Caradavin on 17/10/2014 at 22:11
Well, I can't afford a trainer because I don't work (I'm disabled). However, I started seeing a dietitian (I actually got insurance through HIP - yay) and she put me on a 1500 calorie diet to start off, and I'm considering gastric surgery although I'm not really excited or proud of that. I have so far lost 30 pounds in the month and a half I've been on the diet and it feels great. I'm learning much about nutrition and stuff like carbs (which are really what caused my weight gain - too many carbs). I am limited to 160 carbs a dayj (I'm diabetic), and it really does add up quick. The key is trying to balance out the proteins, fats, and carbs in your meals. Too many meals these days (especially fast foods and processed foods) are really rich in bad carbs, which is not healthy. It's hard to do because there are times I swear I'm gonna starve, but I keep track of everything I eat every day on the Livestrong MyPlate website and that helps me as well. I'm hoping I will eventually lose enough weight where I can finally exercise. My doctor hasn't cleared me for exercise yet. I'm secretly hoping I can lose all the weight I need to on my own and not need the surgery. PS - a good shortcut for chocolate is all natural carob. It tastes good imo.
Pyrian on 17/10/2014 at 23:04
People talk about carbs being bad for diabetes as if it were a new discovery instead of centuries old; effective low-carb diets had been developed well before carbohydrates had been identified and named.
nickie on 18/10/2014 at 05:01
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
I've found some shortcuts though. This example might sound weird, but I've been able to significantly reduce sweet cravings by eating raw baker's chocolate(100% cocoa). I'm guessing it has to do with my body wanting some mineral or other that's found in chocolate.
I don't like sweet anything. I haven't time to look now but I believe that dark chocolate is now thought to be good for you.
faetal on 20/10/2014 at 08:57
:nono:
Quote Posted by Vae
Why certainly, faetal...
Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology...
Sugar: The Bitter Truth[video=youtube;dBnniua6-oM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM[/video]
:nono:
One guy's opinion does not a conclusion make. This is why I asked for systematic reviews and / or a collection of
good studies. If what this guy is claiming is indeed the case, then such studies and reviews will exist. Otherwise, if we're taking the opinion of lone medics (remember that this guy may or may not have had scientific training and there are medics out there who support homoeopathy, chiropractic etc... alongside science-based medicine), then all kinds of very ropey ideas get equal credence (say the idea that vaccines cause autism for example...). If sugar is to be considered as bad as you say it is, then there really needs to be a convincing body of evidence, not drop in the ocean hearsay.
DDL on 20/10/2014 at 09:58
Honestly, most of his shit comes down to "sugar makes us want to eat more sugar".
It's not really that sugar is toxic, it's that willpower is hilariously poor and it's easier to say "sugar made me do it".
Willpower IS hilariously poor, and this is definitely a problem (and given that sugar is everywhere, it's a pressing one), but since telling people to just "stop eating so fucking much" has a notoriously low success rate, telling people "sugar is evil" is actually a smarter fix. I don't think that's actually his position (he genuinely seems to view sugar as inherently bad) but sometimes you have to go with what's more likely to work, rather than what is actually true.
Honestly, outside of very, very imbalanced diets (zero percent of calories from protein, for instance), your easiest fix for losing weight is simply
"Calories in < calories out"
Eat a reasonably balance diet of whatever, but just burn more than you eat. Once at your target weight, burn as much as you eat. Maintain.
You could have wholemeal toast for breakfast with a free-range egg and some fresh orange juice, or you could have a doughnut and a coke: calories are calories, and in the long run, if energy in > energy out, then you'll gain weight, energy in < energy out, you'll lose it. The energy could take any form whatsoever.
Obviously this assumes your diet isn't hilariously imbalanced (ketogenic diets like the atkins are....effective but dangerous, and a fat-free diet is dangerous
and miserable), and I'm not saying that a diet incredibly low in refined sugar WOULDN'T be healthy, I'm just saying that viewing sugar as some sort of metabolic poison to be avoided at all costs is a little simplistic. Want a doughnut? Eat a doughnut. Just don't eat, like, 5. If you eat 5, it's not because sugar made you do it, it's because you have very little willpower, or have somehow managed to never realise that doughnuts are kinda energy-rich.
Plus, sugar is awesome (and, outside of ketone bodies -which you really don't want to rely on- it's also the only thing your brain and red blood cells can eat).
The only real danger from sugar is that eating a lot of calories in the form of delicious doughnuts is pretty easy, while eating a lot of calories in the form of lettuce is pretty hard. That's not really sugar's fault, though.
It does fuck your teeth up, mind.
And don't worry too much about your mitochondrial energy. Given their metabolic importance, it's incredibly rare for them to be lacking in cofactors (plus an awful lot of those cofactor supplement pills are not providing things you can absorb anyway, or are things that you cannot possibly be short of without also being dead). And a whole ton of the energy they're providing is derived directly from sugar anyway.
Ultimately, you could do a lot worse than following (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan) Michael Pollan's advice.
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
bassoferrol on 20/10/2014 at 14:45
I´ll have a cigar after reading all this.
faetal on 20/10/2014 at 14:47
Don't inhale.
bassoferrol on 20/10/2014 at 14:52
Don't worry. I always do it while taking a shower.
Pyrian on 20/10/2014 at 17:50
Quote Posted by DDL
You could have wholemeal toast for breakfast with a free-range egg and some fresh orange juice, or you could have a doughnut and a coke: calories are calories, and in the long run, if energy in > energy out, then you'll gain weight, energy in < energy out, you'll lose it.
My experience with a fixed-calorie diet was that eating the same amount of calories in donut form would leave me very hungry, well before my next scheduled meal, and since:
Quote Posted by DDL
Willpower IS hilariously poor...
...More than token sweets (e.g. a square of dark chocolate after dinner) was just not compatible with such a diet. For me.
Quote Posted by DDL
...ketogenic diets like the atkins are....effective but dangerous...
These diets have been around as weight loss diets since the 1860's and as treatments for diabetes since before 1800. From their outset, there have been cries of predicted health dangers - but those predictions have never really materialized (provided, of course, that you actually eat your vegetables - but that's just as much a problem for grain eaters).
DDL on 20/10/2014 at 18:34
It's just not a very good idea to put your body into ketosis, especially if you normally eat quite a lot of carbohydrate.
We're incredibly sugar-dependent creatures, so while we HAVE a back-up mechanism of keeping our brains and blood cells alive in the absence of dietary sugar, it's not terribly efficient. At the very least you'll feel like shit for quite a while. And smell awful.
You can adapt to it over time, so as a long-term lifestyle change it's not too terrible (though a more dietarily balanced lifestyle change would be better), but as a "diet" it's not one of the best ideas. Mind you, I suppose you could say that about most diets. 'Lifestyle changes' ftw.
