<p>The NYTIMES has been on a roll this week with fitness articles. Today, they have an article borrowing a title from Alwyn Cosgrove’s book, Afterburn.</p>
<p>This cites new research showing that high intensity exercise does result in significant calorie burn for hours aferward:</p>
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<p>This has been a topic of considerable debate. In the real world, people like Cosgrove (and iPod nazi) see increased fat loss results from high intensity interval training, but nobody has been able to explain why or quantify any significant “afterburn”.</p>
<p>I’ve seen references to the HGC diet, but haven’t paid any attention as I don’t believe in paying hundreds of dollars for homeopathic supplements to lose weight. It appears to be a series of injections combined with a 500 calorie a day diet. There is no question that anyone eating 500 calories a day will lose weight. It’s starvation. Works like a charm – for a little while.</p>
<p>I’ve actually reached the point where I don’t believe in diets at all. It seems to me that the very concept of a diet (a short term action) is self-defeating. If you are overweight, you’ve got to change the way you eat and not just on a temporary basis. It’s gotta be a permanent change or you’ll inevitably just regain whatever weight you may lose. I’d rather see someone make some tiny permanent change and start seeing their weight drift downwards over a long period of time than do some crazy short-term diet plan.</p>
<p>Inject some untested, unapproved hormone to lose weight? Not me.</p>
<p>Have to be careful with terms like “high” and “low” intensity.</p>
<p>In fitness circles, “high intensity” typically means 90-100% effort, which is only sustainable for short sprints (hence, high intensity interval training).</p>
<p>70% effort would be considered moderate intensity, within the range that could be sustained for endurance.</p>
<p>Note that your 90% may be different from someone else’s 90%. For an extreme example, the speed at which a running champion may consider a light jog could be the speed that a beginner doing an all out sprint can do.</p>
<p>I don’t know, iDad – my H runs to thick thighs and not much butt and certainly not much on the hip front. If pants fit his thighs, they tend to be blousy and baggy in the butt. Add to that excessively long arms with a long torso, and relatively short legs, and I’m not sure that clothing – especially pants – is all that much easier for him. </p>
<p>But men’s clothing does have three big advantages: sizing tends to run truer, every pair of pants has pockets, and guys pants are generally much better made than equivalently priced women’s pants.</p>
<p>Sounds like either a Relaxed Fit (Dockers D4) or a Regular Fit (Dockers D3) from the Levi Strauss/Dockers corporate family. Avoid anything labeled “slim” or “modern fit” as those start getting into skinny leg territory. It is worth going to a Macy’s or a Kohl’s and buying one of each “fit” of Dockers just to find out what really fits the best. Then, take the lot back and you know what to look for. Most of the jeans and khaki brands seem to be pretty consistent in how they apply these tags. Most of the dress pants (at least the ones at Marshalls – Perry Ellis Portfolio, Louis Raphael, Lauren Chaps, Polo) seem to fit about like a D3 regular fit Dockers, unless otherwise specified (“modern fit”).</p>
<p>Yes. That’s right. After being Mr. Bad Boy Low Carb, I turned into the poster boy for government approved high carb diets today. Kitchen has new tile and I can’t get in there to do diddly, so it was take-out giant spicy Italian sub night for the ol’ (formerly) fat guy. Just like Jared! 12 inches of pure gluten-laden, processed white flour carbohydrate. Throw in some Mandarin oranges and it was a veritable day-long carb-fest.</p>
<p>1595 calories (maybe a little too low, Subway says “only” 760 cals for the sandwich and I think it might be closer to 1000, but I did have it dry with no mayo or oil)</p>
<p>46% carbs
34% fat
20% protein</p>
<p>I still can’t get to the full gov-recommended 60% carbs, but I gave it the old college try. Maybe I could have french toast and maple syrup or froasted flakes cereal for a midnight snack and bump it up a little more. I knew I shoulda had saltines in my soup for lunch. Jeez, how do people eat 60% carbs?</p>
<p>On the HCG diet: Mr. Arabrab had to learn to give me HCG injections during the earliest months of a dicey pregnancy, and there is no way I’d do that again unless a healthy baby was the intended result. (And I certainly wasn’t losing weight while getting those HCG shots.)</p>
<p>Not many people in the US do, even the Ornish dieters in that study discussed a while back. In the US, only extremely dedicated people following an Ornish or similar diet (which has always been selective in carbs, favoring fibrous carbs and avoiding sugars and refined carbs), or athletes carb loading before an endurance event or something like that, are likely to do that. Of course, in famine conditions, people eat whatever food that they can get their hands on, carbs or otherwise.</p>
