uh-huh.</p>

<p>Kudos to NPR for at least reporting some of the details. Other places I heard/read this story story did not.</p>

<p>I think that there can be a risk with stories like this - people will be running out buying nuts and eating them by the fistful, because the “1 ounce” part will be ignored. A handful = as much as I can grab with one hand, it does not mean 15 almonds (or however many are in an ounce).</p>

<p>Or they will buy nuts covered in salt, honey, sugar, chocolate, etc., and think the health benefits of the nuts will counteract the damage from all the junk on them.</p>

<p>Then there’s this:</p>

<p>

None of the reports I heard about this story mentioned that it requires decades of eating nuts to get the benefits. The headlines were not “Eat one ounce of nuts a day for the rest of your life and you might live longer.”</p>

<p>All that said… nuts are tasty! I should eat more of them. :D</p>

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<p>Great success stories. </p>

<p>If nuts make you live longer, I will live forever. I eat a lot of nuts, and have for many years.</p>

<p>Three mile run. I felt old and creaky this morning. Then I hurried to the pool to beat some bad weather. It was cold! This is an outdoor, heated pool which is covered at night to save money. Somebody miscalculated on how much to heat it. I swam anyway, just faster. Twenty-five hundred meters. I was the only person at first, but the place filled up by 930.</p>

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<p>notrichenough:</p>

<p>One of the great things about being almost 60 is that I can be as much of a curmudgeon as I want!</p>

<p>My attitude these days towards research bought and paid for by food or drug companies is that it should be viewed with no more credibility than a used car commercial on TV. I’m sure that’s unfair to the researchers. They probably are fine upstanding people who mean well and actually believe they are doing unbiased science.</p>

<p>Too bad. I’ve just had enough of people trying to sell me a product paying for fake research and buying experts to convince me that the product works and is safe. If they don’t want to be painted with such a broad brush, stop doing it.</p>

<p>I think nuts are a pretty good snack food, better than most. Although I try not to keep them around the house all the time because it’s pretty easy to eat “more than a handful”.</p>

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<p>One of the key factors in any kind of nutritional program is portion control, and nuts are no different. Part of the problem with nutrition is there is all kinds of crap out there, and doctors are some of the worst (it is amazing with all the evidence about how much of health care issues are tied to nutrition, that med schools and doctors still overlook it…and doctor’s advice on nutrition is stuck in the 1950’s). With nuts, the low fat crowd will scream “they have fat! Quick, cross yourself”, and while it is true nuts get most of their calories from fat, it is a healthy type, something the ‘fat obsessors’ don’t both to look at.</p>

<p>I am dubious of studies like this, not because there isn’t value, but rather in how they are taken. For example, the person eating a handful of nuts as a snack is also someone likely not to be eating a lot of procesed food, that kind of person is the one eating junk food, so right there it is hard to say it is the nuts or the lifestyle. It reminds me of the so called “Mozart Effect”, that made claims about listening to music and creating a ‘genius’ kid, it left out why music is beneficial and as presented was marketing hype. </p>

<p>Nuts do have advantages of a snack. They have protein, and the nut oil is something your body uses for a variety of things, and the nice part is unlike carb laden snacks, they tend to keep you satisfied longer if my own experience holds. I think they are a wonderful snack, in moderation, but I also think selling them as a curative is idiotic. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, a lot of things are done on hype or mis information. Doctors used to tell patients to take niacin to get the HDL/LDL ratio in balance, that has been proven in studies to be useless, that it does in fact help that ratio, but apparently, the ratio is a symptom of problems, it isn’t the root cause, so whatever niacin does, it doesn’t help the underlying issue. Statin drugs are a biggie, and recently they are changing how they assess risk and it means millions of people more are going to be on them that aren’t today ($$$$ anyone?), yet there is a lot of evidence that Statin drugs have major side effects and also may not lower risk of heart disease in some or many people. </p>

<p>A generation ago, cholesterol was the baddie, and the main culprit was supposed to be eating cholesterol and saturated fat, now they have finally admitted that your cholesterol numbers are a function of the liver and what you eat doesn’t affect it (this was in the reporting of the sea change in statin drugs I just mentioned). A generation ago people were told to use margerine instead of buttter, and guess what margerine was loaded with? Trans fats…people were told salt is the enemy, and while it is used too much in prepared foods and such, last studies are saying that salt isn’t the problem in of itself, and that the substitutes actually made it worse…</p>

<p>My take on it is to be very, very skeptical of claims like this or a lot of the information on dietary stuff. The FDA guidelines, for example, with the pyramid or the ‘plate’, supposed to be about what is healthy eating, has grains as the dominant portion…mostly to promote the interests of the farm lobby, nutritionists will tell you that what they have is out of whack…and the same guide lumps nuts with red meat, and tells you ‘red meat is to be eaten sparingly or not at all’, when with proper portion control and balance red meat is healthy (though that brings up another issue, about how meat products are produced and such…)…</p>

