Diet/Exercise/Health/Wellness Support Thread

Parent Cafe
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<p>*Calories 1921</p>

<p>49% Protein 132g
28% Fat 105g
23% Carbohydrate 111g</p>

<p>Dietary Fiber 27g
Net Carbs 84 g
Sugars 41g*</p>

<hr>

<p>Dire reporting on the nutrition front today. Eating 20% of your calories as protein kills you if you are middle aged, but makes you live longer if you are old (70+). Go figure. I can’t wait for the government recommendation to be a vegan until you turn 70 and then start hammering the baby back ribs. Instead of a food pyramid, they’ll have a picture of a food rubrik’s cube…</p>

<p><a href=“High-protein diets: Bad for the middle-aged, good for the elderly”>High-protein diets: Bad for the middle-aged, good for the elderly;

<p>So I looked up how they came up with these stats. It’s the NHANES database. Respondents to the survey give a 24 hour food dairy from memory! Yeah, you know that’s accurate. The people in the high-protein category (20% of calories from protein) claimed that they ate an average of 1565 calories a day. But, they had, on average, men and women, 38 inch waist measurements. So, yeah, I guess we can put a lot of faith in that food reporting. I mean, how in the heck do you get a 38 inch waist eating 1565 calories a day? I’m thinkin’, just maybe, all these people with 38 inch waists forgot a bag of Doritos or two when they were filling out the food diaries from memory! But wait… If these men and women with 38 inch waists were actually eating more than the 1565 calories they fess’d up to, then they weren’t really eating a high percentage of protein. So what the heck was killing them in middle age and making them live longer in old age? I bet it’s those dang Doritos. :)</p>

<p>Gary Taubes describes what turned his attention to writing about nutrition. He had written his first book about bad science – how bad science completely botched the whole “cold fusion” thing. And, in talking to a lot of people about bad science, someone recommended that if he really wanted to see some bad science, he should look into nutrition research…</p>

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<p>Ohio, the only SAMs club multi I saw tested recently was Simply Right Women’s +50 formula, - it had all the ingredients its label said and was noted to be the cheapest at .05 per tablet. It said the formulation seemed nearly identical to RiteAids.</p>

<p>By comparison, the brand I like (shaklee) is .40 a tablet :wink: (I like them for different reasons, eg their sourcing efforts, research efforts, no recalls, sold in Canada with din number, etc., but none of that necessarily means its any better than SAMs club :slight_smile: )</p>

<p>Consumerlab does not, however, have the ability to test for quality of ingredient of efficacy, just whether what’s in the tablet is on the label, meets rda a guidelines, and whether anything shows up that’s not supposed to and whether the tablet dissolves in 30 min or not. So it gives you a bit of a sense of what manufacturers are at least able to accurately produce a given tablet.</p>

<p>In the last multi report, they noted that cost doesn’t seem to have bearing on accuracy…some of the pricy ones weren’t accurate (16 out of 44 tested this time.) some of the offenders were metaluca, Now, Trader Joes etc. consumerslan will also fail a vitamin for too high an amount…especially of vitamin A for example.</p>

<p>I am usually more interested in their reports where they find hormones, lead, mercury, etc. and that’s usually in specific supplements, protein shakes, etc. as opposed to a multi.</p>

<p>In ther news, the first day back on the hill after 4 days of moving hell was more of a slog than I expected. But good. The return to clean eating has been completely necessary…somehow despite Herculean shenanigans, I GAINED damned near four pounds…which is obviously mostly water or inflammation given the short time in which it appeared… and is coming back down, but man was I unhappy to discover that :slight_smile: I could see slight edema in my legs, which was also unusual. Hopefully by the weekend I’ll be fully recovered and back on track.</p>

<p>Did my planks and minor kettlebells last night and discovered my back is in fact sore and a little tricked up around l1, one of my errant facet joints.I’m hopeful the snowshoeing loosens up the hitch.</p>

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<p>

I think people just completely underestimate how much they actually eat.</p>

<p>How much does a handful of chips weigh, and how many chips was that? How much meat is on half a slab of baby back ribs? Was that one tablespoon or three of salad dressing?</p>

