How do people get so fat?

[meara]

If you find that you are constantly hungry, something is wrong. (I know this is the cue for people to come in and say that there is something biologically wrong with them that makes them feel like a starving person 24 hours per day no matter what they eat, but I think those people are a rare minority, and I also suspect that if they worked on changing their eating habits somewhat, many of those food cravings would diminish significantly. Of course, I could be wrong about this.

I think this is the crux of our disagreement. I am arguing that different people have different experiences with hunger and cravings based on biological makeup, and it is not reasonable for any of us to expect that it is as easy or as difficult for others to control appetite as it is for us. Any statement in the form "this is not my personal experience, so it must be wrong" will always be less convincing to me than careful scientific research across populations. The latter shows that we DO experience hunger and cravings differently based on genetic, epigenetic and even bacteriological makeup. As one tiny example, did you know that certain crafty gut microbes can actually manipulate our gene expression to cause us to crave certain kinds of sugar that they need to survive.

Another quick analogy... I poop with a certain frequency and have observed that this frequency varies depending on how much and what I eat. Certain foods stop me up. Other foods clear me out. Etc. While there are certain generalizable trends here, I would never presume to tell another person that they can follow my personal diet to experience the same bowel patterns. Different bodies react differently. Some folks are chronically constipated no matter what. Others have IBS. It's a personal medical concern and not my business to tell them how bran flakes worked for me and would solve all of their problems if only they'd be like me.

[filmore]

You seem incensed that some people argue that exercise doesn't work for weight loss. There actually has been a fair amount of research showing this to be true at the casual public health level. People who undertake exercise solely for weight loss tend to be less successful at losing weight than those who diet. Light to moderate exercise increases appetite, and people compensate by eating more -- often more than they've burned with the extra exercise. Furthermore, many keep eating at this increased level even after they've fallen off the exercise wagon.


It's still incorrect to say that exercise doesn't work. If you want to state that doing a minimal amount of exercise and then eating more than you burned doesn't cause weight loss, I totally agree. But it's like arguing that studying doesn't make you smarter or that practice doesn't make you better. There may be other factors that lead to failure, but that doesn't mean that excercise was the cause of failure or that it's not beneficial.

I wouldn't say that I'm incensed over this, but I will vigororsly defend using excercise and diet to lose weight. If you want to state that changing those things is hard, or that it's harder for some than others, I won't disagree. But it's wrong to say they don't work.

One of the reasons I'm so vocal about this is because I'm sure there are overweight people who read threads like this who do want to change their weight. If people are posting things like, "exercise doesn't work", "changing diet doesn't work", and "your blahipor levels make you big", what motivation does the overweight person have? They're going to think it's hopeless.

And if someone has other activities that take the place of exercise, that's fine. It's honest to say "I don't want to exercise because I enjoy spending my time knitting." But it's incorrect to say "I don't excercise because it doesn't work for weight loss."

[Zeriel]

I think we're all kinda conflating two different concepts--

"Exercise doesn't work to help with weight loss" which is true.

"Exercise is not nearly as effective as spending the same effort on restricting calories for the sole purpose of losing weight" which is true as well, to a large extent--while running for a half-hour will burn 350 calories or so, you can accomplish the same caloric reduction by saying "Maybe I will switch two of my glasses of pepsi today for diet".

IMHO they are trying to compensate for something else that is missing from their lives. For instance lack of love, or lack of friends can create a 'hunger' that is compensated by eating, unless the underlying problem is healed, the hunger will persist. This is why 'diets don't work', it is not a hunger for food, just food is a temporary fix for another deficiency.

People who try to focus on food to heal the above will either find themselves craving food for a 'fix' to help them ignore the other lack, or move that compensation to something else, such as drinking, drugs, smoking, or even things like excessive excercize or becoming a workaholic.

This is flatly ridiculous for the large majority of the overweight population, unless you're seriously trying to argue that well over 60% of the population of the US is missing something so severely that they're willing to damage their health to make it go away.

[MsWhatsit]

One of the reasons I'm so vocal about this is because I'm sure there are overweight people who read threads like this who do want to change their weight. If people are posting things like, "exercise doesn't work", "changing diet doesn't work", and "your blahipor levels make you big", what motivation does the overweight person have? They're going to think it's hopeless.


Yeah. Making the mental leap to actually take charge of my body and start eating right and becoming a healthy person is one of the toughest things I've ever done. Daily exercising and meal planning and all of that stuff is small potatoes (no pun intended) compared to making that initial mental change. And when you're trying to draw up the inner strength and motivation to start changing the way you eat and live, it's just that much harder when you see people saying things like, "Exercise is only for people who want to run marathons," or "Losing weight and keeping it off is as hard as running 200 miles," or, "Exercise doesn't help you lose weight," or, "If you want to lose weight you have to deprive yourself every day for the rest of your life." Untrue, unhelpful, and destructive to people that are trying to make positive changes in their lives.

That said, knowing how hard it is to make that change, I would never use terms like "lazy" or "slob" to describe people who are overweight. That's as unhelpful in its way as the stuff I just mentioned is.

[filmore]

"Exercise doesn't work to help with weight loss" which is true.


No, that's false. Was that a typo?

[begbert2]

I'm only responding to your objections here, I am not saying you simply must go out and start yoga right away.

It doesn't matter one whit how flexible you are or to what degree you can approximate the versions of the poses of the models in the pictures. All the poses are abstractions- attempting them is the only relevant issue. You try it, you did it. This-and some other things, see below- is why I say the 'live' classes are better than the videos. Over time the instructors can tell you a lot more in person than you can get from a video. Still, I'd recommend starting with a video.
Anyway, how do you think these people got so flexible? The ability of flexibility is, well, flexible. It will most certainly improve if you try. Stop and rest as much as you like- they really stress this in the live classes.Probably the simplest thing I can do here is to be dubious that sufficient flexibility can be achieved with sufficient speed not to throw the dvd in the trash in disgust. Because in some things, I am somewhat of a perfectionist - specifically, if I try something, I need to succeed at it, or at least do sufficiently good enough at it quickly enough that I don't decide that I'm being a moron wasting my time on something I can't do. Some people are fine spending six months working themselves up to a point where they can show themselves in public - and if they're fine with it, more power to them. Myself, I'm not fine with it. Call it a personal problem if you like, but I don't see it that way. Life's to short to waste like that.

So. There are presumably various things, like flexibility and abs and wind and marathoner muscles, that it's (for most people) at least physically possible to achieve given six or twelve or twenty months of struggle. In cases like this, the end result is not an incentive to me, and does not seem achievable. Does that mean they aren't? I guess not. But can't internalize such beliefs. It just doesn't happen.

So, how am I managing to use portion control to lose weight, you might ask? Simple - because it's easy, and because there are immidiate results. It's not because I believe it will work in the long run; I seriously do not believe that I will ever reach 200 pounds. While simultaneously arguing that portion control works! The cognitive dissonance is palpable, but I can't change my beliefs. And regardless, I still have very little motivation to do it. Fortunately it's still easy to do...

And it is something of a misconception that yoga is all about flexibility. It does depend on what style you're doing, but in the last post I mentioned that it will make you 'sweat as if you're melting'. I've also compared the sweating to 'being wrung out like a wet towel'. And... melting. Part of the advantage of the classes is that they're done in heated rooms- you're more flexible when you're hot, and you sweat more. Probably why the doctors suggest stretching next to a hot shower in a bathroom with a door closed- an overly steamy approximation. Yoga isn't specifically geared as a weight loss method but rather something else, but it is assuredly a weight loss method.Sounds like a recipe for dehydration to me.

re: mellow. Sorry, bad choice of words there. A better phrase would be 'clear the mind'. It'll definitely calm you down, but I feel 'calm you down' is too soft as terminology. It is one of the oddly clever things about it really, that these guys have figured out exactly what you need to physically do to clear your mind. This effect is triggered by the whole process I guess, but only comes on at the end. You'd have to experience it yourself, I'm sure you'd be impressed. It isn't some stoner thing.Meh, I'm dubious about this too. My brain isn't connected to my ligaments, so why should contorting myself effect it in some magical way? If I'm not calm it's for reasons that will still be there regardless. I guess I could get distracted, or just completely physically wipe myself out into a state of mindless misery I guess, but I just can't see myself getting all zen over this stuff.

'But it works!' you insist. 'I've experienced it myself!' Well, I'm not going to say it is all in your head... but it is all in your head. :)

re: seen in public wearing shorts. All right. You've got an aversion here. Think about it. Attraction/aversion... they're two sides of the same coin. Something I don't see in the videos (though I have only watched maybe two) but that you'd get from the classes is some guidance in sidestepping these kind of issues. In my last post I mentioned that you're supposed to be concentrating, and that's why you're not going to be looking around and checking out everyone else. Additionally, it is why you aren't going to be thinking about wearing shorts in public. It is not as if there is something wrong with you. You'd be another guy doing yoga. Hypothetically. But yeah, you're right, at some point somebody would look at you, and at some point you'd look at somebody else. And there are mirrors.You were right the first time - it's an aversion. I am averse to appearing in public looking like either a fat guy in shorts, or like an incompetent yogaist. Regardless of who sees me. Or what they're doing. Or wether they're also fat short-wearing incompetent yogaists. That doesn't matter. Not in the slightest.

The thing you're not getting is that this aversion is from *my* perspective. It's not the viewer's opinion that matters; it's my opinion about myself. Heck, I don't care if they're all ignoring me completely; I still know what I look like. And I will never be just another guy doing yoga to myself.

People wo don't care how they present themselves probably will never understand.

I mentioned it is comparable to a philosophy of exercise. The difference is that it is mostly unspoken- all of it is demonstrated, they seem to have figured out how to evoke certain insights on your own just by following some simple physical instructions. It is so very clever I tell you. But now that I'm repeating myself, let me say not to get stuck on what I say- you doing it would trump everything.I don't believe in these 'evoked insights' of yours - the only insight I'm going to get by causing myself extreme physical pain and sweating buckets is "I'd be a heck of a lot happier doing something else". Especially since that would be an insight I would act on in short order.

Unless you want to argue that if I tried it, I wouldn't experience this? Insights would come flowing in in the first few days, at the latest?

Again, it doesn't matter how 'good' you are at it. The progress-meter is built-in. Over time you could better approximate the poses, and you'd notice. And you'd be losing weight. 2-3 times a week; enjoy the 'transgression' of not going 2-3 times a week. Hmmm, what is it about enjoying transgression, like the Wal-Mart bag of potato chips? I'm not going to say it is all in your head, but it is all in your head.It matters to ME how good I am at it, and my progress-meter doesn't wait six months before kicking in. I'll notice how bad I'm doing first thing. (Though curiously enough, I very likely wouldn't notice incemental improvements. I've lost eighty pounds, but haven't noticed the slightest change in my appearence. I seriously look the same to me. If not for the evidence of my pants being looser, my sleeves being longer, and that scale (which is a liar anyway), I wouldn't believe I'd lost an ounce.)

As for the "transgressions", I think you're misunderstanding them completely. You don't transgress for the fun of transgressing. You transgress because the transgression itself is something that you want to do. You eat chips because you want to eat chips. And because all that incompetent and ineffective yoga you were doing made you really hungry. Two bags of chips and a box of ding-dongs hungry.

And even if you wanted to transgress for the sake of it, it's impossible to transgress by doing what you're supposed to be doing. If you're only supposed to yoga three times a week, it's impossible to transgress by not going four.

Yah sure, diet matters too. Again with the ex-girlfriend, but she's a vegetarian, eats only certain things. It isn't like she won't hang out and have a beer or anything. I think her diet habits started when she couldn't believe the stuff her dad ate (doubly couldn't believe it because he's a doctor). Still. I didn't eat less after I started running (and doing a little yoga), and I lost 50lbs.It's all about portion control. People who are more active can eat a little more quite safely. (People who engage in extreme physical activity for six hours straight every day can safely eat a horse - but not a horse made of twinkies.) The issue for your average overweight person is that they're a habital eater. And like a alcoholic that's on the wagon, it's better to avoid the temptation than to flirt with the line. Persons who don't have this problem may imbible moderate quantities without worry.

And I have to wonder if you really didn't eat less - or eat less of the "bad" stuff.


Don't want to? Ok.I don't want to, for a number of excellent reasons, not the least of which being that I have no reason to. So okay!

And I'm not addressing begbert on the topic of exercise anymore, as it is clear that he refuses to admit that his only real reason for not exercising is that he just plain doesn't want to. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, so I have no idea why he is so resistant to it, but I am tired of trying to debunk all of his BS excuses.Nonsense - I have myriad excellent reasons not to exercise - it hurts, it takes time, it would tire me out. These are all excellent reasons not to do things, and are the exact same reasons you don't do things like beat your hand with a hammer or sit staring mindlessly into space for hours.

The one difference between us in this regard is, that I have no excuse to exercise. You do, and this excuse is sufficiently compelling to override the various reasons not to engage in the activity. If you didn't have such an excuse, you wouldn't exercise either - for excellent reasons.

The feedback loop may be longer, but it is not clear that a person has that much more control over the process. In fact, all scientific evidence seems to point to the contrary. Leptin and other weight regulation mechanisms act over days and weeks instead of seconds, but they are very good at eventually overcoming a person's volition -- just as our breathing and voiding instincts are very good at eventually overcoming volition.Not to seem like I'm toggling sides here, but you are surely overstating this. If Leptin were truly as good as breathing instincts at overcoming volition, then nobody would ever lose weight on a diet. As this is demonstrably false, your thesis must be incorrect.

Now, this is not to say that there aren't some lucky jerks who have more volition-removing Leptin sensitivity and that these bastards will maintain their weight effortlessly, damn them all to hell. But that doesn't change the fact that we tubby folk didn't have to get tubby, and we don't require medical treatments to get un-tubby. It just means it's somewhat more difficult, is all.

The problem I have with many overweight people is the denial and delusions they have about weight management. They say that exercise doesn't work, dieting doesn't work, they are big boned, they have genetic issues, etc etc. That's all a bunch of crap. I would respect someone who said "I don't have the self control to stop eating and I'm too lazy to work out". That's the real reason they are overweight.

Even if someone cannot control their eating, there are other ways they can control their weight. Instead of spending 6pm-11pm watching TV, spend that time walking around the neighborhood, dancing, cleaning, exercising or whatever. Anything to stay active. So uncontrollable eating does not mean you have to be fat.

If someone says:

- I'm fat and I can't do anything about it
- Excercise doesn't work
- Dieting doesn't work

I'll call them out on it. I'll argue with them because they are 100% wrong.

I've seen people join running groups who end their first session in tears because they were last and they had to walk most of the course. They feel like they'll never be able to do it. But the ones who stick with it turn the walking into shuffling, the shuffling into jogging, and the jogging into running. It always works for the people who stick it out. And I've never seen anyone maintain their weight. They always lose weight. To be honest, they don't all end up in the perfect BMI range, but they all lose weight.

So any overweight person who says exercise won't work for them, especially if they are not even trying to exercise, is wrong. It's just the delusion in their mind holding them back. I'll do all I can to break through that delusion.Meh, people who exercise lose weight because during the time they're exercising, they're not eating. :p

(Dieting works fine though. That's diet as in portion control and twinkie-management, not stupid fad diets abandoned after the first ten pounds.)

IMHO they are trying to compensate for something else that is missing from their lives. For instance lack of love, or lack of friends can create a 'hunger' that is compensated by eating, unless the underlying problem is healed, the hunger will persist. This is why 'diets don't work', it is not a hunger for food, just food is a temporary fix for another deficiency.

People who try to focus on food to heal the above will either find themselves craving food for a 'fix' to help them ignore the other lack, or move that compensation to something else, such as drinking, drugs, smoking, or even things like excessive excercize or becoming a workaholic.Speaking as a fat person, you're wrong. Oh, there might be a few who find comfort in foods (heck, women fat or thin diving for chocolate ice cream after a bad date is an old stereotype) but this is not the average way to get fat. Getting fat is typically a very slow process of just casually living a sedentary lifestyle coupled with a habit of casually eating the food that's at hand. Watching TV, contrary to the delusion of the the people who compulsively exercise, won't make you fat, but casually eating out of a bag of potato chips while you're doing it sure will!

You might also find yourself taking larger and larger portions, and eating more and more, out of the desire to satisfy. After all, suppose you regularly ate three grapes for a snack. Sometimes, though, you might decide to give yourself a treat, and take another. Or if they're handy, you might slip in another before the other ones really hit your stomach and made you feel full. Keep this up enough, and sooner or later you'll always be taking four, because that's what your used to. And then as a treat you might take a fifth...

Of course with grapes this is no big deal, but with cookies and cake peice sizes it really can add up. The thing to note, though, is that it's all quite casual, and requires no deliberate effort at all. No feeding of the need, or whatever. And sooner or later you're eating the whole box of cookies, the whole cake, or the entire freakin' grapevine.

In cases like this, which I strongly suspect vastly outnumber the cases of "comfort food" types, filling in other aspects of your life won't help - you'll just become a jolly fat person. To actually shed the pounds, you have to cut back on the calories. Or have your leptin surgically removed, I dunno.

[begbert2]

This is simply not true. I'm in the process of losing a significant amount of weight, am down 23 pounds so far, and I never ignore my biological hunger cues. In fact, I am careful not to ignore my hunger cues, as I have learned that letting my body get into a state of extreme hunger is a good way for me to binge overeat. I eat when I get a little bit hungry, and I stop eating when I feel a little bit full. Yes, during the first few weeks of eating normally, I had a lot of food cravings and rarely felt full after a normal-sized meal. This is because through years and years of stuffing myself, I had effectively taught my body to ignore normal hunger/full cues.I still don't think I know what hunger feels like. I know what "not stuffed" feels like, but there's a heck of a difference between that and hungry - as in, you're supposed to feel "not stuffed".

Maybe one of these days I'll feel actual hunger. Or maybe I have, but just discounted it...regardless of how you do it, avoiding that binge overeating is the main thing, however you do it.

One of the huge myths of weight loss is that to lose weight, you must go around constantly starving and depriving yourself, and that you must exercise iron willpower every second of the day. This is simply not true. Eating a normal caloric intake is mostly a matter of setting up good and healthy eating habits and then sticking with them. If you find that you are constantly hungry, something is wrong. (I know this is the cue for people to come in and say that there is something biologically wrong with them that makes them feel like a starving person 24 hours per day no matter what they eat, but I think those people are a rare minority, and I also suspect that if they worked on changing their eating habits somewhat, many of those food cravings would diminish significantly. Of course, I could be wrong about this.)

I mean, seriously, I've lost 23 pounds and I feel great. I don't go through my day constantly gritting my teeth and screaming, "AAAAAAHHH!! WILL! NOT! EAT! DONUT!!!!!!"I don't know for hunger, but sticking to a diet is key. Presumably it doesn't even have to be that extreme a diet (though I like to push the limits a little myself because I'm impatient), as long as you set a limit lower than your caloric needs and stick to it, you're golden.

[Grumman]

It really IS harder for these people to exercise (at least at first), and to control their eating. Why do you require them to expend more effort than a naturally thin person just to avoid pejoratives?
Because that still only requires a degree of willpower and self-control that I expect from everyone. I don't care if you're an alcoholic, I still expect you to not drink and drive. I don't care if you're poor, I still expect you to not mug people. And I don't care if your leptin-feedback system is screwed up, I still expect you to possess the ability to think "hey, maybe being 200 pounds overweight is a bad thing".

Also, I have even less respect for someone who tries to justify their own failure by whining about other people having it easy.

[begbert2]

Because that still only requires a degree of willpower and self-control that I expect from everyone. I don't care if you're an alcoholic, I still expect you to not drink and drive. I don't care if you're poor, I still expect you to not mug people. And I don't care if your leptin-feedback system is screwed up, I still expect you to possess the ability to think "hey, maybe being 200 pounds overweight is a bad thing".So, to you, drinking and driving = mugging = not minding being 200lbs overweight, morally speaking? Or that it's equally reasonable to require the latter activity to be refrained from?

On a similar note, people who wear white after labor day, and mass murderers. It's equally important for the first category to restraing their impulses as the latter - not just for their own good, but for the good of society.

Also, I have even less respect for someone who tries to justify their own failure by whining about other people having it easy.Can we call them lucky bastards, though?

(Though really I have no reason to think that I have any leptin problems at all. It's not like I need to invoke esoteric explanations to explain my weight; ten years of eating too much pretty much covers it.)

[Grumman]

So, to you, drinking and driving = mugging = not minding being 200lbs overweight, morally speaking?
Who said anything about morals? I'm talking about sapience. Even if it isn't immoral to destroy yourself through negligence, it's still bloody stupid.

[begbert2]

Who said anything about morals? I'm talking about sapience. Even if it isn't immoral to destroy yourself through negligence, it's still bloody stupid.Er, you just now implied you think it's immoral (which raises questions about someone's sapience).

But regardless, you were specifically criticizing their "willpower and self-control" - and then criticizing them, specifically, for not thinking that their weight is a problem. Which of course doesn't have anything to do with willpower and self-control at all; those doesn't kick in until you try to lose weight, and then fail.

But then, this has nothing to do will willpower and self control at all, does it? You just hate fatties. Hate them like you do muggers and drunk drivers! (It's telling that you don't equate them to mere drunks, which might actually be equivalent. But then, you like mere drunks.)

One has to wonder if Santa Claus did something bad to you when you were a child.

[rhubarbarin]

Who said anything about morals? I'm talking about sapience. Even if it isn't immoral to destroy yourself through negligence, it's still bloody stupid.

But it's not like being fat is a death sentence or predictor of ill health of any sort. BMI-wise, being overweight (BMI 25-29) has very few risks factors. Half of all Americans are overweight and our life expectancy is not falling yet. Being obese (BMI 30-34) raises your risk a bit. When you are morbidly obese (BMI 35-40) it gets quite high, and the super obese (BMI 40+) are highest of all (I am talking conventional health risk factors, not mortality rates or actual rates of disease).

But only 3% of the US is morbidly obese or bigger, despite what the news shows you.

Did you read the study that indicated that a BMI in the overweight range was most protective against death from heart disease, and that the pretty thin people with BMIs below 18.5 had the highest risk of death, more than all 3 classes of obesity?

[Guinastasia]

Physical Exercise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise)

(BTW, I went walking with Dad and the dog again today -- and I managed not to step in any horse poop!) :p

As for exercise "not being an effective method", last summer, I started walking to work from downtown, instead of taking the second bus. (One day I missed the bus, and just figured I'd walk). So, as long as the weather permitted, I'd walk along from downtown, across the Clemente Bridge, along the North Shore, all the way to the Science Center. While I had been eating better, it wasn't until I started exercising that I REALLY started noticing results. I went down about two sizes. I had this pair of capris that I hadn't been able to fit into for awhile -- but after a month or so of walking -- THEY FIT!!! The only downside is when it started to get too cold to walk.

Now that I'm laid off, like I said, I'm trying to go out to the park with Dad twice a week or so.

So don't sit there and tell me "exercise is a lousy method for losing weight." Because it's not.

[Guinastasia]

Lousy edit time!!! meara, I just wanted to let you know -- I don't think being overweight is a moral failing. I also hate seeing the way some people treat those who are overweight. And yes, it is hella hard to keep fit. I don't think anyone is denying that. (Well, anyone with common sense!)

HOWEVER, I do find those with attitudes like berbert2's frustrating. In fact, I'm finding him downright insulting.

[rhubarbarin]

It's not hard for me to keep fit at all, personally.

The level of effort and suffering, physical and mental, required to be a certain weight/shape or have certain athletic capabilities is different for everyone, depending on many more factors than how many minutes of exercise you do and how many calories you take in.

[Guinastasia]

It's not hard for me to keep fit at all, personally.

The level of effort and suffering, physical and mental, required to be a certain weight/shape or have certain athletic capabilities is different for everyone, depending on many more factors than how many minutes of exercise you do and how many calories you take in.


Right -- I have a fast metabolism, luckily. But for some, it IS harder, and I think sometimes people tend to say, "well, you're just being lazy", when they say it's difficult for them. Even though they ARE working at it. That's all.

[Zeriel]

No, that's false. Was that a typo?

Yes, yes it was. Bad edit on my part--it should have said "which is false, but is often shorthand for:"

[pretend my name is witty]

It's not hard to keep fit, but it is harder to get fit, imo.

I'm only 23, and I've never been massively overweight, but I weighed 85kg during College. Through joining the TA (UK Reserves) in University, and getting a healthy attitude to exercise (getting fit, enjoying being exerted, getting the right shoes and understanding why people enjoy running), I now weigh a 69kg and I'm stronger than I've ever been.

I also eat a lot more than I ever used to, and don't often think about what I'm eating except to ensure it's not always junk (although I'm fine with going to a pub lunch fairly often). The only thing that accounts for being slimmer and lighter is the exercise, since I'm certainly not restricting my calories (quite the opposite; I'm running 10k this afternoon and hence had a massive takeaway last night).

Exercise must help with weight loss. It's bloody thermodynamics, people.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

The person who runs 30min a day without any special training or goals is not likely to experience the same transformation as the person who takes up running, joins a running club, participates in social group runs, registers and runs for races, tackles a marathon or even an ultra, etc. We'd do well as a society to promote wellness hobbies like running instead of focusing so much on group/spectator sports.
I think someone who goes from running zero to 30 minutes a day will experience a transformation all right. Especially if they stick with it for say, months. Sure, not to the degree from training for Everest or something extreme, but it would be about all anyone needs.

[meara]

I think someone who goes from running zero to 30 minutes a day will experience a transformation all right. Especially if they stick with it for say, months. Sure, not to the degree from training for Everest or something extreme, but it would be about all anyone needs.

I'm just looking at this from the public health perspective. The person who starts running 30min a day with no goals or excitement about it is less likely to stick with it. They're also less likely to improve and develop an enjoyable hobby vs. the person who joins a running club and starts dabbling in group runs, speed workouts, trail runs, impromptu 5Ks, etc.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

I'm just looking at this from the public health perspective. The person who starts running 30min a day with no goals or excitement about it is less likely to stick with it. They're also less likely to improve and develop an enjoyable hobby vs. the person who joins a running club and starts dabbling in group runs, speed workouts, trail runs, impromptu 5Ks, etc.

Hmmm, I guess I don't agree. Unless it is race day, 99.5% of the time I'll just take off and go run by myself. I suppose the yoga classes are sort of club-like, but I don't really treat it like a social event. I don't even talk about it very much- it just happens to seem relevant in this thread. Who knows, maybe I'll be more social about it later. This element might be very helpful for some I suppose.
No goals or excitement? Well that would be something of a drag. But if they did stick with it, it would still work.

[Crafter_Man]

Physical Exercise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise)

(BTW, I went walking with Dad and the dog again today -- and I managed not to step in any horse poop!) :p

As for exercise "not being an effective method", last summer, I started walking to work from downtown, instead of taking the second bus. (One day I missed the bus, and just figured I'd walk). So, as long as the weather permitted, I'd walk along from downtown, across the Clemente Bridge, along the North Shore, all the way to the Science Center. While I had been eating better, it wasn't until I started exercising that I REALLY started noticing results. I went down about two sizes. I had this pair of capris that I hadn't been able to fit into for awhile -- but after a month or so of walking -- THEY FIT!!! The only downside is when it started to get too cold to walk.

Now that I'm laid off, like I said, I'm trying to go out to the park with Dad twice a week or so.

So don't sit there and tell me "exercise is a lousy method for losing weight." Because it's not.
Exercise can help a little. But it's very difficult for the average person to lose lots of weight through exercise alone. Even the NIH has said that permanent weight loss is primarily achieved by a permanent alteration of the diet.

I run two or three times a week. But it's not for weight control; I run because it's good for my cardiovascular health. I control my weight by controlling how much food I eat.

[Guinastasia]

Exercise can help a little. But it's very difficult for the average person to lose lots of weight through exercise alone. Even the NIH has said that permanent weight loss is primarily achieved by a permanent alteration of the diet.

I run two or three times a week. But it's not for weight control; I run because it's good for my cardiovascular health. I control my weight by controlling how much food I eat.

I know that. I'm just saying that even though I WAS eating better, it was only when I started getting more active that I really noticed a difference. And again, people do have different metabolisms. Some burn calories faster than others.

And while you'll lose weight from eating right, you'll still be pretty flabby. It's exercise that gets rid of those jiggly thighs, round tummy, etc.

So, diet gets you to lose weight, and exercise keeps you fit and tones you up.

[rhubarbarin]

Exercise must help with weight loss. It's bloody thermodynamics, people.

For some people it does. For others it does not. You are a man, correct? Given this it's much, much easier for you to change your weight and muscle mass through exercise than it is for a woman. 'Therodynamics' does not explain that, or much else about the human body and the huge variety between individuals.

In my case, vigorous exercise makes me gain a bit of weight.

And I find that what I eat makes about 80% of the difference in my appearance. Right now I am cut (for a girl), and I am hardly exercising at all. But I live on animal products, don't eat sugar or grains. I assume this is the reason for my unusual muscle definition.

I just wish people in this thread could realize that the way it (diet, exercise, weight, body shape) happens for them is not the way it works for everyone, or even the majority. The changes a sedentary person with a high body fat % suddenly starting an exercise program will see are very different than those an already fit, but still fat, person (say, one of the fat contractors I know in my area, who work an extremely physical job and are immensely strong, but still fat) will. To give just one example.

[filmore]

For some people it does. For others it does not. You are a man, correct? Given this it's much, much easier for you to change your weight and muscle mass through exercise than it is for a woman. 'Therodynamics' does not explain that, or much else about the human body and the huge variety between individuals.

In my case, vigorous exercise makes me gain a bit of weight.


Exercise always causes weight loss. Exercise burns calories and burning calories causes weight loss. There may be things you do post exercise that cause you to gain weight, perhaps even more weight than you burned, but that's an issue with eating. Otherwise it would be like a car with a gas tank which got fuller the more it was driven.

Also keep in mind that your exercise may not be burning off all the excess calories you're eating. If you're eating an extra 1000 calories but only burning off 300, you're still going to gain weight, although a bit slower than before.

If you're gaining weight from exercise, it's likely because you are overeating your exercise. A common thing I see is people drinking gatoraide and eating power bars during exercise. That can easily negate any loss from exercise. It is also very easy to eat a little extra after the workout. You'll need to make sure you are in control of your eating to not overeat your exercise benefit.

Another common issue seems to be not acurately quantifying the calories burned during excercise. People will say they "exercise", but that may mean they walked for 10 minutes (perhaps 50-100 calories).

If you really are gaining weight from excercise, you should carefully track how many calories you burn and how much you're eating. I suspect you'll find that you're subconsciously eating a little bit more than normal and that's causing the weight gain.

[Kearsen]

Exercise always causes weight loss. Exercise burns calories and burning calories causes weight loss. There may be things you do post exercise that cause you to gain weight, perhaps even more weight than you burned, but that's an issue with eating. Otherwise it would be like a car with a gas tank which got fuller the more it was driven.

Also keep in mind that your exercise may not be burning off all the excess calories you're eating. If you're eating an extra 1000 calories but only burning off 300, you're still going to gain weight, although a bit slower than before.

If you're gaining weight from exercise, it's likely because you are overeating your exercise. A common thing I see is people drinking gatoraide and eating power bars during exercise. That can easily negate any loss from exercise. It is also very easy to eat a little extra after the workout. You'll need to make sure you are in control of your eating to not overeat your exercise benefit.

Another common issue seems to be not acurately quantifying the calories burned during excercise. People will say they "exercise", but that may mean they walked for 10 minutes (perhaps 50-100 calories).

If you really are gaining weight from excercise, you should carefully track how many calories you burn and how much you're eating. I suspect you'll find that you're subconsciously eating a little bit more than normal and that's causing the weight gain.

Exercise is a broad broad term here. Weight training will cause you to gain weight as converting fat weight into muscle weight causes an increase in body weight. Simple really.

The real key here people is a mirror not a scale.

[filmore]

Exercise is a broad broad term here. Weight training will cause you to gain weight as converting fat weight into muscle weight causes an increase in body weight. Simple really.

The real key here people is a mirror not a scale.

Yes, you can gain muscle weight from some exercises. But you really have to be training for that purpose. Most aerobic exercises will not produce a significant muscle gain.

And to be clear, fat does not get converted into muscle. Fat produces energy which allows you to work out. Your body will later convert the proteins in food into muscle if needed. But it is very important not to overstate the muscle gain from exercise. You really do need to be doing weight training type of excercises in order to gain a significant amount of muscle mass.

Most overweight people are over "fat". They have too high a percentage of body fat. The real key is finding out your body fat percentage.

[begbert2]

Exercise must help with weight loss. It's bloody thermodynamics, people.Putting aside the muscle mass issue. And amount you eat. And the amount you drink, and the amount you piss, and the amount you poop. And the amount you sweat. Oh, and if you expectorate a lot, or perhaps drool to excess, that too.


The average overweight person has not been carefully measuring out their twinkies and potato chips. (If they were, they would not be eating twinkies and potato chips.) And it takes aproximately one mouthful of your modern calorie-packed food to replace the calories you have expended in your half-hour walk.

If you are talking about a person who is already thin, or maybe a little flabby, and who has been maintining this with a habitually regular diet, and they manage not to alter their diet (or to eat less) when they go on the exercise, then they will presumably lose weight, maybe. (Depending on the other factors.)

Butyour average fat person eats more than that, and if they are not regulating their diet, will eat to restore their accostomed level of satisfaction. Oh look, they took that extra mouthful...

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Probably the simplest thing I can do here is to be dubious that sufficient flexibility can be achieved with sufficient speed not to throw the dvd in the trash in disgust. Because in some things, I am somewhat of a perfectionist - specifically, if I try something, I need to succeed at it, or at least do sufficiently good enough at it quickly enough that I don't decide that I'm being a moron wasting my time on something I can't do.
I'm positive you can do yoga then. You could actually test my theory right here on the SDMB... only if you want to though. Here's the test: inhale? exhale? If you can do that, you're ready for yoga.
Some people are fine spending six months working themselves up to a point where they can show themselves in public - and if they're fine with it, more power to them. Myself, I'm not fine with it. Call it a personal problem if you like, but I don't see it that way. Life's to short to waste like that.
'But it works!' you insist. 'I've experienced it myself!' Well, I'm not going to say it is all in your head... but it is all in your head. :)
Well, of course it is in my head- why do you think I'm so confident that it is all in your head :)
The results aren't in my head though. I can do things I could not do 3 months ago. I know because there is built-in progress-meter. It isn't my imagination.
Don't like to be seen in public? This is in your head, and this is getting in your way. You'd (likely) be happier without this burden. I believe yoga would lead you to overcoming it, though it isn't the only way. And it is kind of a catch-22 anyway, no? It prevents you from getting involved with the people who can lead you to the solution, so how does it help?
So. There are presumably various things, like flexibility and abs and wind and marathoner muscles, that it's (for most people) at least physically possible to achieve given six or twelve or twenty months of struggle. In cases like this, the end result is not an incentive to me, and does not seem achievable. Does that mean they aren't? I guess not. But can't internalize such beliefs. It just doesn't happen.
I can dig it. So much for the theory that overweight people are in denial. You believe you theoretically could achieve these things, but the beliefs aren't powerful enough to motivate you to action. Because the action in question triggers aversion. I think I'm following.

So, how am I managing to use portion control to lose weight, you might ask? Simple - because it's easy, and because there are immidiate results. It's not because I believe it will work in the long run; I seriously do not believe that I will ever reach 200 pounds. While simultaneously arguing that portion control works! The cognitive dissonance is palpable, but I can't change my beliefs. And regardless, I still have very little motivation to do it. Fortunately it's still easy to do...
Belief is a funny thing sometimes. It sounds like you aren't going to do anything that requires you to believe something first, or upset the balance of your debate or something. I can dig it. And anyway, whatever middle ground you're staking out in your cognitive dissonance to arrive at your position of portion control is in fact working- it sounds like you have lost a rather appreciable amount of weight following your own methods. So you're doing what works, but you don't believe it will work. But it is easy for you, so you keep doing it. I think I'm following.


Meh, I'm dubious about this too. My brain isn't connected to my ligaments, so why should contorting myself effect it in some magical way?
Who said anything about magic?
If I'm not calm it's for reasons that will still be there regardless.
I'm not going to say it's all in your head...
I guess I could get distracted, or just completely physically wipe myself out into a state of mindless misery I guess, but I just can't see myself getting all zen over this stuff.
It ain't zen. And the intention of it is the opposite of distraction. And it isn't 'mindlessness'. That leaves seeing yourself and being physically wiped out I guess.
You were right the first time - it's an aversion. I am averse to appearing in public looking like either a fat guy in shorts, or like an incompetent yogaist.
Regardless of who sees me. Or what they're doing. Or wether they're also fat short-wearing incompetent yogaists. That doesn't matter. Not in the slightest.

The thing you're not getting is that this aversion is from *my* perspective. It's not the viewer's opinion that matters; it's my opinion about myself. Heck, I don't care if they're all ignoring me completely; I still know what I look like. And I will never be just another guy doing yoga to myself.

