Diet/Exercise/Health/Wellness Support Thread

Parent Cafe
7921

<p>Ran 3 miles and did weights. Did regular set at 130 on the bench and did five at 135. I was very careful with my teeth. The workout felt quite good today. Workouts are always better after a weekend with a lot of rest.</p>

<p>I got the change to try the PowerGlide today. I didn’t have any chafing issues but I don’t recall whether three miles is enough of a test. It will make life a lot easier not having to bring compression shorts and will cut down a bit on laundry. The compression shorts are more expensive (computed run rate of clothes vs consumable stick) so I won’t miss not having them. My son will probably want to workout tonight so I might be at the YMCA tonight for weight machines.</p>

7922

<p>Had a wonderful 7 mile very hilly run with daughter and son in law yesterday in the wonderful park where we have the Monkey Marathon. My first training run there in over a year. It felt pretty good, even though the hills were hard.<br>
Did an easy 3.6 this morning. I may be seeing some improvement from the first epidural shot. We’ll see.
Took my two houseguests to hot yoga on Saturday. They lived through it.</p>

7923

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<p>I hate having houseguests. Maybe in the future I should find a hot yoga class to take them to!</p>

7924

<p>It looks like MOfWC is back in the saddle again! :)</p>

<p>I have a short run planned for tonight, only 4 miles. I went ahead and ordered myself a Garmin watch so I do not have to count half-mile posts on the trail (some miles out there are definitely longer than others, as I discovered last time). I also discovered that I need new socks. The NF running socks are fine for up to 7 miles, but anything longer than that, and they become uncomfortable. In my HS running days I was able to get by with whatever fell out of the sock drawer, but nowadays my aging feet demand comfort. Any tips on socks that work great for long runs would be appreciated, dear distance runners!</p>

7925

<p>I did a short workout today. Just did bench 2x12, 1x8 at 135# and lat pulldown 2x12 at 90# and 1x8 at 110#. No lower body stuff today because my knee is bothering me. I’m starting to think that I have something wrong with my entire left leg from the hip to the knee and the ankle. It is either starting at the hip or at the ankle, but getting a little bit of all of it…</p>

<p>Going to foam roll the IT band here shortly and then ice the knee again…</p>

7926

<p>Managed to get to the gym at our hotel 3x during my FL vacation last week. Also, did lots of walking through mangroves and at a national wildlife park one day too. Didn’t gain weight–but didn’t lose–stayed where I was. </p>

<p>Went to watch sunset at the hotel’s outdoor bar on the beach on the last night there. I had two of those fruity/alcoholic type cocktails. I almost never drink anything other than red wine. I figured I was on vacation, so I didn’t think too much about the drinks until I want to record what I consumed for the day. (I find this helpful, even if I’m not dieting; I think it keeps me from going overboard on food.) I nearly fainted when I looked up the WW points for the drinks. Each one was 9 points–which meant that I drank about 60% of my daily allotment of points. Yikes!</p>

7927

<p>BB- I like Balaga socks the best. They are expensive, but worth it. Smart Wool PhD socks are good, too.</p>

7928

<p>Thanks, MOfWC! I think my marathoner friend also mentioned the PhD socks in the past. I will look for your favorite brand. Anything that keeps my feet happy is a good investment!</p>

7929

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<p>Hah. I bet I’m the only one here who wears Sperry Topsiders with SuperFeet arch support insoles!</p>

<p>So, I’m getting a little deeper into Gary Taubes book. Without trying to summarize his case, he makes a very effective argument that simple carbohydrates (sugar drinks, white flour, potatoes, sweets, beer, etc.) trigger an insulin release which tells the body to store fat in fat cells rather than burn it for fuel, thus setting up the conditions to gain weight easily and make it almost impossible to shed fat. Even worse, the cycle of blood sugar and insulin leads to increasing craving for more carbs. And, even if you severely restrict your calories, the body holds onto the stored fat, making it an uphill battle. And, more devastatingly… as a person experiences this carb-driven weight gain, they tend to become insulin-resisant which forces the body to produce even more insulin, further locking down the storage of fat, while making it even harder to burn off the carb-glucose fuel.</p>

<p>The mechanism is that fatty acids which can be burned as fuel are combined into large three-molecule triglycerides in the fat cells with a glucose-derivative molecule as the binding agent. Once combined the triglyceride molecule is too big to pass back out of the fat cell and cannot enter the bloodstream where it could be available as fuel. Insulin increases the production of this triglyceride binding agent.</p>

