Wait, what? Paleo is the only diet that could even be considered a fad diet (it's not, most of the people on it aren't even trying to lose weight) that's even been brought up in this discussion. Did you read the thread or did you just assume we would have an Atkins vs. Weight Watchers vs. Jenny Craig debate, wait for the thread to get long enough and make your post?
I don't think I have it reversed, that's what I meant when I wrote I was joking when I suggested they bought it off the internet, you know, since the Amish aren't really known for the ability to surf the web. I didn't read this whole thread either. But, it's funny to me that you posted that in between posts arguing about the simple concept of eating less and exercising more not being such a simple concept.
I'm not Winterbike, and I'm sure he'll have his own take on this, but since you keep needling the issue over and over without actually adding any semblance of a rational thought other than "Well A + B HAS to = C" I feel the need to chime in. To answer your simple "Yes or No Question", the answer is yes, given certain variables and parameters, the person who eats less and exercises more CAN gain weight. In fact, if you go to any gym and spend 5 minutes loitering around the cardio section, I'm sure you'll find a bunch of people in this exact situation. They'll be the females (and not to sound sexist, but it's usually the case, however, I will conceed that I've met guys with the same problems) doing 45 minutes on the elliptical or the treadmill at the lowest or second to lowest setting 4 to 5 times a week, twice a day, who will then tell you that she stopped eating all that fast food and candy and the other bad stuff and now she just limits her self to a SlimFast shake and half a plain bagel for breakfast, a salad at lunch with Lite dressing and then maybe some rice or pasta with chicken for dinner and then another 1/2 of a SlimFast shake to quell those late night hunger pangs. Yet somehow she still can't lose any weight, or she's even put on some extra pounds. So, as Winterbike has already tried to explain to you, but you're not getting; how exactly can someone eat less and exercise more and still gain weight? In the simplest word: hormones. Using the girl in the above example, she's busy with her job, working 12 hour days to meet a deadline for a project at work that could make or break her career. But she's diligent, still making it to the gym at 5am each morning to get that "workout" in and straight back to the gym after work for some more exercise which means she's only getting 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night. So due to her highly elevated stress levels and lack of sleep, her cortisol levels are through the roof. Now, constantly elevated cortisol levels are sending messages to various parts of your body conveying pretty much one message: store body-fat. In addition to that, even though this girl is taking in less calories than before, she's now substituted about half of her solid, but unhealthly food intake with what is supposedly healthy liquid "meal replacement shakes". The issue with these is that a very large percentage of these shakes come in the form of pure carbohydrate sugars, ususally as HFCS. When the system is flooded with an overabundance of sugar, the body cranks up the production of insulin to help stabalize. However, since these is now an overabundance of glucose (broken down from the HFCS) in your system, your liver helps convert this leftover glucose into triglycerides. Now in a normal person, another hormone; Leptin is triggered to tell your body that it's received enough energy, via food and causes you to fell full. But at this point, this girls body has become leptin resistant and she doesn't get this signal, so her brain thinks it's not adequately sustainable so it again tells the rest of the body to start conserving fat for energy needs down the road. Granted, there's much more that actually happens in the whole situation described above, there are other hormones and science-y stuff at play, but that's the basics of how it would be possible to eat less and exercise more, while still gaining weight.
No, I wouldn't have used broccoli or veal liver because broccoli is like 30 kcal a cup and I don't know what the fuck veal liver is. (Looks good though.) Oh wow. This is magical thinking right here. No, the problem is not that it's soda. The problem is that it's three 2-liters. So yes, calories. Insulin sensitivity, leptin, hormones, all that stuff is important, but not as important in the grand scheme of nutrition education as calories in calories out. That's all I'm saying.