People wo don't care how they present themselves probably will never understand.
If you have never been to a yoga class, how can you claim to have the know-how to draw the line between a competent and an incompetent yogi? You're bringing a lot of your own ideas in and pasting them onto something you don't understand, then calling it done.
Yes, of course it is about your opinion of yourself. I can't quite determine what your standard is. It sounds like you are 'out of bounds' and therefore have to avoid this kind of activity. Others are not out of bounds, or else don't care how they present themselves. Surely these ideas are the product of a series of personal experiences from your life. Where else could they come from? People are generally prone to aversions. Figure out what other people's aversions are and what experiences led to them, and after awhile you will likely get some perspective on the broader concept of aversion. Dang, that sounded preachy. You may very well understand all this via some other method. I seriously don't mean any disrespect here.
The point is that these aversions/attractions can sometimes jerk you around and cause you to do unhealthy or unhelpful things. I'm a total amateur myself, but I think part what you can take away from yoga is power over your own aversions/attractions. Because much of the point is to put your mind in front of your body.

I don't believe in these 'evoked insights' of yours - the only insight I'm going to get by causing myself extreme physical pain and sweating buckets is "I'd be a heck of a lot happier doing something else". Especially since that would be an insight I would act on in short order.

Unless you want to argue that if I tried it, I wouldn't experience this? Insights would come flowing in in the first few days, at the latest?
I know. It probably sounds like I'm some kind of nut. But...
Extreme physical pain? No way. You definitely need to back off if that is your experience. Hmmm... I ran into one of my old yoga instructors in an elevator today and asked her about your case. Her reply was that yoga is probably the best exercise for an overweight person- it doesn't stress out your joints or cause a lot of pain. She thought 300lbs wasn't particularly big. Recommended beginners' Bikram Yoga if weight loss is the goal (5 weeks as she described it, but it could be different near you). So you can build up some degree of muscle mass, which will speed up your metabolism. And it will be balanced over your whole body rather that just this or that part. That was about it- she was busy.

The insights thing is tough to talk about because I expect it will be largely personal. I could go on and on about what I got out of it, but what you'll notice will be colored by your own personal experiences.
If you wanted a guarantee, I'd say that 3 times going along with the video and 3 beginner classes will do it. It will probably happen faster than that, but 3 live classes- after which you'll get some sense of what changes and what stays the same in yoga classes- ought to spark something. It'd be pretty interesting if it didn't!
Maybe it'll help if I am more specific. The first thing I learned from yoga that really grabbed my attention was an understanding of what my lower back is composed of. If I'd thought of it at all before then it was as if I had a piece of broomstick down there, and that was that. Very soon after visiting the classes (and though some really basic moves) I had a vivid experience of the differentiation of the various parts of my lower back. It wasn't a pain, and it wasn't a pleasure exactly either- it was pretty unusual. It was my sense of touch. It was as if the moves 'woke up' my lower back, and for once I could feel all the individual parts of it, in a way that was like some kind of x-ray perception of it. Look, not so mysterious, you do a few simple moves and this part moves past that part in just the slightest way- how clever that they can do that!- a few times in various parts of the spine, and it just seems as if it comes into view. Once I realized how my lower back could move, my flexibility increased without any real physical change taking place. I simply understood how it could move, and that by itself made really my whole body more flexible.

It matters to ME how good I am at it, and my progress-meter doesn't wait six months before kicking in. I'll notice how bad I'm doing first thing. (Though curiously enough, I very likely wouldn't notice incemental improvements. I've lost eighty pounds, but haven't noticed the slightest change in my appearence. I seriously look the same to me. If not for the evidence of my pants being looser, my sleeves being longer, and that scale (which is a liar anyway), I wouldn't believe I'd lost an ounce.)
80 lbs is more than I ever lost. Way to go! Hmm, I doubt I ever made it to 250, it was 225-235, maybe 240, probably not even that. I don't own a scale and therefore don't weigh myself much, but I think I topped out around 225. By the time I finished a marathon I was at 175. But again, I wasn't focused on weight loss.
But. You have the evidence of your pants, and the scale. These physical things help you gauge if your progress is all in your head or not. Because, surely your pants are not lying! It the same way you would surely notice your yoga progress, as it would be your body and not your pants that was the yardstick. IMHO of course.

More on the theme of 'insights' to answer your claims about doing 'bad yoga'. It seems like you are stuck on the poses, and on jumping right into this and behaving as if you're some kind of gymnast. Nobody does that. And it isn't about that.
:smack: Why haven't I said what it is about then? (Because it sounds ridiculous to people who haven't tried it, that's why). It isn't about the poses, because all you are really doing in a yoga class is breathing. Inhale. Ok. Exhale. It sounds completely retarded, I know.
The idea is to just focus on your breathing. That's really it, the rest will follow. They ask you to breathe in a certain rhythm. In. Out. Ok. Now do this. In. Out. Sweating? That's good. Still with us? It really ought to be perfectly simple (and it is perfectly simple), but at some point the moves will stress your breath. The advice is: ignore that, just keep your breath at this pace, follow along, focus only on your breathing.
That's it.

You will experience an aversion to keeping your breath at the pace they suggest. So in that sense, it is like pain. But- it is not 100% accurate. Your body sends you a signal to breathe a certain way once you start moving around a little, and if you're already focused on breathing some other way, the tension between the two (mind v body) will build. You can go two ways- start breathing the way your body says, or command the body to follow as you breathe in your formal way. There is an element of illusion in this response- your body, my body, everybody's body is a big baby when it comes to disciplining your air intake even just a little bit. It'll flip out a little- so go ahead and break the rules and breathe extra breaths. It isn't like they are going to flog you or give you any shit. For breathing? That'd be silly!
Well. Start to gain some mastery over this response (and it just totally doesn't matter what your poses look like) and (I believe) you'll start to get some insight into this whole concept of aversion. You may or may not attain total mastery over your body(depending on how many classes you attend), but if you do, how much you weigh will become irrelevant, as it will effectively be your choice.
I read an article that reminded me of this side of yoga. A woman was attempting to break the deep-sea diving record. 100 meters? 200? I don't remember the number, it was apparently the most ever. The rules are: you climb down a rope into the depths; at the chosen depth is a ring or card or something which you grab; you come up with it. You must be conscious when you surface or you're disqualified. Obviously the catch is that you cannot breathe underwater.
It was a horrifying article for me to read. There are no actual competitions in this sport, since the risk of death is too great. No, all you do is say 'On such and such a date at 9:30AM I will attempt to dive to such and such a depth'. Apparently this draws a crowd, if only to drag out your swollen corpse. Someone dives, the spectators hang out on the platform, and either you make it or you don't. The depths this woman was diving required 7 or 8 minutes of submersion. Well. She gained her self-mastery for this sport through yoga. The men's champion is some kind of military guy, but yah right, like the US Armed Forces knows anything about physical training :rolleyes:
I'd really only taken a couple of steps down the road of breath control when I read this article. It gave me a truly horrifying sense of the scale of possible mastery of the breath- these people go down so far that their lungs shrink to the size of a fist, squeezing out all the O2 and allowing them to go still deeper. Um, I'm not ready. Not even close. See- if you try some yoga, you too can magnify your horror. What's not to love? ;)

It's all about portion control. People who are more active can eat a little more quite safely. (People who engage in extreme physical activity for six hours straight every day can safely eat a horse - but not a horse made of twinkies.)
lol
The issue for your average overweight person is that they're a habital eater. And like a alcoholic that's on the wagon, it's better to avoid the temptation than to flirt with the line. Persons who don't have this problem may imbible moderate quantities without worry.
Yah, I can dig it. I am more likely to get drunk or/and chase girls than I am to overeat. I like to stuff my face, sure, but it doesn't sound like what some people are doing. People have different attractions for their various reasons. I have been rather well-behaved lately though. But- getting to the 'moral failure' element of weight gain. Hmm, I honestly believe it is worse to get drunk and involve yourself in relationships which you later regret than it is to eat too much. It is worse yet to invade Iraq, or empty the US treasury, but let's stay on track.

And I have to wonder if you really didn't eat less - or eat less of the "bad" stuff.
This comment reminded me that at one point I did in fact have a "runner's diet"! I looked around for advice when I was training and made a sort of approximation that I thought I could live with. I still have the list on my refrigerator. The only time I lived exclusively on these foods was perhaps the 2 months before the marathon. The list has been up for several years now as a reminder to eat some of this stuff at least now and then- and I do! Still, I love some junk too, but it would probably be a pizza, and never ding-dongs. Just me. Ahem! The list is: Yams. Kashi cereal. Oranges. Black Beans. Salmon (or fish). 100% whole grain bread. Frozen stir-fry. Whole-grain pasta. Chicken. Frozen mixed berries. Dark chocolate. Live culture yogurt. Almonds.
The point of living off that is to improve your long-distance running performance, YMMV.
I don't want to, for a number of excellent reasons, not the least of which being that I have no reason to. So okay!
Well there's the diabetes. But you are already losing weight. Lots and lots actually. I defer.

The one difference between us in this regard is, that I have no excuse to exercise. You do, and this excuse is sufficiently compelling to override the various reasons not to engage in the activity. If you didn't have such an excuse, you wouldn't exercise either - for excellent reasons.
I'm not a yogavangelist or anything. Again, you seem to overcome the objection that you're in denial.

The bottom line is I just wanted to help, considering the thread and your mention of diabetes. I hope I'm not being a nuisance.

[moonstarssun]

In my FIL's case, it was the vicious cycle that I'm sure many obese people endure. He was active as a kid (grew up on a farm) and was used to eating big meals. Got a job, settled down and was less active, but still enjoyed his big meals. He developed diabetes, which led to neuropathy in his feet, which cut back on his activity even more. He still enjoyed his big meals. He got so heavy that he developed arthritis in his knees. And somewhere along the line, whether at that point or before then, those big meals became a source of comfort as he dealt with the stress and pain he was experiencing. So the meals became bigger, the life became less active, and so it goes.

He finally had bariatric surgery, and is doing much better. He still has pain, and he still wants to eat those big meals, but he knows he can't without making himself miserable. He no longer has to use a wheelchair or scooter to get around.

I think that kind of morbid obesity, whether in him or in other people, is reflective of mental illness. It's a desire for comfort. Food is safety, security, mom taking care of you. Food is love. When your belly is full you feel content and secure. That's hardwired into us. But sometimes it becomes the only time you feel secure and content, and that's when things go wrong. I understand it, and I have nothing but sympathy for the people who experience it.

(Spoken as someone who hasn't experienced obesity. My weight fluctuates from normal to overweight, but never into the yikes zone.)

[ianzin]

It is a bad move to start lecturing other Dopers about how to read and write well, especially if your own writing is anything but flawless. So, Stoid, since you raised the matter, let's take a look.

You know... hanging around the dope would be vastly improved if folks would learn to read. This poor sentence construction either leaves the subject of the sentence unclear or has an inconsistent subject. Writing things very clearly and unambiguously This is a tautology. then watching the tortured re-interpretation, assumption, and repeated tortured warping I understand that you want to convey the idea of repetitive and unhelpful distortion, but this concatenation of words obscures your meaning rather than either conveying or amplifying it. It is far from clear what a phrase such as 'repeated tortured warping' actually means.

re-stated multiple times Another tautology.

much time and energy and pixels The generally accepted practice is to list adjectives using a comma and to reserve the conjunction 'and' for the final item in the list. Hence, 'time, energy and pixels' would have been better.

So much time and energy and pixels would be saved by people reading carefully before they reply. For the sake of everyone, just double check and make absolutely sure you have things right before you waste people's time. You would have conveyed your meaning more clearly if you has written these two sentences using a consistent subject and voice. The arbitrary switch from passive to active voice is unnecessarily confusing.

This completely undermines the primary reason I've always preferred message board debate to live debate: supposedly, with the words on the screen for everyone to read and refer to, no time should be wasted with people arguing over who said what, seeing as how what everyone said is right there for everyone to read, re-read, double-check and refer back to. This is an unwieldy and poorly constructed sentence. It goes on so long, and involves so many clauses and sub-clauses, that it is difficult for the reader to absorb the point or points that you are trying to convey. It would have been better to break it down into smaller sentences.

Needless nit-picking, irrelevant to the discussion? Sure it is. And I wouldn't normally indulge. But if Stoid is going to start lecturing the rest of us on how to read and write, I'm going to start referring to pots and kettles.

[Kearsen]

Yes, you can gain muscle weight from some exercises. But you really have to be training for that purpose. Most aerobic exercises will not produce a significant muscle gain.

And to be clear, fat does not get converted into muscle. Fat produces energy which allows you to work out. Your body will later convert the proteins in food into muscle if needed. But it is very important not to overstate the muscle gain from exercise. You really do need to be doing weight training type of excercises in order to gain a significant amount of muscle mass.

Most overweight people are over "fat". They have too high a percentage of body fat. The real key is finding out your body fat percentage.

Which is why I stated that "fat weight" would convert into "muscle weight". I didn't want to infer that you'd be turning fat into muscle. That is a common misconception.
As an aside, weight loss in general happens rapidly for the first couple of weeks and then slows way down (as the fat weight to muscle weight starts to happen)

Keep in mind also that muscles burn calories even when they aren't in motion so always, always, always muscle > fat. No, you don't have to be a big Arnold Swarzenegger type in order to be fit but you do need the muscle to perform even routine feats.

[rhubarbarin]

Exercise always causes weight loss. Exercise burns calories and burning calories causes weight loss. There may be things you do post exercise that cause you to gain weight, perhaps even more weight than you burned, but that's an issue with eating. Otherwise it would be like a car with a gas tank which got fuller the more it was driven.

Also keep in mind that your exercise may not be burning off all the excess calories you're eating. If you're eating an extra 1000 calories but only burning off 300, you're still going to gain weight, although a bit slower than before.

If you're gaining weight from exercise, it's likely because you are overeating your exercise. A common thing I see is people drinking gatoraide and eating power bars during exercise. That can easily negate any loss from exercise. It is also very easy to eat a little extra after the workout. You'll need to make sure you are in control of your eating to not overeat your exercise benefit.

Another common issue seems to be not acurately quantifying the calories burned during excercise. People will say they "exercise", but that may mean they walked for 10 minutes (perhaps 50-100 calories).

If you really are gaining weight from excercise, you should carefully track how many calories you burn and how much you're eating. I suspect you'll find that you're subconsciously eating a little bit more than normal and that's causing the weight gain.

Obviously you have little understanding of how much exercise is 'worth' in terms of calories burned. I weigh 100 lbs and run 8-10 minute miles. So when I run 5k, I burn less than 200 calories. There are a number of calculators on the internet that will give you an estimate of calories burned depending on your weight.

But I will state again - EXERCISE MAKES ME GAIN WEIGHT. Sure, I probably automatically compensate for what few calories I might burn, but that has nothing to do with the facts. When I am more active, I put on muscle quickly, which ups my weight in a couple weeks. The last time I put on 5 lbs and an inch around each thigh in short order, I was walking daily, and doing about 5 hours of intense yoga per week. A good work-out, but nothing extreme.

You have to work out for hours every day to be burning more than 500 calories just from exercise. This is why I say it's far more effective to simply eat less, and eat the right kinds of foods.

[billfish678]

Needless nit-picking, irrelevant to the discussion? Sure it is. And I wouldn't normally indulge. But if Stoid is going to start lecturing the rest of us on how to read and write, I'm going to start referring to pots and kettles.

I vote yes.

There wasnt one damn thing you quoted that wasnt clear to anyone with decent reading and reasoning ability.

[Evil Economist]

Yes, you can gain muscle weight from some exercises. But you really have to be training for that purpose. Most aerobic exercises will not produce a significant muscle gain.

I saw a study that monitored overweight middle-aged women who started a light exercise program (essentially walking 20 minutes 3 times a week). They put on an average of 5 lbs of muscle each in 6 weeks. That's probably a 7 or 8% increase in muscle mass, which I would call significant

[begbert2]

Okay... now that is a big reply. Apologies to all others who are not interested in this exchange...
I'm positive you can do yoga then. You could actually test my theory right here on the SDMB... only if you want to though. Here's the test: inhale? exhale? If you can do that, you're ready for yoga.Uh huh. Now pull the other one.

Suffice to say, I don't believe for an instant that there is not an element of physical positioning involved in yoga - though I am willing to concede when you provide the link to the "doing yoga sitting on your ass in complete motionlessness" video.

(If you do though, and it's cheap, I might buy it. That would me my kind of "exercise", after all!)

Well, of course it is in my head- why do you think I'm so confident that it is all in your head :)
The results aren't in my head though. I can do things I could not do 3 months ago. I know because there is built-in progress-meter. It isn't my imagination.
Don't like to be seen in public? This is in your head, and this is getting in your way. You'd (likely) be happier without this burden. I believe yoga would lead you to overcoming it, though it isn't the only way. And it is kind of a catch-22 anyway, no? It prevents you from getting involved with the people who can lead you to the solution, so how does it help?Woah there - the part that I maintain is all in your head is the mental clarity-undistracted-magic-zen-whatever you call it mind stuff. Whatever physical fitness you've accomplished by this yoga business is (presumably) real in the non-in-your-head world, and I'm not trying to tell you otherwise.

I don't mind being seen in public - I just do it with pants and a shirt on. My aversion here is not a burden, and I wouldn't be happer without it, and it's not a catch-22. That it stops me from doing yoga...meh. I don't think yoga is the solution to any of my problems.

I can dig it. So much for the theory that overweight people are in denial. You believe you theoretically could achieve these things, but the beliefs aren't powerful enough to motivate you to action. Because the action in question triggers aversion. I think I'm following.You forgot the part about me being impatient and shallow - I want results now, dammit! Exercise in general is a slow slog towards *any* goal (unless your goal is to be tired and sore, I suppose), so I know I'm not going to bother. And because I'm not going to bother throwing in for the long haul, it's *not* possible for me to achieve whatever results people think I can get after six+ months of hard labor.

Beyond that you've got it - given that I know it will be ineffective for me, I have no reason to do it, so any little reason (or excuse, if you prefer) is sufficient to deter me. Aversions, distractions, having a better idea instead - anything will do.

Belief is a funny thing sometimes. It sounds like you aren't going to do anything that requires you to believe something first, or upset the balance of your debate or something. I can dig it. And anyway, whatever middle ground you're staking out in your cognitive dissonance to arrive at your position of portion control is in fact working- it sounds like you have lost a rather appreciable amount of weight following your own methods. So you're doing what works, but you don't believe it will work. But it is easy for you, so you keep doing it. I think I'm following.Belief is even funnier than that - I can't change my beliefs by force of will. (And neither can you.) Balance of debate has squat to do with it; I simply believe what I believe, and don't believe what I don't believe. Simple as that.

If you wanna get into a prolonged discussion about what causes beliefs to change or not, that's probably another thread. For this one I think it's enough to say that certain of my beleifs are highly resistant to being changed by anecdotal evidence -even first hand anecdotal evidence. Crazy? Sure. Never said it wasn't.

Who said anything about magic?

I'm not going to say it's all in your head...

It ain't zen. And the intention of it is the opposite of distraction. And it isn't 'mindlessness'. That leaves seeing yourself and being physically wiped out I guess.You said it's magic. Doing yoga is supposedly going to do...something...to my cognitive state. I'm not seeing a proposed mechanism for how that's supposed to be happening, though - aligning chakras, maybe?

Regardless I maintain skepticism.

If you have never been to a yoga class, how can you claim to have the know-how to draw the line between a competent and an incompetent yogi? You're bringing a lot of your own ideas in and pasting them onto something you don't understand, then calling it done.
Yes, of course it is about your opinion of yourself. I can't quite determine what your standard is. It sounds like you are 'out of bounds' and therefore have to avoid this kind of activity. Others are not out of bounds, or else don't care how they present themselves. Surely these ideas are the product of a series of personal experiences from your life. Where else could they come from? People are generally prone to aversions. Figure out what other people's aversions are and what experiences led to them, and after awhile you will likely get some perspective on the broader concept of aversion. Dang, that sounded preachy. You may very well understand all this via some other method. I seriously don't mean any disrespect here.
The point is that these aversions/attractions can sometimes jerk you around and cause you to do unhealthy or unhelpful things. I'm a total amateur myself, but I think part what you can take away from yoga is power over your own aversions/attractions. Because much of the point is to put your mind in front of your body.Oh come now; I don't have to be a yoga master to have at least a vague idea of what it involves. For example, I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve everybody sitting on their butts doing nothing but breathing. Am I wrong?

As for my aversions, they're not that complicated. I don't want to go outside in less than jeans and a t-shirt. It's simply not something I want to do. Other people have different opinions on the matter, and good for them. Free country, and all that.

Thing to note, though, is that my "aversions/attractions" aren't something separate from the rest of me. So, they're not something that's jerking me around. They're just me doing my thing. Do I sometimes do things that are unhealthy or unhelpful? Sure. I like to watch movies. That's not helpful. So what? I still enjoy it. Just like I enjoy not doing yoga.

Extreme physical pain? No way. You definitely need to back off if that is your experience. Hmmm... I ran into one of my old yoga instructors in an elevator today and asked her about your case. Her reply was that yoga is probably the best exercise for an overweight person- it doesn't stress out your joints or cause a lot of pain. She thought 300lbs wasn't particularly big. Recommended beginners' Bikram Yoga if weight loss is the goal (5 weeks as she described it, but it could be different near you). So you can build up some degree of muscle mass, which will speed up your metabolism. And it will be balanced over your whole body rather that just this or that part. That was about it- she was busy.Objectively speaking, 300 pounds isn't that heavy. I mean, I can still walk without difficulty and stuff, and in fact like I said earlier I feel no different or less healthy than I did when I was a skinny teenager. It's not the weight that would cause the pain, though; it's the inflexibility, the unaccostomed positions, and possibly those weak knee joints.

And there's no doubt that yoga or any other general/full body exercise program is going to tone you up. It ain't going to make you lose weight if you don't also watch your eating, but it certainly would have some effect - given enough time and sustained effort, anyway.

The insights thing is tough to talk about because I expect it will be largely personal. I could go on and on about what I got out of it, but what you'll notice will be colored by your own personal experiences.
If you wanted a guarantee, I'd say that 3 times going along with the video and 3 beginner classes will do it. It will probably happen faster than that, but 3 live classes- after which you'll get some sense of what changes and what stays the same in yoga classes- ought to spark something. It'd be pretty interesting if it didn't!
Maybe it'll help if I am more specific. The first thing I learned from yoga that really grabbed my attention was an understanding of what my lower back is composed of. If I'd thought of it at all before then it was as if I had a piece of broomstick down there, and that was that. Very soon after visiting the classes (and though some really basic moves) I had a vivid experience of the differentiation of the various parts of my lower back. It wasn't a pain, and it wasn't a pleasure exactly either- it was pretty unusual. It was my sense of touch. It was as if the moves 'woke up' my lower back, and for once I could feel all the individual parts of it, in a way that was like some kind of x-ray perception of it. Look, not so mysterious, you do a few simple moves and this part moves past that part in just the slightest way- how clever that they can do that!- a few times in various parts of the spine, and it just seems as if it comes into view. Once I realized how my lower back could move, my flexibility increased without any real physical change taking place. I simply understood how it could move, and that by itself made really my whole body more flexible.Well, you'll never under any circumstances get me to go to a class, unless I'm already to the point where I don't need to go, so forget that bit. (And yes, that's even if you paid me.)

Regarding insights, I was referring more to the zen/mellow/mental clarity/whichever stuff. Learning how to move each vertebra or rib or whatever individually isn't quite the same thing.


80 lbs is more than I ever lost. Way to go! Hmm, I doubt I ever made it to 250, it was 225-235, maybe 240, probably not even that. I don't own a scale and therefore don't weigh myself much, but I think I topped out around 225. By the time I finished a marathon I was at 175. But again, I wasn't focused on weight loss.
But. You have the evidence of your pants, and the scale. These physical things help you gauge if your progress is all in your head or not. Because, surely your pants are not lying! It the same way you would surely notice your yoga progress, as it would be your body and not your pants that was the yardstick. IMHO of course.Meh, I stopped losing weight almost entirely a month or two ago - so what have I done for me lately? Not impressive, especially since my focus is weight loss, and being generally fit or toned or haveing a prehensile spine can go hang themselves for all I care.

And I know I'm lighter - I just don't look lighter to me. (Or feel ligher, but then, I never felt heavy, either.) Given that we were discussing using my body's feelings or whatever as a measuring stick for yoga progress, this is relevent: my body simply doesn't report progress to me like that. Without the scale and the pants, I would still think I was exactly as heavy and would have quit dieting within a month.

Is there a scale or pair of pants that measures yoga skill?

More on the theme of 'insights' to answer your claims about doing 'bad yoga'. It seems like you are stuck on the poses, and on jumping right into this and behaving as if you're some kind of gymnast. Nobody does that. And it isn't about that.
:smack: Why haven't I said what it is about then? (Because it sounds ridiculous to people who haven't tried it, that's why). It isn't about the poses, because all you are really doing in a yoga class is breathing. Inhale. Ok. Exhale. It sounds completely retarded, I know.
The idea is to just focus on your breathing. That's really it, the rest will follow. They ask you to breathe in a certain rhythm. In. Out. Ok. Now do this. In. Out. Sweating? That's good. Still with us? It really ought to be perfectly simple (and it is perfectly simple), but at some point the moves will stress your breath. The advice is: ignore that, just keep your breath at this pace, follow along, focus only on your breathing.
That's it.I don't care about the breathing, that's nothing. I care about the "Now do this." That is where things hit the fan, regardless of your attempt to gloss over it.

Yes, I get that that stuff is easy for you. Guess what: they're not easy for me. And it's not the stressing of the breath that's the problem, it's the OH MY GOD THE PAIN MY LIGAMENTS AREN'T THAT LONG MY BACK DOESN'T BEND THAT WAY STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT NOW that I'm worried about.

If I ever got to the point where yoga was just about breathing and the issues with the positions were trivial enough to ignore, I wouldn't have to do yoga; I'd already be in great shape anyway.
You will experience an aversion to keeping your breath at the pace they suggest. So in that sense, it is like pain. But- it is not 100% accurate. Your body sends you a signal to breathe a certain way once you start moving around a little, and if you're already focused on breathing some other way, the tension between the two (mind v body) will build. You can go two ways- start breathing the way your body says, or command the body to follow as you breathe in your formal way. There is an element of illusion in this response- your body, my body, everybody's body is a big baby when it comes to disciplining your air intake even just a little bit. It'll flip out a little- so go ahead and break the rules and breathe extra breaths. It isn't like they are going to flog you or give you any shit. For breathing? That'd be silly!
Well. Start to gain some mastery over this response (and it just totally doesn't matter what your poses look like) and (I believe) you'll start to get some insight into this whole concept of aversion. You may or may not attain total mastery over your body(depending on how many classes you attend), but if you do, how much you weigh will become irrelevant, as it will effectively be your choice. I'm not worried about my breath. Not in the slightest. It's the rest of it that concerns me.

I read an article that reminded me of this side of yoga. A woman was attempting to break the deep-sea diving record. 100 meters? 200? I don't remember the number, it was apparently the most ever. The rules are: you climb down a rope into the depths; at the chosen depth is a ring or card or something which you grab; you come up with it. You must be conscious when you surface or you're disqualified. Obviously the catch is that you cannot breathe underwater.
It was a horrifying article for me to read. There are no actual competitions in this sport, since the risk of death is too great. No, all you do is say 'On such and such a date at 9:30AM I will attempt to dive to such and such a depth'. Apparently this draws a crowd, if only to drag out your swollen corpse. Someone dives, the spectators hang out on the platform, and either you make it or you don't. The depths this woman was diving required 7 or 8 minutes of submersion. Well. She gained her self-mastery for this sport through yoga. The men's champion is some kind of military guy, but yah right, like the US Armed Forces knows anything about physical training :rolleyes:
I'd really only taken a couple of steps down the road of breath control when I read this article. It gave me a truly horrifying sense of the scale of possible mastery of the breath- these people go down so far that their lungs shrink to the size of a fist, squeezing out all the O2 and allowing them to go still deeper. Um, I'm not ready. Not even close. See- if you try some yoga, you too can magnify your horror. What's not to love? ;)Meh, there are people who do crazy things all the time. Running four minute miles. Climbing mount Everest. Sticking their hands in molten lead. All arguably awesome, and I will never do any of them, and don't want to. Doesn't stop me from walking across the room or climbing the stairs now and then though. (The lead still scares me though.)


This comment reminded me that at one point I did in fact have a "runner's diet"! I looked around for advice when I was training and made a sort of approximation that I thought I could live with. I still have the list on my refrigerator. The only time I lived exclusively on these foods was perhaps the 2 months before the marathon. The list has been up for several years now as a reminder to eat some of this stuff at least now and then- and I do! Still, I love some junk too, but it would probably be a pizza, and never ding-dongs. Just me. Ahem! The list is: Yams. Kashi cereal. Oranges. Black Beans. Salmon (or fish). 100% whole grain bread. Frozen stir-fry. Whole-grain pasta. Chicken. Frozen mixed berries. Dark chocolate. Live culture yogurt. Almonds.
The point of living off that is to improve your long-distance running performance, YMMV.Obviously how much you eat matters too, of course, but that looks like a way to start losing weight, assuming you were eating the pizza otherwise.

Well there's the diabetes. But you are already losing weight. Lots and lots actually. I defer.There's getting fit, and there's getting thin. I have a fairly compelling reason to get thin. I have no reason to get fit.

I'm not a yogavangelist or anything. Again, you seem to overcome the objection that you're in denial.

The bottom line is I just wanted to help, considering the thread and your mention of diabetes. I hope I'm not being a nuisance.Are you sure you're not a yogavangelist? You've got the enthusiasm, if nothing else. :)

And if I get annoyed, I'll just stop responding. So no prob.

[MsWhatsit]

Exercise is highly beneficial in controlling type 2 diabetes (http://diabetes.webmd.com/guide/exercise-guidelines). As well as lowering diabetics' risk of heart disease, which is the number-one killer of diabetics.

So your statement that as a diabetic, you have a reason to become thin but not to become fit, is false, assuming that you don't want to die of a heart attack at an early age. If you do want to die of a heart attack at an early age, disregard the preceding statement.

[Evil Economist]

You said it's magic. Doing yoga is supposedly going to do...something...to my cognitive state. I'm not seeing a proposed mechanism for how that's supposed to be happening, though - aligning chakras, maybe?

Regardless I maintain skepticism.

Lots of evidence that fitness improves cognition. I didn't take the time to do an in-depth search, but here's a relevant link (http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD005381/frame.html): "Eight out of 11 studies reported that aerobic exercise interventions resulted in increased cardiorespiratory fitness of the intervention group (an improvement on the maximum oxygen uptake test which is considered to be the single best indicator of the cardiorespiratory system) of approximately 14% and this improvement coincided with improvements in cognitive capacity." To the extent that yoga improves your fitness it'll also presumably improve your cognitive ability.

Also lots of evidence on the impact of physical fitness on mental well-being, e.g., this link (http://www.fitness.gov/mentalhealth.htm): "We now have evidence to support the claim that exercise is related to positive mental health as indicated by relief in sympotoms of depression and anxiety"

Lots more evidence on the impact of physical fitness on quality-of-life measures and other stuff.

[begbert2]

Lots of evidence that fitness improves cognition. I didn't take the time to do an in-depth search, but here's a relevant link (http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD005381/frame.html): "Eight out of 11 studies reported that aerobic exercise interventions resulted in increased cardiorespiratory fitness of the intervention group (an improvement on the maximum oxygen uptake test which is considered to be the single best indicator of the cardiorespiratory system) of approximately 14% and this improvement coincided with improvements in cognitive capacity." To the extent that yoga improves your fitness it'll also presumably improve your cognitive ability.

Also lots of evidence on the impact of physical fitness on mental well-being, e.g., this link (http://www.fitness.gov/mentalhealth.htm): "We now have evidence to support the claim that exercise is related to positive mental health as indicated by relief in sympotoms of depression and anxiety"

Lots more evidence on the impact of physical fitness on quality-of-life measures and other stuff.Not cognitive ability, "clarity of mind". Puts you in touch with your inner spinal cord, and the like. Assuming I'm interpreting him properly (which is *far* from a given).

And I'm not depressed or anxious.

[begbert2]

Exercise is highly beneficial in controlling type 2 diabetes (http://diabetes.webmd.com/guide/exercise-guidelines). As well as lowering diabetics' risk of heart disease, which is the number-one killer of diabetics.

So your statement that as a diabetic, you have a reason to become thin but not to become fit, is false, assuming that you don't want to die of a heart attack at an early age. If you do want to die of a heart attack at an early age, disregard the preceding statement.I don't think your cite says what you think it does. The first page says "Combining diet, exercise, and medicine (when prescribed) will help control your weight and blood sugar level.", and then lists some things exercise does, among which is reducing blood suger (which I suppose might be an issue if you're having problems keeping your blood sugar low, which I'm not), and "Burning excess body fat", which of course in reality is at least 95% a food issue, and other things of lesser significance. The second page, on the other hand, says "If you're gonna exercise, watch your butt or it'll kill you". And the third page informs you that exercise is a lifetime commitment...without supporting argument.

[Evil Economist]

Not cognitive ability, "clarity of mind". Puts you in touch with your inner spinal cord, and the like. Assuming I'm interpreting him properly (which is *far* from a given).

And I'm not depressed or anxious.

Not sure how cognitive ability is different from clarity of mind, but either way, improved cognitive ability seems like a good thing to me.

If you're not depressed or anxious, consider some of the other benefits of exercise listed in that link, such as positive mood, increased self-esteem, or more restful sleep (or decreased risks of becoming depressed). Or research the other benefits of exercise, which can be found in other studies.

[MsWhatsit]

I don't think your cite says what you think it does. The first page says "Combining diet, exercise, and medicine (when prescribed) will help control your weight and blood sugar level.", and then lists some things exercise does, among which is reducing blood suger (which I suppose might be an issue if you're having problems keeping your blood sugar low, which I'm not), and "Burning excess body fat", which of course in reality is at least 95% a food issue, and other things of lesser significance.

If your blood sugar is fine and you're not concerned about it, then why are you trying to lose weight?

Also, yes, my cite certainly does say what I think it does, which is that exercise has a protective effect against heart disease for type 2 diabetics. This is not a controversial statement. Don't like that cite? Here's another. (http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4726)

An inactive lifestyle is a risk factor for coronary heart disease. Regular, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity helps prevent heart and blood vessel disease. The more vigorous the activity, the greater your benefits. However, even moderate-intensity activities help if done regularly and long term. Physical activity can help control blood cholesterol, diabetes and obesity, as well as help lower blood pressure in some people.

[begbert2]

If your blood sugar is fine and you're not concerned about it, then why are you trying to lose weight?My blood sugar is fine because of my pills, obviously. (Though my doctor has gushed that if I keep up with the weight loss she'll try taking me off meds entirely, which doesn't really seem like a good idea to me.)

The extent of what your cite said about blood sugar is essentially what you said upthread about it - a spate of exercise will cause a sudden drop in blood sugar. Simple cause-effect, there. Which could be handy for a person who finds themselves running a little high and needs a quick fix, I suppose, but this is something that never happens to me. In fact my doctor cautioned me to be wary about my blood sugar going low - I shouldn't miss meals and the like. With regard to that, exercise would be the exact opposite of helpful.

Also, yes, my cite certainly does say what I think it does, which is that exercise has a protective effect against heart disease for type 2 diabetics. This is not a controversial statement. Don't like that cite? Here's another. (http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4726)Your cite says that exercise is good prevention of heart disease in general. Not anything about diabetes specifically. And in fact your recent cite didn't even link the two phenomena; they were just two separate things that exercise was supposed to effect.

Look, I know you like exercise. And I know it's not bad for a person. But it's not an effective weight loss tool and its effects on diabetics specifically (as opposed to other people) don't seem to be anything special.

[MsWhatsit]

No, seriously, I'm interested in the answer to this question now. If your blood sugar is in perfectly good control, then why do you want to lose weight?

My previous cites show that you can reduce your risk of heart disease by exercising, which as a diabetic should be interesting to you, since heart disease is the number one killer of diabetics. You say you're not interested in reducing your risk because you do not perceive yourself to have a problem. Well, in that case, why even bother losing weight? Weight loss also reduces risk of many of the complications of diabetes, but there are indicators that suggest that tight blood sugar control may be the main factor in avoiding the risk. So if your blood sugar control is tight already, why are you trying to lose weight? I mean, I'm certainly not trying to talk you out of it. But your primary reason as given in the thread so far is, "I want to reduce the risk of complications of diabetes." Well, OK, but exercise also significantly decreases the risk of complications of diabetes, so why are you on board for the weight loss but think the exercise is stupid?

[Guinastasia]

Denial?

[begbert2]

No, seriously, I'm interested in the answer to this question now. If your blood sugar is in perfectly good control, then why do you want to lose weight?