<p>I have that problem even when I am diligently tracking. How big was that piece of meatloaf I had for lunch? 4 oz? 6 oz? It makes a big difference.</p>

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<p>No question about it. To really get an accurate food track, I have to weigh portion sizes and be very diligent in finding comparbles on something like a rack of ribs.</p>

<p>In the study, the “low protein” group (also with 38 inch waists) claimed to eat 1950 calories a day. I suspect that they study wasn’t actually comparing low protein to high protein, but rather food underestimators to really, really bad food estimators.</p>

<p>Observational studies based on what people say that eat are essentially worthless, but that doesn’t stop this study from being all over the news today, with the take-home message that people will die if they eat more than 10% of their calories from protein. That’s 200 calories for a 2000 calorie a day diet. 50 grams of protein, or only 1/3 gram per pound of body weight for a 150 pound adult. That and no resistance exercise is a recipe for very little lean muscle.</p>

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<p>This is why I suck with calorie watching and throw it out all together. </p>

<p>I eat a relatively healthy meal when I’m hungry and have a cheat day once a week*.</p>

<p>*Lately, a cheat snack once a day! :wink: </p>

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<p>@niquii-
That is the right spirit IMO, counting calories as opposed to being aware of portion size/type is a losing battle, because you cannot do it forever, and if you count on that, get to your weight, then eat ‘normally’, you probably will overeat. The one thing I love about the nutrition/fitness website I use is they continuously re-evaluate what is out there, and admit when something they have been recommending is wrong. When they do portion sizes, they emphasize the practical, that instead of saying “is it 4 oz or 6 oz”, that the portion be let’s say a palmful…put it this way, you can count calories and end up very, very unfit, because you are emphasizing low calorie foods rather than healthy foods (sorry, but lean cuisine meals and snackwell crackers and those 100 calorie pouches of chips ahoy are not healthy eating)…</p>

<p>It is funny, I haven’t really lost any weight for the last 3 weeks, yet my body is starting to really trim down (why? because I am building muscle as fast as I am losing fat), my waist is now moving to the next size down, and people are commenting on how I look, so something is working. Eventually I am sure my weight will go down as I lose more body fat, but I have learned not so obsess about my weight and focus on being healthy and looking the way I want to. If I weigh more than what some chart says but I am wearing pants with the same waist size I had at 18 and my body fat is under 20%, do I care? <em>smile</em>. </p>

<p>One thing I am grateful for, I have also been doing some heavier lifting (doing deadlifts), and in the last couple of snow storms when I had to do extensive shoveling, I realized learning to deadlift correctly helped me protect my back when shoveling some really wet, heavy, slushy snow. </p>

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<p>It is a heat wave here…20 degrees and sunny! :slight_smile: Went outside to walk with the dog. Walked 3 miles with the 70 pound dog pulling me along. Have a bit of a backache so will be careful for the rest of the day. Walking in the snow and ice was tricky but so good to be outside for an extended period of time!</p>

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<p>20 degrees… :)</p>

<p>Here is a “sweet” article, right up my and idad’s alley when it comes to bashing the bad guy Mr Sugar:</p>

<p><a href=“http://m.bbc.com/news/health-26449497”>http://m.bbc.com/news/health-26449497&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The new recommendation for the British soon might be no more than 5% of daily caloric needs. </p>

<p>And here is a perfect solution for budget problems - tax the poison. :)</p>

<p>"Dame Sally Davies, England’s Chief Medical Officer, told MPs: "We may need to move toward some kind of sugar tax, but I hope we don’t have to. "</p>

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<p>I love sugar. I have a dessert at minimum once a day. </p>

<p>A day without something sweet is a sad day for me. </p>

<p>I’m a proud addict. </p>

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<p>Went to yoga class this morning and as I was checking in the instructor told me that she could tell I’d really improved in the last few months. I appreciated the compliment and worked hard during class. Funny how positive reinforcement works.</p>

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<p>BB:</p>

<p>I think I’m generally able to abide by the proposed target of no more than 5% of calories from added sugar. However, I’m lukewarm on new WHO standards. I actually think we would be much better off if health organizations, governments, and the World Health Organization just stopped “helping” us by telling us what to eat. Half of their guidelines are probably sensible. Half are nonsense or completely unrealisitic. And nobody can figure out which is which. It just ends up being a tool for food companies to sell junk food by touting the latest thing (“whole grain”, “fat free”, “all natural;” “real fruit juice”, etc) on the packages of fake food.</p>

