*The Gym* Health and Fitness (and how you can lose weight, fatso)

[kyleb]

Oh, processed carbs. Yeah, that's certainly fine. Limiting processed carbs as much as possible is definitely a good thing.

[yellowdoyle]

[ QUOTE ]

Try a high protein, high fat, low carb diet instead. Everyone and their mother thinks fat is bad for you. Wrong. Fat is good for you. Eat a lot of fat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Everyone thinks carbs are bad for you. Wrong. Carbs are great for you. They are your bodies most efficient source of energy. Eat a lot of carbs. What does this mean? Whole wheat, un refined carbs. Eat fruit, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, etc etc. Carbs get such a bad name cause morons can't differentiate between the processed junk and the unrefined goodness.

AZK has the same idea with fats. Fats are also good for you. Just avoid your saturated fats. Eat lots of mono and poly fats. Very energy dense to help you with workouts and other things.

To the poster who talked about peanut butter:

PB is also great. It does have some saturated fat, but it is full of good fats. Also a good amount of protein. But please, DO NOT buy regular PB, get all natural which does not contain any "partially hydrogenated oils." That is trans fat, which your body apparently is unable to process/burn.

Good luck everyone!

[AZK]

[ QUOTE ]
And furthermore, AZK, being fat is not only a function of your diet - just cutting calories without exercise is a great way to lose lean body mass as well. There is such a thing as being "skinny fat," as Thremp likes to point out.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you stop working out, but are only eating enough food (energy) to provide for your lean body mass (feeding the muscle, not the fat) you will not lose all of your lean body mass. I wasn't working out because I hurt my wrist, I have since gotten back into the routine. I am not advocating a no gym/workout policy, I'm just saying, quickest way to lose weight (and it is healthy) is your diet. The gym is not going to keep you skinny, your body is incredible at it's ability to adapt. What you put into it is what you are going to get out of it.

[kyleb]

yd,

He clarified in his last post.

[LuckOfTheDraw]

On another health and fitness thread, I picked up using fitday.com from someone, and I've been using it for a couple weeks. It's a nice way to log calories/fat/carbs/protein. For the last year or so, I've been counting calories (as it turns out with decent accuracy) but I've never really kept good track of the others. While being diligent to record everythign I eat, logging the foods like this has given me much more insight into my diet.


Overall, I thought you post was very good Kyle. I agree about the "low carb" thing. I personally strive to get about 40% of my calories each day from carbs and about 35% from protein and 25% from fat.

Another thing, <= 2000 cal/day may be right for most people, but if you have a slightly larger frame, don't try to force yourself to eat too few calories. Kyle mentioned this, but I just want to reinforce it. You really should just focus on the deficit. Find out how many calories you burn each day and anything around 400-700 cal/day less than that is fine. When I've been putting on muscle while losing weight, I've found it easiest to just take a little time off from heavy weight loss and eat more. I've even gone through periods of 200-300 cal/day deficits for about a month at a time. It just helps me stay in control of myself.

Edit: I just made my journal public so you guys can take a look at some of the features of the site. linky.

[cbloom]

[ QUOTE ]

I don't mean to look a gift horse in the mouth (given that I opened this thread, you didn't force me to read it), but why should we believe you about that? Where is your source? I subscribe to two women's fitness magazines and they pretty much stick to low weight, high reps for tone. they do agree that weight training is helful to supplement cardio, FWIW.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fluff, in all seriousness, those women's workout mags have been one of the greatest disservices to female fitness in America. They pretty much all emphasize low weight high-rep workouts, and targetted "firming" workouts for things like abs & butt. That is pretty much 100% wrong. That's a good workout if you're already in very good shape and want to just maintain, like what a model would do. If you're an average girl and want to lose weight and improve your fitness the #1 most important thing to do is squats, for a million different reasons. You can burn more calories in less time than any other workout. You increase your BMR and encourage your body to be anabolic instead of catabolic - calories you consume go to muscle instead of energy storage. etc. etc. If all those celebrity workout tapes were burned tomorrow and the women of America started doing Jack Lalane's workout, I wouldn't have to look at so many fatties.

ps. Men's fitness books (not magazines) are the best source for accurate information. They good ones get their information from real scientific research not the "common sense wisdom" of some practitioner.

[AZK]

[ QUOTE ]
Carbs are great for you. They are your bodies most efficient source of energy. Eat a lot of carbs. What does this mean? Whole wheat, un refined carbs. Eat fruit, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, etc etc. Carbs get such a bad name cause morons can't differentiate between the processed junk and the unrefined goodness.

[/ QUOTE ]

Carbs are good for you. I wouldn't exactly label whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread as good though. It is entirely manufactured, despite keeping some nutritional value it still lacks a lot. It is not natural. Your body was not built to eat bread - whole wheat or not. Fruit/Vegetables are much more efficient and don't spike your insulin as much. Not to mention all of the other wonderful things they have in them that are completely lacking in bread/pasta.

[ QUOTE ]
Just avoid your saturated fats

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, not necessarily true. Studies are popping up in a lot of places saying saturated fats from natural sources (meat) are good for you and help keep you thin.

[yellowdoyle]

AZK and Kyle,

Okay, I see now. I guess i take too long when replying to posts.

[cbloom]

[ QUOTE ]
the only people that can get away with heavy carb eating are olympic/professional athletes because they are so active. This does not mean the carbs. are good for them.


[/ QUOTE ]

AZK while you're mostly right, this is totally inane. There are tons of amateur athletes (such as myself occasionally) that burn 4000-6000 calories on hard workout days (maybe more). The only way to fuel yourself for those workouts is with carbs, and the best way to get that many calories in a healthy diet is with carbs.

IMHO the best way to think about it is to consider meat & veg your base food, and carbs are your fuel. If you're not working out much, you don't eat carbs. The harder you're working out, the more carbs you eat for fuel.

Whether or not a diabetic's diet (Atkins/South Beach) is healthy for the average person long term is an open question; it definitely increases the chance of kidney ailments, gout, etc. though that may be balanced by better overall health and better insulin levels. Certainly you can lose a lot of weight on that diet.

Whatever, a lot of this is personal preference and whatever way you find to be healthy is probably fine.

[yellowdoyle]

AZK,

wow I am slow at replying.

re: saturated fats. I still take in a decent amount of these, primarily from peanut butter I would say. But when we say eating fat is fine I just felt a little clarification is good. I will definitely eat things with sat. fat, I just try and watch my intake. With mono and poly I am much less worried about what level I take in. The only fat I eat none of is trans fat.

About the bread and pasta, can you please expand on that? I eat lots of fruit and vegetables, so I do get plenty of good carbs and other things via them, but I also eat a fair amount of pasta and bread. Whole wheat bread has great "stats" so to speak, but I know that doesn't tell the entire story.