My previous cites show that you can reduce your risk of heart disease by exercising, which as a diabetic should be interesting to you, since heart disease is the number one killer of diabetics. You say you're not interested in reducing your risk because you do not perceive yourself to have a problem. Well, in that case, why even bother losing weight? Weight loss also reduces risk of many of the complications of diabetes, but there are indicators that suggest that tight blood sugar control may be the main factor in avoiding the risk. So if your blood sugar control is tight already, why are you trying to lose weight? I mean, I'm certainly not trying to talk you out of it. But your primary reason as given in the thread so far is, "I want to reduce the risk of complications of diabetes." Well, OK, but exercise also significantly decreases the risk of complications of diabetes, so why are you on board for the weight loss but think the exercise is stupid?I'm told that diabetes is a progressive disease. Right now I have "diabetes lite". If I keep on the path that I was on, I could reasonably expect to continue to get worse, resulting in having "diabetes supersized" in twenty years, with the full gamut of regular insulin injections and blindness and amputated limbs and the like. I *really* don't like the sound of that, so I want to avoid it.

Momentary blood sugar, on the other hand, is a non-factor. I mean, I want to avoid it getting crazy-high like it was when I was first diagnosed, when I was pissing maple syrup and my vision was blurring, but with the meds that's not a problem at the moment. With the meds, high blood sugar is not currently one of my problems. So, consequently, I don't worry about it.

In my opinion, heart disease is an entirely separate issue from diabetes. Let me repeat that. Entirely. Separate. In response you say, "heart disease is the number one killer of diabetics" - and in response to that I say "correlation doesn't equal causation". Diabetes happens to fat people. Heart disease happens to fat people. In combination, you can expect there to be a correlation between diabetes and heart disease - when the actual problem seems to be the fat, in my amateur opinion.

And I'm dieting.



ETA: Denial? Correlation != causation.

[MsWhatsit]

You don't understand very much about your disease. I would recommend reading a basic book or two on the topic, because I don't have the energy to try to educate you on a topic that you very clearly and obviously prefer to remain ignorant about.

I will simply point out that heart disease is also a major killer of type 1 diabetics, who tend not to be fat at all. In fact, every type 1 diabetic I've ever met has been rail-thin. I'm not sure if that's a trend, but type 1 diabetes has nothing to do with being overweight, and yet they too suffer from early cardiovascular disease.

Anyway, good luck, and I do mean that.

[begbert2]

You don't understand very much about your disease. I would recommend reading a basic book or two on the topic, because I don't have the energy to try to educate you on a topic that you very clearly and obviously prefer to remain ignorant about.

I will simply point out that heart disease is also a major killer of type 1 diabetics, who tend not to be fat at all. In fact, every type 1 diabetic I've ever met has been rail-thin. I'm not sure if that's a trend, but type 1 diabetes has nothing to do with being overweight, and yet they too suffer from early cardiovascular disease.

Anyway, good luck, and I do mean that.And if I can put the brakes on the diabetes by losing the weight, I'll be effectively edging out of that high-risk group. Unless of course my doctor is lying to me about how all this works.

Of course, I'm still a touch young for heart disease anyway, which might be why she never mentioned it and hasn't been pushing for an exercise program. (Or alternatively she might not be well-read.) Regardless, I can worry about that later; at the moment I have other concerns, which are best served by dieting and to which exercise is barely a footnote at best by comparison.

[MsWhatsit]

You're not in "that high-risk group." You're a type 2 diabetic. In my prior post I was talking about type 1 diabetics. I was working under the assumption that you were aware that there were multiple types of diabetes.

Dude, you seriously need to read a book or something. Or ask a few more questions the next time you're at the doctor's office.

[begbert2]

You're not in "that high-risk group." You're a type 2 diabetic. In my prior post I was talking about type 1 diabetics. I was working under the assumption that you were aware that there were multiple types of diabetes.

Dude, you seriously need to read a book or something. Or ask a few more questions the next time you're at the doctor's office.I knew there was a difference. However, either type 2 diabetics are a similarly high-risk group, or you were making a complete non-sequiter and talking complete nonsense. I was merely giving you the benefit of the doubt.

[rhubarbarin]

I saw a study that monitored overweight middle-aged women who started a light exercise program (essentially walking 20 minutes 3 times a week). They put on an average of 5 lbs of muscle each in 6 weeks. That's probably a 7 or 8% increase in muscle mass, which I would call significant

And that's just an increase in muscle mass, not overall weight. I gain overall weight, maybe since I don't have excess fat.

[Hazle Weatherfield]

Rhubarbarin:

You only weigh 100 pounds? How tall are you, if you don't mind my asking? I'm 5'2" and would like to lose 10 lbs (which are the hardest to lose!)

[rhubarbarin]

Hi Hazle, I am 5'5", and too thin no matter what or how much I eat. I've want to gain 10 lbs for the past 10 years - trade? :) I am focusing on optimal health over weight gain, though, so I eat mostly high-fat animal products with some fruits, vegetables and very limited starches etc. Probably 70% of my daily calories come from animal fats, and of course a ton of saturated fats. My lipid profile is perfect and I am never ill.

Cut out all sugar (and beer if you drink it). If that doesn't take you down to where you want to be, reduce grains and starches. You should see big energy increases as well as some weight loss. If you run a lot, stop (a few miles a week is okay). Lift heavy weights instead. You should get a great figure from minimal weight training and diet.

This is for all the people who believe it's simply 'calories in, calories out', presented by Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

I don't agree with him 100%, but he breaks down the basic issues very well.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

This is getting pretty long. I doubt you'll mind if I pick and choose here. I didn't expect this- I fully expect the reaction to be 'it is simply too weird for me', and that would be it.

Uh huh. Now pull the other one.

:confused: Other one what?
Suffice to say, I don't believe for an instant that there is not an element of physical positioning involved in yoga - though I am willing to concede when you provide the link to the "doing yoga sitting on your ass in complete motionlessness" video.

(If you do though, and it's cheap, I might buy it. That would me my kind of "exercise", after all!)
If you are just sitting there it would be meditation. Or- just sitting there. This won't help you directly with your weight loss goals unless you're meditating on what you eat. Or using it to replace eating.
Yes there is an activity going on there. Dude, you'd have to at minimum be a good sport about it. What doesn't matter about the poses is how well you think you're doing them- given that you're following along and giving it a go. Some you won't be able to do at all, or you'd do an easier version. It is part of the cleverness that it works no matter what level you are at- if you do it at all. They won't kick your ass in the beginner class.

Woah there - the part that I maintain is all in your head is the mental clarity-undistracted-magic-zen-whatever you call it mind stuff. Whatever physical fitness you've accomplished by this yoga business is (presumably) real in the non-in-your-head world, and I'm not trying to tell you otherwise.
All right. The reason I think the clarity thing is not just in my head is because they tell you that is what they are going to do to you. At the end... dammit, they were right! More below.

I don't mind being seen in public - I just do it with pants and a shirt on. My aversion here is not a burden, and I wouldn't be happer without it, and it's not a catch-22. That it stops me from doing yoga...meh. I don't think yoga is the solution to any of my problems.
So wear pants and a shirt then. Sweatpants would be good enough, the yoga pants would be better. You'd be more comfortable wearing something that is designed for exercise, since you'd (fictionally) be sweating.
And, it would be the solution to your weight problem, among other things. But really, going for a half hour walk once in a while would, theoretically of course, help. I don't think I understand your hangup about any exercise whatsoever.

You forgot the part about me being impatient and shallow - I want results now, dammit! Exercise in general is a slow slog towards *any* goal (unless your goal is to be tired and sore, I suppose), so I know I'm not going to bother. And because I'm not going to bother throwing in for the long haul, it's *not* possible for me to achieve whatever results people think I can get after six+ months of hard labor.

Hmmm. Even if your diabetes blows up on you and you croak in 15 years, that is still a lot of time. Short-term, if nothing else you have a new experience. It isn't going to hurt you like you are expecting. Honest- it feels good, though there is some element of physical struggle. We're talking about exercise after all.
Long term- One way or another dude, you will experience the long-term consequences of your behavior. Good, bad or non-existent, the long term will get here.
I wonder... do you like anything about your body? Aside from food/sleep/sex, have you ever felt markedly, physically good?

Belief is even funnier than that - I can't change my beliefs by force of will. (And neither can you.)
I'd rather avoid philosophical rabbit holes here. It occurred to me today that while you are not in denial, additional experiences very well might change your beliefs.

You said it's magic. Doing yoga is supposedly going to do...something...to my cognitive state. I'm not seeing a proposed mechanism for how that's supposed to be happening, though - aligning chakras, maybe?

Regardless I maintain skepticism.
But your mind isn't magic. Your cognitive state isn't magic. The mind and the body affect each other- does that really sound so crazy? The nifty thing though is that they have found a way to zero in on this. Who knows how anyone ever figured it out. But there is a distinct mental aspect to yoga, and believe what you like, it does work.
In the beginner's classes I took, the instructors talked a lot about the 'monkey mind'- the mind chattering, chattering, chattering all the time in a constant dialogue. Sometimes sense, sometimes kinda sense, often nonsense. They would call your attention to it (it is plenty noticeable, isn't it) and challenge you to get it to shut up. During the yoga, most of the instructors frequently remind you to not allow your mind to wander, but to stay focused on your breathing and only that. While doing all this stuff- it is a bit of a mental juggling act. At the end you just rest for a minute, (and how could I ever make all this up?) if the chattering isn't altogether gone it is at least turned way down. That is the 'clarity' or 'quietness'. It is possible to think of nothing whatsoever at this point- pretty mellow, no?- or else to think in a very deliberate way.
This is one of the things that IMHO make the activity especially good for a person who is trying to lose weight. The general opinion is that dieting it hard- your mind starts torturing you will ideas of twinkies or whatever and won't leave you alone until you eat one. Get used to this 'quietness' and you can (maybe) see how you would be more free to think about whatever you want to focus on, and not twinkies.
The flip side is that it is actually kind of hard to maintain the focus they're asking for. The mind seems to wander all by itself. The 'insight' angle is (in part) to notice what comes up when you are becoming distracted. It might be 'this is hard, I think I'll rest now'. Or... who knows, lots of things. Surely different for everybody. After awhile it seems like there are certain things that are repeating. So. You know you're consciously trying to focus (if you are a good sport that is, in this fictional Shangri-La where begbert tries yoga), and yet the mind is coming up with something else anyway.
I think the 'something else anyway' is the sub-conscious. Call it what you like, they aren't intentional thoughts. Getting an understanding of and a handle on that is part of the 'self-mastery' I mentioned earlier (this and other things are my own terminology, maybe I'm not being orthodox or whatever). I would claim that it definitely helped me to finish that marathon, even though I was undertrained. I think it would be a big help, actually the help, for someone trying to escape from the compulsion to over-eat.
What's the mechanism exactly? I dunno. I'll try to ask somebody.
I can think of one move where the mechanism seems obvious. You probably wouldn't be ready for this one at first, but it is the dancer's pose (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/193/467924322_db7f2dd81f.jpg). The instructors always seem to wait until the point at which you are the most worked up to spring this one. The key is in the way the centerline of the torso is bent in that particular way. (They say) that this stretches and flattens your aorta. So, while your heart is really pumping you try this, and obviously (I think...) blood does not reach your brain quite as easily as normal. And you get lightheaded. It is pretty neat-o that they devised a way to effectively hand some weight-lifting to your heart, as it is pumping against some resistance. And since you're light-headed yet trying to focus, I can at least imagine that it is a sort of weight lifting for the mind, as you're focusing against resistance.

Does any of that make any sense?

This seemed to be your main question and I need to go do something else, so let's wrap it up...
It's not the weight that would cause the pain, though; it's the inflexibility, the unaccostomed positions, and possibly those weak knee joints.

I strongly doubt you'll get injured. It won't always be 100% comfortable, if that is your big objection- there's no such thing as a free lunch, even in Shangi-la.

Well, you'll never under any circumstances get me to go to a class, unless I'm already to the point where I don't need to go, so forget that bit. (And yes, that's even if you paid me.)
What if a malignant, invisible, intangible force threatened to cut off your foot if you didn't do it?

Meh, I stopped losing weight almost entirely a month or two ago - so what have I done for me lately? Not impressive, especially since my focus is weight loss, and being generally fit or toned or haveing a prehensile spine can go hang themselves for all I care.
I just don't understand why. Getting fit would be the quickest route to your goal, and you'd like it.

Is there a scale or pair of pants that measures yoga skill?
Just your progress.

Yes, I get that that stuff is easy for you. Guess what: they're not easy for me. And it's not the stressing of the breath that's the problem, it's the OH MY GOD THE PAIN MY LIGAMENTS AREN'T THAT LONG MY BACK DOESN'T BEND THAT WAY STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT NOW that I'm worried about.
Again, the beginner's class. If it hurts like that you're over-doing it, and they'll be clear about that.

I'm not worried about my breath. Not in the slightest. It's the rest of it that concerns me.
Again I don't know how anyone ever came up with this. It seems to be a part of the means to the end is all I know for sure.

There's getting fit, and there's getting thin. I have a fairly compelling reason to get thin. I have no reason to get fit.
But fit would get you a loooong way to thin.

Are you sure you're not a yogavangelist? You've got the enthusiasm, if nothing else. :)
Nope, I've already talked to you about it more than I've talked about it to anyone. My motive is I think it'd be an unfair world if you lived thinking there wasn't a solution to your problem when you simply didn't know what it was all along, and wound up with one foot.

[Zsofia]

Dude, why are you still trying?

[begbert2]

This is getting pretty long. I doubt you'll mind if I pick and choose here. I didn't expect this- I fully expect the reaction to be 'it is simply too weird for me', and that would be it.Fair enough. At this point I am mostly probing for information to satify my curiousity, and you needn't feel compelled to feed that need in me. :) So feel free to bail anytime (if you haven't already).

:confused: Other one what?Pull the other leg. The response was expressing incredulity to the idea that yoga is all breathing - an incredulity which was apparently merited.

If you are just sitting there it would be meditation. Or- just sitting there. This won't help you directly with your weight loss goals unless you're meditating on what you eat. Or using it to replace eating.
Yes there is an activity going on there. Dude, you'd have to at minimum be a good sport about it. What doesn't matter about the poses is how well you think you're doing them- given that you're following along and giving it a go. Some you won't be able to do at all, or you'd do an easier version. It is part of the cleverness that it works no matter what level you are at- if you do it at all. They won't kick your ass in the beginner class.Well, again, the problem isn't the instructors. It's me. Perfectionist, remember? If I feel that I am not doing well, that I'm not meeting my own internal imaginary high-bar standard, I am going to berate myself plenty even without the help of critical instructors.

All right. The reason I think the clarity thing is not just in my head is because they tell you that is what they are going to do to you. At the end... dammit, they were right! More below.That's what they said to me about church and spiritual experiences. For reference, that never worked for me.

So wear pants and a shirt then. Sweatpants would be good enough, the yoga pants would be better. You'd be more comfortable wearing something that is designed for exercise, since you'd (fictionally) be sweating.
And, it would be the solution to your weight problem, among other things. But really, going for a half hour walk once in a while would, theoretically of course, help. I don't think I understand your hangup about any exercise whatsoever.I think I already said that the yoga pants look alright. What hasn't been solved is the problem that I'm going to think I look like a moron doing bad yoga. (The proposed solution of ignoring it or accepting that it's okay to look like a clown is noted but rejected as not being effective due to my personality.)

And I still don't accept that yoga or other exercise would be a significant factor in weight control - keeping in mind that I continually judge it in comparison to food control. Pretending for a moment that caloric counts are relevent, you can burn, what, two thousand calories a day with strenuous exercise? Now, go to the store and pick up any processed food and multiply calories/serving by number of servings. Good god! Yeah. Food selection and portion control is the key to weight loss.

And my "hangup" about any exercise whatsoever is that it's unpleasant and, perhaps more importantly, it takes up valuable time. Coupled with the fact I remain uninterested in general fitness and remain completely unconvinced that it helps in weight loss, and I as a result have little inclination to do it. Which is not to say that I don't exercise at all - though I hesitate to claim that I do because it's extremely unclear to me what counts as exercise in this thread. I never bring myself to the point I'm pouring with sweat or suffering exquisite agony, that's for sure. No running, no weights, and no yoga for me.

Hmmm. Even if your diabetes blows up on you and you croak in 15 years, that is still a lot of time. Short-term, if nothing else you have a new experience. It isn't going to hurt you like you are expecting. Honest- it feels good, though there is some element of physical struggle. We're talking about exercise after all.
Long term- One way or another dude, you will experience the long-term consequences of your behavior. Good, bad or non-existent, the long term will get here.There is not a chance in hell it will feel good. I've done enough physical activity, even light (prolonged) physical activity, to know that being worn and physically drained sucks, and being physically strained can rapidly become painful.

And no, I'm not ignoring the fact that you've done it yourself. I'm just remembering that, so far as I can tell, you've never really been out of shape. I have no doubt that yoga would be among the easier exercises for a fit person. I'm not one of those people, though, and I don't think your experience is relevent to me in this regard.

I wonder... do you like anything about your body? Aside from food/sleep/sex, have you ever felt markedly, physically good?How should I know? It's all relative. As far as I know I feel markedly, physically good all the time. Seriously.

I'd rather avoid philosophical rabbit holes here. It occurred to me today that while you are not in denial, additional experiences very well might change your beliefs.In this case I doubt it. It's not like there's any shortage of anecdotes in this thread alone from people stating that given a sustained exercise program they've gone from a legless invalid shuffling on stumps to an olympic athelete. Nonetheless I don't seem to internalize it much. Not to mention I know that dieting works, but I don't believe it will work. So yeah. (Shrug)

But your mind isn't magic. Your cognitive state isn't magic. The mind and the body affect each other- does that really sound so crazy? The nifty thing though is that they have found a way to zero in on this. Who knows how anyone ever figured it out. But there is a distinct mental aspect to yoga, and believe what you like, it does work.
In the beginner's classes I took, the instructors talked a lot about the 'monkey mind'- the mind chattering, chattering, chattering all the time in a constant dialogue. Sometimes sense, sometimes kinda sense, often nonsense. They would call your attention to it (it is plenty noticeable, isn't it) and challenge you to get it to shut up. During the yoga, most of the instructors frequently remind you to not allow your mind to wander, but to stay focused on your breathing and only that. While doing all this stuff- it is a bit of a mental juggling act. At the end you just rest for a minute, (and how could I ever make all this up?) if the chattering isn't altogether gone it is at least turned way down. That is the 'clarity' or 'quietness'. It is possible to think of nothing whatsoever at this point- pretty mellow, no?- or else to think in a very deliberate way.I'm not sure I want to turn off my thoughts. I count on those monkeys on their typewriters to make shakespeare for me.

This is one of the things that IMHO make the activity especially good for a person who is trying to lose weight. The general opinion is that dieting it hard- your mind starts torturing you will ideas of twinkies or whatever and won't leave you alone until you eat one. Get used to this 'quietness' and you can (maybe) see how you would be more free to think about whatever you want to focus on, and not twinkies.
The flip side is that it is actually kind of hard to maintain the focus they're asking for. The mind seems to wander all by itself. The 'insight' angle is (in part) to notice what comes up when you are becoming distracted. It might be 'this is hard, I think I'll rest now'. Or... who knows, lots of things. Surely different for everybody. After awhile it seems like there are certain things that are repeating. So. You know you're consciously trying to focus (if you are a good sport that is, in this fictional Shangri-La where begbert tries yoga), and yet the mind is coming up with something else anyway.
I think the 'something else anyway' is the sub-conscious. Call it what you like, they aren't intentional thoughts. Getting an understanding of and a handle on that is part of the 'self-mastery' I mentioned earlier (this and other things are my own terminology, maybe I'm not being orthodox or whatever). I would claim that it definitely helped me to finish that marathon, even though I was undertrained. I think it would be a big help, actually the help, for someone trying to escape from the compulsion to over-eat.I thought the monkey-mind was the subconscious. Well, regardless, the twinkie impulse wouldn't matter much while doing yoga because there aren't twinkies in reach when doing the yoga. The time I need to resist the twinkies (well, cookies; twinkies are a bit much for me) is when shopping. If I don't buy it, I can't eat it. And I can't even picture you doing yoga while walking through the store pushing a shopping cart, much less shy old me.

What's the mechanism exactly? I dunno. I'll try to ask somebody.
I can think of one move where the mechanism seems obvious. You probably wouldn't be ready for this one at first, but it is the dancer's pose (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/193/467924322_db7f2dd81f.jpg). The instructors always seem to wait until the point at which you are the most worked up to spring this one. The key is in the way the centerline of the torso is bent in that particular way. (They say) that this stretches and flattens your aorta. So, while your heart is really pumping you try this, and obviously (I think...) blood does not reach your brain quite as easily as normal. And you get lightheaded. It is pretty neat-o that they devised a way to effectively hand some weight-lifting to your heart, as it is pumping against some resistance. And since you're light-headed yet trying to focus, I can at least imagine that it is a sort of weight lifting for the mind, as you're focusing against resistance.

Does any of that make any sense?I wouldn't call that weight lifting for the mind, I'd call that getting high on oxygen deprivation (assuming it works the way you theorize). Which could work, but doesn't make it appealing to me. If I wanted to acheve altered mental states by damaging my mind's ability to function, I'd drink booze.

I strongly doubt you'll get injured. It won't always be 100% comfortable, if that is your big objection- there's no such thing as a free lunch, even in Shangi-la.I don't think I'd get injured. I think it would hurt like hell. You may be surprised to learn that, when you're not physically fit, it's not at all difficult to suffer due to non-injurious physical stress.

And of course there would be physical stress - you don't sweat buckets due to being too relaxed and comfortable. You may like that sort of thing, but to me that's a strong suggestion of a pretty expensive lunch.

What if a malignant, invisible, intangible force threatened to cut off your foot if you didn't do it?Yoga isn't a cure for diabetes, if that's what you're implying. Heck, it's not even a weight loss strategy, aside from the fact there are no twinkies in reach while you're doing it (which I do concede could make a difference. A small difference, but a difference.)

I just don't understand why. Getting fit would be the quickest route to your goal, and you'd like it.Nonsense. Getting fit is an arduously slow process, there aren't quick fixes for it.

And my goal has zippo to do with fitness anyway. My goal is to lose weight. They're only tangentially related.

Just your progress.Which I would not detect. So to me, there would be be no progress.

Again, the beginner's class. If it hurts like that you're over-doing it, and they'll be clear about that.Pheh, when it comes to exercise, if it doesn't hurt, it doesn't help.

Again I don't know how anyone ever came up with this. It seems to be a part of the means to the end is all I know for sure.Hey, you're the one that said breathing was all that it took to do yoga.

I admit I can't take this breathing stuff seriously - it sounds like the realm of meditation and alternative religion, which I tend to habitually dismiss out of hand. From where I stand yoga still looks like it's all about getting yourself in funky positions - and if that causes sweat or burns calories it's going to be because those positions are physically strenuous, not because you're breathing in any particular way.

But fit would get you a loooong way to thin.Only because nobody would consider you fit until you were thin too. Despite the fact that the fat is a separate problem from muscle tone, breath control, flexibility, or balance - the stuff that yoga directly addresses.

Nope, I've already talked to you about it more than I've talked about it to anyone. My motive is I think it'd be an unfair world if you lived thinking there wasn't a solution to your problem when you simply didn't know what it was all along, and wound up with one foot.The solution to my problem is to lose weight. The solution to my weight is diet control. Looks like I'm all set!

Yoga is a solution to a different set of problems - problems which I don't think I have. For example, I don't mind being unable to hold my breath for eight minutes. It's just not a problem for me.

[Guinastasia]

begbert2, what has your doctor said about exercise? Just curious?

And no, you don't have to "sweat buckets?" What about just freaking walking around the freaking mall?

[MsWhatsit]

begbert2, what has your doctor said about exercise? Just curious?

And no, you don't have to "sweat buckets?" What about just freaking walking around the freaking mall?

Guin, come on. Why are you implying that begbert should win the Olympic decathlon? It would be much easier for him to not win the Olympic decathlon, and only a very few people are capable of winning the Olympic decathlon. Statements such as yours, which show your mistaken belief that people should go out and exert superhuman effort and nearly kill themselves in the effort to attain some sort of "fitness ideal" are outrageous and false.

"Walk around the mall" indeed. Pah.

[begbert2]

begbert2, what has your doctor said about exercise? Just curious?The last time I went to the doctor for my six month checkup, she casually mentioned that my "good" cholesterol was a little low, so I should try to maybe freaking walk around the freaking mall once or twice a week. No mention of it in the earlier visits, and no hint that it has squat to do with weight loss.

And no, you don't have to "sweat buckets?" What about just freaking walking around the freaking mall?The bucket-sweat is related to the yoga business, wherein it was an advertised feature.

As for freaking walking around the freaking mall, would this count as exercise to you? To others? How long would I have to walk for you to be satisfied? How fast? May I stop and look at things at regular intervals, or are you not talking about walking around the mall at all, but instead a time-wasting walking-for-walking's-sake sort of excursion?

There are really several strains of discussion going on here, which are getting tangled, and among the obfuscating factors is precisely what degree of exercise are we talking about when we're talking about exercise. All the cites you've given, and everything I've heard, suggests that for casual health maintenence you want to do minor walking now and then for relativelyt brief periods. (20-40 minutes 3-4 times a week was given in one of them, I believe.) And then on the other hand, you've got people talking about burning 2500 calories a day. In my mind, those two are pretty different, don't you think? For example, the former certainly won't have any significant impact on your weight. Do you agree?

Absent clear statement about which degree of exercise we're talking about, I have to assume the worst: if there's any possibility that you're thinking 2500 claories a day, then I definitely don't want to get anywhere near that, for a variety of reasons.

I do, on the other hand, shop. Is that good enough for you? No? I thought not.

[MsWhatsit]

Cite for someone in this thread who has talked about burning 2500 calories per day?

One of the "obfuscating factors" in this thread, as you so succinctly put it, is that you keep making up crap that you claim other people have said, when in fact nobody has said any such thing.

[begbert2]

Hurn. Well, I lost a stack of weight in well under a year through a combination of fierce portion control and walking five miles a day every day as near as I could manage, but apart from taking 12" off my waist size and giving me a taut ass and (for a lifelong fattie) ripped thighs and calves, what did it ever do for me? I mean, what good's an exercise regimen that burns a lousy 3500 calories a week?You're absolutely right - my memory failed me. Nobody brought a 2500/day exercise program into this discussion. This was what I was remembering.

Still, my question is valid - what IS enough exercise?

(And on further review, if 5 miles a day every day only burns 3500 calories a week, why the hell bother?)

[Evil Economist]

Still, my question is valid - what IS enough exercise?

(And on further review, if 5 miles a day every day only burns 3500 calories a week, why the hell bother?)

There's lots of information available as to what constitutes enough exercise. Since it's not exactly difficult to find I'm not going to look it up for you.

As to the benefits of burning 3500 calories a week, that would mean in excess of an additional pound of fat loss per week, plus muscle gain, plus cardiovascular health benefits, plus the aforementioned cognitive and mood benefits.

[MsWhatsit]

There's lots of information available as to what constitutes enough exercise. Since it's not exactly difficult to find I'm not going to look it up for you.

Seriously. I'm actually not convinced that begbert isn't having a little fun with us. I mean, really? Burning 3500 calories per week = "why the hell bother?"

3500 calories is about a pound. So if you're burning 3500 calories per week, that's a full pound right there, and that doesn't even take into account your basal metabolic calorie burn, or dietary caloric restriction. 1-2 pounds per week is considered an appropriate rate of weight loss. (Reality programs such as "The Biggest Loser" notwithstanding.)

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Dude, why are you still trying?

Well, one of my main points is that the practice can help a person conquer their compulsions/hangups or what have you. People have talked about the irresistibility of various biological drives, comparing a compulsion to eat to the drive to breathe. One point is that if it can take a person's discipline to the point that they are competing with Marine Corps champions in deep sea diving, it'd be enough to teach a person to conquer their compulsion to overeat.

Another is that I thought the argument would be more convincing if I were demonstrating that point (and verifying for myself that I'm not full of shit). Fact is, this is very embarrassing for me to talk about. It evokes new-age hippie images, not to mention that where I come from, getting involved with something like this would be tantamount to coming out as gay (a Very Bad Thing back there, and I'm not, not that there is anything wrong with that etc :rolleyes:).

So. Looks like I've overcome one of my little hangups. Not that you can verify it, but it was interesting for me to test. Obviously losing 100 lbs is another kettle of fish...

And- diabetes can get pretty rotten. I don't think people deserve the worst consequences if they can avoid it.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

I guess I'm just about done, unless you've got some more questions. I'm not fed up, I think I'm running out of things to say about it.

I'm not sure I want to turn off my thoughts. I count on those monkeys on their typewriters to make shakespeare for me.

It is just about control, not going mindless. Your own account made it sound like kanicbird's or my theories on 'how people get so fat' might be too complicated. Sounds like you did it absentmindedly is all.

But speaking of this, I asked another yoga instructor about the mechanism that causes this state. You might like this actually. She looked kind of surprised and asked, "That's it?", like she expected some tough question. Yeah that's it.

The answer was it isn't the yoga at all. :smack: It is only the sustained focus (on the breath in this case) that does it. A person could throw away the yoga and just do this and get exactly the same effect (though obviously no exercise benefits). Because it isn't sorta kinda like meditation- this aspect of it literally is formal meditation. Hmpf. No one ever mentioned that (you just do it), and having never tried meditation I didn't recognize it as such. Not in all this time. Can you fuckin' believe it??? I always thought there was something more to it. Yoga de-mystified.

The mechanism is that the mind is not good at multitasking, and so sustained focus one one thing drives out all the little monkeys. Once you get there it coasts along for awhile, and you get better at it with practice. No religion to it.

And. You could take the breath away too and do it some other way (though she thinks this is the easiest method). Concentrating on a candle flame for instance. Or various other things (I'll go out on a limb and say TV doesn't count), I'll go into it if you really want. I'm sure there is a cheap book or tape around on the subject, probably something that would even avoid awkward concepts from foreign cultures.

So it looks like you could get your wish. You actually could get this mental benefit while simply sitting there.

If this hasn't done any other good, I have to thank you for being so skeptical, begbert, or I might not have sorted this one out any time soon.

If your diet stalls, now you've got another thing in the toolbox you could try. No one would even have to know!

[panaccione]

I'd like to discuss a slight hi-jack although relevant topic to the discussion. Fast food.

We all know it's a major cause of people becoming fatter yet it is still ate by millions of americans everyday. Personally, I don't think they're as popular as they are because it's that good, because it's not that good, but for the sole reason of efficiency. No other meal must come cheaper and faster.

My question is simply when do you think society will produce quality food that matches the price and efficiency of fast food?

[elfkin477]

Cite for someone in this thread who has talked about burning 2500 calories per day? I don't think anyone did, but is possible for someone to burn that many calories a day without preparing for a decathalon, though. At my weight five hours of shoveling snow by hand would burn more than 2,100 calories, and I'm sure it'd be easy enough to rack up another 400 doing nothing much the rest of the day. And with the winters we've had over the past two years, I've done this more than once. Hell, I've done that shoveling off the damn roof more than once.

There are probably other activities on this list (http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/calculat.htm) one could realistically sustain for quite a long time and also burn up a lot of calories.

[needscoffee]

For heaven's sake, burning 3500 calories in exercise does not mean you lose one pound. It's not simple math. Just as you can eat 3500 calories more one week and not necessarily gain one pound (those were the good old days), or eat 3500 calories less in a week and not lose a pound. Two years ago I began walking and swimming a total of 6 miles a day, 3 times a week, for 9 months, did not increase my eating (I actually was monitoring it), and didn't lose an ounce. I'm sure there were other benefits, but weight loss wasn't one of them. Either were the two stress fractures in my foot.

[filmore]

For heaven's sake, burning 3500 calories in exercise does not mean you lose one pound. It's not simple math. Just as you can eat 3500 calories more one week and not necessarily gain one pound (those were the good old days), or eat 3500 calories less in a week and not lose a pound. Two years ago I began walking and swimming a total of 6 miles a day, 3 times a week, for 9 months, did not increase my eating (I actually was monitoring it), and didn't lose an ounce. I'm sure there were other benefits, but weight loss wasn't one of them. Either were the two stress fractures in my foot.

Something's not adding up here. You were doing 2 hours of exercise a day, probably 600 calories, without changing your eating and didn't lose weight. The energy to do the exercise has to come from somewhere. What sort of food logs were you keeping? Did you monitor your eating before you started exercising?

[MsWhatsit]

Something's not adding up here. You were doing 2 hours of exercise a day, probably 600 calories, without changing your eating and didn't lose weight. The energy to do the exercise has to come from somewhere. What sort of food logs were you keeping? Did you monitor your eating before you started exercising?

What he said. The only possible way that this situation makes sense is if even though you were burning significantly more calories you were still eating more calories than you were burning. I.e. (I am making these numbers up just as an example) if you were eating 4000 calories per day before you started your fitness routine, and with your exercise you were burning 600 calories per day, you would still have a net intake of 3400 calories per day, which is probably too much for anyone who is looking to lose weight.

If you say that you were consuming an appropriate amount of calories for weight loss, then something was wrong with your tracking methods.

[MsWhatsit]

PS (Missed the edit window), I am certainly not saying that weight loss is a simple math problem. I think anyone who has lost a significant amount of weight knows that even if you are eating properly and exercising and all, there are some weeks that you lose more, some weeks you lose less, and some weeks you don't lose anything at all. Maybe even some weeks where you gain a bit. But the overall trend is downward. If your calories burned are greater than your calories consumed, then over time, you will lose weight. It's not a simple math problem, but it is a pretty simple physics problem.

[begbert2]

There's lots of information available as to what constitutes enough exercise. Since it's not exactly difficult to find I'm not going to look it up for you.Pheh, lots of the information doesn't agree with each other - and to date they don't suggest getting much exercise at all. Cited above is a source suggesting 60-160 minutes of walking a week (rather a large spread), which my my extraordinarly coarse calculation could be as low as 500 calories burned. A week. Yay?

I have serious doubts that most of the exerciseophiles in this thread would consider that exercise at all.

As to the benefits of burning 3500 calories a week, that would mean in excess of an additional pound of fat loss per week, plus muscle gain, plus cardiovascular health benefits, plus the aforementioned cognitive and mood benefits.

Seriously. I'm actually not convinced that begbert isn't having a little fun with us. I mean, really? Burning 3500 calories per week = "why the hell bother?"

3500 calories is about a pound. So if you're burning 3500 calories per week, that's a full pound right there, and that doesn't even take into account your basal metabolic calorie burn, or dietary caloric restriction. 1-2 pounds per week is considered an appropriate rate of weight loss. (Reality programs such as "The Biggest Loser" notwithstanding.)3500 calories a week is 500 calories a day. That's like two, maybe three more cookies. A couple handfuls of chips. It's a few minutes work to eat this - or not eat it. So, to get the same benefit from a caloric(/weight loss?) standpoint as walking five miles, you could...put down the damn cookie.

Given that, "why bother" seems like a perfectly appropritate response, just the same way I'd ask someone why they're bothering to start a fire by rubbing sticks together when they have a lighter right there. Now of course, they may tell me that they're rubbing the sticks together for some other reason than because they're in a hurry to start a fire. (For the 'experience' of it, or whatever, perhaps.) And a person who walks five miles a day could tell me the same thing - it's not about losing weight, it's about getting a nice six-pack or build muscle or reduce their cholesterol (or increase their cholesterol?), or whatever. If they have another goal that is well-served by walking, running, yoga, wheight lifting, or whichever, then that's a different matter.

But. This thread is about "How do people get so fat". It's about the heavies. It's about the losing weight. Specifically.

I guess I'm just about done, unless you've got some more questions. I'm not fed up, I think I'm running out of things to say about it.Fair enough! It's been good chatting with you. :)

It is just about control, not going mindless. Your own account made it sound like kanicbird's or my theories on 'how people get so fat' might be too complicated. Sounds like you did it absentmindedly is all.Seriously, I think that's the normal way to do it. There presumably are people who get fat for freaky reasons, obsessive attractions to their food or whatnot, but I seriously think that for most overweight people it just sneaks up op them.

Now, obviously at some point they notice it happening, and the reasons they don't do something about it could branch into more interesting territory, particularly if you're looking for something to criticise them for. Laziness, resignation, fatalism, apathy, denial? I'm sure they're all represented. Probably increasingly so once you get out of "overweight" and "obese" territory into "good lord they can't move under their own power" territory. But such people are still the exception, not the norm.

But speaking of this, I asked another yoga instructor about the mechanism that causes this state. You might like this actually. She looked kind of surprised and asked, "That's it?", like she expected some tough question. Yeah that's it.

The answer was it isn't the yoga at all. :smack: It is only the sustained focus (on the breath in this case) that does it. A person could throw away the yoga and just do this and get exactly the same effect (though obviously no exercise benefits). Because it isn't sorta kinda like meditation- this aspect of it literally is formal meditation. Hmpf. No one ever mentioned that (you just do it), and having never tried meditation I didn't recognize it as such. Not in all this time. Can you fuckin' believe it??? I always thought there was something more to it. Yoga de-mystified.