<p>Let people fend for themselves. Could they eat any worse than they are now with all the “help” they have been getting?</p>

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<p>Niquil- I remind you again that you are really not in the same game as the rest of us.</p>

<p>3.2 miles outside at lunch. It did not get as warm as predicted, and it was very gloomy. 37 degrees and cloudy. At least I got some fresh air. </p>

<p>Lent begins today and I have given up my Diet Pepsis/Cokes. I am also going to be mindful of my eating. Our church’s Wednesday night program for Lent is focusing on different dietary choices and will provide some guidance, discussion etc on Vegan, Vegetarianism, fasting and eating locally sourced foods. You can do whatever you want (after all, we’re Episcopalians) such as try going meat-free a couple days a week. I had decided to try the meat-free and see how it worked this time around, and promptly forgot and ordered an egg sandwich with turkey bacon at Starbucks immediately after the 7am Ash Wednesday service! So-meat free started after breakfast today! If I’m not feeling like I’m getting enough protein, I’ll add some meat back in. I just need to shake things up a little. No candy, either.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I was gonna go meat-free, too, but I forgot and cooked awesome thick cut pork chops braised for an hour in an Italian tomato/white wine sauce to die for. Oh, well… :)</p>

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<p>MOWC, you don’t need to remind me of anything and I don’t appreciate your nastiness. </p>

<p>In regards to Lent… I haven’t decided what to give up. Well, I know what I need to give up; although quitting is a hard. </p>

<p>I don’t know if you remember, interesteddad, when you told me tips on will power and quitting. Well, I tried to give it up for new years…that didn’t work. I quit using for about a week two weeks ago…I’m back using again…I’m hoping to give up it for Lent and have a nice long talk with God. :slight_smile: </p>

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<p>1.75 miles on the track at the gym followed by 15 mins rowing, followed
By a slow, easy additional mile on the track.</p>

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<p>Roasted spaghetti squash with ground turkey, portabella mushrooms and sweet onion marinara sauce for supper tonight. A little Parmesan sprinkled on top. Very comforting and satisfying! Walked another mile. Now if I can just get back to the weights! </p>

<p>I haven’t eaten red meat for over 30 years. I do eat turkey, chicken and fish. Rarely do I eat pork but ounce in awhile I have bacon or pork tenderloin. Just doesn’t agree with me. I should give up wine for Lent but really don’t think I could! :wink: </p>

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<p>Rest day for me. Putting fancy clothes in the backpack for a sunny day walking up a little mountain in the snow tomorrow.</p>

<p>MOWC:</p>

<p>Yeah, the sugar started getting to me in my 40s, I guess. And, really mashed the gas pedal when I hit 50. One theory on that is progressive insulin resistance, making it more difficult to handle carbs with age. I don’t know.</p>

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<p>MOWC- I got a great laugh from your story about breakfast (turkey bacon) at Starbucks. I read it out-loud to my husband. I would SO do something like that. You might consider tofu as an alternative to meat. I’m not much of a meat eater and we eat tofu all the time. It’s fairly low calorie and very high in protein. </p>

<p>Idad- Thank you for the encouragement and useful tips. Diet and exercise are really head games until they become habits. I love how much you enjoy eating and preparing great foods despite watching your calories!</p>

<p>Clean eating again today and spot on with my calorie counts and recorded all of my food. I fell short on protein, but will adjust tomorrow. I walked 12,501 steps/ 5.28 miles. I chose to walk a longer route.</p>

<p>I have some new motivation. D2 now has a fitbit and she “friended” me. I didn’t know such a thing was possible. She can see my counts and I can see hers. She also added my husband.</p>

<p>All of this recording and counting does seem to make a difference!</p>

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<p>Yep, it does Peaceful! Something about being accountable AND having some success!</p>

<p>I’m not a big meat eater. So I’ve never worried about giving it up because I don’t consume that much anyway. But don’t mess with my weekend bacon!! </p>

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<p>MOWC, your kitty is gorgeous!</p>