Beleg Cúthalion on 28/9/2014 at 08:28

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I thought you were living in Europe. :weird: I was moderately shocked when I entered my first American supermarket and roughly one third of the stuff to buy there consisted of potato chips and similar "food" or things that go along with it. Stopped wondering at this moment why there could be an obesity problem there.

There was a British study a few months ago claiming that the five pieces of fruit/vetegable a day rule should in fact be expanded to ten pieces if you want to get the ideal amount of nutritive substances. You won't need that to survive, but it's quite difficult to achieve for the average first world person, even for me who already eats mostly vegetarian stuff and especially quite a bit of salad. Deliberately picking out "good" foods, oils, fats etc. would seem like an alibi thing to me if the rest is still oriented towards "luxury" eating with lots of meat/fish, pasta and all this stuff (or even processed food). I've learned that you can do well without that and if there is some piece of dead animal once in a while, you can enjoy it all the more. My only weakness is (cereals with milk every morning, if you want to be very strict, and) chocolate biscuits, but then again I go fencing three or four times a week because hitting people feels good.

henke on 28/9/2014 at 14:23

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I figured as much. Thanks for all the info, Vae. :)



I am! But yeah it's probably America's fault. Hollywood made me fat. It's all those movies where Tom Cruise slurps down a Coke and then bites into a double cheeseburger that's so tasty it makes him go crosseyed for a moment. Looks so tantalizing.

Yakoob on 29/9/2014 at 05:05

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(Loosely) following the nutrition science kinda makes me shake my head to be honest. There's so many back-and-forth findings (Eggs have too much cholesterol; no eggs are fine! Always eat breakfast in morning; wait it doesnt matter. Kale is great for you eat a ton of it; wait it can damage your liver etc.) and reading into the studies kinda makes me question their methodology (which often seems to reflect correlation more than causation). Then you occasionally hear about odd stuff (perhaps just statistical outliers) like the calorie-limited McDonald's-only-diet which not only helped a guy lose ton of weight but actually improve his health level as well. Faetal probably remembers a bit of my rant on it from another thread :p

Ultimately, I feel like we're definitely making grand strides in understanding human metabolism and nutrition but we're far from grasping the full picture yet. I also think body variations and quality of food often get overlooked particularly in media. Firstly, everyone's metabolism works slightly differently and while general patterns and rules can be generalized, there is no concrete rule of thumb. Just try different things and see what works for you. Secondly, and this is more a hunch, I feel the quality of the food (preservatives, additives, antibiotic-overfed animals etc.) could play a significant role next to merely quantity/ratios of the food.

Anecdotally, my grandparents eat a ton of fatty Polish sausages, countless of slices of bread, and hearty lunches, with frequent coffee and cake breaks. Yet, for being over 70, they're doing pretty good. But their whole diet would be demonized in the US (carbs! saturated fats!). That's one example why I think genetics (yay polish genes!) plus quality of food (yay polish bread!) play a big role. Tho, they traditionally kept themselves fairly active on their small garden which undoubtedly helped as well.

That being said:



I think we can all agree that these changes are definitely positive, so kudos for that. Especially the bread; american white "sponge" is an abomination that is only acceptable in toasted form.



However, there are some new studies showing that 30min bouts of exercise may not be that effective if the rest of the day is spent sedentary. Either way tho, doing some exercise is always better than none!



Ya that's my belief too. Juice isn't very filling either; usually if I crave fruity I just have the whole fruit. Tastes better and has even more nutrients than juice.



Ueeh I donno. My friend once said "bread makes you fate" and it made me chuckle. Nevermind hundreds of civilizations sustaining themselves on bread for thousands of years.

That being said, there is good argument that modern bread/pasta/carbs are much different than the ones our ancestors ate. Again, going back to my argument of the "quality" of the food rather than purely its caloric/nutritional breakdown.




You know I've been kinda experimenting with that and I do admit I've been feeling more energetic. Tho I also started the gym + cut out coffee recently so those could be more of a reason. Like I said before, just experimenting with different things seeing what works for my body :)

Beleg Cúthalion on 29/9/2014 at 15:15

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I just noticed my poor choice of vocabulary. Of course I meant muesli when I wrote about my weaknesses above (and referred to the milk which could be considered an unhealthy transgression by purists), didn't know that "cereals" referred to the sugared varieties.

Concerning sports, well, I'd rather do something that keeps me in shape than doing only something for said shape, e.g. going to a gym. Is there nothing you always wanted to do, henke? Swimming shouldn't be too bad a start; in any case changing diet alone probably won't cut it.

faetal on 29/9/2014 at 16:56

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True that. Loads of veg.