The mechanism is that the mind is not good at multitasking, and so sustained focus one one thing drives out all the little monkeys. Once you get there it coasts along for awhile, and you get better at it with practice. No religion to it.

And. You could take the breath away too and do it some other way (though she thinks this is the easiest method). Concentrating on a candle flame for instance. Or various other things (I'll go out on a limb and say TV doesn't count), I'll go into it if you really want. I'm sure there is a cheap book or tape around on the subject, probably something that would even avoid awkward concepts from foreign cultures.

So it looks like you could get your wish. You actually could get this mental benefit while simply sitting there.Okey-dokey, this makes sense, and is a reasonable mechanism for what's going on. Yoga simply combines exercise with meditation. So, if you take the exercise out, you're left with meditation.

Of course, the meditation alone isn't a weight loss strategy. (Excepting to the degree it occupies time that might otherwise be spent snacking, which I freely concede could have an effect if you're not already controlling your snacking by some other method.) And my focus is on the weight loss. So, while it's interesting to have ascertained the separate mechanism for achieving this altered mental state, it doesn't have the appeal to me that it might otherwise have.

(Actually I'm a little leery about things that alter the mental state, just in general. My mind is me, after all. So the mental stuff doesn't read like a benefit to me; it reads like a risk. But that's just me; other people can, and do, have different opinions on the subject.)

If this hasn't done any other good, I have to thank you for being so skeptical, begbert, or I might not have sorted this one out any time soon.The Dope is awesome for this. Seriously, it's like the Unexpected Learning Experience message board. Makes it totally worth the time to come here.

Well, that and the arguments. :D

If your diet stalls, now you've got another thing in the toolbox you could try. No one would even have to know!Er, if the diet stalls (which it kind of has, but I know why. Damn cookies! Damn me who eats them!), I'm going to be looking for another tool that makes me lose weight. Meditation may have other benefits, but that's probably not one of them. And as exercise in general is a poor way to lose weight...better get back to the diet. Back, you cookies, back! Get away!

I'd like to discuss a slight hi-jack although relevant topic to the discussion. Fast food.

We all know it's a major cause of people becoming fatter yet it is still ate by millions of americans everyday. Personally, I don't think they're as popular as they are because it's that good, because it's not that good, but for the sole reason of efficiency. No other meal must come cheaper and faster.

My question is simply when do you think society will produce quality food that matches the price and efficiency of fast food?You are undoubtedly correct that fast food is a factor. (Though, um, not for me - unless you're including prefab food on store shelves in the category, which you might as well, since it's functionally equivalent.)

And unfortunately quality food will never match the price and efficiency of fast food - unless it already does. You can buy salads at most fast food restraunts. But if you're talking about serving meats that haven't been frozen to death and grease-fried to get some flavor back into them, those will never be as cheap and easy as doing it the cheap and easy way, for obvious reasons.

Something's not adding up here. You were doing 2 hours of exercise a day, probably 600 calories, without changing your eating and didn't lose weight. The energy to do the exercise has to come from somewhere. What sort of food logs were you keeping? Did you monitor your eating before you started exercising?Maybe he was gaining muscle mass. Or maybe he was just excreting more. Or maybe his metabolism altered in a way that conserved his food energy.

I'm not really up on my human biology, but I'm pretty sure it's not a simple "insert X food calories - get back Y energy calories". There's chemicals and stuff involved. Any number of things could be happening.

[MsWhatsit]

3500 calories a week is 500 calories a day. That's like two, maybe three more cookies. A couple handfuls of chips. It's a few minutes work to eat this - or not eat it. So, to get the same benefit from a caloric(/weight loss?) standpoint as walking five miles, you could...put down the damn cookie.


I actually fully agree with this. If someone is thinking, "Well, I need to lose weight, and I'm either going to fix my diet or get some exercise, but not both," I'd tell them to fix the diet in a heartbeat. As you correctly point out, burning mondo calories with exercise doesn't help you much when you then consume half of a birthday cake or whatever.

My only beef in this thread is that you've made a lot of very silly statements about exercise, e.g. that you have to sweat buckets for it to do any good, it's insanely difficult, it takes a huge amount of time, etc. And FTR, I absolutely would characterize 60 minutes per walking a week as exercise. What the hell else would you call it?

But yes, if you are going to lose weight, you absolutely have to address your caloric intake before anything else, IMO.

(Btw, I had a gleeful little giggle at being referred to as an "exerciseophile," as someone who, prior to June of this year, primarily got exercise by walking to the refrigerator and back. So, thanks for that. :D )

[begbert2]

I actually fully agree with this. If someone is thinking, "Well, I need to lose weight, and I'm either going to fix my diet or get some exercise, but not both," I'd tell them to fix the diet in a heartbeat. As you correctly point out, burning mondo calories with exercise doesn't help you much when you then consume half of a birthday cake or whatever.Yay! Concensus! :D

My only beef in this thread is that you've made a lot of very silly statements about exercise, e.g. that you have to sweat buckets for it to do any good, it's insanely difficult, it takes a huge amount of time, etc. And FTR, I absolutely would characterize 60 minutes per walking a week as exercise. What the hell else would you call it?I would call 60 minutes of walking a week "not a way to lose weight". (My version of that, 60 minutes of stationary biking a day, which I have sustained with reasonable consistency for periods longer than a year at a time, also had no discernible weight loss effect.)

My position is that exercise is at best small change in the game of weight loss - a position that still seems completely supported by evidence. This being the case, if you want to pretend that it's going to be having any effect on the weight loss front, you're going to have to do rather a lot of it. Which will take a lot of time. (Heck, my hour of biking a day was a huge time cost. Good thing I was also watching TV at the time, which I've been criticized for in this thread.)

The sweat thing was exclusive to the yoga discussion, of course (and I didn't come up with it), and the insane difficulty/agony have tended to go along with the marathoner discussions, an exercise I feel justified in believing would be quite painful for me, long before it exceeded the caloric burn of nightly biking (which has no weight loss effect). Both these things are issues that don't apply to minor, generic exercise, which merely has the problem of being extremely ineffective as a weight loss method.

(Btw, I had a gleeful little giggle at being referred to as an "exerciseophile," as someone who, prior to June of this year, primarily got exercise by walking to the refrigerator and back. So, thanks for that. :D )We aim to please! (Though I was referring collectively to the others who avocate more strenuous exercise programs too, as well as those who affectionately overestimate the weight-loss benefits of such activity.)

[Hazle Weatherfield]

Just chiming in to say that I don't think it's a mystery. I'm 5'2" and very food/body conscious, but I can put on 10 pounds at the drop of a hat! It's a constant struggle. People looking at me cannot imagine the struggle. Oh, it must be easy for her. So, if it's hard for me to maintain the weight I want, it's not hard at all to see how easy it would be just to quit being so vigilant and say screw it! I was kind of amazed to read the OP; it seems fairly obvious to me. It's HARD and it takes WORK NOT to be fat, as far as I'm concerned.

[needscoffee]

Something's not adding up here. You were doing 2 hours of exercise a day, probably 600 calories, without changing your eating and didn't lose weight. The energy to do the exercise has to come from somewhere. What sort of food logs were you keeping? Did you monitor your eating before you started exercising?
The reason something's not adding up here is because it's not simple math. The caloric value of food is, simply, the heat energy value of food in a lab. What your body does with that energy is something else althogether. The same number of calories of fat, protein, or carbs will not be treated the same way by your body, dependent on hormones present, metabolic rates, etc. Eating 500 calories of protein is not equivalent to eating 500 calories of carbohydrates or 500 calories of fats. Gaining and losing weight has to do with whether your body is burning carbs or stored fat, and how much of each it decides to burn or store. Expending 3500 calories DOES NOT mean you will lose one pound of fat. I'm not saying that exercise will not cause you to lose weight; of course it will, at some level of activity. If I had been doing something far more strenuous, such as running hard instead of briskly walking, or walked a great deal farther than I did, then at some point I, personally, would have lost weight. But light-to-moderate exercise does not cause me to lose weight in anything approaching a 3500 calories = 1 pound proportion. And there's no reason why it should. Just as eating less will cause weight loss at some point, but again, not necessarily in the 3500 calories = 1 pound proportion.

Here is a more simple example, less fraught with "are they really monitoring every piece of food they're eating?" A person with Type 1 diabetes (no insulin available) will not typically gain weight without insulin shots, even after eating vast amounts of food. Unexplained weight loss is one of the early symptoms. The more intensive the insulin therapy, the more weight they gain. 3500 calories = 1 pound has no meaning if the insulin isn't there.

This "3500 calories = 1 pound of weight" notion is popular because it is easy to visualize, just like the notions that drinking water will flush out your system, or that sitting in a steam room will clear out your pores, or that drinking fruit juice will flush out toxins from your system, or that if we don't drink 8 glasses of clear liquid a day we will dehydrate. But they're not at all accurate representations of how physiology works.

Note: I'm not griping about not losing weight; I don't really have a significant weight problem, though family members do. I'm giving a real-life example as to the over-simplification of the "simple math" of 3500 calories = 1 pound.

[rhubarbarin]

The reason something's not adding up here is because it's not simple math. The caloric value of food is, simply, the heat energy value of food in a lab. What your body does with that energy is something else althogether. The same number of calories of fat, protein, or carbs will not be treated the same way by your body, dependent on hormones present, metabolic rates, etc. Eating 500 calories of protein is not equivalent to eating 500 calories of carbohydrates or 500 calories of fats. Gaining and losing weight has to do with whether your body is burning carbs or stored fat, and how much of each it decides to burn or store. Expending 3500 calories DOES NOT mean you will lose one pound of fat. I'm not saying that exercise will not cause you to lose weight; of course it will, at some level of activity. If I had been doing something far more strenuous, such as running hard instead of briskly walking, or walked a great deal farther than I did, then at some point I, personally, would have lost weight. But light-to-moderate exercise does not cause me to lose weight in anything approaching a 3500 calories = 1 pound proportion. And there's no reason why it should. Just as eating less will cause weight loss at some point, but again, not necessarily in the 3500 calories = 1 pound proportion.

Here is a more simple example, less fraught with "are they really monitoring every piece of food they're eating?" A person with Type 1 diabetes (no insulin available) will not typically gain weight without insulin shots, even after eating vast amounts of food. Unexplained weight loss is one of the early symptoms. The more intensive the insulin therapy, the more weight they gain. 3500 calories = 1 pound has no meaning if the insulin isn't there.

This "3500 calories = 1 pound of weight" notion is popular because it is easy to visualize, just like the notions that drinking water will flush out your system, or that sitting in a steam room will clear out your pores, or that drinking fruit juice will flush out toxins from your system, or that if we don't drink 8 glasses of clear liquid a day we will dehydrate. But they're not at all accurate representations of how physiology works.

Note: I'm not griping about not losing weight; I don't really have a significant weight problem, though family members do. I'm giving a real-life example as to the over-simplification of the "simple math" of 3500 calories = 1 pound.

Thank god someone else in this thread understands that it's not 'just that easy' and all down to the 'law of thermodynamics'.

Listen, people, if we had the mechanics of the human body figured out- the amount of fat people in America would not be climbing. To to say nothing of the epidemic of fat children, which do more than anything I think to prove that it's more complicated than most think. The amount of overweight kids has tripled in the past 30 years. How exactly does someone who is still growing 'eat too many calories'?

[MsWhatsit]

How exactly does someone who is still growing 'eat too many calories'?

....by eating more calories than they are burning? Just because you are growing does not mean that your body is burning an infinite number of calories.

Look, there are two things going on here. One is the idea that weight loss is, at root, just a matter of consuming less than you burn. This is true. The other is the idea that because the basic idea is pretty simple, that means that weight loss must necessarily be simple. This is not true. Weight loss is hard. There are a lot of things in the world that are theoretically pretty simple, but very difficult in practice, and for most people, losing weight and keeping it off is one of those things.

What I take exception to is people who say that weight loss is literally impossible, or that they know someone who has been eating 1200 calories and exercising like a madman for two years and hasn't lost a pound. I find these stories dubious.

[Taber]

that they know someone who has been eating 1200 calories and exercising like a madman for two years and hasn't lost a pound. I find these stories dubious.

I don't. Eating that little and exercising that much will leave very little calories for running regular body functions. The metabolism will grind to a standstill, as the body attempts to withstand the famine it believes it is in. The person will probably lose weight until the body slows down like this, but will plateau as soon as the body adjusts. Any time they aren't 100% perfect with their minuscule diet, the body will cling to the extra calories as hard as possible.

Eating too little while dieting is just as bad as eating too much, and probably more common.

(1200 is actually a decent number for a small, sedentary person who wants to lose weight, but it starts to become too little if that person exercises, or is more than ~130 pounds)

[MsWhatsit]

That is a good point, although I was really just pulling a number out of thin air. The exact number of calories needed is obviously going to be different per individual, but I was referring generally to people who say that there are some people that literally cannot lose weight, and say that these people can exercise and eat the proper amount of calories and never lose a pound. That is what I find dubious. What is not dubious is that there are people who think they are eating the proper amount of calories, but are not, and this is not a value judgment of any sort; I know from personal experience how easy it is to under or overestimate your caloric intake. Or to find out just what an appropriate amount is in the first place.

[begbert2]

Look, there are two things going on here. One is the idea that weight loss is, at root, just a matter of consuming less than you burn. This is true. The other is the idea that because the basic idea is pretty simple, that means that weight loss must necessarily be simple. This is not true. Weight loss is hard. There are a lot of things in the world that are theoretically pretty simple, but very difficult in practice, and for most people, losing weight and keeping it off is one of those things.I'm not sure it is that simple. As was just noted, the body jumps through hoops to deal with your various protiens, fats, and carbohydrates, and it's pretty clear that there's nothing like a straight linear relationship between food calories (of any kind) and weight gain/loss. For proof of this, consider the fact that it's not only possible, but easy to eat well over double your caloric needs. 3500 calories? Pfft. Child's play - in a single day. Every day. Easily. But despite that, pretty much nobody gains a pound a day, every day, in/out. (If they did they would weight a ton in six years - literally, a ton.) Which means that the body is obviously not converting all of the excess calories to fat. What it's doing with it all I couldn't tell you (though when I was starting out as a diabetic I was literally pissing it away ;)), but it's certainly not all going to the hips, regardless.

So yeah. It's not actually that simple. Though of course there is a strong correlation between diet and weight loss, at least once you drop down to a reasonablish caloric intake or lower. Still, that's not the same as a 1:1 correlation.

What I take exception to is people who say that weight loss is literally impossible, or that they know someone who has been eating 1200 calories and exercising like a madman for two years and hasn't lost a pound. I find these stories dubious.Well, you're clearly not talking about me, because I say that dieting is quite possible - and effective.

[MsWhatsit]

Nope, not you. :) But that kind of story crops up a lot in these discussions.

Re diabetes, yes, actually when the disease is really uncontrolled, you can lose quite a bit of weight! However, this is not a recommended weight loss strategy. ;) (I have heard anecdotally that this can be a problem with some young girls who are type 1 diabetics -- they will stop taking their insulin shots for a few days in order to lose a few quick pounds. This is a very bad idea for obvious reasons.)

[begbert2]

(I have heard anecdotally that this can be a problem with some young girls who are type 1 diabetics -- they will stop taking their insulin shots for a few days in order to lose a few quick pounds. This is a very bad idea for obvious reasons.)I have no meaningful or insightful response to this.

Just :eek::smack:.

[RickJay]

Listen, people, if we had the mechanics of the human body figured out- the amount of fat people in America would not be climbing. To to say nothing of the epidemic of fat children, which do more than anything I think to prove that it's more complicated than most think. The amount of overweight kids has tripled in the past 30 years. How exactly does someone who is still growing 'eat too many calories'?
By eating too many calories and not exercising enough.

Widespread weight problems have nothing to do with the human body being some sort of mystery and everything to do with people shovelling huge amounts of food into their pieholes and not getting off the couch.

Certainly there's some details containing devils, but you can't seriously tell me fat people are fat because of unexplained mysteries of human anatomy. I was REALLY fat, am still overweight, and I know damned well why: I ate too much and didn't exercise enough.

[begbert2]

By eating too many calories and not exercising enough.

Widespread weight problems have nothing to do with the human body being some sort of mystery and everything to do with people shovelling huge amounts of food into their pieholes and not getting off the couch.

Certainly there's some details containing devils, but you can't seriously tell me fat people are fat because of unexplained mysteries of human anatomy. I was REALLY fat, am still overweight, and I know damned well why: I ate too much and didn't exercise enough.Actually it was only because you ate too much. ;)

[rhubarbarin]

Disprove:


The explanation for fat people in general and in particular, is the kind of food they are eating, not so much the amount, and even less so their level of fitness.

The 'obesity epidemic' in America aligns perfectly with a chart showing the increased consumption of sugars per head: up to an astounding 140 pounds per year now.

More and more doctors are supporting this theory.

[Crafter_Man]

Just chiming in to say that I don't think it's a mystery. I'm 5'2" and very food/body conscious, but I can put on 10 pounds at the drop of a hat! It's a constant struggle. People looking at me cannot imagine the struggle. Oh, it must be easy for her. So, if it's hard for me to maintain the weight I want, it's not hard at all to see how easy it would be just to quit being so vigilant and say screw it! I was kind of amazed to read the OP; it seems fairly obvious to me. It's HARD and it takes WORK NOT to be fat, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm in the same boat. I have to watch everything I eat, else I'll balloon up.

I've also learned that you can't educate someone on how to lose weight. Quite a few people have asked me how I keep my weight off, and I tell them. In some cases I've spend hours explaining to coworkers what to eat, what to avoid, how not to overeat, etc. They thank me for the advice, and then go back to pigging out. :rolleyes: (FYI, I only give advice when asked. I never give unsolicited advice.)

I don't believe it's an issue of ignorance. I'm convinced 99% of fat people know why they're fat, whether they admit it or not. They simply don't care, or they do not have the willpower to control what they eat.

[Discipline]

Guess how many calories are in 140 pounds of sugar.

Next, guess how many calories you wouldn't need to burn off if you didn't eat 140 pounds of sugar.

This isn't hard rhubarbarin.

[Zsofia]

Human beings are just terribly long-term planners. We'd rather hear about how we can die from a serial killer hiding in the back seat of our cars than about heart disease, which is going to kill about a million more people that Mr. Serial Killer. berbert2 isn't anything exceptional or new, just an example of the problem - if it kills you long and slow, we don't want to hear about it because in the here and now we'd rather not go run, or do yoga, or climb the stairs instead of the elevator. It's just the way we are. It isn't the way we have to be, any more than the lifestyle of the bonobo (enticing as it may be) is, but it's what's easiest for us.

[keturah]

Thank god someone else in this thread understands that it's not 'just that easy' and all down to the 'law of thermodynamics'.

Listen, people, if we had the mechanics of the human body figured out- the amount of fat people in America would not be climbing. To to say nothing of the epidemic of fat children, which do more than anything I think to prove that it's more complicated than most think. The amount of overweight kids has tripled in the past 30 years. How exactly does someone who is still growing 'eat too many calories'?

Why do you snicker quote the "law of thermodynamics"? If your body is creating mass from nothing, please submit yourself to the NIS.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Of course, the meditation alone isn't a weight loss strategy. (Excepting to the degree it occupies time that might otherwise be spent snacking, which I freely concede could have an effect if you're not already controlling your snacking by some other method.) And my focus is on the weight loss. So, while it's interesting to have ascertained the separate mechanism for achieving this altered mental state, it doesn't have the appeal to me that it might otherwise have.
This is all well and good, but I still think I'm right. The clues seem to be in everything you say about your diet. Your intention is to eat less, and better, but- you don't! How is you intention being knocked off its seat? Why, it is the monkeys making you do it. (Maybe a psychologist can frame this in better terms) Meditation (I now believe) even without the yoga will give you the ability to recognize and suppress the monkeys, and you'll be better able to stick with your sensible intentions. That is, if you didn't hate the idea.

And I still think yoga will help with your diet, dude. Let's say your practice takes you to the exquisite level of bodily control such that, next time you are in the store in front of the cookies, you command your hand not to pick them up; you command your feet to take you to the shelf with the better choices; and your quiet mind coolly ignores its monkeys' screeching reaction to this course. Ta-da! But don't expect these moves to do a goddamn thing to stretch your aorta.

Honestly don't mean to be snarky, but why is it not that simple?
The Dope is awesome for this. Seriously, it's like the Unexpected Learning Experience message board. Makes it totally worth the time to come here.

Yeah, it really does fight ignorance, no? Good thing for me, too.

More comments on the yoga thing. This discussion has made me realize that I had a proto-technique that predated the yoga, the running, even my plans to get fit in the first place. Years ago I had a whole slew of problems- no money, lousy jobs, bad relationships, declining fitness, all taking place in America's Crappiest Town. It looked like I was headed for a miserable life. Fortunately I used what seems to be the universal technique for solving personal problems, and by this point I've fixed every single thing (ok, I don't have zero problems, but I won't labor that point seeing how hard it is to convince you of anything). Strap yourself in and grab a pen or a camera, as this will surely go down in the Permanent Annals of Philosophy. What is it? I employed the esoteric technique of lighting a fire under my own ass.

No, I don't think I went nuts. I simply was not going to take 'no' for an answer from this stupid world. I wouldn't countenance any excuses and did not care about the effort level or suffering required if I was on the path to results. Not on any front.
So really, in terms of the fitness thing, it didn't have to be yoga or running (though neither rose to torture levels, except the actual marathon). In an alternate universe I met different people and enjoy swimming and raquetball.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

And, on the topic of the effectiveness of exercise-
This year I happened to meet Constantina Dita (http://www.flotrack.org/articles/view/622-constantina-dita-olympic-gold-medalist-marathon), the gold medalist in the marathon at the Beijing Olympics. I recognized her when she stepped into an elevator with me (you seriously need to quit taking the stairs). I shook her hand. It was like shaking hands with a bird. I became a believer in the theory that some people have big bones, as hers are surprisingly slight (maybe she ran them down). I talked to her for a minute or two, and learned that she runs 140 miles per week :eek: And she seemed beamingly happy- no surprise, since running makes you high after all.

I'm not saying anyone else can run that much- she is the champ after all. But, you can see from the picture, and you should believe my impression, that she is quite thin. If it isn't the exercise, how do you explain her physique?

Anyway, my theory for getting weight-loss results from exercise: pick something. Don't worry about what level you're at, just find some way to quantify it, in terms of time, distance, or time*effort, something like that. Keep track and slowly crank it up. If you're exhausted in 5 minutes and have to rest for 3 days, fine, go for six minutes next time, rinse and repeat until you see results- without imposing your ideas of what that level is. Forget about expectations of suffering (or any expectations), only worry about injuries. You'll come to like it. You won't have to take it to Olympic levels, honest. That's it!

[elfkin477]

Something's not adding up here. You were doing 2 hours of exercise a day, probably 600 calories, without changing your eating and didn't lose weight. The energy to do the exercise has to come from somewhere. What sort of food logs were you keeping? Did you monitor your eating before you started exercising? If they didn't eat more to compensate, the missing piece is probably a gain in muscle mass. Three years ago I spent two months really focused on exercising. I only lost ten pounds, but almost five inches off my waistline. The gain in muscle over that time was fairly apparent judging from questions I got asked.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

(FYI, I only give advice when asked. I never give unsolicited advice.)


Uh oh. Guilty. Scale of 1-10, how bad am I being, and what do I do now?

[needscoffee]

If they didn't eat more to compensate, the missing piece is probably a gain in muscle mass. Three years ago I spent two months really focused on exercising. I only lost ten pounds, but almost five inches off my waistline. The gain in muscle over that time was fairly apparent judging from questions I got asked.It's possible I gained muscle and lost fat, even though the too-tight waist of my pants didn't fit any looser. But if I did, it wasn't apparent to me or my clothes. As I had replied (I don't know how you missed it in the 594 posts above) it simply wasn't a strenuous enough workout for me to lose weight by, with my apparent tortoise-like metabolism (it was a 3 mile brisk walk + 3 mile lap swim or another 3 mile walk, 3 times a week, for almost 8 months). I sure hope I got some muscles out of it, especially after hauling around a foot cast afterwards for 6 weeks to recover from the 2 stress fractures. I have no doubt that if I worked hard enough at strenuous-enough exercise, I'd lose weight, but not all exercise translates to fat loss. Not the "3500 calories expended = 1 lb of weight/fat loss" misconception.

[MsWhatsit]

Well, I want to clarify that it's 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat burned, but that 3500 calories has to be an actual deficit. As I pointed out earlier, if you are still consuming many more calories than your body needs, you can actually expend 3500 calories in exercise but still not create a 3500 deficit, because you are making up the difference with caloric intake.

That blows that you had to have a CAST for stress fractures! My brother just got a stress fracture in his shin from playing soccer and the doctor just told him to stay off it for several weeks.

[rhubarbarin]

Guess how many calories are in 140 pounds of sugar.

Next, guess how many calories you wouldn't need to burn off if you didn't eat 140 pounds of sugar.

This isn't hard rhubarbarin.

Here's a report issued by the USDA that is in the early stages of understanding the problem:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/FoodReview/DEC2002/frvol25i3a.pdf

For the lazy, some quotes that prove my points:

"average daily calorie consumption in 2000 was 12 percent, or roughly 300 calories, above the 1985 level"

"Average annual consumption of caloric sweeteners grew by 22 percent between 1980-84 and 2000."

"between 1985 and 1999, per capita consumption of total dietary fat remained steady, even declining slightly in some intervening years. Moreover, fat’s share of total calories declined between 1985 and 1999, as total calorie consumption increased."

Guess what replaced those fat calories? Sugars and flour.

"The data suggest that the average American not only eats more grain servings than recommended—most of it refined grain—in relation to calorie expenditure level but also may need to change the types of foods consumed from the grain group to meet dietary recommendations for whole grains, fiber, fat, cholesterol, and added sugars. A high-carbohydrate diet can raise the risk of heart disease for the estimated 25 percent of Americans who have Metabolic Syndrome, also called Syndrome X, or insulin resistance. For these people, too much carbohydrate will raise levels of triglycerides and lower levels of HDL (good) cholesterol. A high-carbohydrate diet can also pose a health threat for overweight, underexercised people"

[rhubarbarin]

And, on the topic of the effectiveness of exercise-
This year I happened to meet Constantina Dita (http://www.flotrack.org/articles/view/622-constantina-dita-olympic-gold-medalist-marathon), the gold medalist in the marathon at the Beijing Olympics. I recognized her when she stepped into an elevator with me (you seriously need to quit taking the stairs). I shook her hand. It was like shaking hands with a bird. I became a believer in the theory that some people have big bones, as hers are surprisingly slight (maybe she ran them down). I talked to her for a minute or two, and learned that she runs 140 miles per week :eek: And she seemed beamingly happy- no surprise, since running makes you high after all.

I'm not saying anyone else can run that much- she is the champ after all. But, you can see from the picture, and you should believe my impression, that she is quite thin. If it isn't the exercise, how do you explain her physique?

It's an advantage to be naturally small and thin when you're Olympic marathoner (hence why so many North Africans with naturally tiny frames succeed in this field). Less mass to carry is part of what makes you able to go the distance in a shorter time. These people are not starting out normal-size and losing an extreme amount of weight once they start running miles and miles.They are genetically tiny. They might be a bit bigger if they didn't run like maniacs, sure.

It's just like you have to naturally be quite muscular and larger-framed to be an Olympic sprinter. It's also an advantage to be tall (see Usain Bolt). They don't start out as runty string beans and build themselves up. There's no way someone like me could compete against this body type. I have a marathoner's physique. Tiny bones, wiry muscles that would never magically turn into the plump 'fast twitch' muscles that give you that kind of power and speed.

Of course running 140 miles per week will have some effect on your bodymass. But when it comes to non-athletes, 7-10 hours of moderate exercise per week is far above average, and usually not enough to make a difference in the way your body looks without diet changes. it can make a huge difference in your level of fitness, but it's not going to be very visible.

[Zsofia]

Usain Bolt has a very anomalous body type for a sprinter - he's evidently one of those weird one-offs. Most sprinters are also tiny little people with powerful legs.

[rhubarbarin]

Usain Bolt has a very anomalous body type for a sprinter - he's evidently one of those weird one-offs. Most sprinters are also tiny little people with powerful legs.

They are lean, of course, but I wouldn't call any of these people 'tiny':

http://images.forbes.com/images/2004/05/14/donovan_baily_210x250.jpg

http://collegeotr.s3.amazonaws.com/images/blogs/ddd03abf66ec39b446862732a5f93743.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0SWl0hRdg4A/RweOb8_qFwI/AAAAAAAACEE/8GmH7mUbrtk/s400/marionjones76.jpg

http://mofoyo.com/files/images/6593.preview.jpg

http://www.elitefeet.com/wp-content/uploads/marion-jones-relay-team.jpg

Especially when compared to these people:

http://www.iaaf.org/mm/photo/competitions/olympics/27258_w400xh600.jpg

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/aai-files/assets/libraries/waterford-city-library/reading-room/sport/john-treacy-winning-silver-in-the-1984-olympic-marathon.jpg

http://www.iaaf.org/mm/photo/competitions/competition/04/78/79/47879_full-prt.jpg

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45490000/jpg/_45490618_sprinters416.jpg

You see what I mean?

[Zsofia]

I didn't mean they aren't heavily muscled - they are, and look completely different from distance runner. I meant they tend to be short.

[Epimetheus]

Ok, so I'm not 300lbs and 5'2 by any means. I'm 5'9 and 212lbs this morning. That sounds like a lot I guess, but I grew up doing a lot of martial arts in highschool, was in the marines and tended to be around 170-180, which was always above the 'recommended' weight for my height. I am large framed and I carry a lot of weight in my abnormally large legs (26 inch thighs and 18 inch calves - but my biceps have only ever been at most 16 inches). That said, I'm not making excuses, because I am more than 30lbs heavier than I was at what I felt my optimal weight was at 15% bodyfat. I spent about 3 years seriously working out (powerlifting) and running (not marathons though, lol).

How I got this way, I can only blame alcohol, school and a sedentary career path (IT). Also, during college I lost motivation to work out and while I still did stuff on the weekends (bike riding mostly) with the wife, I sat in front of a computer the majority of the time.

I ate healthy though. I don't like Fast food much, though 2-3 times a month I'd have a beer and 12 wings at the local sports bar. I love veggies of almost any kind (though bok choy tastes funny raw) and rarely eat beef (I'd eat a steak probably once a month). The serving size wasn't much. I'm only pointing this out because I've been told beer/wine can't make you fat. I eat healthy and watch my portion size almost always. 5 years of drinking and occasionally eating bigger meals made me gain the extra weight.

It was gradual, and I didn't see it until I started getting out of breath walking up stairs. The last couple weeks I've been going to the gym regularly and plan on sticking with it (actually wanting to get back into powerlifting/olympic lifting seriously), but as sad as it is, I don't want to give up beer entirely. I'd rather work the excess calories off... (is that sad?)

ETA, I can see some people ignoring that fact or not caring and getting farther along without really realizing just how bad they look. If I didn't have a Physical Therapist for a wife, and a background in fitness, I'd probably not care as much about the out of breath thing.

[MsWhatsit]

It was gradual, and I didn't see it until I started getting out of breath walking up stairs. The last couple weeks I've been going to the gym regularly and plan on sticking with it (actually wanting to get back into powerlifting/olympic lifting seriously), but as sad as it is, I don't want to give up beer entirely. I'd rather work the excess calories off... (is that sad?)

ETA, I can see some people ignoring that fact or not caring and getting farther along without really realizing just how bad they look. If I didn't have a Physical Therapist for a wife, and a background in fitness, I'd probably not care as much about the out of breath thing.

Yeah, it seems like most people I've encountered who have lost a significant amount of weight became motivated to do so after an epiphanal moment -- say, seeing yourself in a photo and not recognizing yourself, or getting out of breath walking up a single flight of stairs inside your own house. (I give these as examples because those were actually the two things that finally kicked me in the ass and made me get serious about fitness and weight loss.) It's not like I ever consciously decided, "You know, I'm cool with being 70 pounds overweight." It's more like, 10 pounds overweight doesn't feel or look THAT much different from 5 pounds. And then once you're used to that, 15 pounds isn't THAT much different from 10... and then suddenly you see yourself in your aunt's Facebook photos of the family reunion, and you're like, "God, that person really needs to put down the chicken wing," and you realize, "Shit, that's me."

Also, it's totally not sad to want to exercise a bit more so you can eat a bit more. One of the nice things about running for me is that I'm burning such a high number of calories per week that I have a lot more wiggle room in my diet than I would otherwise. I still stick to my dietary plan for the most part, but if I want to add in an extra serving here and there, or eat something that's a bit higher-calorie than I normally would, I can do so and still continue my weight loss.

[begbert2]

Human beings are just terribly long-term planners. We'd rather hear about how we can die from a serial killer hiding in the back seat of our cars than about heart disease, which is going to kill about a million more people that Mr. Serial Killer. berbert2 isn't anything exceptional or new, just an example of the problem - if it kills you long and slow, we don't want to hear about it because in the here and now we'd rather not go run, or do yoga, or climb the stairs instead of the elevator. It's just the way we are. It isn't the way we have to be, any more than the lifestyle of the bonobo (enticing as it may be) is, but it's what's easiest for us.What the heck are you going on about?

This is all well and good, but I still think I'm right. The clues seem to be in everything you say about your diet. Your intention is to eat less, and better, but- you don't! How is you intention being knocked off its seat? Why, it is the monkeys making you do it. (Maybe a psychologist can frame this in better terms) Meditation (I now believe) even without the yoga will give you the ability to recognize and suppress the monkeys, and you'll be better able to stick with your sensible intentions. That is, if you didn't hate the idea.

And I still think yoga will help with your diet, dude. Let's say your practice takes you to the exquisite level of bodily control such that, next time you are in the store in front of the cookies, you command your hand not to pick them up; you command your feet to take you to the shelf with the better choices; and your quiet mind coolly ignores its monkeys' screeching reaction to this course. Ta-da! But don't expect these moves to do a goddamn thing to stretch your aorta.

Honestly don't mean to be snarky, but why is it not that simple?Because that's not how it works. At all. I am not saying "Oh no don't take the cookies don't do it noooo" as I watch in horror as my arm reaches out against my will and places the cookies in the cart. What I say is "wow, I'd like a cookie right now." Forget monkeys - it's my conscious mind talking. My desires versus my restraint, both of which are conscious functions of the same kind, and which cannot possibly be "shut off" separately by any external effect.

Seriously "exquisite level of bodily control such that, next time you are in the store in front of the cookies, you command your hand not to pick them up"? What were you, possessed by devils or something? My hand is my hand. It does what I say. Always has, and Thor willing, always will.


Yeah, it really does fight ignorance, no? Good thing for me, too.

More comments on the yoga thing. This discussion has made me realize that I had a proto-technique that predated the yoga, the running, even my plans to get fit in the first place. Years ago I had a whole slew of problems- no money, lousy jobs, bad relationships, declining fitness, all taking place in America's Crappiest Town. It looked like I was headed for a miserable life. Fortunately I used what seems to be the universal technique for solving personal problems, and by this point I've fixed every single thing (ok, I don't have zero problems, but I won't labor that point seeing how hard it is to convince you of anything). Strap yourself in and grab a pen or a camera, as this will surely go down in the Permanent Annals of Philosophy. What is it? I employed the esoteric technique of lighting a fire under my own ass.

No, I don't think I went nuts. I simply was not going to take 'no' for an answer from this stupid world. I wouldn't countenance any excuses and did not care about the effort level or suffering required if I was on the path to results. Not on any front.
So really, in terms of the fitness thing, it didn't have to be yoga or running (though neither rose to torture levels, except the actual marathon). In an alternate universe I met different people and enjoy swimming and raquetball.And in contrast, I have very few problems - or rather, none of my problems are sufficiently terrible to merit action. I'm not a millionaire, but I'm never short of cash. My job's not fun, but it's okay. My relationships are as good as I can make them, within the limits of what I can control. My fitess, and my weight, is and was, fine. And actually Boise's not a bad place to live, depending on what you're into.

Seriously, the weight didn't bother me. Sure, I weighed 350 pounds and not an ounce of it was muscle, but I'm six foot tall and wore it reasonably well. (My proof of this is a conversation I had a few months ago: "Bill, have you lost weight? You look ten or twenty pounds thinner!" "Uh, actually I'm down fifty.") There is a level of fatness which I find repellent, but even with the weight I was I was nowhere close to it.

And then I got diabetes. Did this give me an epiphany about my weight or fitness? Nope. I still feel fine and don't feel repelled by my physical state. (Good thing too, because I can't even see those ten pounds of difference.) Even the diabetes itself isn't an immidiate concern; I can control it perfectly well with pills. Sufficiently that despite the decidedly non-diabetic-approoved directions my diet swings at times, I haven't detected a speck of difference in myself.

So, what was the effect of the diabetes? I got this vague, unspecified threat of very very bad things happening to me, in like twenty or thirty years. This was enough to impell me to some small level of vague action, but it doesn't quite have the force of an immidiate threat, if you know what I mean.

