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X-Large (Obesity in America Discussion)

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  • Relevant.

  • edited May 2012
    A wut on a what now? Are you high?
    No. You know, a jello (jelly, here in the UK) mold. A bunch of agarose, fruit flavoring, and sugar mixed with water and allowed to set into a decorative shape. A shaker tray is a device used in biology labs; it's a vibrating tray that you put samples on to introduce kinetic energy and thoroughly mix them.
    A what on a wut now?
    Post edited by Not nine on
  • This is called the engineer's diet. Your body consumes approximately 2000 -- 2500 kcal per day, even if you do nothing more than sleep. Eat less than that and let the laws of physics do the rest.
    The engineer's/hacker's diet works amazingly well. I have lost five inches (going on six) off of my waste just by following those guidelines.
    So I've just discovered that this is a lot harder than I thought it would be as I've got about 1500 calories for the day and I haven't even had dinner yet.
  • So I've just discovered that this is a lot harder than I thought it would be as I've got about 1500 calories for the day and I haven't even had dinner yet.
    Shave a sandwich off your breakfast and lunch. Enjoy your 90 hours of walking.
  • edited May 2012
    Lots of leafy salads. Toast and eggs for breakfast. Simple sandwiches with no mayo (I am a devotee of the cheese and pickle sammich--keeps you full for like, four hours). Lean meat or small potions of pasta for dinner, maybe with one of the aforementioned salads. No desert, no snacks. I've been fucking up lately and drinking soda. I need to cut that out; whole milk and OJ are better options for vital nutrients.

    Remember: 2000 is the average. You really need to undercut your personal basal metabolic rate. Mine is 2066.2kcal, but when I started this sort of thing my freshman year of college, it was an enormous 2500. Pretty easy to undercut that.
    Post edited by WindUpBird on
  • I suspect my basal metabolic rate's somewhere in the 100s.
  • Obesity models as though it's caused by nothing more than too much food.
    I thought that most studies suggested the exact opposite, that a primary cause of America's obesity epidemic is the quality of calories we eat, considering that so much is corn-based, and processed substances like fructose corn syrup have unexpected side-effects. If I recall correctly, the Newsweek article last week mentioned a spike in obesity during the Great Depression, when people were eating cheaper foods because they couldn't afford anything better.

    Seems to me like the professor is getting a little side tracked by quantity, when he's really arguing against quality.
  • a primary cause of America's obesity epidemic is the quality of calories we eat
    No. If you intake more energy than you expend, you gain weight. Opposite for eating less.

    I guess there's always the possibility the laws of physics don't apply to someone.
  • edited May 2012
    a primary cause of America's obesity epidemic is the quality of calories we eat
    No. If you intake more energy than you expend, you gain weight. Opposite for eating less.

    I guess there's always the possibility the laws of physics don't apply to someone.
    Correct, calories don't have "quality", what people mean by saying that is that some foods (most cheap food in the USA) have way more calories than they need to (due to added sugars, fats, processing, etc.) and foods that have low calories compared to how much they'll keep your hunger away are relatively expensive.

    Example: a slice of toast is ~100kcal, a giant carrot is 50kcal.

    Also remember that this is a slow process and that weight can fluctuate wildly on a daily basis. Dial in some hard limit like 1800kcal/day, OBEY IT for four weeks, weigh yourself daily and plot chart.

    A second thing to keep in mind is that after a great start (easliy 2 pounds/week) your body adjusts to the reduced caloric intake and the weight loss slows down somewhat.

    Finally you should NOT rely on excercise to loose weight. Excercise makes you much hungrier and makes it more difficult to keep to the limit. Especially since the limit doesn't rise very much. A full hour of non stop, all out excercise (sweating your balls of) gives you at best four slices of toast.
    Post edited by Dr. Timo on
  • edited May 2012

    Finally you should NOT rely on excercise to loose weight. Excercise makes you much hungrier and makes it more difficult to keep to the limit. Especially since the limit doesn't rise very much. A full hour of non stop, all out excercise (sweating your balls of) gives you at best four slices of toast.
    I don't know running an hour at 6.5 miles an hour usually burns about 1,000 calories :-p So I can eat about 10 pieces of toast :-p (if one can believe the metrics on stuff) It's also important to know your body has different levels of efficiency in burning calories depending on the level of work out.