<p>Your listed macronutrient breakdown is similar to that of the typical American, but with about half the calories.</p>
<p>And the suit rack. If you’re in reasonable shape, suit jackets will be so large in the abdomen area that you’ll question whether they will look good after the needed amount of alteration. And if the suit is not sold in separates, the trousers will be way too big at the waist when matched with a jacket that fits around your chest and shoulders.</p>
<p>…and those truly European-made suits are prohibitively expensive. Maybe that’s why DH is clinging to those last couple of pounds of belly fat. :)</p>
<p>We ate too well tonight, but I have no regrets. The food was amazing, and the company was great. I think my stomach must have shrunk, because I could barely finish the “smaller” portions served during restaurant week. Too bad that the panna cota was served at the very end. Every meal should begin with the dessert :)</p>
<p>I’ve also read that getting enough sleep is good for weight loss. Great – I’d love to get more sleep, but I just can’t. I’m up early every single morning; no alarm – I’m just bug-eyed wide awake somewhere between 5 and 6 AM. (No, I don’t drink coffee in the afternoon or evening.)</p>
<p>CBBBlinker, if that’s your natural wakeup time, then just make sure to go to bed no later than 10:00 PM. Easier said than done for a lot of people. During the week, when I’m living away from home for my work, I’m almost always asleep by 10:00 PM. I get a good solid eight hours almost every night. It feels very very good, too. </p>
<p>When my kids were little and I was commuting about three and a half hours each day, I got five to six hours of sleep a night. I felt lousy most of the time, too. Gosh – I wonder why.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s true. I’m exactly half way between two suit sizes. The smaller size fits my belly, but is just a bit snug in the shoulders. The larger size fits my shoulders, but is too big around the belly. I can wear either, but neither is really spot on.</p>
<p>At least, however, suits are styled for old guys. The jeans and shorts these days are just ridiculous for the most part.</p>
<p>My question of the day is about the sugar in fruit (not fruit juice, which I know is really bad, but the sugar in whole fruits). I have read conflicting things about whther the sugar in whole fruits ought to be counted the same way as any other kind of sugar. Having listened to the conventional wisdom about nutrition for the past 20 years, part of my brain wants to think that the sugar in whole fruit is better than the sugar in, say, a can of Dr. Pepper. But recently I have learned to be skeptical of this conventional wisdom, thanks in large part to things discussed here. So what do you all think?</p>
<p>To give the question a concrete focus: What about strawberries? One seemingly-reputable website gives the nutrition information for a cup of sliced strawberries as:</p>
<p>I should amend my earlier proclamation about hating shopping to say that I sometimes do like clothes shopping if I am not looking for anything in particular. So I have picked up a few new things in the past few months. My problem is clothes for work. I dress very conservatively (boring as my daughter would say)–black, gray, navy, and brown pants and sweaters. I have one red sweater that I wear to work when I am feeling adventurous. The clothes I have now I mostly ordered from Eddie Bauer a long time ago–back before they created a bunch of wacky sizes and I cannot figure out what would fit.</p>
<p>I would love to have new clothes but so far I don’t want them enough to go shopping for them.</p>
<p>While Dr Pepper is nothing more than sweetened chemical lab waste, fruit is, as you posted, a natural source of fiber, minerals, antioxidants and vitamins! I definitely will not drop fruit out of my diet just because it has some sugar.</p>
<p>The sugar in fruit (fructose) is bad news from a diet/fat loss standpoint. On the other hand, fruit has a good bit of fiber and is difficult (but not impossible) to get a massive fructose spike like you can drinking 12 ounces of fruit juice or soda. The fiber slows the absorbsion and it would just be hard to eat as many oranges as, for example, you could squeeze into a glass of juice.</p>
<p>The general concensus is:</p>
<p>a) Cut out sweetened beverages, including fruit juices.</p>
<p>b) Then, cut out carbohydrate (sugar and grain) junk foods.</p>
<p>c) Then, if you need to, cut down on carbs, grains, starches, breads, and pastas in your meals.</p>
<p>If that still isn’t enough, then worry about fruit.</p>
<p>I’ve eaten fruit all along and continue to eat it as my go to sweet tooth treat. I think the only caution would be not to slip into eating massive quanities, because it is sugar.</p>