Well, fuck. My office solved the mystery for me today into why Americans are getting fat. My job involves sitting on my ass at a computer and yelling at microsoft excel and other web programs at an ad agency. 1) My office has 2 Coca-Cola fountain machines, 4 coffee makers (with Starbucks Coffee + 4 different sugar options) and two water dispensers. All the above for free. Not to mention the Beer Cooler that is accessible at anytime (after 4pm without judgment). 2) Various vendors come in on average 3-4 times a month and try to get us to come to "Lunch and Learns" where they bring in free food, usually Pizza, Wraps or other Sandwiches from fast food restaurants. Along with about half the time with cookies or various desserts. Yes they also bring salads, but these salads have croutons and or covered in parma cheese with dressings of unknown quality. 3) In regards to the last 3 days. - Wednesday I had a lunch meeting with stuffed crust pizza yesterday. - Thursday (Today) I was presented with wraps and cookies (basically as many as I wanted of each) with pop options THEN two types of birthday cake where multiple slices were available. - Friday I'll walk in to an array of bagels and doughnuts as I do EVERY Friday. I've been at this company since Feb 2011, and it took a new receptionist until May 2012 to say "Why don't we order fruit on Mondays so people can easily have a healthy snack?" I'll also have a beer cart rolled around to my desk tomorrow at 3pm. Yeah, this could be part of the problem...
If you want to eat bread, eat it. But maybe, just once, go a month or so WITHOUT eating it. JUST TO SEE. If you go without it and don't feel noticeably better, by all means, toast it up. But then again, you may notice that you do feel better. HHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA Ok. I used to have this argument with The Husband all the time. He was in absolutely disbelief that I fluctuate between 150 and 160 lbs. But...I do. The last time that I got on my mother's weight watchers scale (which, by the way, is 130 miles away. I'm not chasing that down for your edification.) I was 158.7 lbs. Incredible. I know. But...also true. I don't have a scale in my gym. And, am I in Texas or Canadia, because...who the fuck are you talking to? That's an aside, though. Back to my weight, since my diet and weight habits seem to be of unending interest to a group of you. Weight - I'm just dense. Dense musculature, and heavy musculature, and I could stand to lose probably 6-10 lbs of adipose to lean down a bit. I don't really LIKE doing that because my face looks super dee duper dee angular when I do it, and it's aging. But yes, sweetheart. 150-160 lbs on the regular. It just is. If you struggle with that, I'm perfectly fine with it. Diet - I drink more than I should and should eat breakfast more often than I do. I don't eat a lot of bread, I do, however, drink beer. So I guess that balances out. Exercise - I don't "WOD". I hate running. I lift, swing, bounce, dance, pull, throw. As for my ass - eh. Just so you know, I just measured it. My hips...at their fullest...are 42". I should post video. Fuck it. Here's a screen cap.
Actually, this would be an AWESOME experiment for you guys. Try a Whole30 Challenge. Not because you're interested in Paleo or any kind of fad diet - just to prove how easy it is to cut out sugar, processing and grains. You're allowed to eat as much as you want of the following: - Vegetables (unprocessed. No canned or freeze-dried stuff, although frozen veggies are acceptable.) - Fresh fruit (same deal as veggies) - Unprocessed meat. Whatever kind you wish. - Fish and shellfish - Healthy oils - EVOO, avacado oil, etc. No canola or anything of that nature. - Clarified butter (ghee) - Tea and coffee and water NO sweeteners of any kind. No stevia. No artificial flavours. No grains. What I think you'll find is that the first few days will see you have a blinding headache. You'll be tired and sluggish. At about the two week mark you'll want to beat the shit out of somebody for foods you never really ate before - you'll crave pancakes loaded with whipped cream, or danishes, or whatever. Then, after about 17 or 18 days, it will just...stop. You'll stop caring. You'll enjoy the food you're eating immensely, but you won't blindly angrily crave ___ (whatever). Now, if I told you to stop eating chicken and lettuce and strawberries, would you have those physical and mental withdrawl symptoms? No, you would not. Obviously something that hardcore is not really realistic or sustainable for most people. Also, some folks do very well on dairy, rice, oats, etc. Play around with it. The point is, some of the stuff you eat has you addicted and you're not even aware of it. It's extraordinarily interesting to see what your body and mind go through when you turn off the tap. At least, it was for me.