So yeah. Light a fire under my own ass? I don't have anything to fuel such a fire! My problems just aren't that problematic. Heck, it's surprising I'm bothering with this diet thing at all. Suffice to say, with this weak level of motivation, effort level and suffering definitely remain relevent concerns.

And, on the topic of the effectiveness of exercise-
This year I happened to meet Constantina Dita (http://www.flotrack.org/articles/view/622-constantina-dita-olympic-gold-medalist-marathon), the gold medalist in the marathon at the Beijing Olympics. I recognized her when she stepped into an elevator with me (you seriously need to quit taking the stairs). I shook her hand. It was like shaking hands with a bird. I became a believer in the theory that some people have big bones, as hers are surprisingly slight (maybe she ran them down). I talked to her for a minute or two, and learned that she runs 140 miles per week :eek: And she seemed beamingly happy- no surprise, since running makes you high after all.

I'm not saying anyone else can run that much- she is the champ after all. But, you can see from the picture, and you should believe my impression, that she is quite thin. If it isn't the exercise, how do you explain her physique?Maybe she doesn't eat as much junk food?

Not to say that exercise doesn't burn calories - it's just very, very bad at it. Extraordinaly inefficient. (Or rather, the body is extraordinarly efficient in how it uses calories, to give credit where credit is due.) Of course, if you want to get results out of something that has marginal effect, you can accomplish this by doing a massive amount of it. So yeah, she probably prevents a few pounds of weight gain with those 140 miles. Not enough for me to care, though - especially since I will never in a million years run 140 miles a week. (Or a month. Or a year.)

And if she was happy I doubt it was because of a runner's high. (I mean, she wasn't running at the time, in that elevator. Was she?) It may surprise you to learn that there are in fact other reasons to be happy besides exercise - but nonetheless, it's true.

Anyway, my theory for getting weight-loss results from exercise: pick something. Don't worry about what level you're at, just find some way to quantify it, in terms of time, distance, or time*effort, something like that. Keep track and slowly crank it up. If you're exhausted in 5 minutes and have to rest for 3 days, fine, go for six minutes next time, rinse and repeat until you see results- without imposing your ideas of what that level is. Forget about expectations of suffering (or any expectations), only worry about injuries. You'll come to like it. You won't have to take it to Olympic levels, honest. That's it!My theory about getting weight loss from exercise is that with that and two bucks you can get a cup of coffee. It is at best taking the scenic route to your destination.

Well, I want to clarify that it's 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat burned, but that 3500 calories has to be an actual deficit. As I pointed out earlier, if you are still consuming many more calories than your body needs, you can actually expend 3500 calories in exercise but still not create a 3500 deficit, because you are making up the difference with caloric intake.You'd still gain one pound less of fat than you otherwise would, if it was as linear as you're saying. Which it clearly isn't.

ETA, I can see some people ignoring that fact or not caring and getting farther along without really realizing just how bad they look. If I didn't have a Physical Therapist for a wife, and a background in fitness, I'd probably not care as much about the out of breath thing.This is indeed how it usually happens.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

And in contrast, I have very few problems - or rather, none of my problems are sufficiently terrible to merit action. I'm not a millionaire, but I'm never short of cash. My job's not fun, but it's okay. My relationships are as good as I can make them, within the limits of what I can control. My fitess, and my weight, is and was, fine. And actually Boise's not a bad place to live, depending on what you're into.
Well that is a major difference right there. I was already miserable, couldn't see it getting any better and expected it to get worse. Not unless I tried hard to do something about it. So who knows, maybe exercise (and working like a maniac, moving, everything else- the fitness thing came last actually) actually is a miserable thing to do but I didn't notice because I was already miserable. It did work though, things are going well for me now.

You're basically fine with your weight and seemingly wouldn't care if it wasn't for the health issue. I think that is valid- I think the OP is kind of a jerk for pointing fingers.
And then I got diabetes. Did this give me an epiphany about my weight or fitness? Nope. I still feel fine and don't feel repelled by my physical state. (Good thing too, because I can't even see those ten pounds of difference.) Even the diabetes itself isn't an immidiate concern; I can control it perfectly well with pills. Sufficiently that despite the decidedly non-diabetic-approoved directions my diet swings at times, I haven't detected a speck of difference in myself.

So, what was the effect of the diabetes? I got this vague, unspecified threat of very very bad things happening to me, in like twenty or thirty years. This was enough to impell me to some small level of vague action, but it doesn't quite have the force of an immidiate threat, if you know what I mean.
I got a growing sense of urgency from my circumstances. It had been building up for years.

So yeah. Light a fire under my own ass? I don't have anything to fuel such a fire! My problems just aren't that problematic. Heck, it's surprising I'm bothering with this diet thing at all. Suffice to say, with this weak level of motivation, effort level and suffering definitely remain relevent concerns.
I guess that answers the OP. Being overweight doesn't matter very much. Except to jerk onlookers. Congratulations, begbert.

Maybe she doesn't eat as much junk food?
I'd ask her, but honestly have no way to contact her again AFAIK.

Not to say that exercise doesn't burn calories - it's just very, very bad at it. Extraordinaly inefficient. (Or rather, the body is extraordinarly efficient in how it uses calories, to give credit where credit is due.) Of course, if you want to get results out of something that has marginal effect, you can accomplish this by doing a massive amount of it. So yeah, she probably prevents a few pounds of weight gain with those 140 miles. Not enough for me to care, though - especially since I will never in a million years run 140 miles a week. (Or a month. Or a year.)
pshaw. Even at my very nuttiest I didn't come close to 140 miles.
I think you underestimate the benefits of exercise. My observation is the more out-of-shape a person is, the faster they benefit from it. But that is IMHO.
And yeah, the body is an amazing device. 'Nuff said.

And if she was happy I doubt it was because of a runner's high. (I mean, she wasn't running at the time, in that elevator. Was she?) It may surprise you to learn that there are in fact other reasons to be happy besides exercise - but nonetheless, it's true.
Well, there was the Olympic gold medal. And my fawning on her FWIW. But, you would have to run to understand. I (thought) I could see it. Yes, there are other reasons to be happy, and I appreciate them. But one good run does me for 2-3 days, I sleep better, feel better, am more relaxed. It is my personal experience, YMMV (and surely does). If you ever become miserable, go for a run, it is like a magic bullet.

My theory about getting weight loss from exercise is that with that and two bucks you can get a cup of coffee. It is at best taking the scenic route to your destination.
Yah well I think you're wrong, but I don't want to break your balls about it. I probably don't understand the differences between our diets to be honest.

[Epimetheus]

Exercise isn't good at helping one lose weight, I'll gladly give that. In fact, often it can lead to weight gain because of a combination of "I earned this latte" and the fact that exercise makes you hungry.

However, I disagree totally about it not making your happy or otherwise being worthless. Even in an age of wonderful evidence based medicine, exercise is one of the greatest preventative medicines for a whole range of problems. Including depression.

To the already happy, otherwise healthy person, exercise might not contribute much to well being, but it still helps with other problems. Helps... doesn't cure or prevent 100%. Take that as you will.

I too notice a great difference in attitude and outlook when I exercise. Even as I'm sore and can't walk up stairs well due to killing my legs with squats, I feel great, I sleep well, and I am randy as a teenager. No pill has ever come close to that (and I suffered from depression in college and have been on several medications because of it).

Also, I don't do marathon running, the longest distance I run is a 5k. I'm speaking generally about all exercise (though I'd be a spokesman for weightlifting any day).

[begbert2]

You're basically fine with your weight and seemingly wouldn't care if it wasn't for the health issue. I think that is valid- I think the OP is kind of a jerk for pointing fingers.Well, the OP wasn't talking about me or *my* type of fat person, who is largely unaffected by it aside from the occasional deadly disease; he was talking about people who (he presumed) can't ambulate on their own power. I suspect if I was that fat, so as to be actually impaired by it, that I might start caring.

Not to say that I would see it as a solvable problem by the time I got to that point, mind you, but I could easily care.

(And of course, the OP was a long, long time ago, in this thread. So no foul for forgetting their specific flame-target.)

pshaw. Even at my very nuttiest I didn't come close to 140 miles.
I think you underestimate the benefits of exercise. My observation is the more out-of-shape a person is, the faster they benefit from it. But that is IMHO.
And yeah, the body is an amazing device. 'Nuff said.And my experience is that I purchased and used a stationary bike for an hour a night every night for stretches a year at a time on and off over the last five years, with no discernable effects whatever. No weight loss. No muscle development. No bikers' high. No nothing.

'Nuff said.

Well, there was the Olympic gold medal. And my fawning on her FWIW. But, you would have to run to understand. I (thought) I could see it. Yes, there are other reasons to be happy, and I appreciate them. But one good run does me for 2-3 days, I sleep better, feel better, am more relaxed. It is my personal experience, YMMV (and surely does). If you ever become miserable, go for a run, it is like a magic bullet.Dude, I have runned. Ran. Rannethed. (Whichever.) You think I've lived thirty-three years and have never ran? Trust me, I've runannethed. It sucked. Bigtime. It was like hitting my knees with hammers and sucking the oxygen from my very bones - and it was a pain that lingered.

It's a magic bullet alright. And the next time I want to feel like I've been shot, I'll definitely go out for a run.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

It's a magic bullet alright. And the next time I want to feel like I've been shot, I'll definitely go out for a run.

lol

[Try2B Comprehensive]

So what does this mean for Ayn Rand's philosophy? A!=A?

[begbert2]

So what does this mean for Ayn Rand's philosophy? A!=A?Presuming that you're not posting in the wrong thread, and are instead referring to the disagreement in our experiences about exercise:

...it means that one of us is wrong. And because I am not saying that *nobody* gets happy from exercise, but only that exerciseophiles' experiences might be neither typical nor caused by the factors they imagine (ie: the actual physical act of physical exercise itself), I think that the wrong person is unlikely to be me.

[Taber]

. I'm only pointing this out because I've been told beer/wine can't make you fat.

I'm pretty sure you get this, but I'd like to emphasize that beer and wine is a great way to get fat.

they have calories, screw with muscle development, and can convince you that late night carne asada fries are a great idea.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Presuming that you're not posting in the wrong thread, and are instead referring to the disagreement in our experiences about exercise:

...it means that one of us is wrong. And because I am not saying that *nobody* gets happy from exercise, but only that exerciseophiles' experiences might be neither typical nor caused by the factors they imagine (ie: the actual physical act of physical exercise itself), I think that the wrong person is unlikely to be me.

How is that not an argument in favor of subjectivism? Assuming: A=running.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Know what? Let's not veer this into Rand. Personally I think Rand's problem is turning Subjectivism/Objectivism into Subjectivism v Objectivism, and becoming overly binary about it. But you'd do better to ask someone more informed on that subject.

And there are 2 arguments now. One is that exercise makes you happy. The other is that it is effective.

For the first, it is entirely biological, see this Wiki on the Runner's High (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphin).
In 2008, researchers in Germany reported that the myth of the runner's high was not a myth but was in fact true.

Now I can believe that high!=happy. It != sad though either, that's for sure.

As for the efficacy of exercise for weight loss, mostly the discussion is revolving around personal anecdotes. Look at what we have there:
One of us lit a fire under their own ass; one has not.
One of us has put their fitness (at least in part) in the hands of trained professionals (yoga instructors) more knowledgable on the subject than they; one of us has not.
One of us has experienced dramatic weight loss as a result of serious physical training; one of us has not been involved with serious physical training.

If you were walking in now on this conversation and considered these points, who would you believe?

But the conclusion isn't going to be that you need to obey me or go change your life or even believe anything else I say. And I'm not saying that dieting doesn't work- you lost more weight dieting than I lost exercising. I just think you give exercise a bad rap.

[needscoffee]

FWIW (and I'm leaving out large portions of the article; I just wanted to point out the main points of it):
From NY Times, November 4, 2009
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/phys-ed-why-doesnt-exercise-lead-to-weight-loss/?ref=magazine

Phys Ed: Why Doesn’t Exercise Lead to Weight Loss?
For some time, researchers have been finding that people who exercise don’t necessarily lose weight. A study published online in September (http://bjsm.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/bjsm.2009.065557v1) in The British Journal of Sports Medicine was the latest to report apparently disappointing slimming results ... few people, an overwhelming body of research shows, achieve significant weight loss with exercise alone, not without changing their eating habits... Perhaps just as important, bear in mind that exercise has benefits beyond weight reduction. In the study of obese people who took up exercise, most became notably healthier, increasing their aerobic capacity, decreasing their blood pressure and resting heart rates, and, the authors write, achieving “an acute exercise-induced increase in positive mood,” leading the authors to conclude that, “significant and meaningful health benefits can be achieved even in the presence of lower than expected exercise-induced weight loss.”

[Epimetheus]

Yes, but who is saying exercise is necessary for weightloss?

[Taber]

The negation of "researchers have been finding that people who exercise don’t necessarily lose weight" isn't "exercise is necessary to lose weight" it's "people who exercise always lose weight."

[Epimetheus]

Ok, Mr. Pedantic, who is saying "people who exercise always lose weight?"

[filmore]

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/1.../?ref=magazine
few people, an overwhelming body of research shows, achieve significant weight loss with exercise alone, not without changing their eating habits

The part in bold is key. Most people's eating habits are to eat until they feel full and satiated. Exercise can make you feel hungrier, so it's very easy to overeat the exercise and even then some. You still need to monitor your eating even if you're exercising.

[begbert2]

Know what? Let's not veer this into Rand. Personally I think Rand's problem is turning Subjectivism/Objectivism into Subjectivism v Objectivism, and becoming overly binary about it. But you'd do better to ask someone more informed on that subject.Which means he shouldn't ask me; I don't know Rand from Randy Savage. I've no idea what the goal was in equating me to her anyway.

And there are 2 arguments now. One is that exercise makes you happy. The other is that it is effective.

For the first, it is entirely biological, see this Wiki on the Runner's High (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphin).


Now I can believe that high!=happy. It != sad though either, that's for sure.We have people here claiming that the happy-making effects of exercise last for 2-3 days. This is not a runners high, and it is not biological. This is something that's all in his head which he is mistaking for a biological runner's high, out of a fantasy-based overestimation of the biological effects of exercise on the mind.

Similarly, blaming an olympic athelete's happiness while standing motionless in an elevator, on a biological runner's high.

While I'm here, I did notice that the linked cite mentioned that you can physically hurt yourself in pushing your limits, pursuing this runners' high. Running is specificially mentioned as a way of doing this. If I want to hurt myself pursuing a high, there are easier ways to do it, methinks...


As for the efficacy of exercise for weight loss, mostly the discussion is revolving around personal anecdotes. Look at what we have there:
One of us lit a fire under their own ass; one has not.
One of us has put their fitness (at least in part) in the hands of trained professionals (yoga instructors) more knowledgable on the subject than they; one of us has not.
One of us has experienced dramatic weight loss as a result of serious physical training; one of us has not been involved with serious physical training.

If you were walking in now on this conversation and considered these points, who would you believe?I wouldn't believe the one who gives all credit to the exercise while failing to demonstrate that diet control was not simultaneously occurring. This logic is similar to that employed by people who give credit all the credit to God when strangers are nice to them.

But the conclusion isn't going to be that you need to obey me or go change your life or even believe anything else I say. And I'm not saying that dieting doesn't work- you lost more weight dieting than I lost exercising. I just think you give exercise a bad rap.I think I give exercise a fair rap. It's good for a number of things, not the least of which is some people who care about it might find their self-image improved for a couple of days after demonstrating that they are the kind of person who can do a big workout. (This effect would be very similar in mechanism to the effect of buying yourself a new awesome car and riding around in it.) Exercise improves your musculature, assuming you don't have too much fat on top to be able to see the difference. And it jiggles around various other things, including cholesterol and blood sugar. Unless you overdo it, it's not bad for you, and a negligible amount of exercise it very likely good for you. Which is why I exercise a negligible amount. (When I don't get too busy with other things, anyway.)

But I'm seeing some people here giving it a great deal more credit than I think the facts show it deserves. It's natural liposuction! It gives you a semi-permanent natural high! It cures arthritis! And probably makes you an inch taller and cures cancer too!

It's okay to love your hobbies; but let's stay realistic here.

[MsWhatsit]

I know! People are making all sorts of ridiculous claims, such that exercise is equivalent to riding around in a sports car, or that looking good is the only reason to improve your musculature, or that only a "negligible" amount of exercise is good for you. Why DO people make crazy claims like that? ;)

And if you're going to take issue with the above, then I'm going to ask you for a cite for people claiming that exercise cures arthritis or is a form of natural liposuction, pls.

[wierdaaron]

I've been in dietsville since July and am so close to hitting the 50 pound mark that if I got an erection I could poke it. Was 232, about to be 182. At 6', I wasn't an epic fatass, but according to science (and Wii Fit) I was obese.

I both share the OP's question about how people can get that fat, and sort of understand how it could have happened to me.

For me, food was an antidepressant. It made me feel better when I was down in the dumps, which was pretty much always. I couldn't pass food and not eat it. The same way an alcoholic describes an inability to understand how someone could leave a glass of wine half-empty, I couldn't understand how someone could be within arm's reach of food and not eat it. Food tastes good, and makes you feel better for a bit.

Part of my depression came from the fact that I was overweight, and I attended to that depression by eating, which is depressing in itself, which made me eat more. It's a self-regulating ecosystem of calories.

Eventually I got on real antidepressants, which kind of took over the job from the food. With the meds, food wasn't making me feel any better about being overweight, and when food lost that power, I could start getting legitimately upset about my weight and motivated to do something about it.

So in that regard, I can imagine that if I didn't go on antidepressants I might have eaten myself into a scooter. I doubt it, but I can sort of see the imaginary path I would have had to take to get there.

Besides the meds, one of the things that was the biggest help in motivation was becoming a food snob. When I became a beer snob, it became too much work to only drink fancypants beers, so I stopped drinking altogether. When I became a food snob and wouldn't let myself eat fast food or anything with HFCS, eating crap food became too much work, so I stopped.

I think the people on TLC programs, "Half-Ton Teen" and "My 800 Lb Mom" and "Jesus Christ Look at this Fatty" are all in some kind of depression-related cycle. In the case of the 900-something pound 19 year old that's been in 4 different shows I've seen, it's quite obvious that the kid's mother overfeeds him because she needs to feel needed and nurturing.

There's always some reason people get that big. It's not just "food tastes good," otherwise everybody would be 900 pounds. Food's filling some kind of hole for those people.

[begbert2]

I know! People are making all sorts of ridiculous claims, such that exercise is equivalent to riding around in a sports car, or that looking good is the only reason to improve your musculature, or that only a "negligible" amount of exercise is good for you. Why DO people make crazy claims like that? ;)It's irritating when you deliberately read for incomprehension in order to distort my claims and to attempt to make me look like an ass. Though "distorting" barely begins to cover you saying I said that "looking good is the only reason to improve your musculature" immidately after my prior post.

And by "irritating", I mean that this incredible level of deliberate sladerous bullshit defies the ability to respond to outside the pit.

And if you're going to take issue with the above, then I'm going to ask you for a cite for people claiming that exercise cures arthritis or is a form of natural liposuction, pls.

Recent evidence suggests that running may actually shield somewhat against arthritis. (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/phys-ed-can-running-actually-help-your-knees/)

But hey, what do all those doctors and researchers know, anyway? Everyone "just knows" that running destroys your knees. :pNote that this was posted in response to me stating that I very likely already had a problem with my knees, so either the person was additionally implying that exercise additionally had curative powers, or they were being deliberately deceptive in order to use the nonsequiter to attempt to dishonestly undercut my postion.

And for natural liposuction, anybody who claims it's an effective method of weight loss will do.

[RickJay]

Yeah, it seems like most people I've encountered who have lost a significant amount of weight became motivated to do so after an epiphanal moment -- say, seeing yourself in a photo and not recognizing yourself, or getting out of breath walking up a single flight of stairs inside your own house.
It was a combination of things, but getting back into softball after a few years out this year did it for me. I ran out to my position in right field and was winded and thought, "Holy shit. I'm tired just running to my position." Then after a month my legs were killing me so badly I realized I couldn't possibly play every year without seriously hurting myself, and that was that. 41 pounds off since July 28.

Funny thing is, I never had the "Who's the fat guy in the mirror?" moment on the way up. But on the way DOWN, I look at pictures of myself in May and think, "Boy oh boy, I'm glad I'm getting away from that."

[Guinastasia]

begbert2, I try to exercise because even after losing weight from diet alone, I don't want my thighs too look like a smaller version of her's (http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?p=6085). I may be slim, but I'm still pretty flabby. I want to look good in a bathing suit -- or hell, just a pair of shorts, or a short skirt!

:D

[begbert2]

begbert2, I try to exercise because even after losing weight from diet alone, I don't want my thighs too look like a smaller version of her's (http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?p=6085). I may be slim, but I'm still pretty flabby. I want to look good in a bathing suit -- or hell, just a pair of shorts, or a short skirt!

:DHey, whatever works for you is great!

Despite appearances, I am not opposed to people exercizing. I am opposed to people misrepresenting the effects of exercise in order to sell it to the misinformed masses. There is a difference.

(And for myself, I'm probably just going to keep wearing full-length pants, even in the unlikely event I do ever get to 200lbs. It's easier. ;))

[rhubarbarin]

begbert2, I try to exercise because even after losing weight from diet alone, I don't want my thighs too look like a smaller version of her's (http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?p=6085). I may be slim, but I'm still pretty flabby. I want to look good in a bathing suit -- or hell, just a pair of shorts, or a short skirt!

:D

Good luck with reducing cellulite, but most of the women I know with the worst cases are athletic (including marathon runners). It's a matter of connective tissues in the lower layers of the skin, after all, not anything to do with body fat.

[marshmallow]

I can only speak for myself, but if I took a shower one morning and couldn't see my penis because of my gut I would immediately begin to run laps around the neighborhood. I'd think for most guys that'd be like a klaxon alarm going off.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Which means he shouldn't ask me; I don't know Rand from Randy Savage. I've no idea what the goal was in equating me to her anyway.
It won't do either of us any harm to forget about Rand. But- I wasn't equating you to her. Our conversation seemed to suggest a contradiction to her. Take it as a compliment.

We have people here claiming that the happy-making effects of exercise last for 2-3 days. This is not a runners high, and it is not biological. This is something that's all in his head which he is mistaking for a biological runner's high, out of a fantasy-based overestimation of the biological effects of exercise on the mind.
Cite? You are simply wrong on this point. No offense.

Similarly, blaming an olympic athelete's happiness while standing motionless in an elevator, on a biological runner's high.
I can't prove it I admit. But having some affinity for running and watching her kind of overflow for a minute, that is what it seemed like to me. Keep in mind she's logging 20 miles every day, and I'm not exactly Tom Brady either. Meh, disregard if you prefer. At least admit you weren't there.

While I'm here, I did notice that the linked cite mentioned that you can physically hurt yourself in pushing your limits, pursuing this runners' high. Running is specificially mentioned as a way of doing this. If I want to hurt myself pursuing a high, there are easier ways to do it, methinks...
Yes you can hurt yourself, it is true. In my own experience, let's see, I have been running for 4 years and have hurt myself exactly once, at the very very beginning and before I had proper shoes. Yoinked my AT band. Other than that, a blister here and there is all, and really not even those anymore.
I wouldn't say it is a case of 'pursuing' the runner's high. It is a nice experience to get out in the sun and stretch out my legs even without it, take a look at the land and the people as it goes past. My sinuses clear out (the effect of happy chemicals other than endorphins) and my muscles wake up and thank me for a couple days afterward. I sometimes get a very distinct sensation of my own heartbeat, especially when it is time to sleep (which puts me out), very pleasant, and yet I am less prone to get tired the rest of the time. The high part isn't pink elephants or unreality. I get seemingly immune to sadness, I don't stress about things, I don't know, I'm just pretty happy and feel good. Running was a way to get fit and increase my physical ability and I came to like it for itself- I never set out specifically to lose weight.
Anyway, I was hoping you would notice this line from the article:
Workouts that are most likely to produce endorphins to the extent of damage at the body's physical limit include, bdsm, boxing, running, wrestling, parkour, swimming, cross-country skiing, long distance rowing, cycling, weight lifting, aerobics, a martial art such as muay thai, soccer, basketball, rugby, lacrosse, hockey, tennis, American football and other strenuous exercises.
See, lots of ways to get the same effect! I really wouldn't agree that you need to get to the point of 'damage'- my regular run seems to do it and that has become an almost casual activity. On one occasion it reached a trancendental kind of level after an all-uphill race, but I wasn't hurt then either, just totally wiped out.

I wouldn't believe the one who gives all credit to the exercise while failing to demonstrate that diet control was not simultaneously occurring. This logic is similar to that employed by people who give credit all the credit to God when strangers are nice to them.
Religion!? Wha? When I was really going for it, yes, my diet changed. It happened consciously. But understand, I was moving into a high-carbohydrate diet, the exact opposite of that Atkin's all-protein stuff they recommend to dieters. If anything it was more fattening.
Dude. I had spent the last 7-10 years steadily putting on 50-60 lbs. I started running and within maybe 18 months, probably less, I weighed less than I did before gaining weight. I don't know how to prove it to you, but I tell you I ate more the whole time I was training hard, and even today I still think I eat a little more than before. I never gave up beer. I never really eschewed those burritos as big as your head or pizzas. But yes I did spend some time eating a lot of yams and chicken and rice, noodles and this sort of thing. But in large quantities. Again, I wasn't trying to lose weight at all, it just followed the fitness hobby. Now if I actually was trying to diet for weight loss I would spend $20 on the biggest vat of pickles I could find and make sure to eat at least 5 a day. There are 5, 10 calories max even in the big ones, fill you up and they're tasty and crunchy. But I didn't do anything like that.
I think I give exercise a fair rap. It's good for a number of things, not the least of which is some people who care about it might find their self-image improved for a couple of days after demonstrating that they are the kind of person who can do a big workout. (This effect would be very similar in mechanism to the effect of buying yourself a new awesome car and riding around in it.) Exercise improves your musculature, assuming you don't have too much fat on top to be able to see the difference. And it jiggles around various other things, including cholesterol and blood sugar. Unless you overdo it, it's not bad for you, and a negligible amount of exercise it very likely good for you. Which is why I exercise a negligible amount. (When I don't get too busy with other things, anyway.)
Well, I did get a big thrill out of tracking my progress and I'm proud that I did complete the marathon after all (even though it was stupid), but I really wouldn't compare it to buying a car. I'm not very materialistic in that way though.
I say 'bad rap' because you are soooo skeptical about its effectiveness. I got trim and fit (though not, I would like to stress, special) specifically and exactly through exercise, without ever caring for weight loss. I suppose there is a sense of accomplishment there too, leaving me feel like I could move on to conquer other things (which I have), though I'd demolished plenty of obstacles before- maybe that is just the way I am.

But I'm seeing some people here giving it a great deal more credit than I think the facts show it deserves. It's natural liposuction! It gives you a semi-permanent natural high! It cures arthritis! And probably makes you an inch taller and cures cancer too!
Yeah, more credit than you think it deserves. You haven't really experienced it. Hmm, I'm no taller, I might be less likely to get lung cancer or heart disease I suppose. I'm trying to tell you dude, it gives you a semi-permanent natural high, as you put it. Burn my house down though and I'm sure I'll still take it hard, if that is what you mean.

It's okay to love your hobbies; but let's stay realistic here.
I think I am. This is all measurable real-world stuff! Ok, the subjectivism is not easy to measure, but some cognitive effects are measurable and they check out. Improved fitness? Absolutely measurable. And keep in mind, humans are specially evolved in only so many things: Brains. Thumbs. Running. (other animals can't do it like humans). It is what we are evolved to do. We're physical animals. Being physical gives us a charge. Maybe someone else can help me out on this point.

[Shodan]

I can only speak for myself, but if I took a shower one morning and couldn't see my penis because of my gut I would immediately begin to run laps around the neighborhood.
You might want to put your pants on first.

Not that I speak from experience or anything...

Regards,
Shodan

[Epimetheus]

Not saying this is the case, but sometimes people get disillusioned about 'exercise' and become embittered to it, and instead of saying "exercise didn't work for me" they become this savage exercise hater and try disprove tens of thousands of peer reviewed studies wrong because they pushed themselves too hard and got burnt out, or they give it a half-hearted try and don't see immediate results.

[begbert2]

It won't do either of us any harm to forget about Rand. But- I wasn't equating you to her. Our conversation seemed to suggest a contradiction to her. Take it as a compliment. Sure.


Cite? You are simply wrong on this point. No offense.You first - the idea that endorphins (the proposed mechanism for the Runner's High) keep floating around in the system for days after being generated is both unlikely and, as best I can tell, completely unsupported by evidence. Including the wiki you quoted.

Note that I'm not disputing that y'all are happy people, or that people who are chronic exercisers have been noticed as being happy people. However there's no reason to believe that this is a biological effect of the exercise. The switch to a schedule with notable amounts of regular exercise inevitably involves a change in lifestyle, and would seem probable to provide regular experiences of achieving goals and experiencing personal accomlishment. Unlike endorphins, which as best I can tell don't last that long, these facts can explain happy runners - but they are NOT biological effects.

"But this means that if you take up extreme exercise, that you'll be happy!", you might say. My response: not so fast. You're forgetting correlation and causation. Professional basketball players tend to be tall, but that doesn't mean that basketball makes people tall. And similarly, it might be the case that there are people who don't experience happiness from exercise - and that they self-select for the most part out of the group who regularly exercise. Which means that you cannot extrapolate from your own experience to others in this matter, at least not without further data.

And as I've mentioned, my approach to goals and failure seems unlikely to contribute to satisfaction from any activity that involves very slow progress. Which leads me to strongly suspect that what works for you in this regard simply would not work for me.

I can't prove it I admit. But having some affinity for running and watching her kind of overflow for a minute, that is what it seemed like to me. Keep in mind she's logging 20 miles every day, and I'm not exactly Tom Brady either. Meh, disregard if you prefer. At least admit you weren't there.And a passionate theist sees God in everything (well, everything good, anyway). People have a tendency to concoct explanations that conform to their worldview and experience and beliefs.

Personally, if I was a world famous awesome star medal-winning runner, I'd be happy even if I was pumped with anti-endorphines and had a head cold.


Yes you can hurt yourself, it is true. In my own experience, let's see, I have been running for 4 years and have hurt myself exactly once, at the very very beginning and before I had proper shoes. Yoinked my AT band. Other than that, a blister here and there is all, and really not even those anymore.Heh, and ironically, my experience is that this sunday I hurt my back while reading. It was sufficiently painful that I could only get two hours of sleep that night. (According to the chiropractor, I did it to myself by lying on my front propped up on my elbows; this arched my back too much and held it in that position too long. Sounds plausible to me.)

Does this relate much to burning your body out through excessive exercise that pushes limits too far because you ignore them because you're having an actual endorphine-based runner's high? Not really. But I thought it would be mildly amusing to note that this experience hasn't done much to convince me that I have the right sort of body for yoga. :p

I wouldn't say it is a case of 'pursuing' the runner's high. It is a nice experience to get out in the sun and stretch out my legs even without it, take a look at the land and the people as it goes past. My sinuses clear out (the effect of happy chemicals other than endorphins) and my muscles wake up and thank me for a couple days afterward. I sometimes get a very distinct sensation of my own heartbeat, especially when it is time to sleep (which puts me out), very pleasant, and yet I am less prone to get tired the rest of the time. The high part isn't pink elephants or unreality. I get seemingly immune to sadness, I don't stress about things, I don't know, I'm just pretty happy and feel good. Running was a way to get fit and increase my physical ability and I came to like it for itself- I never set out specifically to lose weight.
Anyway, I was hoping you would notice this line from the article:
See, lots of ways to get the same effect! I really wouldn't agree that you need to get to the point of 'damage'- my regular run seems to do it and that has become an almost casual activity. On one occasion it reached a trancendental kind of level after an all-uphill race, but I wasn't hurt then either, just totally wiped out.
And I hope that you'll notice this line from the article, which immidiately follows the one you quoted:However, some scientists question the mechanisms at work, their research possibly demonstrating the "high" comes from completing a challenge rather than as a result of exertion.[12] Studies in the early 1980s cast doubt on the relationship between endorphins and the runner's high for several reasons: <snip>I have no doubt that you're a happier person now - heck, aside from the running you told me you took control and improved various other aspects of your life as well! Of course you're happier! But I remain dubious that you are correctly assigning blame for all the good things you've experienced. Especially with regard to biological causes for your happiness. And as noted in the quote, I'm not the only one who's dubious about this either.

And if you're getting transcendental, you're probably meditating while running. Not surprising; it's a pretty rhythmic activity if you're not staggering around in pain like I do.

Religion!? Wha? When I was really going for it, yes, my diet changed. It happened consciously. But understand, I was moving into a high-carbohydrate diet, the exact opposite of that Atkin's all-protein stuff they recommend to dieters. If anything it was more fattening.
Dude. I had spent the last 7-10 years steadily putting on 50-60 lbs. I started running and within maybe 18 months, probably less, I weighed less than I did before gaining weight. I don't know how to prove it to you, but I tell you I ate more the whole time I was training hard, and even today I still think I eat a little more than before. I never gave up beer. I never really eschewed those burritos as big as your head or pizzas. But yes I did spend some time eating a lot of yams and chicken and rice, noodles and this sort of thing. But in large quantities. Again, I wasn't trying to lose weight at all, it just followed the fitness hobby. Now if I actually was trying to diet for weight loss I would spend $20 on the biggest vat of pickles I could find and make sure to eat at least 5 a day. There are 5, 10 calories max even in the big ones, fill you up and they're tasty and crunchy. But I didn't do anything like that.I meant religious-style belief, mate, the mis-assignment of credit for things based on erroneous assumptions about their probable causes. You know, like blaming exerceise-generated endorphines for effects that last three days.

And if you weren't counting calories and tracking before and after, you're going to be hard pressed to prove to anyone, even yourself, that you did not change your diet when you changed your lifestyle.

As for pickles, they're okay, and I have added them to my snack list since this diet thing, but I'm not *that* fond of them. (They do keep forever, though, which is a plus. I have to buy the blasted broccoli every third day.)

Well, I did get a big thrill out of tracking my progress and I'm proud that I did complete the marathon after all (even though it was stupid), but I really wouldn't compare it to buying a car. I'm not very materialistic in that way though.
I say 'bad rap' because you are soooo skeptical about its effectiveness. I got trim and fit (though not, I would like to stress, special) specifically and exactly through exercise, without ever caring for weight loss. I suppose there is a sense of accomplishment there too, leaving me feel like I could move on to conquer other things (which I have), though I'd demolished plenty of obstacles before- maybe that is just the way I am.Buying a car works for some people. So does exercise, for other people. But it wouldn't be reasonable for me to assert that you would get happiness from buying a car, and it wouldn't be reasonable for you to assert that I would get happiness from exercising. 'Specially with that whole endorphine thing not seeming to pan out the way you think it does.


Yeah, more credit than you think it deserves. You haven't really experienced it. Hmm, I'm no taller, I might be less likely to get lung cancer or heart disease I suppose. I'm trying to tell you dude, it gives you a semi-permanent natural high, as you put it. Burn my house down though and I'm sure I'll still take it hard, if that is what you mean.People swear to me that religion gives a semi-permanent natural high, too. My acting theory is, it's all in their heads - and not in the endorphines in there, either.


I think I am. This is all measurable real-world stuff! Ok, the subjectivism is not easy to measure, but some cognitive effects are measurable and they check out. Improved fitness? Absolutely measurable. And keep in mind, humans are specially evolved in only so many things: Brains. Thumbs. Running. (other animals can't do it like humans). It is what we are evolved to do. We're physical animals. Being physical gives us a charge. Maybe someone else can help me out on this point.Whoa whoa whoa - now you are spouting religion. We can tell because you're diverging wildly from observable facts. Numerous animals kick humanity's collective asses with regard to running; not just cheetahs, but pretty darned near anything that even approaches our mass, from dogs to deer to rhinos to elephants. Seriously - this is reality here we're talking about.

The fact is that humans are not evolved to run. We're evolved to stand and reach and grab things - those thumbs you mentioned. We're evolved to stop and think. And maybe to watch saturday morning cartoons. But one thing we can be certain of is that running was not a primary factor that was selected for in our evolutionary development. Because if it was, we could actually outrun things. (Like, specifically, predators.)

Serously, you're trying to conform all of reality to your preconceptions, regardless of how obviously reality doesn't match up. When I see this, my gut reaction is "everything this guy says about his subject of belief should be taken with two dumptruck loads of salt". So yeah. Best bring cited facts, or settle for stating opinions as opinions. One or the other.




Not saying this is the case, but sometimes people get disillusioned about 'exercise' and become embittered to it, and instead of saying "exercise didn't work for me" they become this savage exercise hater and try disprove tens of thousands of peer reviewed studies wrong because they pushed themselves too hard and got burnt out, or they give it a half-hearted try and don't see immediate results.I wanna see these "thousands of peer reviewed studies". What are they studying? I don't think I've ever said exercise has no effects on a person; I may have an opinion, but I'm not ignoring reality here. I simply dispute specific claims, like that exercise is a good way to lose weight (especially if you increase your eating of big burritos and pizzas while doing it, as Try2B has claimed), or that exercise above a certain intensity creates a biologically-based high that lasts two or three days.

