Posted on 01/02/2012 4:48:28 PM PST by bigtoona
Everything in moderation. If you are over weight or gaining weight, then more moderation is the key. Simple as that. It really is. Of course, simple does not mean easy...
I’m a meat-eating vegetarian...
The amazing thing to me is how quickly my tastes changed. I'm eating fish now. I'm eating sardines! I even like them, a little. I have absolutely no craving for carbs - I was in the store the day before Christmas and they had a giant display of Christmas cookies, all I thought was "gross, poison." Last year I would have bought a box and they would have disappeared within a day.
Black coffee. It's a godsend. I need to cut back!
Trips to the store are quite interesting, aren't they? I now can pass by whole aisles, which contain nothing of interest. I'm a regular at the local whole-foods coop, right alongside the crunchy hippy-types. They're not too bad when they bathe, some of the girls are cute.
I throw in a little red wine if it's the weekend!
BYW - try this one: Go to Wally World (Walmart) for the canned pears and pineapple (in their own juice, no added sugar) - $.99 each. Grab a bag of cleaned fresh spinach, and the Silk (or what ever brand you like) coconut milk. Place the whole can of pears, juice and all, into a blender. Add 1/2 of the pineapple (w/o juice) from the other can. Fill the rest of the blender w/ spinach and add 1 cup of the coconut milk. Cover your blender and crank it on high for a minute or two, then enjoy!
My sons call it a green monster. If you add baby carrots it's good too. I call that one a Linda Blair because of the color, but it hasn't caught on; they have never seen the movie.
I’m a lesbian trapped in a male body.
I was having a conversation about this subject the other day. I was asked how I stay so slim (6’- 170 lbs) and have been this weight since I was 22. I am now in my mid 50’s.
I eat mostly meats and fresh veggies and fruit and drink my carbs (homebrewed beer).
Even my Doc said that it is a very workable strategy.
It certainly works for me :)
Cheers,
knewshound
Me too. I’ve been trying to get pregnant all my life, won’t quit trying.
I disagree. No, it is not that simple, except to say (or write). And I'm not willing to let you off the hook just because you admit it may not be easy. You seem to imply that it is just a matter of will power. As someone who has dropped weight and added muscle by way of dedication to "proper" exercise and conventional nutrition I can readily testify that you are oversimplifying the issue.
Some say it is just a matter of calories, but WHAT you eat to obtain those calories matters every bit as much as the calorie count - in fact, it is substantially more critical. Atkins, Paleo, Weight Watchers, the various "eat yourself thin" programs, and others are not bunk. They are successful because, to varying degrees, and in different ways, they deal with the glycemic roller coaster issue that causes the storing of fat, hunger pangs and energy slumps.
You may be blessed with a metabolism that allows you to eat what you want. Perhaps you are still young enough that your metabolism has not slowed. Maybe you are in a job that includes physical activity. It could be a combination of these and any number of other factors. I don't know.
What I DO know is that the idea of "simple moderation" while doable, is like trying to build a house with your bare hands: of course it can be done - but it is easier, faster and provides better results if one uses the right tools. Millions of other people know it too.
The police aren't going to like that.
Sounds yummy. Tonight I made antediluvian meat pizza for dinner. Lean hamburger pressed into a pizza pan for the ‘crust’ then topped with pizza sauce, shrooms, parsley, chopped fresh spinach, pepperoni,red and green pepper slices and thin sliced onion. Covered that with mozzarella then sprinkled with crushed red pepper flakes for a spicy kick. Turned out awesome!
Your smoothie recipe sounds tasty! I’ll have to try it. Have you tried adding cottage cheese to up the protein?
My friend, I have been in the iron game for decades, losing and gaining 50 lbs at a time, all to look ripped, and then to gain more muscle for the next season. Never got paid for it, but I earned my dues as well. It really is that simple. It has been studied before, cohorts of people, living inside what was basically a bomb calorimeter. What they found is that, ultimately, it WAS about calories. Oh sure, there were differences in metabolism, IIRC, about up to 5% or so, with a few outliers who really did have screwed up metabolisms. But you cannot fool the laws of physics... now.. THAT SAID...
While the energy equation cannot be fooled as it is the LAW, WHAT you eat DOES have a big effect on how MUCH you eat. I was eating Atkins (Cyclic version actually), back when the AMA was saying it was going to kill you. I knew about the pitfalls of eating too much fructose, back when it was being sold as the "better" sugar. I am 100% in favor of a "Paleo" type diet. South beach, lower carb intake, reducing the intake of processed and simple carbs. That is real. But believe me, if you eat one of those diets and STILL over eat, you will get fat. Luckily, those diets tend to blunt the appetite, so they can work quite well.
I'm not saying that a good diet is not important, I am saying that you still can't over eat on them and expect to lose weight.
Or would you try to convince us that you could get every bit as cut (exact same results) eating 1700 calories per day of Hostess Twinkies instead of 1700 calories of egg whites, lean sirloin, skinless chicken breasts, protein isolate shakes, etc? After all, it's a simple formula...
Your second paragraph concedes the point. So I say again: the idea of "simple moderation" while doable, is like trying to build a house with your bare hands: of course it can be done - but it is easier, faster and provides better results if one uses the right tools. You know it better than probably 98% of the people out there, so why contest it?
I still say it is “simple”, you could tell the vast majority of people how to do it in one paragraph, its just not easy. Getting “ripped” is a whole other matter, for most people, thats not even a good state to be in. But I would agree that 1700 calories of twinkies is not the same as 1700 calories of a “healthy” diet, although it would probably lead to similar weights, the twinky diet would probably kill you, it is so nutrient deficient. But those are the extremes. I’ve had friends do well on an Ornish diet, and others who at nothing but meat and raw veggies. Just pick the diet you can do and stick to it.
processed foods like refined carbs and vegetable oils are new creations which didn’t exist until relatively recently in human history.
Exactly.
Easily digestible carbs are fairly rare in nature. Unless it is the fruiting season when berries are on the vine or apples are on the trees, simple sugars are not something you will find in any abundance.
And vegetable oils? When’s the last time you bit into an ear of corn and oil just dripped out? Except for nuts and a few other foods, oils simply are not a predominant component of vegetables. It takes alot of energy to manufacture oils, and vegetables have to spend their energy budget on creating flowers and producing seed.
The whole “agricultural revolution” thing has been vastly overhyped, humans having a significant part of their diet from domesticated agriculture being a phenomena that really is the last 10,000 years or so.
And interestingly, even those societies whos diets are heavily from agriculture have almost all, without exception, some animal component to their diet, either from livestock or from fishing/hunting.
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