1. I'm not against you posting the video. If you say that's your weight, cool, but you don't look 150-160. I have no idea how your ass is 42 inches, but don't sell that camera, because it shrinks you whatever it takes pictures of. I can't debate something I can't measure. 2. You missed the part where I mentioned my reduced carb diet 2.5 months ago to push off more weight, because every guy said "I reduced carbs and I lost a ton of weight". I have seen some results (that and I'm back on P90X). Current diet is (Monday-Friday only) - Breakfast: Ice, Strawberries, Blueberries, Baby Carrots, Greek Yogurt and a splash of Trop 50 (50% reduced Sugar Orange Juice). Lunch: Mixed green salads, with 3 tablespoons of dressing, unsalted almonds and dried pomegrante/cherries/cranberries. Dinner: Steak with 2 slices of bacon, more salad, and some cheese melted on top / lettuce bun cheeseburger bacon, ketchup/mustard / 3 eggs, steamed veggies, cheese bacon. EVOO or grapeseed oil is used. Saturday and Sunday is a reasonable free for all...I have friends, and I'm not going to drag them to special restaurants or spend 10 minutes talking to the waiter. I quickly realized its not actually just the bread itself, its everything with it. Reduced carbs means less cheese (pizza, grilled, mac &, lasagna, etc), less tomato sauce, less bacon, less deep fried everything, less butter, syrup, but mostly it came down to less grease/saturated/trans fats entering my system using bread as a conduit. Cutting carbs for most people are just selling the wheels of their car and saying "My gas bill went down so much! Rubber was so bad for me!" (that's the only analogy I got). Pretty sure if I just had a slice of whole wheat bread with a mixed green salad with veggies and almonds, I'd be okay. But I'm sure if I started eating all that other stuff that keeps piggybacking onto bread without the bread, I'd still be pretty fucked health wise. 2-A. No I don't feel better. I don't have more energy, I'm not sleeping better, I'm not thinking clearer, I don't feel spiritually uplifted. My body does not have a direct negative effect when I eat bread. People might have a gluten allergy, that's cool, but not everyone does. It does now a little when I go back to eat it, but if you take anything out your diet, and reintroduce it, you're going to feel something. I'm betting most good feelings are coming from the fact you set out to do something "start a diet" and maintained it. I feel good that I'm putting together consecutive days of sticking to it, but nothing from the lack of bread or bread associated meals.
If you wanna write everything down Doogie Howser style, then sure, go ahead. If you're doing the true Whole30 challenge the way it's laid out in the book and on the website, then no, no dairy either. The only caveat to this is grass fed ghee.
Geezy petes. Mine are 42" and although I have good muscle tone and a big bone structure, I am 5'8" and still need to lose some weight.
But here's the thing, if you did the bread with mixed salad and almonds, you probably wouldn't be nearly as satisfied as you were with the lettuce wrap bacon burger, and then you would have to pick between indulging yourself with excess calories or fighting off your hunger, even though you probably ate around the same amount of calories.
Wow, I eat really fucking shitty compared to you folks. I'll entertain the idea of going paleo for a month just to see if its all cracked up to be what its said to be but then I remember that I rarely, if *ever* eat a meal without grains in it. I have cereal just about every morning, a sandwich/burger (almost always fast food) for lunch and usually some sort of pasta/garlic bread/dinner roll(s) for dinner. As I've shown in the TiB'er thread, I'm far from fat. Genetics I guess?
Can you clarify this? What I mean is that I read this, and I think "okay, I'll go to Kroger and buy up some steaks and some chicken." But I get the feeling that if I do that, I'm still doing it wrong. Can I buy a package of Purdue skinless chicken breasts, or is that horrible pseudo-chicken? Or is it a step in the right direction, because I used to grab a bag of Tyson Chicken Nibblers?