    But yea, you are totally right, the issue with exercise is that your increased intake from exercise will continue after you stop for some reason for another leading to those days feeling an increase.
    Post edited by Cremlian on
  • edited May 2012
    However, exercise raises your metabolism and builds muscles, which are little calorie burning dynamos. The time you are exercising is only part of the effect.
    Post edited by gomidog on
  • However, exercise raises your metabolism and builds muscles, which are little calorie burning dynamos. The time you are exercising is only part of the effect.
    Yeap. A generally active lifestyle in the long run builds a healthy metabolism, which has many health benefits.

  • And exercising can be as simple as walking. Just do something.
  • edited May 2012
    However, exercise raises your metabolism and builds muscles, which are little calorie burning dynamos. The time you are exercising is only part of the effect.
    Yeap. A generally active lifestyle in the long run builds a healthy metabolism, which has many health benefits.
    Yes, my point was not that excercice isn't good for you. Rather that excercising to lose weight is not the easiest path to take. Let's face it, overweight people that want to loose weight but haven't so far generally have self controll issues. Sticking to one number, 1800kcal/day, may be hard enough of a mental excercise without adding a bunch of "if I ran for an hour today I can have a cheeseburger" conditionals.

    YOU CAN NOT HAVE THE CHEESBURGER! 1800! Stick to the limt.

    Picking up excercising is fine once you have reached the stage where your body has adapted to the lower caloric intake and you have learned to stick to the limit.

    Also, excercising when you're starting out at say 200lb is a killer, and running at 6.5mph for an hour every day _will_ break you.
    Post edited by Dr. Timo on
  • However, exercise raises your metabolism and builds muscles, which are little calorie burning dynamos. The time you are exercising is only part of the effect.
    Yeap. A generally active lifestyle in the long run builds a healthy metabolism, which has many health benefits.
    Yes, my point was not that excercice isn't good for you. Rather that excercising to lose weight is not the easiest path to take. Let's face it, overweight people that want to loose weight but haven't so far generally have self controll issues. Sticking to one number, 1800kcal/day, may be hard enough of a mental excercise without adding a bunch of "if I ran for an hour today I can have a cheeseburger" conditionals.

    YOU CAN NOT HAVE THE CHEESBURGER! 1800! Stick to the limt.

    Picking up excercising is fine once you have reached the stage where your body has adapted to the lower caloric intake and you have learned to stick to the limit.

    Also, excercising when you're starting out at say 200lb is a killer, and running at 6.5mph for an hour every day _will_ break you.
    I think the key is to remove the if/then conditionals. You can NEVER have a cheeseburger. You eat 1800 and you exercise. You can never eat more, and you must always exercise.
  • The "I did x, so I can eat y" thing does technically work. But, it doesn't work in any practical sense, so you are all correct. Because:

    1. People grossly underestimate how many calories they are actually consuming.
    2. People grossly overestimate how many calories they are actually burning.



    I keep careful track of my caloric intake to what I believe is a reasonably degree of accuracy. But, I literally eat whatever I crave whenever I crave it. The tracking is solely to be aware of major trending changes: if my intake increased significantly without a parallel increase in exercise, I would increase the latter or decrease the former.

    Luckily, I've never yet had to do this. Want to know the secret?

    Spend twenty years engaging in daily rigorous exercise through a variety of means and generally living a heavily active lifestyle. Also, be born with no genetic or congenital disorders of any significance, and be lucky enough to never seriously injure yourself or catch a serious disease.

    Simple!

    ^_~
  • I have a naturally fast metabolism and I'm also a 6 foot (there's lots of me to feed), but I also eat a fuck ton. I made one serving size of spaghetti last night and I couldn't believe how small it was. My regular intake was easily 2500 calories, maybe 3000.
  • I eat 3000-4000 kcal a day in the summer when I'm at my peak activity level.
  • edited May 2012
    Want to know the secret?

    Spend twenty years engaging in daily rigorous exercise through a variety of means and generally living a heavily active lifestyle. Also, be born with no genetic or congenital disorders of any significance, and be lucky enough to never seriously injure yourself or catch a serious disease.

    Simple!

    ^_~
    Also, don't have a baby!

    Post edited by Dr. Timo on

  • Also, don't have a baby!
    I know! They're like 4000kcal even without a side dish!

  • edited May 2012
    LOL
    ALSO 2-2!!!!! take that yanks
    Post edited by Dr. Timo on
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