Which is to say, I am disillusioned about exercise - and I see value in dispelling the illusions, too. Some of the claims about the magical effects of exercise are really out there.

[Epimetheus]

I wanna see these "thousands of peer reviewed studies". What are they studying? I don't think I've ever said exercise has no effects on a person; I may have an opinion, but I'm not ignoring reality here. I simply dispute specific claims, like that exercise is a good way to lose weight (especially if you increase your eating of big burritos and pizzas while doing it, as Try2B has claimed), or that exercise above a certain intensity creates a biologically-based high that lasts two or three days.

Which is to say, I am disillusioned about exercise - and I see value in dispelling the illusions, too. Some of the claims about the magical effects of exercise are really out there.

They are out there (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=benefits+of+exercise&btnG=Search&as_ylo=&as_vis=0). Thousands, if not tens of thousands.

None go so far as to say exercise is a good way to lose weight, but I'm not claiming that. You made a specific statement in this thread in which exercise had no benefits. Also not claiming anything about runners high lasting 2-3 days.

Strawman much? Do you really think by disproving those two things, you prove that exercise has no medical benefits?

[rhubarbarin]

I don't think he's saying it doesn't have some health benefits. He's saying it is never or rarely a major factor in weight loss.

[Epimetheus]

I don't think he's saying it doesn't have some health benefits. He's saying it is never or rarely a major factor in weight loss.

Which I gave my personal reasons on why (post 606), so I do agree with that, but I remember him saying it has no benefits, I'll find it here in a few.

[begbert2]

They are out there (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=benefits+of+exercise&btnG=Search&as_ylo=&as_vis=0). Thousands, if not tens of thousands.

None go so far as to say exercise is a good way to lose weight, but I'm not claiming that. You made a specific statement in this thread in which exercise had no benefits. Also not claiming anything about runners high lasting 2-3 days.

Strawman much? Do you really think by disproving those two things, you prove that exercise has no medical benefits?

Which I gave my personal reasons on why (post 606), so I do agree with that, but I remember him saying it has no benefits, I'll find it here in a few.Please do - but make sure that it's not me saying that it has no benefits that I care about, and that it's not me saying that it has no benefits that are sufficient to instill in me a desire to do it. Becuase if that's all that I am saying, then this post here accusing me of attacking a strawman is itself the definition of a strawman.

(It may also help to keep an eye on what I'm reponding to - if a person says, "exercise provides great weight loss benefits" and I responded, "Exercise does not have those benefits!", then that wouldn't count either.)

((I will note further that I can't swear I have never said anything that could be construed as a complete disparagement of exercise, especially if taken out of context. I *can* get hyperbolic at time. However, I have stated my position clearly several times recently and it accepts that there are various effects to "sufficient amounts of" exercise that some people might find compelling. If you have to ignore these recent posts in order to argue against a handful of specific past ones, you are still building a strawman, just with slightly less ephemeral straw.))

(((I like parentheses.)))

[Epimetheus]

A fan of Lisp? ;)

Ok, I scoured through and guess the only citable point was that somebody else accused you of saying exercise has no benefits at all.

Your addendum is valid of course, I have no interest in running a marathon, and for similar reasons (though mostly me being lazy, marathons are hard). So perhaps my arguments seem a strawman, but I wasn't trying to convince you that you should exercise, only that it does have significant health benefits (though only if you always continue to do exercises...).

My only point is to defend that exercise does have proven health benefits (as much as you can "prove" with studies), not that they are significant enough you HAVE to do them no matter what. If you aren't arguing against that, then I'm not really debating you. I'm not interested in bashing strawmen, and the only reason it may seem I was, is due to my ignorance on your stance.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

I have to say I admire your tenacity.

You first - the idea that endorphins (the proposed mechanism for the Runner's High) keep floating around in the system for days after being generated is both unlikely and, as best I can tell, completely unsupported by evidence. Including the wiki you quoted.
I'm not claiming that there is a constant endorphin rush that lasts for days. There are actually other chemicals released, like epinephidrine (sp?) which also have cognitive as well as biological effects, but I'm not claiming that those are necessarily having a direct effect for 3 days either. I'm reporting from the field here; properly you should be trying to figure out how to substantiate my honest reporting through science. How can reduced stress really be measured? Lifted mood? Better sleep? Ongoing body pleasure? Joie de vivre? I don't know the answers to these, but it is in fact what I am reporting.
Note that I'm not disputing that y'all are happy people, or that people who are chronic exercisers have been noticed as being happy people. However there's no reason to believe that this is a biological effect of the exercise. The switch to a schedule with notable amounts of regular exercise inevitably involves a change in lifestyle, and would seem probable to provide regular experiences of achieving goals and experiencing personal accomlishment. Unlike endorphins, which as best I can tell don't last that long, these facts can explain happy runners - but they are NOT biological effects.
There isn't really any accomplishment to going out for a casual run- it is a routine act. I think this alone shoots your theory that it is some kind of accomplishment glow.

"But this means that if you take up extreme exercise, that you'll be happy!", you might say. My response: not so fast. You're forgetting correlation and causation. Professional basketball players tend to be tall, but that doesn't mean that basketball makes people tall. And similarly, it might be the case that there are people who don't experience happiness from exercise - and that they self-select for the most part out of the group who regularly exercise. Which means that you cannot extrapolate from your own experience to others in this matter, at least not without further data.
Who knows, maybe there is a self-selection going on in that I am the 'type of person' who gets happy from exercise. But this is a weight thread. Mimic my marathon training regime and I will bet you money you will lose weight. Do you disagree?
But if you're expecting instant results (from anything), then I think you are probably the one being unrealistic. Maybe meth is the right choice for you after all.
And as I've mentioned, my approach to goals and failure seems unlikely to contribute to satisfaction from any activity that involves very slow progress. Which leads me to strongly suspect that what works for you in this regard simply would not work for me.
Failure? How do you fail at exercise? I sense some digging in of the heels here.
And a passionate theist sees God in everything (well, everything good, anyway). People have a tendency to concoct explanations that conform to their worldview and experience and beliefs.
It is just numbers. You don't confuse those with God, do you? If you're a Phythagorean or something, please say so.
I had some time on my hands and did quite a lot of running for a while there. Perhaps 6 months of it involved plenty of 2+ hr runs (when I was still curious how far I could take it, I ramped it up to 180+ minutes at a stretch). Trying that hard required me to take a day off afterward, so a lowball estimate would be 120 minutes every other day. Eyeball guesstimate for someone my size is that a 2 hour run burns 1500 calories, so 3.5*1500=5250 calories a week. Keep that up over six months, with a ramp-up before and then mostly joyrunning ever since, let me ask you: exactly what am I going to eat to pick up those kind of calories every week?
Arithmetic, not God. Others have been fooled before you however.

Personally, if I was a world famous awesome star medal-winning runner, I'd be happy even if I was pumped with anti-endorphines and had a head cold.
Ok.

Heh, and ironically, my experience is that this sunday I hurt my back while reading. It was sufficiently painful that I could only get two hours of sleep that night. (According to the chiropractor, I did it to myself by lying on my front propped up on my elbows; this arched my back too much and held it in that position too long. Sounds plausible to me.)

Does this relate much to burning your body out through excessive exercise that pushes limits too far because you ignore them because you're having an actual endorphine-based runner's high? Not really. But I thought it would be mildly amusing to note that this experience hasn't done much to convince me that I have the right sort of body for yoga. :p
Going back to yoga again. For one, I don't think I've been clear that the meditation effects are a different animal from the 'biological' mood effects of running (see, I even used quotes!).
For two, you'd have to do yoga to get a body good for doing yoga. It is a process.
For three, in a further attempt to convince you that you don't know what you're talking about on this subject- guess which pose the instructors insist is the most difficult pose in the practice? Take a second and imagine what you think that might be. The answer is this one: corpse pose (http://z.about.com/d/yoga/1/0/W/savasana.jpg). It is the one at the end where you do nothing and think nothing. Is that the one you guessed? No? Are you sure you're prepared to promote an opinion without any experience of this?


And I hope that you'll notice this line from the article, which immidiately follows the one you quoted:I have no doubt that you're a happier person now - heck, aside from the running you told me you took control and improved various other aspects of your life as well! Of course you're happier! But I remain dubious that you are correctly assigning blame for all the good things you've experienced. Especially with regard to biological causes for your happiness. And as noted in the quote, I'm not the only one who's dubious about this either.
I don't assign all the good things I've experience to running, but only the ones that apply to running.
I'm not trying to claim that it is the only way to be happy either. I think you could be happy without ever running, if that is what you're worried about. But! There is a marked effect there, and again, without experience I don't see how you can have such strong opinions. We're not talking about reading verse xyz and realizing such and such about the Godhead. We're talking about a measurable physical action.
You've heard of cause and effect?
And if you're getting transcendental, you're probably meditating while running. Not surprising; it's a pretty rhythmic activity if you're not staggering around in pain like I do.
I know the difference from experience. That isn't what it was.

I meant religious-style belief, mate, the mis-assignment of credit for things based on erroneous assumptions about their probable causes. You know, like blaming exerceise-generated endorphines for effects that last three days.
You're narrowing my point to just the endorphin effects. But, what kind of science can I throw at you? Epithemeus tossed literally 2+ million links at you, and you still seem unimpressed.
And if you weren't counting calories and tracking before and after, you're going to be hard pressed to prove to anyone, even yourself, that you did not change your diet when you changed your lifestyle.
Again, we're talking about 5000+ extra calories burned per week. It isn't hard to undereat that, even without any effort. Maybe you'll tell me how.

Buying a car works for some people. So does exercise, for other people. But it wouldn't be reasonable for me to assert that you would get happiness from buying a car, and it wouldn't be reasonable for you to assert that I would get happiness from exercising. 'Specially with that whole endorphine thing not seeming to pan out the way you think it does.
Fair enough on the car bit.
The endorphin thing: dude, the researches did before and after brain scans of the relevant areas. They're peer-reviewed scientists. Even if it isn't the endorphins, are you still denying that it is something caused by the running?

People swear to me that religion gives a semi-permanent natural high, too. My acting theory is, it's all in their heads - and not in the endorphines in there, either.
Don't confuse me with those guys. Puh-leeze. And unlike religion, you could test this yourself. Your whole position though is a series of defenses against doing just that. You'll say you have tried it, I know, but I'm talking about lighting a fire under your own ass.

Whoa whoa whoa - now you are spouting religion. We can tell because you're diverging wildly from observable facts. Numerous animals kick humanity's collective asses with regard to running; not just cheetahs, but pretty darned near anything that even approaches our mass, from dogs to deer to rhinos to elephants. Seriously - this is reality here we're talking about.
I'm talking about endurance running. Sure, cheetas go faster, other animals can run well enough. But humans actually are supreme when it comes to distance running. Our bodies are dramatically more efficient than other animals. Pound for pound animals are stronger in the immediate moment, but they burn up all their juice long before a (fit) human has to quit. Look into it!
Of course if you mistake my point for something else, yah then of course I'm wrong.
The fact is that humans are not evolved to run. We're evolved to stand and reach and grab things - those thumbs you mentioned. We're evolved to stop and think. And maybe to watch saturday morning cartoons. But one thing we can be certain of is that running was not a primary factor that was selected for in our evolutionary development. Because if it was, we could actually outrun things. (Like, specifically, predators.)
But we are. I'll try to find a link if I can. The Dawn of Time guys survived by exhausting their prey. Among other things of course, it isn't The Only Thing.

Serously, you're trying to conform all of reality to your preconceptions, regardless of how obviously reality doesn't match up. When I see this, my gut reaction is "everything this guy says about his subject of belief should be taken with two dumptruck loads of salt". So yeah. Best bring cited facts, or settle for stating opinions as opinions. One or the other.

These are post-conceptions. I didn't have these ideas until I tried to get fit, and later looked into it a little.


I wanna see these "thousands of peer reviewed studies". What are they studying? I don't think I've ever said exercise has no effects on a person; I may have an opinion, but I'm not ignoring reality here. I simply dispute specific claims, like that exercise is a good way to lose weight (especially if you increase your eating of big burritos and pizzas while doing it, as Try2B has claimed), or that exercise above a certain intensity creates a biologically-based high that lasts two or three days.
Epithemeus provided a ton of links. Personally, I'm not a peer-reviewed scientist. But if I didn't get lean and strong through all the exercise, how did I do it? Starving myself to strength and ability? Really???

Which is to say, I am disillusioned about exercise - and I see value in dispelling the illusions, too. Some of the claims about the magical effects of exercise are really out there.
Maybe we should start out with your list of which of my claims are magical.

[meara]

First two Google hits for: evolved to run

Research: Humans Are Born to Run
Study Claims Early Humans Evolved to Run Long Distances
http://abcnews.go.com/technology/story?id=256348&page=1

How Running Made Us Human: Endurance Running Let Us Evolve To Look The Way We Do
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041123163757.htm

[rhubarbarin]

Eyeball guesstimate for someone my size is that a 2 hour run burns 1500 calories, so 3.5*1500=5250 calories a week. Keep that up over six months, with a ramp-up before and then mostly joyrunning ever since, let me ask you: exactly what am I going to eat to pick up those kind of calories every week?
Arithmetic, not God. Others have been fooled before you however.

Hmm. What arithmetic are you using? At 100 lbs, I burn about 63 calories per mile (on a flat surface), adjusted to subtract the number of calories I would be burning anyway if I was sitting on the couch. It takes me about 30 minutes to run 3 miles (my usual length), for a total expenditure of under 200 calories, or one medium-sized cookie (if I ate them).

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-242-304-311-8402-0,00.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15570150

Since you asked - I drink a pint of heavy cream, 1600 calories, daily (in addition to 3 meals per day). It wouldn't be hard for me to stay out of caloric deficit were I to burn this much through exercise!

[begbert2]

A fan of Lisp? ;)I'm not that big a fan of parentheses! :)

Ok, I scoured through and guess the only citable point was that somebody else accused you of saying exercise has no benefits at all.

Your addendum is valid of course, I have no interest in running a marathon, and for similar reasons (though mostly me being lazy, marathons are hard). So perhaps my arguments seem a strawman, but I wasn't trying to convince you that you should exercise, only that it does have significant health benefits (though only if you always continue to do exercises...).

My only point is to defend that exercise does have proven health benefits (as much as you can "prove" with studies), not that they are significant enough you HAVE to do them no matter what. If you aren't arguing against that, then I'm not really debating you. I'm not interested in bashing strawmen, and the only reason it may seem I was, is due to my ignorance on your stance.I think we're cool then.



I have to say I admire your tenacity.This is my version of running a marathon. You totally know I'm doing it for the biochemical effects of arguing a point in debate.

I'm not claiming that there is a constant endorphin rush that lasts for days. There are actually other chemicals released, like epinephidrine (sp?) which also have cognitive as well as biological effects, but I'm not claiming that those are necessarily having a direct effect for 3 days either. I'm reporting from the field here; properly you should be trying to figure out how to substantiate my honest reporting through science. How can reduced stress really be measured? Lifted mood? Better sleep? Ongoing body pleasure? Joie de vivre? I don't know the answers to these, but it is in fact what I am reporting.And you're missing the point - I'm not saying that these things aren't happening, I'm stating that these are not biological effects. And that you're incorrectly assigning full credit to the physical effects exercise. You can't argue against this by pointing out that effects happen.

The reason why the source of the effects matters is, if it's a physical effect of exercise, then it would happen to me if I hated myself enough to subject myself to that kind of treatment. But if it's pscyhological, then that may not be the case. I do not admire runners, do not see a shred of value in the difference between "thin" and "fit", and am vaguely repelled by the idea of being 'ripped'. Based on this, I strongly suspect that running would never do a thing for me psychologically speaking - at least not anything good anyway.

There isn't really any accomplishment to going out for a casual run- it is a routine act. I think this alone shoots your theory that it is some kind of accomplishment glow.Not at all - what would happen if you didn't run for a while? You'd start to feel slothful, and lazy, and guilty, right? Hence the "wearing off". And as for the sustained state of happiness, you like the idea if yourself as a fit athlete, so when you maintain a lifestyle that you see as consistent with your preferred self-image, you like yourself better, and are thus happier.

That's my theory. What's yours? Running generates long-lasting happy-drugs?

Who knows, maybe there is a self-selection going on in that I am the 'type of person' who gets happy from exercise. But this is a weight thread. Mimic my marathon training regime and I will bet you money you will lose weight. Do you disagree?If I mimic just the running, and return to my old habit of eating lots and lots and lots of processed food and snacks? Keeping in mind I'd have to eat more per-hour when I'm not running, to make up for the time wasted on the track, and undoubtedly would due to being hungrier from the workout?

I not only wouldn't lose weight, I'd gain all that I've currently lost back, without doubt. (This is of course ignoring the high likelihood that I would be physically incapable of your regime, with my bones and even my current weight.)

But if you're expecting instant results (from anything), then I think you are probably the one being unrealistic. Maybe meth is the right choice for you after all.For a quick shot of happy, I prefer legos or anime, mostly. (Though meth might be cheaper...)

Failure? How do you fail at exercise? I sense some digging in of the heels here.You fail at exercise by having any kind of standard, and not making it. "Be this good." "Be this fast." "Be this strong." "Improve this much."

Not very zen, I know, but some of us look for observable metrics by which to measure progress, and it's a short short step from having a metric, to making goals against that metric - and from there, it's possible to fail to meet those goals. (For example, at the moment I'm failing at dieting. I should have crossed 260 weeks ago.)

It is just numbers. You don't confuse those with God, do you? If you're a Phythagorean or something, please say so.
I had some time on my hands and did quite a lot of running for a while there. Perhaps 6 months of it involved plenty of 2+ hr runs (when I was still curious how far I could take it, I ramped it up to 180+ minutes at a stretch). Trying that hard required me to take a day off afterward, so a lowball estimate would be 120 minutes every other day. Eyeball guesstimate for someone my size is that a 2 hour run burns 1500 calories, so 3.5*1500=5250 calories a week. Keep that up over six months, with a ramp-up before and then mostly joyrunning ever since, let me ask you: exactly what am I going to eat to pick up those kind of calories every week?
Arithmetic, not God. Others have been fooled before you however.Keeping in mind that your numbers have already been severely disputed, how much exactly is 5250 calories a week? Well, it's 750 calories a day. Which is like, four cookies. Wow, that's like a whole thanksgiving dinner right there! Who could possibly eat that much. :rolleyes:

Prior to my diet, I wasn't counting calories, but based on rough estimates I probably averaged about two thousand calories of snacks a day. Without feeling like I was particularly stuffing myself. 5250 calories a week is nothing.

Going back to yoga again. For one, I don't think I've been clear that the meditation effects are a different animal from the 'biological' mood effects of running (see, I even used quotes!).
For two, you'd have to do yoga to get a body good for doing yoga. It is a process.
For three, in a further attempt to convince you that you don't know what you're talking about on this subject- guess which pose the instructors insist is the most difficult pose in the practice? Take a second and imagine what you think that might be. The answer is this one: corpse pose (http://z.about.com/d/yoga/1/0/W/savasana.jpg). It is the one at the end where you do nothing and think nothing. Is that the one you guessed? No? Are you sure you're prepared to promote an opinion without any experience of this?For one, there may be more than one way to meditate, with different effects. The mind is a large and complicated place.

For two, the debate about wether *everyone* can get a yogariffic body is impossible to prove, since I will say that people are different from each other and you will claim that people are just at different levels of development (and that, by corollary, everything that an olympic athelete can do could be done by anyone if they weren't such lazy-asses.)

For three, all you've done is prove that yoga isn't all about exercise, and there's a meditation aspect to it too, which is considered harder. Which isn't impressive since we've already agreed upon meditation being part of yoga (in fact, the only part you consider interesting). And unless you're hoping to show that all of yoga is physically as easy or easier as lying motionless on your back, you haven't shown that I'm ignorant of anything except irrelevent trivia.


I don't assign all the good things I've experience to running, but only the ones that apply to running.
I'm not trying to claim that it is the only way to be happy either. I think you could be happy without ever running, if that is what you're worried about. But! There is a marked effect there, and again, without experience I don't see how you can have such strong opinions. We're not talking about reading verse xyz and realizing such and such about the Godhead. We're talking about a measurable physical action.
You've heard of cause and effect?Sure. You've heard of correlation doesn't equal causation?

I know the difference from experience. That isn't what it was.meditayto, meditahto.

You're narrowing my point to just the endorphin effects. But, what kind of science can I throw at you? Epithemeus tossed literally 2+ million links at you, and you still seem unimpressed.Probably since arguing by link overload is unimpressive argument.

Again, we're talking about 5000+ extra calories burned per week. It isn't hard to undereat that, even without any effort. Maybe you'll tell me how.I can eat an extra ten thousand calories a week without trying. You ever heard of potato chips? They sell them in nice big bags.


Fair enough on the car bit.Yay!

The endorphin thing: dude, the researches did before and after brain scans of the relevant areas. They're peer-reviewed scientists. Even if it isn't the endorphins, are you still denying that it is something caused by the running?Endorphines exist. They are short term pain relief. They have dick-all to do with your constant happy mood.

If you're going to cite scientists, it helps if they're talking about the same thing you're talking about.

Don't confuse me with those guys. Puh-leeze. And unlike religion, you could test this yourself. Your whole position though is a series of defenses against doing just that. You'll say you have tried it, I know, but I'm talking about lighting a fire under your own ass.I could try eating shit myself too, but honestly I think that an analytical approach to the evidence is sufficient to show to a reasonable degree of certainty that it's not gonna taste good, regardless of what people might say.

And "lighting a fire under your ass" is an entire lifestyle change, and you're blaming the benefits on just one part of it. That's like taking your car in for a tuneup and crediting the replaced windsheild wipers for the increase in gas mileage.

I'm talking about endurance running. Sure, cheetas go faster, other animals can run well enough. But humans actually are supreme when it comes to distance running. Our bodies are dramatically more efficient than other animals. Pound for pound animals are stronger in the immediate moment, but they burn up all their juice long before a (fit) human has to quit. Look into it!
Of course if you mistake my point for something else, yah then of course I'm wrong.

But we are. I'll try to find a link if I can. The Dawn of Time guys survived by exhausting their prey. Among other things of course, it isn't The Only Thing.meara helped you out:First two Google hits for: evolved to run

Research: Humans Are Born to Run
Study Claims Early Humans Evolved to Run Long Distances
http://abcnews.go.com/technology/story?id=256348&page=1

How Running Made Us Human: Endurance Running Let Us Evolve To Look The Way We Do
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041123163757.htmHave you read those links? "Consider the fact that some 334,000 people ran marathons in the United States last year, and then try getting an antelope to run 26 miles, or a chimp, for that matter." Yeah, right, and try getting me to run 26 miles either for that matter! This is a joke. Cobbled excuse for science biased towards a preconcieved notion. Similar efforts have concluded that we evolved from fish-men.



These are post-conceptions. I didn't have these ideas until I tried to get fit, and later looked into it a little.And then using your preconceptions based on your anecdotal experience, you found an explanation that seemed satisfying and seemed to fit your set of experiences, and latched onto that.

Similar thinking shows that bad people get struck by lightning. You don't figure this out until after a few people get hit, of course...


Epithemeus provided a ton of links. Personally, I'm not a peer-reviewed scientist. But if I didn't get lean and strong through all the exercise, how did I do it? Starving myself to strength and ability? Really???Tons of links thrown at you at once are like tons of ninjas thrown at you at one - the more there are, the weaker they all are. This goes times six orders of magnitute if the links are dumped out without summations or explanations.

And don't move goalposts. Starving doesn't make you strong, starving makes you thin. Exercise makes you strong, and I never said it didn't. (You have to be thin before you can be lean, though.)

Maybe we should start out with your list of which of my claims are magical.Let's stick with the "running gives you a chemical high lasting days" and "5250 cals/week = unstoppable weight loss". That should be fine for a start.

[begbert2]

I'm talking about endurance running. Sure, cheetas go faster, other animals can run well enough. But humans actually are supreme when it comes to distance running. Our bodies are dramatically more efficient than other animals. Pound for pound animals are stronger in the immediate moment, but they burn up all their juice long before a (fit) human has to quit. Look into it!I noticed that I didn't answer this directly, in my prior post. I will do so now:

Horse.

[rhubarbarin]

Actually begbert, humans beat horses easily in an endurance race. Thoroughbreds only run a couple miles at a time for a reason. All those novels you might have read where the horse gallops all night - physically impossible.

Almost every other animal has a breath rate that is tied to their stride (when you have four legs and your abdomen folds with each stride, the breath is forced in and out of your lungs). Also, they don't sweat, so they can't regulate their temperature as effectively. They are all sprinters, compared to us.

[not_alice]

snip....

How about non-weight bearing aerobic exercise to go along with those 1800 calories?

[meara]

Have you read those links? "Consider the fact that some 334,000 people ran marathons in the United States last year, and then try getting an antelope to run 26 miles, or a chimp, for that matter." Yeah, right, and try getting me to run 26 miles either for that matter! This is a joke. Cobbled excuse for science biased towards a preconcieved notion. Similar efforts have concluded that we evolved from fish-men.

I winced at that line too, but there's a lot more to that study than that. Look at the long, bulleted list at the end of the Science Daily link. Clearly, there's no way to definitively prove an evolutionary theory like this, but the evidence presented makes a strong case.

BTW, based on my observations, I'm pretty sure that most fit people could run 26 miles with a few months training (and most unfit people could do it with a year or two of weight loss and training). You probably wouldn't set any speed records, but you could make the distance. Watch the end of a big city marathon sometime and you'll see plenty of 250-300 pound people finishing in the 6-8 hour range.

[Zsofia]

Nova did a project like that, actually, and every single person except the one who got disqualified by stress fractures finished the marathon. None of them were runners or even in shape at the beginning of the year.

It was kind of stupid, though, because they put them in the Boston Marathon - why on earth would you want to run Boston if you couldn't run fast? Run Chicago or New York or one of the other big city marathons - slow charity runners and sponsored runners at Boston run alone. They take down the barricades and you run on the sidewalks and such. Bad idea.

[begbert2]

Actually begbert, humans beat horses easily in an endurance race. Thoroughbreds only run a couple miles at a time for a reason. All those novels you might have read where the horse gallops all night - physically impossible.Gallop = sprint. Galloping horses beat sprinting humans. How about when a horse isn't going full-tilt? How do we compare then?

Some thoughts have been crossing my mind about that wince-worthy line are, that when most animals run, it's for the reason of either 1) predation, or 2) escape. In both cases, momentary speed is a much more significant factor than long-term endurance. So, you'd natually expect animals to be sprinters.

But, does that mean that they can't endurance run? Not really. (Though it may be true in some cases, I suppose.) It just means that it's difficult to do an easy test - if you get these things running, they'll do it at top speed and either outrun you (or catch you) and stop, or you'll pace them in your jeep and cause them to sprint to exhaustion.

Horses are a notable exception to this because humans have domesticated them to the point that they can control the animals' speed. And guess what happens as a result? You have an animal that you can have run along for a good long time, at a speed surpassing that of a marathon-running human (and they do this carrying a couple hundred pounds on their back).

Seriously folks. If humans were better distance runners than horses, we wouldn't have bothered to domesticate horses for use as a method of individual transportation. They would have been at best relegated to the task of being draft animals like oxen, used only for their pulling power alone.

Almost every other animal has a breath rate that is tied to their stride (when you have four legs and your abdomen folds with each stride, the breath is forced in and out of your lungs). Also, they don't sweat, so they can't regulate their temperature as effectively. They are all sprinters, compared to us.I don't see how the breath rate argument helps your case. And, sweating is a bad thing for endurance running - a cro-magnon man didn't have helpful people handing him bottles of water as he jogged along. How many marathon runners do it completely dry? I admit I'm not well-read, but (I think due to this thread) I read mention of one that did, and he was specifically pointed out as an anomaly in this regard, and he was not described as being able to carve up an exhausted mastadon afterwards.

I winced at that line too, but there's a lot more to that study than that. Look at the long, bulleted list at the end of the Science Daily link. Clearly, there's no way to definitively prove an evolutionary theory like this, but the evidence presented makes a strong case.The list is post-hoc rationalization, tying various disparate features to running that don't need to have anything to do with running - assuming they're not just silly.

# Sweat cools the head better - but you don't have to run to sweat. Savannas aren't air-conditioned, and heat-stroke is worth avoiding even if you're just walking.
# Yeah, long faces are a real problem for horses, deer, dogs...look at how their heads bob around wildly as they run! What nonsense.
# Or the ligament just made it easer to stand erect with the head raised for long periods of time.
# Running is the only reason they could think of that it might be useful to be big and tall? And look how it's supposed to help: more cooling? Twisting leg forces? Yeah, horses and dogs are really thrown around all crazy-like when they run, aren't they? Gag me.
# In the picture the arms don't look much shorter to me - it's just that the rest of us is taller. So yeah.
# Or maybe it's to help us stand erect longer.
# Same as prior.
# Or maybe it was useful to have greater leg strength, since we were standing erect all the time. (Apes on the other hand have awesome arms.)
# Or maybe it was just useful to get bigger.
# Or maybe it's just to help us stand up.
# Same as above.

Seriously, at best this is a list of things that fail to disprove the notion that man=runner. And this kind of "Start with preconcieved notion and look for things which can be somehow construed as supporting your theory" stuff is exactly the same sort of pseudoscientific bullcrap that gave rise to the aquatic ape hypothesis. I could use similar "logic" to show that we evolved specifically towards the goal of becoming titanic fatasses.

BTW, based on my observations, I'm pretty sure that most fit people could run 26 miles with a few months training (and most unfit people could do it with a year or two of weight loss and training). You probably wouldn't set any speed records, but you could make the distance. Watch the end of a big city marathon sometime and you'll see plenty of 250-300 pound people finishing in the 6-8 hour range.26 miles in 8 hours is 3 1/4 miles per hour on average. That isn't running speed, that's a slightly hasty walk.

Not to say that it's not impressive that they managed to keep walking for eight hours straight, if you're into that sort of thing, but this is not exactly an argument for the protohuman loping across the plains outrunning vultures.

[Zsofia]

Seriously folks. If humans were better distance runners than horses, we wouldn't have bothered to domesticate horses for use as a method of individual transportation. They would have been at best relegated to the task of being draft animals like oxen, used only for their pulling power alone.


Now that's a seriously stupid statement. I can walk to work a lot better than my car can drive me there, in many ways - it's cheaper, I wouldn't have to park it, I take up a lot less space on the road, I'm a much more efficient walker than my car is a driver. I drive to work because I don't want to expend the effort, obviously.

[begbert2]

Now that's a seriously stupid statement. I can walk to work a lot better than my car can drive me there, in many ways - it's cheaper, I wouldn't have to park it, I take up a lot less space on the road, I'm a much more efficient walker than my car is a driver. I drive to work because I don't want to expend the effort, obviously.And you think that's why humans went to the effort of domesticating equines?

They weren't available mint off the lot, fully loaded.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

i can't cite it, but according to a doctor's advertisement I got recently, there are medicines that help with overeating. These medicines modify someone's brain chemistry.
I recall some TV commercials about new prescription drugs for this, but the older stimulants, including the amphetamines, are still approved for this purpose as well. They sure do modify your brain chemistry, but for such extremely overweight people that's probably a good thing, the same way it is for people with ADD.

As for why people do get so fat, and barring cases of long term physical disability preventing normal activity and exercise, I think it might be a type of addiction. Unlike narcotics and powerful CNS drugs, though, which can kill a person immediately if they take too much, food doesn't have that restraining factor. You might have a heart attack or stroke in ten years, but it won't kill you today no matter how much you eat. So there's no restraining factor. Last year I watched a couple of episodes of "The Biggest Loser", and I couldn't help but notice that none of the contestants really seemed to be drinkers. Alcoholics may get flabby, and they might get beer bellies, but they don't get huge. Attempting to ingest enormous amounts of calories in the form of alcohol would result in overdose.

[Epimetheus]

Seriously folks. If humans were better distance runners than horses, we wouldn't have bothered to domesticate horses for use as a method of individual transportation. They would have been at best relegated to the task of being draft animals like oxen, used only for their pulling power alone.


I'm pretty certain it is accepted that humans ran animals into the ground when they were hunters. We won by endurance.

Humans are lazy by nature. It is probably some aspect of our intelligence. Much of what we have developed technologically is hardly "better" but just easier. Wheels are hard to get around with compared to feet. We have to have somewhat smooth roads, etc. It is easier (on us) to use wheeled carts rather than walk. Plus we mostly domesticated oxen and horses to pull the crap. It wasn't one of endurance, but one of strength and utility.

Cite (http://www.physorg.com/news95954919.html)

[Epimetheus]

Also, check out the Tarahumara, from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara#Athletic_prowess):


The word for themselves, Rarámuri, means "runners on foot" in their native tongue according to some early ethnographers like Norwegian Carl Lumholtz, though this interpretation has not been fully agreed upon. With widely dispersed settlements, these people developed a tradition of long-distance running for intervillage communication and transportation. The long-distance running tradition also has ceremonial and competitive aspects. Often, male runners kick wooden balls as they run in "foot throwing" competitions, and females use a stick and hoop. The foot throwing races are relays where the balls are kicked by the runners and relayed to the next runner while teammates run ahead to the next relay point. These races can last anywhere from a few hours for a short race to a couple of days without a break. The Rarámuri also practice persistence hunting, using their ability to run extremely long distances (sometimes as far as 160 km) to catch animals such as deer; the animals eventually tire and slow down, and the Rarámuri get close enough to the animal to kill it. [1]


More on them (http://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/art.html) if you are interested.

[Zsofia]

And you think that's why humans went to the effort of domesticating equines?

They weren't available mint off the lot, fully loaded.
Uh, yeah. Obviously it is. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Why else would we do it, because little girls like horsies?

Now, I wouldn't be surprised to find that horses were domesticated as draft animals before riding animals, but I'd expect that to be a function of size as well as training. And of course for meat. And once you get a horse to pull a thing the advantage in warfare is obvious, of course. But we domesticated horses to save labor for us just like how I bought a car to save labor for me, yes.

ETA - pretty much every advance we make as a species comes out of laziness. I'm tired of doing all this hunting and gathering - hey, what if the food just stayed here and I didn't have to follow it? I'm sick of dragging shit all around town on a travois and walking around with it on my head - oh, I know, let's invent the wheel! Cotton is a bitch and a half to get the seeds out... wonder if there's a machine I could make?

[begbert2]

I'm pretty certain it is accepted that humans ran animals into the ground when they were hunters. We won by endurance.

Humans are lazy by nature. It is probably some aspect of our intelligence. Much of what we have developed technologically is hardly "better" but just easier. Wheels are hard to get around with compared to feet. We have to have somewhat smooth roads, etc. It is easier (on us) to use wheeled carts rather than walk. Plus we mostly domesticated oxen and horses to pull the crap. It wasn't one of endurance, but one of strength and utility.

Cite (http://www.physorg.com/news95954919.html)The cite is more post-hoc "fit the evidence to the argument" crap. I particularly liked that they picked "advanced" weapons like the bow and arrow, rather than just ordinary weapons, as the marking point between when we should have been able to eat meat or not - and then magically decided that the only possible explanation for how we killed animals without bows was by running them to exhastion.

Me I thought that humans would sneak up on the critters, surround them, pick a target, and chuck spears at it. Then it would either stay and fight, or turn and run, wounded. Even wounded it would being much faster than the humans, of course, it would ditch them immediately, after which point the humans would have to track it. Might they make haste in doing so? Sure. But was the point to run the animal to exhaustion? Probably not. The point was probably to get where they could sneak up on it and injure it more, until it finally got around to actually dying of its injuries.

Seriously, I don't care how many times this theory gets itself into online articles; the arguments are still specious and self-serving, targeting extremely specific and limited explanations when the evidence does nothing to limit them from drawing alternate conclusions. It's not science, it's speculative fiction.


I'll get to the lazy human thing in a moment.
Uh, yeah. Obviously it is. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Why else would we do it, because little girls like horsies?

Now, I wouldn't be surprised to find that horses were domesticated as draft animals before riding animals, but I'd expect that to be a function of size as well as training. And of course for meat. And once you get a horse to pull a thing the advantage in warfare is obvious, of course. But we domesticated horses to save labor for us just like how I bought a car to save labor for me, yes.

ETA - pretty much every advance we make as a species comes out of laziness. I'm tired of doing all this hunting and gathering - hey, what if the food just stayed here and I didn't have to follow it? I'm sick of dragging shit all around town on a travois and walking around with it on my head - oh, I know, let's invent the wheel! Cotton is a bitch and a half to get the seeds out... wonder if there's a machine I could make?...Flying by flapping my arms is really tiring, I think I'll build an airplane...

You know, I should never have given you this inch that you're running for a mile. So I'm not going to bother with it. I don't care why we domesticated horses. Maybe it never crossed a human's mind to ride one until long after we had them pulling plows. I don't care. It just doesn't matter. Becuase regardless of historical theorizing and marathoner fantasizing, horses are still faster and better at endurance running than humans.