I mean don't by deli style anything. No salami or deli chicken or chicken fingers in the frozen aisle. Regular, raw beef, chicken, pork, etc. And like I said...the point isn't to see how awesome Paleo is. It works for some, not for others. The point is to see what happens when you turn off the sugar and grain tap. I was thinking about this on my drive home today. Someone earlier asked, "What do you mean when you say only eat REAL food?" To me, 'real' food is food that does not cause your physical self or mood to alter when you stop eating it. I could eat three apples a day for the next month and abruptly stop. The difference in my temperament would be that I would simply not be eating apples anymore. If I drank the caloric equivalent of three apples in pop every day for the next month and stopped abruptly, I would have harsh cravings for it that persisted for some time. The difference is that one has addictive stuff in it and the other doesn't. I have these kinds of thoughts when I drive.
Well, my lunch is the salad described above without the bread. I just drink a lot of water and I do feel hungry for about 5 minutes, its not an immediate satisfaction, but it takes about 15 minutes from food to get down your throat to your stomach. Once it does, I usually feel fine until dinner.
Loving reading posts about people who "exercise" but get fatter. I see these bastards at the gym all the time, on a treddie set on a lower speed than I travel to the fridge to get a beer with a 600ml bottle of gatoraid half guzzled in the cup holder being foamed up by their thunder. Fat dumbasses. I don't claim to be a perfect example of trimness I have 5kg I could stand to lose easy, but that's an expensive 5kg built on a foundation of premo micro brews, small vineyard vintages and a whole lot of good fresh foods cooked at home and enjoyed at top restaurants. You can stick your fad diets in your overcompensating asses, life is short, I choose the Anthony Bordain path. And Fuck Soda, I wouldn't have more than 2 cans of Coke a year, that shit is poison. Also sugar replacements and anything overtly chemical can get fucked, it's not food.
Today for breakfast I had two palmfuls of almonds while I guzzled down half a quart of low calorie Gatorade. Lunch was a Western omelet at the deli (which I ate all the vegetables in the middle, left half the egg part behind) and lemonade. Dinner was a bowl of cereal (Trix...shut up, I wasn't allowed to eat that growing up) with 2% milk. Oh, and I ate about 4-5 Oreo Cremes. I'd totally believe it if someone said they put addictive shit in Oreos. They're so fucking good. That's my typical meal plan for a day. I don't eat much and I don't really deprive myself. If I am in the mood for it, I'll eat it. I weighed myself last night before bed at the boy's house. 101 pounds. I stand 5'3" in my stocking feet. My weight is up 2 pounds because I'm due to get the curse and have a little bit of water bloat going on. People ask me what is my secret for staying so tiny. I don't know. Genetics? The fact that I have ADD that I'm not medicated for and as a result I'm always moving, fidgeting, shaking, rocking? My mother was driven crazy by the fact that I could never sit still. Now she'll call and lament about putting on weight and tell me that maybe my inability to be stationary for longer than 30 seconds was the secret. Sure, I sit at a desk for 9 hours a day. I am not in great shape, but I'm in good enough shape to pass our physical fitness requirements every year for my job - 8 pushups, 16 situps and 12 minute mile. My test was in May and I did 25 pushups, 40 situps and clocked in at 11:50 for my mile. I'll admit my mile could use some (ahem, a ton of) improvement. Sadly, my supervisor and I were the only females that passed the test that morning. I admittedly have a little bit of skinnyfat going on - my antidepressant in college had a side effect of weight gain...I took off the 30 pounds I gained but retain a little pudge in the belly area. Who knows. And who the hell knows what makes this one fat and the next one skinny. I agree with Lewis Black when he said that we are all like snowflakes and what would be healthy for one individual would kill the next.