<p>The conclusion is that, those of use caught in this carb-induced weight gain must break the cycle by reducing the consumption of simple carbohydrates: sugar, sweet drinks, simple starches like potatoes, and refined grains in breads, pastas, etc. This allows fat (from our diets and stored in fat cells) to again be burned as fuel. It reduces calories because these simple carbs are so high in calories. And, it shifts the diet to a higher percentage of protein, fat, and complex carbs – all of which are processed more slowly by the body and don’t result in these rapid eat/hunger/eat/hunger swings.</p>

<p>Looking back, I believe this is exactly what happened in my weight loss over the last year. I cut all the junk carbs and cut way back on carbs in general. Not Atkins diet low, but moderately low carb. This was really how I reduced my overall caloric intake. Everything that Taubes described happened to me. After the first month or so, I really didn’t feel any big hunger or craving. And, I clearly started burning stored fat as a fuel at a pretty steady clip.</p>

7930

<p>Just wanted to say that I bought a wii and a wii fit a few weeks ago. I have had it for 20 days (According to wii fit today was my 20th day) and i have exercised 4 and a half hours over that time. I try to do a half hour every other day but I have missed a few days for various reasons. On the days that I’m not doing it i’ve been doing crunches and I’m going to start throwing in those shoulder letter exercises we mentioned the other day. I have lost 5 lbs since I started. I had lost more then that due to being sick but have been gaining a bit of that back. It’s amazing how much that game can push you when you take it seriously. I just had to take a break from it for a few days because my abs were so sore from my last work out! I am by no way shape or form a large individual (todays results said 121 lbs) but I really would like to tone up what I have and lose a little bit of this flab on my belly (don’t laugh, i know it’s there!)</p>

7931

<p>Congratulations on the five pound loss. That’s a good accomplishment, especially starting from a svelte baseline!</p>

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<p>If you want to lose belly fat, stop wasting energy (and wearing out your lumbar spine) doing crunches. They don’t do a thing for reducing belly fat. Less than doing bicep curls. Instead, focus on large muscle, whole body exercises. None of the most respected trainers in the country are using crunches in their workouts anymore. I’m doing a three month workout program in a book for abs and it doesn’t have anything even remotely like a crunch in it.</p>

<p>[Is</a> Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back? - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/core-myths/]Is”>Is Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back? - The New York Times)</p>

7932

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<p>Actually, the simple explanation is that cutting out junk carbs cuts out a lot of calories, and reduces the overall calorie density of the food you consume. Junk carbs are often either (a) high in both carbs and fat (i.e. very high calorie density), or (b) high in sugary non-fibrous carbs only, which give no satiety (particularly liquids like soda), allowing eating a lot more.</p>

<p>If you are eating a lot of fibrous vegetables and whole fruits, you will get pretty full without consuming that many calories.</p>

7933

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<p>Yes, to be sure that part is obvious. The issue is not about whether weight loss requires a calorie deficit, but what about our diets makes us so predisposed to weight gain.</p>

<p>Taubes suggests it’s more complex than a simple calorie reduction – in other words, very low calorie diets with high consumption of simple carbohydrates often don’t work because of the physiology of the carb/insulin cycle, the resulting cravings, and the forcing of the body to store fat in response. He goes on to suggest that any diet that works has worked because, in restricting calories, the person has intentionally or inadvertently restricted the simple carbohydrates.</p>

<p>The reason this is an big issus is that more many years, the government health agencies have told people to eat more simple carbs. Grains, breads, cereals, and pastas have been at the foundation of the food pyramid with advice to make them the biggest part of the diet. This despite the fact that for 100 years before that, the accepted belief was that sugars and starches were responsible for weight gain.</p>

7934

<p>Taking it one step further, Taubes is suggesting that half of the population is not overweight because of psychological flaws that force them to eat too much and move too little, that there are actual physiological issues that make it difficult, if not impossible, to deal with weight. In the same way, smoking is almost impossible to address until the underlying physiological issue – nicotine drug addiction – is dealt with.</p>

<p>It’s easy to say, “just don’t smoke”, but there are brain chemistry issues that resist that behaviorial change in powerful ways. The theory here is that “just eat less” is similarly unlikely in the face of the carb/insulin/fat storage physiology.</p>