What you people wallowing in the fantasy of the human as the ultimate runner don't realize is, horses do marathons too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_riding). And look at this: "Winning riders complete 100-mile (160 km) rides in 10-12 hours." Whoooops, looks like the horses just kicked humanity's collective asses. How long does it take you to run 100 miles? And no, you can't just take 2 hours per 26 miles and multipy by four; in an endurance contest cumulative wear matters. Keep also in mind that the riders aren't allowed to run the horses into the ground, and that the horses running these competitions are doing it carrying a fifth of their body weight in cargo.

Oh dear. Looks like the facts don't agree with you. Too bad for you.

[Epimetheus]

Ok, continue to grind your axe because you hate exercise. The evidence doesn't lie. You are blinded by your rage against exercise. Do you have a degree in anthropology? No? I didn't think so, I'll trust the guy from Harvard that does and is well respected rather than some heavyset lazy guy on the internet that thinks armchair intelligence and opinion trumps academically accepted FACTS.

Goodbye, I'm done with you.

[MsWhatsit]

Winning times for 100-mile (human) ultramarathons are typically somewhere in the 16 to 20 hour range. I know you were probably asking that question facetiously, but since it does have a factual answer, I figured I might as well provide it.

Anyway, whether or not humans are the best endurance runners of any species on the planet (and did anyone ever say that they were, anyway?), I think it's pretty obvious that our bodies are not evolved to be fat, blobby, and parked on a couch in front of a TV for 12 hours per day. (I await with eager anticipation the inevitable cite showing that some tribe in central Africa has evolved a symbiotic relationship with a neighboring tribe that does nothing but bring them potato chips and red cream soda all day long.)

[begbert2]

Ok, continue to grind your axe because you hate exercise. The evidence doesn't lie. You are blinded by your rage against exercise. Do you have a degree in anthropology? No? I didn't think so, I'll trust the guy from Harvard that does and is well respected rather than some heavyset lazy guy on the internet that thinks armchair intelligence and opinion trumps academically accepted FACTS.

Goodbye, I'm done with you.So I take it that you don't consider the FACT that horses kick your ass at endurance running to be true becuase you didn't hear it from a guy at Harvard?

Remember kids, when in doubt, argue from authority. Because no matter how wrong you are, there's gotta be some famous person somewhere just as wrong as you.



And come now, MsWhatsit, you know that all the fat african tribes have the women in their tribe bring them their potato chips and red cream soda, which are grown wild in the potato chip and red cream soda fields. Get your facts right.

All silliness aside, I don't need to engage in the same crap arguments people floating their running-man or aquatic-ape theories are forced to engage in. I merely need to point out how crappy their arguments are. One tribe that idolizes running out of hundreds that hunt using other methods is only proof of a marathoner genetic mandate to people who desperately want such a mandate to exist.


And Try2B Comprehensive was the one who said that humans are the best endurance runners of any species on the planet. Since you asked.

[MsWhatsit]

So do you dispute that human bodies are evolutionarily well-suited for a certain amount of physical activity, or are you going to assert that sitting on your ass eating potato chips is how our bodies are supposed to work? Because I, for one, have never and would never assert that all humans should be running marathons or whatever. But I would certainly assert that humans should not be sitting on their asses getting zero exercise. Sure, you can lose weight even if you sit on your ass getting zero exercise, but losing weight isn't all you need to do to be a healthy person. (And FYI, losing weight isn't all you need to do to control diabetes, either, and I do strongly exhort you to check out a book on the topic. I'm not going to tell you anything more because you clearly think that I'm full of shit and are gleefully poking sarcastic little holes in everything I say, but seriously, for your long-term health you should really learn more about your chronic disease.)

[Epimetheus]

So I take it that you don't consider the FACT that horses kick your ass at endurance running to be true becuase you didn't hear it from a guy at Harvard?

Remember kids, when in doubt, argue from authority. Because no matter how wrong you are, there's gotta be some famous person somewhere just as wrong as you.



Or when in doubt, wave away anything that conflicts with my nerd-rage hued worldview. Like the fact that persistent hunting has been shown in modern examples. I like how you ignored my point about the Tarahumara. The Kalahari bushmen also practice persistent hunting. I imagine either one of them could outrun a horse in a marathon. Also, on the horse marathons, they get breaks, and those breaks don't count toward the total time. When the hunters of old were likely chasing horses, they were probably not allowed time to get checked by a vet, cooled off, fed and watered, and let go again. Not to mention the fact that these are horses bred for endurance, rather than the kind you would find in nature.

But hey, you aren't exactly an impartial debater. You have an axe to grind and nobody or nothing is going to let you see reason, that might mean you have to feel bad about not exercising or whatever else you tell yourself.

[begbert2]

So do you dispute that human bodies are evolutionarily well-suited for a certain amount of physical activity, or are you going to assert that sitting on your ass eating potato chips is how our bodies are supposed to work? Because I, for one, have never and would never assert that all humans should be running marathons or whatever. But I would certainly assert that humans should not be sitting on their asses getting zero exercise. Sure, you can lose weight even if you sit on your ass getting zero exercise, but losing weight isn't all you need to do to be a healthy person. (And FYI, losing weight isn't all you need to do to control diabetes, either, and I do strongly exhort you to check out a book on the topic. I'm not going to tell you anything more because you clearly think that I'm full of shit and are gleefully poking sarcastic little holes in everything I say, but seriously, for your long-term health you should really learn more about your chronic disease.)Come now, you should know by now that my positions in this thread are pretty limited and of the negating variety: I see a specific claim I believe to be false and I specifically dispute the truth of that specific claim.

"Evolutionarily well-suited" is kind of an odd phrase. After all, we're "evolutionarily well-suited" to holding paintbrushes - but this is largely because paintbrushes were designed to conform to us, not because paintbrushes had any effect on our development.

I suspect that for the most part, running is the same way. Sure, the need to run would have prevented mutations that impede running from really catching on, but it really seems unlikely to me that the running drove the evolution. I'm doubtful of this not just because there's no reason to believe it, craptacular post-hoc rationalizations aside - but also because it raises the question, "when did we learn to run?"

As far as I know, no animal runs quite the same way that humans do. (Heck, most humans don't run the way marathoners do.) Even putting aside all the quatropeds, not even our closest relatives the apes and monkeys run on two legs, as far as I know, and of course the bipedal birds have completely different joints and musculature. Do any other animals put weight on their heel?

It's a chicken/egg problem. Many or most of the traits ascribed to a runner's evolution rely on running the human way, rather than the greyhound way. But if these supposed "runner's evolutionary traits" are needed to run the human way, then protohumans who didn't have them would have run in a different way that didn't need them. And of course if we developed these traits prior to adopting a mode of running that takes advantage of them, then that means that running no more guided the evolution of these traits than paint brushes did our hand shape.


As for whether humans should or should not be sitting on their asses getting zero exercise: define "should". Because isn't that really, "should they do it ?" Without know what a person specifically wants out of life, and what the speific outcome they can expect out of their life [i]without the additional exercise, how can we say whether they should do any particular amount or type of exercise or not?

I'm also a wee bit concerned about "should" statements because they may presume an objective set of priorities that may be implicity devaluing a person's momentary state. For example, by some measures I should never eat anything sweet again, ever. Because, in the long-term view, every sweet food contributes to fattiness, which in the long term view contributes to death by chinese water torture or various other health-related issues. And it's easy to say I should never eat sweet things again, ever - but it's only easy because in doing so you're completely dismissing the value of short-term pleasure. And as a person who thinks that without a certain amount of pleasure in the present, life isn't worth living, this kind of devaluation bothers me.

[begbert2]

Or when in doubt, wave away anything that conflicts with my nerd-rage hued worldview. Like the fact that persistent hunting has been shown in modern examples. I like how you ignored my point about the Tarahumara. The Kalahari bushmen also practice persistent hunting. I imagine either one of them could outrun a horse in a marathon. Also, on the horse marathons, they get breaks, and those breaks don't count toward the total time. When the hunters of old were likely chasing horses, they were probably not allowed time to get checked by a vet, cooled off, fed and watered, and let go again. Not to mention the fact that these are horses bred for endurance, rather than the kind you would find in nature.I know you imagine that humans could outrun horses in marathons. You have a right lively imagination.

(And isn't it disingenuous to compain about the horses being bred for it when your argument is that humans were bred for it? Oh, right. Double standards are okay for you, because you're unbiased.)

But hey, you aren't exactly an impartial debater. You have an axe to grind and nobody or nothing is going to let you see reason, that might mean you have to feel bad about not exercising or whatever else you tell yourself.The axe I have to grind is against bullshit. But then again, I've admitted to being heavy, so that must be my only motivation in this debate. Because fatties think about nothing but defending their fat and dont' care about truth. Not like you, who is completely impartial and has no axe to grind whatever. Heck, you don't even have an opinion on the subject. You don't exercise at all yourself. You're just arguing this from pure academic impartiality.


(Remember kids, when argument from authority doesn't work for you, try ad hominems. Eventually something will work!)

[Epimetheus]

I know you imagine that humans could outrun horses in marathons. You have a right lively imagination.

(And isn't it disingenuous to compain about the horses being bred for it when your argument is that humans were bred for it? Oh, right. Double standards are okay for you, because you're unbiased.)


Bred by intelligent hands for a particular outcome is not the same as evolution. I'd figure that somebody so against bullshit could see that.

Again, I notice you don't actually take on the meat of the argument. And yes, I think that humans could outrun horses (endurance-wise). Barring the breaks, they do, and HAVE. A horse with no breaks would be run down within a day (if that long) by experienced hunters that have ran since childhood. And I actually have more than internet handwaving to support my claim.

[MsWhatsit]

As for whether humans should or should not be sitting on their asses getting zero exercise: define "should". Because isn't that really, "should they do it [if they wish to achieve whatever their specific goals are, which will vary per person]?"


Yeah; I can clarify by saying that in this particular case, my "should" means, "should, if the person in question wishes to maintain a reasonably healthy body." Reasonably is up to the individual, of course, but I would maintain that a level of zero exercise would not be reasonably healthy by anyone's measure. No, I have no real way of quantifying this, and there may be some cite out there to back me up but I am not going to go hunt it down right now.

As for the rest, I would definitely agree that gaining pleasure from life is important. I think that anyone who wants to lose weight and sustain that weight loss long-term needs to come up with a program that they can live with. For me, that means making sure that I still enjoy my meals and gain pleasure from eating. Removing all pleasure from eating would not be a sustainable long-term solution for me.

[begbert2]

Bred by intelligent hands for a particular outcome is not the same as evolution. I'd figure that somebody so against bullshit could see that.Somebody who knows something about evolution might disagree. Directed breeding is faster, mind you, but not substantively different than natural evolution directed in favor of a particular characteristic due to natural evolutionary pressures. (The main difference being that in controlled breeding humans manually select the 'fittest' and encourage them to reproduce, rather than using lions predating on the unfit to achieve the same result.)

But if you're not worried about FACTs, then this one won't bother you either. After all, I'm on the internet, so how can I be right? (Unlike you, who is not on the internet.)

Again, I notice you don't actually take on the meat of the argument. And yes, I think that humans could outrun horses (endurance-wise). Barring the breaks, they do, and HAVE. A horse with no breaks would be run down within a day (if that long) by experienced hunters that have ran since childhood. And I actually have more than internet handwaving to support my claim.A horse under these circumstances would be galloping. In other words, sprinting. Comparing that against a non-sprinting human is, of course, an unfair comparison, as you well know. You persist in comparing apples to oranges because unless you distort the comparison you are unable to maintain your little fantasy of human supremacy.

For you to be right in your claims, a man on a horse would have to be unable to keep ahead of a man on foot, despite efforts on the rider's part to maintain the horse at a persistently sustainable pace. This is of course not going to happen. And you know it.


You are succumbing to the frothy internet rage of one who wishes not to lose an argument. I am intimately familiar with that feeling. It is not good for you. Trust me. Maybe you should take a break.

[begbert2]

Yeah; I can clarify by saying that in this particular case, my "should" means, "should, if the person in question wishes to maintain a reasonably healthy body." Reasonably is up to the individual, of course, but I would maintain that a level of zero exercise would not be reasonably healthy by anyone's measure. No, I have no real way of quantifying this, and there may be some cite out there to back me up but I am not going to go hunt it down right now.Ooh, you do not want to hand me "reasonably" and tell me to run with it. :D Especially if we haven't quantified what, besides "zero exercise", the theoretical person is doing. What if they have a perfect diet? Always have been thin. Never smoked, drank, took drugs, been injured? Can they have a job as a stockboy? In construction? ;)

As for the rest, I would definitely agree that gaining pleasure from life is important. I think that anyone who wants to lose weight and sustain that weight loss long-term needs to come up with a program that they can live with. For me, that means making sure that I still enjoy my meals and gain pleasure from eating. Removing all pleasure from eating would not be a sustainable long-term solution for me.Me either - I slip. Rather a lot. I've already stopped losing weight; it remains to be seen if I start gaining it back...

[Epimetheus]

A horse cannot gallop for long stints. Yes, a horse will run faster than a human. A human can outLAST a horse. Why are you not getting this? ENDURANCE, distance, not speed. No, humans aren't supreme when it comes to endurance. The Bar-tailed Godwit has that honor. They are better than horses though.

Also I have FACTS to support my argument. I'm not the one losing. Your one cite was your own downfall:


The ride is divided into sections, with different names (legs, phases, etc.) depending on sanctioning organization. After each phase, horses are stopped for a veterinary inspection (sometimes called a "vetgate"), where they are checked for soundness and dehydration, with their pulse and respiration taken. To continue the ride, the horse must pass the examination, including reducing its heart rate below that specified for the event, typically 64 bpm, although terrain and weather may require the ride veterinarians to set a different maximum target. The riders' time keeps running until their horses reach the required target, so it is important that the horses recover as soon as possible. Any horse deemed unfit to continue (due to lameness or excessive fatigue, for example) is eliminated from further competition.
Mule "ground tied" to a bucket while resting at an endurance ride veterinary checkpoint

After the veterinary inspection the horse must be held for an additional time (usually between 20-45 minutes), at which time it is fed and watered. If the veterinary inspection is on the course rather than at base camp, ride management usually delivers to the inspection location a cache of riders' personal gear, food, and water.



Horses can only sustain a gallop for about a mile or two. Horses drink 30 gallons of water a day, and cannot go long without a drink. Humans can go much longer and can carry the water with them. I've already pointed out that one culture can even run day and night... straight through. No horse can do this.

But I'm the one ignoring facts... gotcha.

[begbert2]

Epimetheus, the human running 100 miles takes half again longer than the horse. Six to eight hours longer. I think the horse can afford to take a few water breaks - even hour long ones. And I note how you shift the goalpost away from the equine marathon races back to straight galloping as quick as you can, because if you pick this set of FACTS, rather than that inconvienient set of facts over there, then your position doesn't collapse in flames quite as fast!

Suffice to say, outside of your head, the advantage the human has over the horse isn't his legs or tendons or sweat; it's his brain. The human knows to pace himself, the human knows to carry water, the human can convince himself he has a reason to go on running. You can get that out of a horse when you add a rider and looky there - the horse-and-rider wins. By hours.

But you go ahead and keep stating that you have FACTS. Myself, I'll just stick with plain old facts.

[Epimetheus]

Epimetheus, the human running 100 miles takes half again longer than the horse. Six to eight hours longer.

Cite?

Also, my goalposts have never moved. I was only showing you the maximum a horse can gallop to show you that the horse cannot gallop the entire time. Hence would not be AS FAR ahead as you think.

[begbert2]

Cite?I defer to MsWhatsit. Here. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11776415&postcount=655)


And going by the actual numbers, the horse is plenty ahead.

[Epimetheus]

I defer to MsWhatsit. Here. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11776415&postcount=655)


And going by the actual numbers, the horse is plenty ahead.

Yeah, ok, I guess so. I'm wrong on that count.

However, persistent hunting has likely always existed, as it exists today (in the aforementioned cultures). Humans can outrun (endurance) most game (not horses apparently).

[begbert2]

Yeah, ok, I guess so. I'm wrong on that count.

However, persistent hunting has likely always existed, as it exists today (in the aforementioned cultures). Humans can outrun (endurance) most game (not horses apparently).Well, I suspect that most of the horses that they're trying to hunt don't have riders on them, meaning that humans could take advantage of the critter's stupidity - sneaking up on them, spooking them, and then tracking them, rinsing and repeating. Though, I still strongly suspect that the average cro-magnon was not averse to throwing the odd spear now and then; if nothing else, injured critters may run slower or tire faster. Especially if they're dead at the time.

[rhubarbarin]

Come now, you should know by now that my positions in this thread are pretty limited and of the negating variety: I see a specific claim I believe to be false and I specifically dispute the truth of that specific claim.

"Evolutionarily well-suited" is kind of an odd phrase. After all, we're "evolutionarily well-suited" to holding paintbrushes - but this is largely because paintbrushes were designed to conform to us, not because paintbrushes had any effect on our development.

I suspect that for the most part, running is the same way. Sure, the need to run would have prevented mutations that impede running from really catching on, but it really seems unlikely to me that the running drove the evolution. I'm doubtful of this not just because there's no reason to believe it, craptacular post-hoc rationalizations aside - but also because it raises the question, "when did we learn to run?"

As far as I know, no animal runs quite the same way that humans do. (Heck, most humans don't run the way marathoners do.) Even putting aside all the quatropeds, not even our closest relatives the apes and monkeys run on two legs, as far as I know, and of course the bipedal birds have completely different joints and musculature. Do any other animals put weight on their heel?

It's a chicken/egg problem. Many or most of the traits ascribed to a runner's evolution rely on running the human way, rather than the greyhound way. But if these supposed "runner's evolutionary traits" are needed to run the human way, then protohumans who didn't have them would have run in a different way that didn't need them. And of course if we developed these traits prior to adopting a mode of running that takes advantage of them, then that means that running no more guided the evolution of these traits than paint brushes did our hand shape.


As for whether humans should or should not be sitting on their asses getting zero exercise: define "should". Because isn't that really, "should they do it ?" Without know what a person specifically wants out of life, and what the speific outcome they can expect out of their life [i]without the additional exercise, how can we say whether they should do any particular amount or type of exercise or not?

I'm also a wee bit concerned about "should" statements because they may presume an objective set of priorities that may be implicity devaluing a person's momentary state. For example, by some measures I should never eat anything sweet again, ever. Because, in the long-term view, every sweet food contributes to fattiness, which in the long term view contributes to death by chinese water torture or various other health-related issues. And it's easy to say I should never eat sweet things again, ever - but it's only easy because in doing so you're completely dismissing the value of short-term pleasure. And as a person who thinks that without a certain amount of pleasure in the present, life isn't worth living, this kind of devaluation bothers me.

I don't miss sweet things (of which I eat none but a little fruit), but I understand your point about quality of life. 'Shoulds' are dangerous territory. People have the right to make their own choices and determine what is worthwhile for them. Even if those choices are detrimental to them, I don't think it's my job to try to police someone else's lifestyle.

BTW, if you make people run without shoes, they run on their toes/ball of the foot, like all other animals. Striking with your heel is very painful without padded atheletic shoes. This is how I run (usually in bare feet, or very light flexible shoes) and I no longer have the hip and ankle pain I used to from jogging.

[begbert2]

BTW, if you make people run without shoes, they run on their toes/ball of the foot, like all other animals. Striking with your heel is very painful without padded atheletic shoes. This is how I run (usually in bare feet, or very light flexible shoes) and I no longer have the hip and ankle pain I used to from jogging.Huh, interesting.

(It will surprise noone here that I have not tried running in bare feet. I don't even like walking outside in bare feet; I am nearly callous-free and find merely walking on asphalt in my bare feet very, very uncomfortable.)

[Epimetheus]

Huh, interesting.

(It will surprise noone here that I have not tried running in bare feet. I don't even like walking outside in bare feet; I am nearly callous-free and find merely walking on asphalt in my bare feet very, very uncomfortable.)

I have thick callouses, but still don't like rocks jabbing into my feet. ;)

[rhubarbarin]

Huh, interesting.

(It will surprise noone here that I have not tried running in bare feet. I don't even like walking outside in bare feet; I am nearly callous-free and find merely walking on asphalt in my bare feet very, very uncomfortable.)

Feet are very sensitive! This is one reason I believe it's very unnatural to slam your heels into the ground the way you do with thick-soled shoes. In bare feet it is essential tread more lightly, with a shorter stride.

I worked up to it slowly. I started with tender indoor-only feet and it was uncomfortable. I used to have more calluses, they are mostly gone now. The soles of my feet are tougher, but not with built-up callus.

Another nice side-effect is an incredible firming of my calf muscles. I never had hard muscular calves before.

Epimetheus, eyes are very useful in avoiding sharp objects. I have yet to hurt my feet on anything, even running on grass and trails (I also run on asphalt and cement). When I do step on an object, because my gait is light and I land on my toes, it's not painful.

[Zsofia]

Okay, I'm out. I won't point out that being less than the absolute best at something isn't the same thing as sucking at something, because I am absolutely tired of trying to tell a fat lazy otaku that he should get off his ass and try moving in a hurry. I am done, because you cannot reason somebody out of a position they haven't reasoned themselves into.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Geez! I do something else for a few days and this thread goes bananas. I can't keep up :D
Somebody who knows something about evolution might disagree. Directed breeding is faster, mind you, but not substantively different than natural evolution directed in favor of a particular characteristic due to natural evolutionary pressures. (The main difference being that in controlled breeding humans manually select the 'fittest' and encourage them to reproduce, rather than using lions predating on the unfit to achieve the same result.)

A horse under these circumstances would be galloping. In other words, sprinting. Comparing that against a non-sprinting human is, of course, an unfair comparison, as you well know. You persist in comparing apples to oranges because unless you distort the comparison you are unable to maintain your little fantasy of human supremacy.

For you to be right in your claims, a man on a horse would have to be unable to keep ahead of a man on foot, despite efforts on the rider's part to maintain the horse at a persistently sustainable pace. This is of course not going to happen. And you know it.


On horses v. humans: begbert got it mostly right. A horse might outrun a human if it has a rider on it, because a human brain is guiding the horse's pace and decisions. In the wild, if Og jumps out of the bushes screaming 'booga-booga-booga' at a grass-eating horse, the thing is going to take the fuck off at full tilt. If Og wants it bad enough, he can persistence hunt the thing into the ground as with other animals. How am I so sure of that? Because, silly, horses became extinct in North America millenia ago, because they were hunted to extinction by humans. The natives never thought to ride them until the Europeans clued them in to the idea. Before that they were tasty; then they were gone. Now deer, elk, moose, those didn't disappear for some reason. Probably because they hang out in forests where outrunning them isn't going to work very well, just a guess.

But, going back to the marathon-running horses. It isn't the breeding that makes them special, it is the fact that human riders train them. See, they get these horses used to running long distances by.... having them run long distances.

I hadn't thought of it this way, so thanks again you skeptical bastard, but you could compare a yoga class to this effect. Nobody would ever think of yoga on their own. There is a leader who takes you through it. As physical training. The reason being that the eventual results are the kind of thing a lot of people are ready to sign up for.

For the same reason, begbert, I highly recommend you find some kind of professional to help you with your fitness. Join a gym. Get a weightlifting spotter- they're everywhere. Get a coach. Find somebody who knows about this subject (a Harvard scientist is totally unnecessary) and listen to them! It works for horses; it'll work for you too.

[Zsofia]

Okay, I'm out. I won't point out that being less than the absolute best at something isn't the same thing as sucking at something, because I am absolutely tired of trying to tell a fat lazy otaku that he should get off his ass and try moving in a hurry. I am done, because you cannot reason somebody out of a position they haven't reasoned themselves into.
I apologize - I was way out of line there for GD. I was tipsy and frustrated - won't happen again. I'm bowing out of this one.

[rhubarbarin]

I don't understand why so many in this thread are so frustrated by begbert's disinterest in joining a gym or taking up jogging.

He had some health problems and was overweight. He is working with his doctor to lose weight and become healthier, in which he has been fairly successful. And he does cardio! He gets on his exercise bike while he is watching tv. He is more actively invested in his own health than most people I know.


Right now, I am hardly exercising at all, and haven't been for 4 or 5 months (I go through phases jogging or yoga). I walk a few hours a week. I am still muscular and have a resting heart rate of 64 (atheletic range) - mostly because of my diet (I wasn't muscular with a low heart rate when I was a fairly sedentary vegetarian).

There is not very much evidence that exercise beyond moderate, normal activity improves overall health or longevity. Being totally sendentary/bedridden is all that is 'bad' for you. The key is just to keep moving, which begbert is. You do not have to pump iron or run for miles. The rate of death between somewhat-fit individuals and very fit individuals is not a big difference. And none of the studies that have been done so far on humans are controlled for diet, which is a shame, since generally the more of a gym-rat someone is the more pains they take with their diet as well.

These studies seem to define 'moderate fitness' as someone who gets the equivelant of 30 minutes per day of walking:

http://www.fitcommerce.com/Blueprint/WebControls/Announcements/ViewAnnouncement.aspx?ItemID=510&mid=112&portalId=2&cid=112

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_88458.html

http://www.the-aps.org/press/journal/08/21.htm

The Framingham Heart Study found that those who expended 2,000 calories per week had an increased life expectancy of 2 years. This means that a person who walks briskly for about 8 miles a week will live considerably longer than his counterpart with the same lifestyle who doesn't exercise regularly.

HAH! Why not stay lazy, spend the time it would take you to walk 8 miles per week doing something else you enjoy, and die at 77 instead of 79?

[Try2B Comprehensive]

HAH! Why not stay lazy, spend the time it would take you to walk 8 miles per week doing something else you enjoy, and die at 77 instead of 79?

The part where diabetics transform into blind amputees.

[rhubarbarin]

People do not become diabetic, heart diseased, or cancerous from lack of exercise - diet and hereditry are the main factors here. And there is no evidence controlling for diet AND exercise habits among large groups of people, so there is no way to be sure that it is in fact the amount of exercise someone does, or what they are eating, or a combination, that causes the postive health effects correlated with fitness levels.

Newsflash, all: before the 60s, the only 'exercise' people got was from their work and daily life. Now most of us are making an effort to deliberately 'exercise' in some way and we are much fatter and still suffering from a lot of chronic disease.

[filmore]

I don't understand why so many in this thread are so frustrated by begbert's disinterest in joining a gym or taking up jogging.


It's not his disinterest that is the problem. It's his stance that exercise is nearly worthless with regards to weight loss.

Even a small workout of 300 calories can make a difference. Say your normal lunch is 800 calories. After lunch, you have a net gain of 800 calories. But if you spend your lunch hour walking, you'll probably burn around 300 calories. If you then eat the same lunch, the net gain is 500 calories. That's 300 extra calories that isn't floating around your system. Your body can't convert those calories to fat if they're not there.

But begbert will post something about he tried walking once, thought it was stupid, and gave it up. This thread is not called "How does begbert get fat." I really wish he would stop posting how exercise doesn't work for him when he's not making any significant effort to give it a try.

- Yes, if you don't exercise it won't help you lose weight.
- Yes, if you tried an activity once and gave it up it won't help you lose weight.
- Yes, if you exercise and then eat more than you burned it won't help you lose weight.
- Yes, if you only exercise a little bit it won't help you lose weight (but it may slow your weight gain)

Just because someone doesn't have the desire to exercise doesn't mean exercise doesn't work. Can anyone point to a study where people gained fat by exercising even though they ate the same amount of calories as they did before exercising?

[Epimetheus]

People do not become diabetic, heart diseased, or cancerous from lack of exercise

No, but some cites (like the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/faq/exercise.htm) ), say that exercise can help control diabetes. Diet may be a huge factor, but where diet alone might not help, exercise can. Though, probably not 8 miles a week of normal walking.

[rhubarbarin]

Epimetheous, actually 5 hours a week of 'brisk' walking is probably exactly what doctors are recommending to their diabetic patients, in order to become what they think of as 'moderately' fit.

filmore, explain then why all studies that have been done so far that control for diet, show that exercising has a negligible effect on weight compared to diet. I would be interested to see if you can cite any real evidence that indicates the contrary.

I too know some sedentary people that took up some form of activity and dropped a lot of weight without a lot of attention to diet, and I'm not denying their experiences - everyone is different. As I have said several times in this thread, I put on the pounds when I am exercising a lot (of course, I am eating to hunger and building muscle).

The plain fact is for your above formula to work, most people will have to also moderate their food intake and count calories, since your body is finely-tuned to maintain equilibrium - your hunger will increase, and your next meal you can easily consume that extra 300 calories you burned and more. I suppose your theory would work for most people to some degree if they were on a fixed meal plan of x-calories per day, because they were sure to maintain whatever deficit they created with activity. But this isn't how real people eat.

Without strict attention to diet, exercise is useless for most. And weight loss can be achieved with little activity.

I haven't seen begbert post anywhere that exercise doesn't 'work' for him. Just that he is not interested in doing anything but cardio on his stationary bike (which, hello, counts as exercise! More than a lot of people get, and more than a few hours of walking per week!), and that he's had success with weight loss and improvements in general health without it.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

I thought this video (http://www.comcast.net/video/junk-food-may-be-addictive-as-drugs/1330735984) might add to the discussion. They claim- using brain scans again- that sugary, fatty or salty foods can be as addictive as heroin or cocaine! They also offer some suggestions in combating this addiction.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Hmm. What arithmetic are you using? At 100 lbs, I burn about 63 calories per mile (on a flat surface), adjusted to subtract the number of calories I would be burning anyway if I was sitting on the couch. It takes me about 30 minutes to run 3 miles (my usual length), for a total expenditure of under 200 calories, or one medium-sized cookie (if I ate them).

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-242-304-311-8402-0,00.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15570150

Since you asked - I drink a pint of heavy cream, 1600 calories, daily (in addition to 3 meals per day). It wouldn't be hard for me to stay out of caloric deficit were I to burn this much through exercise!

Ok, according to your second cite I can calculate my net calorie burn with the formula .63* (my weight)= calories per mile.

My weight dropped at an indeterminate rate, so I plugged in 190lbs as an average. My runs were moving from 90 minutes to 180 minutes over 6 months, but 120 minutes was the usual... I took 15 miles as the average, though I think that is a little lowball overall.

So. .63*190=119.7 cal/mile. 119.7*15=1795.5 cal/run. On average every other day, so 1795.5*3.5= 6284.25 net cal/week burned.

I kept a log and can provide somewhat more specific numbers if you really want, but overall there was a lot of variation in the routine and exact numbers are difficult to pin down.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

For one, there may be more than one way to meditate, with different effects. The mind is a large and complicated place.

For two, the debate about wether *everyone* can get a yogariffic body is impossible to prove, since I will say that people are different from each other and you will claim that people are just at different levels of development (and that, by corollary, everything that an olympic athelete can do could be done by anyone if they weren't such lazy-asses.)

For three, all you've done is prove that yoga isn't all about exercise, and there's a meditation aspect to it too, which is considered harder. Which isn't impressive since we've already agreed upon meditation being part of yoga (in fact, the only part you consider interesting). And unless you're hoping to show that all of yoga is physically as easy or easier as lying motionless on your back, you haven't shown that I'm ignorant of anything except irrelevent trivia.

For one, there certainly are more ways to meditate; they can be separated entirely from the exercise.

For two, yoga instructors never deny that people have different body types, and that some poses may not be possible for some individuals. This ins't a bad thing. Often types who find certain flexibility poses off-limits have access to strength poses which are inaccessible to the flexible types. There isn't really a better-or-worse division among the types. Not practicing is the only real mistake.

For three, we've already determined that yoga has a physical as well as a meditational aspect. Both are in fact interesting to me. I think they cannot be separated in a discussion of yoga, as done in your argument.

Nonetheless, yes, you will find quieting your mind more difficult than doing a few simple physical exercises, IMHO. I think there is ample evidence for this in this thread.

[rhubarbarin]

I didn't post the above comment credited to me.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

I didn't post the above comment credited to me.

Yes, those are begbert's words. I don't know how that happened.

[rhubarbarin]

Ironically, I am a yoga fanatic. My usually unlimited monthly pass isn't in my budget right now, though. It's not meditative for me - purely a tough workout, that has the bonus of increasing my flexibility.

[filmore]

filmore, explain then why all studies that have been done so far that control for diet, show that exercising has a negligible effect on weight compared to diet. I would be interested to see if you can cite any real evidence that indicates the contrary.
...
Without strict attention to diet, exercise is useless for most. And weight loss can be achieved with little activity.


The studies (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-3,00.html) where exercise doesn't work show that uneducated people mistakenly drink sport drinks while working out, reward themselves with treats, or otherwise not pay attention to what they are eating. All of those things can negate the benefits of exercise.

It is a mistake to think by working out the pounds will magically melt away without any work. But it is also a mistake to think that by not eating as much the pounds will also melt away without any work. Were you around at the beginning of the thread? The whole reason we started talking about exercise is because people were posting about how hard it was to not eat and that hormones make them hungry all the time. If they can't control their eating, then they have to:

-Change their eating habits to eat lower calorie foods
-Increase their activity level

The problem with most overweight people is that they don't have the self control to simply eat less. Yes, if you can eat less it is the simplest and most effective way to lose weight. But if the cravings and hunger are too much (as people were so strongly posting at the beginning), then you must make other changes like exercising more.

[Sleel]

I posted this on another board when the Time article came up:

The "Time" story was a load of crap (http://www.acsm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=ACSM_News_Releases&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=13178) that misrepresented the opinions of the researchers they quoted. For one thing, the thermodynamics aren't exactly as simple as measuring the amount of work done, converting units to calories, and then equating that to the caloric value of the food consumed. The effects of exercise are much more far-reaching than that. It's a place to start, but it's not the whole story.

For example, simply putting on more muscle tissue changes your endocrine system, as well as requiring more calories to support it. That's just one factor out of hundreds. It's not just the calories your body burns during exercise, it's the myriad of changes that your body makes to adapt to increased demands. Just about the only thing everyone agrees on when it comes to weight loss is that exercise is an essential component.

Secondly, even if by some miracle of biology or physics you don't lose fat by exercising, you're still healthier than you would be if you didn't exercise. Active fatties will probably outlive "thin" couch potatoes. I put "thin" in quotes because it's not uncommon for someone who is sedentary to have a lot of visceral fat, which makes them overweight—especially when you consider muscle mass—but doesn't make them look obviously fat.

Other things to consider are what kind of food you're eating, and how you eat it. As I pointed out in another thread somewhere, a 2000 calorie diet of Coke and potato chips that you gorge on at the end of the day is profoundly different from 4–6 small balanced meals and snacks eaten at regular intervals throughout the day.

Couple generally bad eating habits with poor calorie calculus, and yeah, I'll bet that exercise doesn't help some people. They probably think that because they did 30 crunches they can eat a slice of cheesecake. They're deluding themselves. That doesn't mean that the exercise had no effect, it means that something else is out of whack.

There's also a lot wrong with most people's general knowledge concerning exercise, what's effective and what's not, but that's a different rant. Bottom line, exercise is hugely important in losing weight and most importantly keeping it off in the long term.

Something I didn't point out at the time is that you're improving your quality of life by exercising. Yeah, nobody cares if they miss out on an extra two years of pissing in their Depends. The thing is, if you exercise and stay active for the rest of your life, you get a whole lot less of the "lying around in bed waiting to die" stage of being old. Best case scenario any mortal can hope for is continued good health until the end of your life span, followed by a sudden decline and rapid death.

[rhubarbarin]

The studies (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-3,00.html) where exercise doesn't work show that uneducated people mistakenly drink sport drinks while working out, reward themselves with treats, or otherwise not pay attention to what they are eating. All of those things can negate the benefits of exercise.

It is a mistake to think by working out the pounds will magically melt away without any work. But it is also a mistake to think that by not eating as much the pounds will also melt away without any work. Were you around at the beginning of the thread? The whole reason we started talking about exercise is because people were posting about how hard it was to not eat and that hormones make them hungry all the time. If they can't control their eating, then they have to:

-Change their eating habits to eat lower calorie foods
-Increase their activity level

The problem with most overweight people is that they don't have the self control to simply eat less. Yes, if you can eat less it is the simplest and most effective way to lose weight. But if the cravings and hunger are too much (as people were so strongly posting at the beginning), then you must make other changes like exercising more.

I fail to see how someone who wasn't keeping meticulous track of their diet is going to see any benefit from exercising burning 500 calories here or there. If they can't stop themselves from eating to satisfy their hunger, and their hunger increases with exercise, there isn't going to be any progress.

[rhubarbarin]

I posted this on another board when the Time article came up:



Something I didn't point out at the time is that you're improving your quality of life by exercising. Yeah, nobody cares if they miss out on an extra two years of pissing in their Depends. The thing is, if you exercise and stay active for the rest of your life, you get a whole lot less of the "lying around in bed waiting to die" stage of being old. Best case scenario any mortal can hope for is continued good health until the end of your life span, followed by a sudden decline and rapid death.

Cite?