<p>The irony to all this is time and again, what seems to be coming back is the old adage about everything in moderation. It is what fitness people stress with nutrition, rather than claiming that vegetarian eating is the only way to be fit, or low fat, they say eat things in proportion with appropriate serving sizes. Julia Child made a point about that, aimed at people like Alice Waters, that it may be better to eat a smaller portion of something more rich, then eating a lot of something that is bland and tasteless, and I tend to agree with her.</p>

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<p>To the basement, today. After my usual warmup, I did a fun core bit. Valslide Painful Pushaways and then Tabata plank (front planks on the stability ball, side planks on the floor). The Tabata planks were great.</p>

<p>Then, a little power: jumping up on the weigth bench and some med ball overhead slams.</p>

<p>Then, my little four-station stroll around the weight bench: goblet squats, 3 pt DB rows, DB step ups, and DB bench press. Much lower heart rates today as I’m starting to get acclimated to this set of exercises. The step-ups are still brutal. That exercise has kicked my but in one form or another since my first week of iPod nazi workouts at 250 pounds. I use a higher step and more weight now, but it’s just as hard.</p>

<p>For “entertainment” I listened to a podcast with Robert Atkins’ nurse, Jackie Eberstein. Workouts are great for plowing through a backlog of podcasts. :)</p>

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<p>I’ve been doing moderate exercise about 4x week, x2 or so hours each session, but as it is in the water, it is hard to tell how much I am pushing myself, until later when I realize I overdid it.</p>

<p>I am having to ramp up my resistance however& I’ve added doing laps after water aerobics in addition to continuing exercises for what ever body part I feel needs it the most.</p>

<p>Speaking of runs, is anyone doing the ugly sweater run Sunday?
I hadn’t heard about it, but apparently D is coming to Seattle to participate.
Ugly sweaters, moustaches & beer are involved.
:wink:
<a href=“http://theuglysweaterrun.com/about/[/url]”>http://theuglysweaterrun.com/about/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>A new level of pre-race dread. It’s 19 degrees and will be about 33 when (if) I finish the Monkey. The young man who wins the race every year (from MN) is staying with us. I can’t describe the difference in wardrobes this morning. :slight_smile: He’s in short tights and a light long-sleeved shirt. I look like a bag lady. Of course, he’s out there half the time I am! This is very unusual weather for us at this time of year. It will be sunny (not much help in the shaded park), but still nicer… I really feel for the volunteers and for my H who is riding the bike with the lead woman. I hope she’s fast! Never again…</p>

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<p>Crazy!!! Especially 19 degrees!</p>

<p>I am doing a local 5k on Tgiving Day and it’s been unseasonably cold here. Since I always run inside/treadmill wearing shorts or capris, and my other 5ks have all been warm weather, I figured I’d stop by Dick’s Sprting Goods and get long running tights and a windbreaker (which of course needs to coordinate with the t-shirt of the race, which is gray and yellow, which thankfully works with my running shoes …). So, I go in, am in the Nike section, find a pair of tights, start looking at windbreakers. Find the perfect one and in yellow and gray no less. Lightweight, good if I need to wrap it around my waist, looks good for rain, etc. I’m pleased and then I look at the price tag. $450!! I’m all about “investment dressing” but that ain’t happening!</p>

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<p>What in the world model was $450 for a Noke jacket? Was it a ski parka?</p>

<p>A lot of people do it, but many runners believe you don’t wear the race shirt until after the race.</p>

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<p>Sending ya WaRM light for the monkey, MOMWC.</p>

<p>Yesterday we had sweat lodge and at a whopping 19 degrees even stones that were glowing all the way through lost their “steam” after two rounds. So not so much “sweating” :slight_smile: But I put you all in the lodge prayers for good health and fun, so you should all have magical days today :)</p>

<p>And re:

This was my EXACT first thought when I read the article. Why wasn’t it the first thought of the reaearchers or the reporter? Good grief!</p>

<p>In fact, in the Stone Age when I’d cover stories like this, that’s exactly the kind of question I’d ask during the interview. Which would usually either result in actually informing the public to consider the results accordingly, or sometimes cull a decent explanation of whether or not that variable had been controlled in the study design. For this I had a rep as a “tough” interviewer but really, was just in possesion of common sense :)</p>

<p>Gorgeous but extremely cold morning here and I have company in again from Canada. Will see if I can talk this one into a nature hike before pedicure and Indian food but if I had to ay money I’d bet I’m the only one willing to go up the hill today.</p>

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<p>Cold and windy here. I did something to my back yesterday rearranging and cleaning the entire fridge in preparation for Thanksgiving. I’ll go to the gym today and see what my back can handle. So annoying. Last week I lost a couple of pounds, not sure why, I don’t think I ate any differently than usual, last thing I need is not to be able to exercise properly.</p>

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<p>14 here this morning - what?!! Sunny but man cold even walking the dog ! Planning a run later today and maybe a stop at one of our local running stores that is moving into a larger storefront and trying to get rid of “hundreds” of pairs of shoes.</p>

<p>Thinking about MOWC and hoping you survive the article cold. I find breathing n that really frigid air to be not so fun.</p>