<p>Interesting stuff.</p>

7935

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<p>The current conventional wisdom, though, is whole grains and vegetables, right?</p>

<p>Still, this still takes some effort to do. Whole grain bread is considerably more
expensive compared to bread with refined flours. Vegetables are relatively expensive
compared to snacks.</p>

7936

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<p>It does not even have to be that complicated.</p>

<p>Simple non-fibrous carbs only tends to be very unsatisfying, so hungry people who try to eat only that (in the form of sodas, sweets, cookies, etc.) will still be hungry. In comparison, hungry people who eat the same amount of calories in vegetables and whole fruits are likely to feel quite full and not want to eat any more.</p>

7937

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<p>Yes, but it is Taubes contention that we have caused the obesity epidemic with false recommendations. For example, 30 years of “low-fat” marketing have made us switch to products with the fat removed and, in most cases, replaced with simple carbs. Consumers believe that “low fat” means the food is “not fattening”, when in reality the carbs in the low fat products are more fattening than the old products with fat in them. Fat has calories, but does not trigger this insulin cycle/fat storage that carbs do.</p>

<p>Likewise, the push towards “whole grain” gives the impression that eathing “whole grain” bread and “whole grain pasta” and “whole grain snacks” is healthy. In reality, it’s still encouraging us to eat more highly fattening carbs. If it is really “whole grain” (and not everything marketed that way really is), then the only difference is that it is digested more slowly and thus doesn’t trigger the immediate blood sugar/insulin spike that makes us store fat, but it’s still carbs, still raising the blood sugar, still triggering an insulin cycle and still making us tend to store fat. In other words, eating whole grain bread is most definitely **not **a strategy for fat loss.</p>

<p>If Taubes is right – and he is simply presenting what was conventional wisdom until the low-fat jihad hit in the 1970s – eating fat is not and has never been the key factor in obesity. It has always been the overconsumption of sugars and starches.</p>

<p>What’s really a shame is that most of the evils of eating fat that drove the campaign to get us to switch our diets from fat to carbs have proven to not even be true. Much of the fat we eat is now believed to be beneficial and even the products associated with saturated fat are a wash because they also contain large proportions of unsaturated “good” fat. It’s not that we should sit and eat lard by the spoonful, but the demonization of fat pushed diets in a direction that leads to more propensity for obesity. Scrambled eggs instead of cereal is probably a breakfast that will be less likely to pack on pounds as bacon and eggs do not force the body to store fat.</p>

7938

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<p>A key part of his argument is why those foods trigger such hunger. The insulin cycle is designed to quickly rid the bloodstream of glucose and lock fat into fat cells so it can’t be used as fuel. This leaves the body without fuel in fairly short order, which triggers hunger and the cycle starts again. The crux of the problem is that the insulin cycles prevent the body from using longer term fuel sources such as fat and protein.</p>

<p>This would explain why a month or two into my new diet, my cravings became much more infrequent. There is clearly a psychological component, but changing the physiology opens the door. It’s the same with quitting smoking. Until you break the active drug addiction cycle (and its very real brain chemistry issues), breaking the psychological cravings is almost impossible.</p>

7939

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<p>It is the overconsumption of calories relative to calories burned that causes obesity. A co-worker once mentioned that decades ago, he ate enormous breakfasts with pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, etc. in the morning – then went off to work 10 hours a day of physical labor on the farm that he grew up at.</p>

<p>Now, you have people eating similar breakfasts but not doing any physical activity during the day.</p>

<p>“Lower fat” was a (failed) attempt to cut calories (based on fat having more calories per gram than carbs or protein), which did not work because food companies made lower fat junk food that is was unsatisfying to one’s hunger.</p>

7940

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<p>Taubes argues that this is simply a tautology. Of course someone gaining weight will be eating more than they burn and someone losing weight will be burning more calories than they consume, but that neither explains why you get fat and I don’t. There’s more to it than that. There are animal studies where animals will actually starve to death without u using their fat stores for fuel.</p>

<p>His contention is that the overeating is caused by the factors that make someone store fat, not the original cause of storing fat - in much the same way that we don’t say a teen’s growth spurt is caused by “over-eating”. The growth is caused by hormones; the ravenous appetite is caused by the growth spurt. Taubes considers that getting fat is a similar process and that trying to tell someone to “eat less” in the face of physiological issues won’t likely be successful.</p>

<p>I don’t know if he’s right or not, but it’s interesting stuff.</p>