I don't see any evidence of this among hale old people of my acquaintance. None of them have ever 'exercised'. What they did do is stay moderately active (as in vacuuming their own house and picking up sticks in the yard), and engage in the real world after retirement - keeping busy with hobbies, grandkids, volunteer work. Hence they have remained fairly physically and mentally sharp.

I wonder why so many here refuse to acknowledge that there was no such thing as 'exercise' until 40 years ago? Oddly, our adoption as a culture of gym memberships, jogging, power-walking, ankle weights, yoga and pilates tapes, and Wii fit, has conincided with a gain of 30 lbs for the average person over the last few decades.

Sure, men were more likely to have jobs that were physically taxing, and kids played outside more (doing non-intense exercise like playing tag and baseball), and housework for women in the home was less convenient..

[you with the face]

If they can't stop themselves from eating to satisfy their hunger, and their hunger increases with exercise, there isn't going to be any progress.

There will be progress if they end up burning more than they take in.

I exercise 3X/week. Do I feel hungrier after a 30-min run on the treadmill? Yes, I do. Does that spike in hunger make me go out and stuff my face with calories? No, it doesn't. I snack more after I exercise, but not on calorie-dense food. I address this hunger with dried fruit, or a jello cup, or some animal crackers. I make a conscious effort to watch how much I eat so that I don't overboard.

Eventually, after a few hours elapse post-exercise and a snack, I don't feel hungry at all. The key is waiting out the hunger attack until it passes.

Truth be told, I'm irritated by how many people have glommed on to the "exercise does nothing for weight loss!" press that has recently come out. Mainly because this science only challenges a strawman: who has ever claimed that exercise let's you eat all the china buffets you want? What has almost universially been preached since forever is "eat less, exercise more"... NOT "eat more, exercise more." So why are people acting like some huge misconception has been knocked down? It just looks like an excuse to remain sedentary.

And another one: "Exercise makes you hungry, so what's the point? Focus on eating less!" And dieting doesn't make people hungry? The truth is, doing anything that causes a net loss in calories (either through dieting or exercising) is going to make people hungry. That alone is not reason to eschew doing something. Finding ways to manage hunger that don't involve overboard eating is the proper approach, IMO. Easier said than done, I know.

[filmore]

I fail to see how someone who wasn't keeping meticulous track of their diet is going to see any benefit from exercising burning 500 calories here or there. If they can't stop themselves from eating to satisfy their hunger, and their hunger increases with exercise, there isn't going to be any progress.

You bring up a very valid point. The level of control someone has over their hunger will be the ultimate factor in their success. The one exception is that you can do high levels of excercise and achive a level of activity that outpaces your hunger. I know people who train for ironman triathlons who struggle to eat enough even though they eat plates and plates of food. However, that's a higher level of activity than most people would do.,

I think, though, that exercise plus diet control is easier than just one or the other. That is certainly the case for me. I eat a pretty regular diet. Cereal in the morning, sandwich + side at lunch, and a varied dinner but I'm pretty consistent with portion size. I find it much easier to reduce 600 calories by restricting 200 calories of food and doing 400 calories of exercise. If I just try to restrict 600 calories of food, I have cravings all day and have to really struggle not to overeat at meal times. But with the 400 calories of exercise, I feel little to no extra hunger from cutting out 200 calories as compared to doing nothing.

I would not be surprised if I gained weight when trying just restriction. I thought about food all the time. But I would not come out and say restriction doesn't work. Restriction worked, but it made it very difficult for me to maintain. Exercise works great for me. I just get a little hungrier from exercise. I can do an 800 calorie exercise, eat an apple, and my hunger is gone. But not eating 600 calories would create cravings during the day and willpower issues at mealtime.

One thing that's probably important with post-exercise meals is to eat things that are food and not fuel. Gatoraid, powerbars, soda, etc. are readily absorbed as fuel. Your body does a miminal amount of processing on it. It may not trigger your body to stop the hunger signals. But if you eat normal things like fruits, sandwiches, etc, your body gets the signal that it has food and the hunger may go away.

[Epimetheus]

Well, hardly scientific proof, but an interesting story here (http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3594708). (don't let the long, annoying ambien commercial turn you off)

72 years old and has been body-building for 40+ years. No medical problems, no medications, etc (at least according to him, of course). Mind you, he apparently doesn't eat meat either, though I don't know how long he has had that diet.

[you with the face]

I wonder why so many here refuse to acknowledge that there was no such thing as 'exercise' until 40 years ago? Oddly, our adoption as a culture of gym memberships, jogging, power-walking, ankle weights, yoga and pilates tapes, and Wii fit, has conincided with a gain of 30 lbs for the average person over the last few decades.


You make it sound like those who are exercising are the ones who are disproportionately 30lbs overweight, but you don't believe that, right?

[Epimetheus]

I wonder why so many here refuse to acknowledge that there was no such thing as 'exercise' until 40 years ago?

I'm curious as to your "definition" of exercise. People have been playing football/soccer variants and other sports for a long time. A very, very long time. The Olympics basically became a modern thing in the late 1890s. That is more than 40 years ago. The marathon started getting ran about that time (though some might claim earlier).

People have likely "ran" for exercise for longer than that. Certainly soldiers trained for "exercise" before there was even a modern gym. (Keep in mind, Gymnastics were also showcased in the 1896 Olympics, so there was actually a modern gymnasium at that point.

Lets not forget that all of this dates back from the Ancient Greeks, who did all of these things (included going to a gym for "exercise" and weightlifting even) back in 300 or so B.C.

Also, let us not forget our Asian counterparts, the martial arts and yoga "exercisers".

[you with the face]

Also, let us not forget our Asian counterparts, the martial arts and yoga "exercisers".

Or how about simply walking. Walking has been the main form of transportation and exercise for most of mankind's existence.

Needed to go to work? School? The water hole? The outhouse? The grocery store? The hospital?

You were walking. It has only been recently that walking 1 or more miles per day is a noteworthy event.

[Epimetheus]

You were walking. It has only been recently that walking 1 or more miles per day is a noteworthy event.

This should be clarified to say "In America." ;)

[Taber]

Truth be told, I'm irritated by how many people have glommed on to the "exercise does nothing for weight loss!" press that has recently come out. Mainly because this science only challenges a strawman: who has ever claimed that exercise let's you eat all the china buffets you want? What has almost universially been preached since forever is "eat less, exercise more"... NOT "eat more, exercise more." So why are people acting like some huge misconception has been knocked down? It just looks like an excuse to remain sedentary.


The press is based on behavior patterns in the real world. Yes, optimally you won't hit the china buffet after running a mile, but people will. It isn't really a strawman when it argues against what people do, even if what they say is different. Yes, the way to fix it is probably smarter eating rather than not exercising, but that doesn't change the fact that for most people, exercise has a negligible effect on calories in vs out.

[begbert2]

But, going back to the marathon-running horses. It isn't the breeding that makes them special, it is the fact that human riders train them. See, they get these horses used to running long distances by.... having them run long distances.I seriously doubt that much special training is required to get a horse to run long distances, beyond "I am the rider and you go at the speed I say." I could easily be wrong and disproven by cites, though.

I hadn't thought of it this way, so thanks again you skeptical bastard, but you could compare a yoga class to this effect. Nobody would ever think of yoga on their own. There is a leader who takes you through it. As physical training. The reason being that the eventual results are the kind of thing a lot of people are ready to sign up for.

For the same reason, begbert, I highly recommend you find some kind of professional to help you with your fitness. Join a gym. Get a weightlifting spotter- they're everywhere. Get a coach. Find somebody who knows about this subject (a Harvard scientist is totally unnecessary) and listen to them! It works for horses; it'll work for you too.Problem is, the eventual results aren't the kind of thing I'm interested in signing up for. (At least once you cross out the imaginary results like curing diabetes, and the undesirable ones like emptying my mind.)

It's not his disinterest that is the problem. It's his stance that exercise is nearly worthless with regards to weight loss.

Even a small workout of 300 calories can make a difference. Say your normal lunch is 800 calories. After lunch, you have a net gain of 800 calories. But if you spend your lunch hour walking, you'll probably burn around 300 calories. If you then eat the same lunch, the net gain is 500 calories. That's 300 extra calories that isn't floating around your system. Your body can't convert those calories to fat if they're not there.

But begbert will post something about he tried walking once, thought it was stupid, and gave it up. This thread is not called "How does begbert get fat." I really wish he would stop posting how exercise doesn't work for him when he's not making any significant effort to give it a try.

- Yes, if you don't exercise it won't help you lose weight.
- Yes, if you tried an activity once and gave it up it won't help you lose weight.
- Yes, if you exercise and then eat more than you burned it won't help you lose weight.
- Yes, if you only exercise a little bit it won't help you lose weight (but it may slow your weight gain)

Just because someone doesn't have the desire to exercise doesn't mean exercise doesn't work. Can anyone point to a study where people gained fat by exercising even though they ate the same amount of calories as they did before exercising?This, boys and girls, is the textbook definition of a strawman. He literally invented a reply and put it in my mouth! It's almost as if he somehow knew that my actual response would annihilate his argument, and was hoping to fend it off somehow.

And my actual response is, look at this sentence: "If you then eat the same lunch, the net gain is 500 calories." The fact of life is, unless you are actively trying to control your diet, then you will eat more. You'll snack. And unless you are limiting your snacks to things like fruits and vegetables, you will be snacking on things that take ten seconds to give you back those negligible 300 calories. Have you read a nutritional label lately?

The exercise is nothing without a proper diet. The diet is everything, even without the exercise. That's the reality.

Nonetheless, yes, you will find quieting your mind more difficult than doing a few simple physical exercises, IMHO. I think there is ample evidence for this in this thread.Thing is, though, I don't want to quiet my mind. So the hardest part would be talking myself into even trying to. With the exercise, at least, I'm merely apathetic as to the results, and it's just the costs that deter me.

There will be progress if they end up burning more than they take in.

I exercise 3X/week. Do I feel hungrier after a 30-min run on the treadmill? Yes, I do. Does that spike in hunger make me go out and stuff my face with calories? No, it doesn't. I snack more after I exercise, but not on calorie-dense food. I address this hunger with dried fruit, or a jello cup, or some animal crackers. I make a conscious effort to watch how much I eat so that I don't overboard.

Eventually, after a few hours elapse post-exercise and a snack, I don't feel hungry at all. The key is waiting out the hunger attack until it passes.

Truth be told, I'm irritated by how many people have glommed on to the "exercise does nothing for weight loss!" press that has recently come out. Mainly because this science only challenges a strawman: who has ever claimed that exercise let's you eat all the china buffets you want? What has almost universially been preached since forever is "eat less, exercise more"... NOT "eat more, exercise more." So why are people acting like some huge misconception has been knocked down? It just looks like an excuse to remain sedentary.

And another one: "Exercise makes you hungry, so what's the point? Focus on eating less!" And dieting doesn't make people hungry? The truth is, doing anything that causes a net loss in calories (either through dieting or exercising) is going to make people hungry. That alone is not reason to eschew doing something. Finding ways to manage hunger that don't involve overboard eating is the proper approach, IMO. Easier said than done, I know.The huge misconception is that in "eat less, exercise more", the "exercise more" matters.

You bring up a very valid point. The level of control someone has over their hunger will be the ultimate factor in their success. The one exception is that you can do high levels of excercise and achive a level of activity that outpaces your hunger. I know people who train for ironman triathlons who struggle to eat enough even though they eat plates and plates of food. However, that's a higher level of activity than most people would do.,

I think, though, that exercise plus diet control is easier than just one or the other. That is certainly the case for me. I eat a pretty regular diet. Cereal in the morning, sandwich + side at lunch, and a varied dinner but I'm pretty consistent with portion size. I find it much easier to reduce 600 calories by restricting 200 calories of food and doing 400 calories of exercise. If I just try to restrict 600 calories of food, I have cravings all day and have to really struggle not to overeat at meal times. But with the 400 calories of exercise, I feel little to no extra hunger from cutting out 200 calories as compared to doing nothing.

I would not be surprised if I gained weight when trying just restriction. I thought about food all the time. But I would not come out and say restriction doesn't work. Restriction worked, but it made it very difficult for me to maintain. Exercise works great for me. I just get a little hungrier from exercise. I can do an 800 calorie exercise, eat an apple, and my hunger is gone. But not eating 600 calories would create cravings during the day and willpower issues at mealtime.

One thing that's probably important with post-exercise meals is to eat things that are food and not fuel. Gatoraid, powerbars, soda, etc. are readily absorbed as fuel. Your body does a miminal amount of processing on it. It may not trigger your body to stop the hunger signals. But if you eat normal things like fruits, sandwiches, etc, your body gets the signal that it has food and the hunger may go away.I strongly suspect your situation is vastly atypical of overweight persons - you simply do not get fat eating like that. The way you get fat is eating supersize meals, and/or lots of snacks, and/or having much of what you eat being high-calorie junkfood. To a person with this diet, they've got a lot of caloric 'slack' in their diet to lose before they reach equilibrium, and exercise just isn't going to get them there. They *have* to alter their diet, preferably on a significant and permanent basis, perhaps to one like you describe here. That alone should make a huge difference.

Now, it may be the case that exercise plus diet control is easier for some people, but if so I suspect it would be because of the lifestyle change, not due to exercise having any noticeable effect on the calories accumulated. I can easily see how a change in lifestyle would make it easier to stick to a new diet - the hardest time for me to curb my snacking is when I am watching TV (and not on the bike), because that was my biggest snacking time in the halcyon days. If I eschewed TV entirely for some other activity, like jogging or yoga or being stretched on the rack, I wouldn't have to deal with ingrained habits of snacking while engaging in the activity.

[begbert2]

I just realized that in my prior post I totally opened myself up to charges of saying that exercise has no positive effects at all. :smack: Allow me to clarify. I was talking specifically about weight loss here. Exercise still has a host of benefits relating to things from six-packs to blood pressure that various people will find much more compelling and desireable than I do.

[MsWhatsit]

Now, it may be the case that exercise plus diet control is easier for some people, but if so I suspect it would be because of the lifestyle change, not due to exercise having any noticeable effect on the calories accumulated. I can easily see how a change in lifestyle would make it easier to stick to a new diet - the hardest time for me to curb my snacking is when I am watching TV (and not on the bike), because that was my biggest snacking time in the halcyon days. If I eschewed TV entirely for some other activity, like jogging or yoga or being stretched on the rack, I wouldn't have to deal with ingrained habits of snacking while engaging in the activity.

I would concur with this. (I mean, that it is true for some people -- I largely believe that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for weight loss.) I have an easier time eating well on days when I've done a lot of exercise. One, I don't want to torpedo the benefits of the exercise by stuffing a Triple Whopper with Cheese down my gaping maw, or whatever. Two, exercise tends to make me feel fit and energetic, and when I feel that way, I don't crave snacks so much.

I know we're on like page 16 of this thread and there is an excellent chance that I already made this point somewhere already, but I want to be crystal clear that for me, running is really not about weight loss. I have no doubt that it's helping me lose weight, especially now that I'm into the 10-15 mile-per-week range, but dietary changes are where my weight loss is primarily coming from. I run to be fit and strong; I diet to lose weight. (I know some people throw a spaz when you use the word "diet" instead of "lifetime eating plan" or whatever, but let's face it, it's a diet. Just because I intend to stay on it permanently doesn't make it not a diet.)

[Sleel]

I don't see any evidence of this among hale old people of my acquaintance. None of them have ever 'exercised'. What they did do is stay moderately active (as in vacuuming their own house and picking up sticks in the yard), and engage in the real world after retirement - keeping busy with hobbies, grandkids, volunteer work. Hence they have remained fairly physically and mentally sharp.
Well first, I include "staying active" as exercise. They're not mutually exclusive. Higher levels of activity help, though. I plan to be one of those 70 year olds who goes for hikes in the mountains with his teenage grandkids. You can settle for picking up sticks in the yard if you want.

Second, there are studies like this (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15468033) that indicate both physical and mental benefits to being active and exercising, or this (http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/50A/2/B97) that show that a regular exercise program provides pretty significant benefits over more sedentary populations, even at older ages. Strength training and other weight-bearing activities have positive effects on bone mineral density (http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/bonemass.html) and the associated strength gains reduce (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/273/17/1341) the incidence of falls and subsequent injury. And if you're sedentary already, starting to exercise (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7493209) produces positive outcomes versus sitting on your ass.

[filmore]

I strongly suspect your situation is vastly atypical of overweight persons - you simply do not get fat eating like that. The way you get fat is eating supersize meals, and/or lots of snacks, and/or having much of what you eat being high-calorie junkfood. To a person with this diet, they've got a lot of caloric 'slack' in their diet to lose before they reach equilibrium, and exercise just isn't going to get them there. They *have* to alter their diet, preferably on a significant and permanent basis, perhaps to one like you describe here. That alone should make a huge difference.

Now, it may be the case that exercise plus diet control is easier for some people, but if so I suspect it would be because of the lifestyle change, not due to exercise having any noticeable effect on the calories accumulated. I can easily see how a change in lifestyle would make it easier to stick to a new diet - the hardest time for me to curb my snacking is when I am watching TV (and not on the bike), because that was my biggest snacking time in the halcyon days. If I eschewed TV entirely for some other activity, like jogging or yoga or being stretched on the rack, I wouldn't have to deal with ingrained habits of snacking while engaging in the activity.

Ah! Yes, I totally agree with you. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. If someone's normal diet is made up of McDonalds and Dominos, exercise probably won't be effective for weight loss. You're right. There's too many extra calories for exercise to make a significant dent. They would first need to alter their diet to be healthier before they could make strides towards losing weight.

[gonzomax]

I was just watching an episode of "Hoarders'. They have people who can lose their children, go to jail or get divorced because they can not get rid of trash they save. Dumping trash should not be hard to do. Just throw the crap away and the problem is gone. But it is very hard for them to do. They suffer through the process. The mental anguish is real .
So to say just exercise and stop eating so much is no great revelation. They know it as well as you do. There is a lot more involved than just being lazy and eating too much. Those are not the problems, but the symptoms. It is a lot more complicated and mentally excruciating. Please don't congratulate yourself for displaying a great understanding. The mental complexities of people overeating and not working out are far greater than the shallow remarks here are stating.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Ironically, I am a yoga fanatic. My usually unlimited monthly pass isn't in my budget right now, though. It's not meditative for me - purely a tough workout, that has the bonus of increasing my flexibility.

I thought it was just a workout too, until this thread forced me to separate the exercise from the meditation. I guess I liked the meditation all along, but was always there for the workout. Fanatic? Me? Actually I just type a lot, and do a little yoga.

Anyway, I feel like I need to back off on the point that a certain level of exercise is hard to overeat. Me, I didn't overeat it. I don't exercise so much anymore, but apparently enough that my body seems to be staying put. But between mentions of cookies, chips, and pints of cream, I better admit over-eating exercise is do-able.

I'm curious though. What is the story behind the cream?

[rhubarbarin]

I'm curious as to your "definition" of exercise. People have been playing football/soccer variants and other sports for a long time. A very, very long time. The Olympics basically became a modern thing in the late 1890s. That is more than 40 years ago. The marathon started getting ran about that time (though some might claim earlier).

People have likely "ran" for exercise for longer than that. Certainly soldiers trained for "exercise" before there was even a modern gym. (Keep in mind, Gymnastics were also showcased in the 1896 Olympics, so there was actually a modern gymnasium at that point.

Lets not forget that all of this dates back from the Ancient Greeks, who did all of these things (included going to a gym for "exercise" and weightlifting even) back in 300 or so B.C.

Also, let us not forget our Asian counterparts, the martial arts and yoga "exercisers".

Athletes have always been an exception, both in the type and quantity of physical activity they did. However they have always been a vanishingly small minority of a population - until now.

And undoubtedly most people's everyday lives were far more active before the last few decades.

But in America for the last century or two, with the exception of those with physical jobs, deliberate 'exercise', especially anything that would get your heart rate up for extended periods of time, outside of walking and doing household chores wasn't something your average person was familiar with.

We were a nation of housewives after all.. and without all the amenities we had now, that took more and harder work. But taking care of 6 children and doing hard household chores doesn't make women thin (even Amish women (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15292756?log$=activity) - average BMI of Amish women is 27, which is overweight).

[rhubarbarin]

Well, hardly scientific proof, but an interesting story here (http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3594708). (don't let the long, annoying ambien commercial turn you off)

72 years old and has been body-building for 40+ years. No medical problems, no medications, etc (at least according to him, of course). Mind you, he apparently doesn't eat meat either, though I don't know how long he has had that diet.

I do agree with you that the body is capable of a ton! Much more than we give it credit for. What matters is the effort put forth. I too plan of being one of those super-active and capable elderly people. I put a very high premium on my fitness.

However, the elderly who do hours of yoga per week or are still mountain-climbing have no more chance of enjoying perfect health and longevity, than those who simply stay 'moderately active' with walking, maybe some golfing, doing their own chores and yardwork, and playing with grandkids.

[rhubarbarin]

Recent relevant study. (http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/decrease-physical-activity-may-not-be-factor-increased-obesity-rates-among-adolescents-26836.html)

[gonzomax]

I do agree with you that the body is capable of a ton! Much more than we give it credit for. What matters is the effort put forth. I too plan of being one of those super-active and capable elderly people. I put a very high premium on my fitness.

However, the elderly who do hours of yoga per week or are still mountain-climbing have no more chance of enjoying perfect health and longevity, than those who simply stay 'moderately active' with walking, maybe some golfing, doing their own chores and yardwork, and playing with grandkids.

You are undershooting. I am 66 and play racketball 8 to 10 hours a week. I do not have to do easy exercises to save my brittle body. I also walk 2 beagles twice a day in the park. We go more than 5 miles a day, every day.
There are guys in my group who have been doing weight lifting for many years. They do exercise bikes too. I was a competitive lifter when I was a late teen and have been lifting for many, many years. Much of age frailty is due to believing you become too old to do your activities and quitting.
The mental facilities are also enhanced by good physical health. The only one of our group who is showing any degree of Alzheimers ,is a very big drinker.

[rhubarbarin]

You are undershooting. I am 66 and play racketball 8 to 10 hours a week. I do not have to do easy exercises to save my brittle body. I also walk 2 beagles twice a day in the park. We go more than 5 miles a day, every day.
There are guys in my group who have been doing weight lifting for many years. They do exercise bikes too. I was a competitive lifter when I was a late teen and have been lifting for many, many years. Much of age frailty is due to believing you become too old to do your activities and quitting.
The mental facilities are also enhanced by good physical health. The only one of our group who is showing any degree of Alzheimers ,is a very big drinker.

Agreed, with all points. You can usually (barring injuries/some medical conditions) do as much as you want to, to a very advanced age.

But - so far there is no particular proven benefit to extreme fitness, as opposed to good or moderate (defined as brisk walking for 1/2 hour per day) fitness.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

I seriously doubt that much special training is required to get a horse to run long distances, beyond "I am the rider and you go at the speed I say." I could easily be wrong and disproven by cites, though.
Welllll... I don't think any cites are necessary. Just think about this for a minute. Wild horses were hunted to extinction. Yet domesticated horses can apparently out-run the very species that hunted their wild counterparts to death.
Ok. How do horses make the leap from 'wild' to 'domesticated'? They have to be broken. I can't say I know much about this process, but obviously it involves convincing a horse to accept a rider and follow their instructions.
You may be right that horses don't particularly need physical training to run well with a rider. But they do need mental training to reach the point where they can be ridden.
I hope you can see the analogy between this and using meditation to gain command over your diet/exercise habits/physicality aversion.
Problem is, the eventual results aren't the kind of thing I'm interested in signing up for. (At least once you cross out the imaginary results like curing diabetes,
I know. Personally I think you'd want them if you really understood, but if I push that button too hard I turn into a moonbat, don't I?
You are in fact interested in getting your weight down to 200. I assume you're interested in avoiding blindness and amputeeism. Begbert- how are you going to achieve that??? At some point there is necessarily some action you must take to change your lifestyle/habits to achieve this goal, outside of giving up the goal. I sincerely hope you can discover something effective that doesn't leave you feeling like you've compromised something important. Like your vision. Or your foot.
and the undesirable ones like emptying my mind.
This is a bit of a strawman on your part. It isn't emptying your mind, it is gaining control of your mind (please note: not somebody else gaining control over your mind). Which will give you greater control over your habits, actions, reactions. Which ultimately will make your weight a simple matter of your personal preference in time. You want to hit 200 lbs, so how then is the/a solution to your problem 'undesirable'?

The exercise is nothing without a proper diet. The diet is everything, even without the exercise. That's the reality.
I don't really know what you eat. What part of your diet is 'normal', and at what point are you 'overeating'? What stops you from controlling your diet?

Thing is, though, I don't want to quiet my mind. So the hardest part would be talking myself into even trying to. With the exercise, at least, I'm merely apathetic as to the results, and it's just the costs that deter me.
Hmpf. There are two paths to a solution as I see it (can I remind you again that I'm not all-knowing?). And, again as I see it, every time the discussion veers toward putting effort into the solution, you balk- and balk hard.
-You don't believe exercise- which can burn a significant amount of calories btw, besides a host of other benefits- has any significant benefit, and therefore you don't apply much effort to it. Suggestions that you give it a shot are met with your seeming belief that exercise= signing up for Marine Corps boot camp in which they relentlessly kick your ass until you are a Marine (not that I am one, this is AFAIK). But no, whether you are in charge or find some kind of expert to guide you, every single entity in the world is going to be more sympathetic to your feelings that the Marine Corps. Seriously, they won't torture you. You will in fact be encouraged to explore and expand your limits, but if you can see any other way I'd like to hear it.
-You discount personal mind-control activities seemingly out of hand. If mind control is not what is needed to control your diet/battle your cravings/change your habits, then do tell what is required. Seriously, what is it then?
The huge misconception is that in "eat less, exercise more", the "exercise more" matters.
There are a million anecdotes that suggest exercise does matter. You're insisting it doesn't either because of extreme aversion to exercise or an extremely out-of-control diet. What else is there in this equation? Your best bet is to put effort into both, unless you have a better idea.

Now, it may be the case that exercise plus diet control is easier for some people, but if so I suspect it would be because of the lifestyle change, not due to exercise having any noticeable effect on the calories accumulated.
You are looking down the barrel of a lifestyle change, or I wouldn't be concerned with this at all. Fat and happy? Good, I like happy. Go and be happy. Honest and true, I don't give a fucking god-damn about fat if you're cool with it. I don't judge it, I don't hate it, it is quite simply not my beef with the world. Fat and diabetic? Mission Control: we have a problem.
Seriously dude, I've watched people go through an amputation. You don't want to be that guy. It is worth the trouble to avoid. A LOT of trouble.
I can easily see how a change in lifestyle would make it easier to stick to a new diet - the hardest time for me to curb my snacking is when I am watching TV (and not on the bike), because that was my biggest snacking time in the halcyon days. If I eschewed TV entirely for some other activity, like jogging or yoga or being stretched on the rack, I wouldn't have to deal with ingrained habits of snacking while engaging in the activity.
The rack? Really? Is a lifestyle change really so torturous? What if you changed into a lifestyle that you enjoyed more than your current one? How about a lot more? Before you say, 'no way', what is your cite that your current lifestyle is the pinnacle of human enjoyment?

[begbert2]

Welllll... I don't think any cites are necessary. Just think about this for a minute. Wild horses were hunted to extinction. Yet domesticated horses can apparently out-run the very species that hunted their wild counterparts to death.
Ok. How do horses make the leap from 'wild' to 'domesticated'? They have to be broken. I can't say I know much about this process, but obviously it involves convincing a horse to accept a rider and follow their instructions.
You may be right that horses don't particularly need physical training to run well with a rider. But they do need mental training to reach the point where they can be ridden.
I hope you can see the analogy between this and using meditation to gain command over your diet/exercise habits/physicality aversion.Points:

- I don't see any reason to believe that wild horses were "hunted to extinction" and that domesticated horses, um, sprang out of nothing in their wake. Nor do I see much reason to think that wild horses were as a rule significantly slower (though some domesticated horse breeds were certainly bred for additional speed). What I suspect happened is that early man used hunting techniques designed to foil speed and take advantage of animal stupidity, such as sneaking up on them and/or surrounding them and/or getting them to flee and tire themselves out and/or using natural terrain to box them in and prevent them from running. All of these techniques would work on domesticated horses too, of course, regardless of their speed.

- as for the physical/mental training dichotomy, I thought we were talking about the difference between "my horse", and "my horse that has been trained to be an endurance runner" - in both cases I assumed the horse to already be broken. So, the confusion there is likely my fault.

- I see no comparison between being broken and gaining self-control, beyond the useless baseline of "your response to certain stimuli has changed".


I know. Personally I think you'd want them if you really understood, but if I push that button too hard I turn into a moonbat, don't I?
You are in fact interested in getting your weight down to 200. I assume you're interested in avoiding blindness and amputeeism. Begbert- how are you going to achieve that??? At some point there is necessarily some action you must take to change your lifestyle/habits to achieve this goal, outside of giving up the goal. I sincerely hope you can discover something effective that doesn't leave you feeling like you've compromised something important. Like your vision. Or your foot.I'm going to achieve this by losing the weight through diet control. Remember?

This is a bit of a strawman on your part. It isn't emptying your mind, it is gaining control of your mind (please note: not somebody else gaining control over your mind). Which will give you greater control over your habits, actions, reactions. Which ultimately will make your weight a simple matter of your personal preference in time. You want to hit 200 lbs, so how then is the/a solution to your problem 'undesirable'?The/a "solution" to my problem is 'undesirable' if it has undesireable conditions, steps, or side effects that seem to surpass the expected gains. Hopefully that's not hard to understand.


If I'm strawmanning about the mental effects of meditation, it's because I fail to appreciate the distinctions you are trying to make, probably because I don't really believe in the problem you propose to cure. My mind is me, and it isn't out of my control. I'm not sure it could be, absent severe mental/psychological problems on the order of insanity. My lapses of self-control are not caused by a homunculus seizing control of my body or mind; they're caused because I have conflicting desires and motivations and sometimes the short-term desires calculate as having a higher momentary priority than the long-term less-concrete desires, and thus they are more impelling and I choose to act on them.

How do I get greater control over my impulsions to succumb to short-term desires? Not by meditation, that's for sure - it doesn't address the problem of conflicting priorities (unless it is brainwashing). The correct solution is to either reduce the collective strength of the 'snack' impulsions, increase the collective strengh of the 'don't snack' impulsions, or to alter my envornment to discourage acting on the 'snack' impulsions. None of these is a matter of getting control of my mind; they're changing my priorities (or my preferred method, leveraging my quirks) so that I choose act in a different way.

Anyway, given that it's impossible for meditiation to give me greater control over my mind (which is a nonsensical concept), I find myself viewing the effects of meditation as having the one effect you've described which would be a change: emptying the mind. (Certainly you described the 'corpse pose' as including this.) This is not something I wish to pursue.

I don't really know what you eat. What part of your diet is 'normal', and at what point are you 'overeating'? What stops you from controlling your diet?The unhealthy parts of my diet are normal. The healthy parts are abnormal. Seriously, is it normal to be using raw cauliflour as a snack food?

What stops me from controlling my diet? My desires to eat one way interfere with my desires to eat in another way. (Clearly, elimianating all my desires isn't going to correct this in a useful way.) To get around this I have techniques, tricks if you prefer, to adjust my behaviors without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Hmpf. There are two paths to a solution as I see it (can I remind you again that I'm not all-knowing?). And, again as I see it, every time the discussion veers toward putting effort into the solution, you balk- and balk hard.I balk hard at putting effort into things that promise to be inefficient or ineffective in proportion to their effects. Remember, I've lost eighty pounds without subjecting myself to the "effort" you refer to. It's not like I'm hunting desperately for an effective approach - so why should I give serious thought to other, likely less effective and certainly more arduous ones?

-You don't believe exercise- which can burn a significant amount of calories btw, besides a host of other benefits- has any significant benefit, and therefore you don't apply much effort to it. Suggestions that you give it a shot are met with your seeming belief that exercise= signing up for Marine Corps boot camp in which they relentlessly kick your ass until you are a Marine (not that I am one, this is AFAIK). But no, whether you are in charge or find some kind of expert to guide you, every single entity in the world is going to be more sympathetic to your feelings that the Marine Corps. Seriously, they won't torture you. You will in fact be encouraged to explore and expand your limits, but if you can see any other way I'd like to hear it.Exercise cannot burn a significant amount of calories unless you do so much ungodly horrific exercise that you probably wouldn't have time to eat. You grossly overestimate the effectiveness of exercise and grossly underestimate the caloric content of the average food. We're talking about a mouse in a tug of war with an elephant here, and you're backing the mouse.

-You discount personal mind-control activities seemingly out of hand. If mind control is not what is needed to control your diet/battle your cravings/change your habits, then do tell what is required. Seriously, what is it then?This would vary per person. My approaches tend to involve simply not buying the crap food. (Most of my snacking takes place in my apartment.) It's recently become more evident that I need to also strike a careful balance between "snacking too much" and "not snacking at all" (if I do the latter, I will eventually crack and binge) and have literally yesterday instituted an arbitrary (and quite silly) method of monitoring this. (Because unmonitored food is a problem waiting to happen - It'a actually a little surprising I made it six months without this problem rearing its head.)

Anyway, I guess the succinct way to put it is that "mind control" is certainly not the only possible approach.

There are a million anecdotes that suggest exercise does matter. You're insisting it doesn't either because of extreme aversion to exercise or an extremely out-of-control diet. What else is there in this equation? Your best bet is to put effort into both, unless you have a better idea.Anecdotes are crap; if a million people change their diet and start exercising, that doesn't mean that changing their diet and not exercising wouldn't have copmarable effects.

And I NEVER said that diet isn't an issue.

You are looking down the barrel of a lifestyle change, or I wouldn't be concerned with this at all. Fat and happy? Good, I like happy. Go and be happy. Honest and true, I don't give a fucking god-damn about fat if you're cool with it. I don't judge it, I don't hate it, it is quite simply not my beef with the world. Fat and diabetic? Mission Control: we have a problem.
Seriously dude, I've watched people go through an amputation. You don't want to be that guy. It is worth the trouble to avoid. A LOT of trouble.Hence, the diet. Let's all keep in mind that I'm not the stereotypical fat guy who sits on his couch moaning "I can't get thin it's impossible" between the handfuls of chips he's stuffing in his mouth.

The rack? Really? Is a lifestyle change really so torturous? What if you changed into a lifestyle that you enjoyed more than your current one? How about a lot more? Before you say, 'no way', what is your cite that your current lifestyle is the pinnacle of human enjoyment?Running is that torturous, for me. Dunno about yoga, but I'm not that interested in finding out: nothing about it seems even slightly likely to ever appeal to me*, and it would take time away from activities which I do enjoy - enjoy rather a lot in fact. (And seriously, I already don't have enough time in the day for all my hobbies. Why would I want to flush more time away on something I don't want to do?)


* I am not you.

[Guinastasia]

How ARE you doing with your dieting, begbert2?

[Stink Fish Pot]

Because nobody likes a skinny Santa.

Eat Papa, Eat!

[begbert2]

How ARE you doing with your dieting, begbert2?Since you ask:

I don't bother keeping track of specfic weights for specific dates (I really could take this more seriously, if I had the gumption), but generally speaking I've been floating between 270 and 280 for the last couple months. This stall has been entirely due to me worsening in my snacking - first with lapses in the types of snacks I was buying and eating (blasted cookies), and then when I got my act together and stopped buying those again, I (without initially noticing) started going through my 'good' snacks a lot faster, presumably to compensate for the loss of cookies. This bingeing wasn't enough to make me start gaining weight to any real degree, probably because my main meals are still of a strictly limited size, but it was enough to stop the weight loss.

Starting two days ago I instituted a new (quite silly) way to visually track the amounts snacked on per day, so I can't get away with letting excessive snacking slip by 'off the books'. With luck, this should be sufficient rein me back in to the level of food intake I was maintaining (without additional controls) for the first several months of this diet, when I was really shedding pounds. However, it's too soon yet to say whether it's actually working or not.

[begbert2]

Utterly unimportant factual correction: 260-270 pounds, not 270-280. (As of ten minutes ago 263.8.) Man is my memory for numbers bad... :smack::(

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Points:

- I don't see any reason to believe that wild horses were "hunted to extinction" and that domesticated horses, um, sprang out of nothing in their wake. Nor do I see much reason to think that wild horses were as a rule significantly slower (though some domesticated horse breeds were certainly bred for additional speed). What I suspect happened is that early man used hunting techniques designed to foil speed and take advantage of animal stupidity, such as sneaking up on them and/or surrounding them and/or getting them to flee and tire themselves out and/or using natural terrain to box them in and prevent them from running. All of these techniques would work on domesticated horses too, of course, regardless of their speed.
Here's a link (http://www.ultimatehorsesite.com/info/wildhorseessay2.html) if you would like more information on the extinction of North American horses. We could argue about how they did it as part of the larger running discussion, but- I didn't forget what you said way back about your knees. It doesn't sound like running is for you regardless of where arguing about horses leads.

- as for the physical/mental training dichotomy, I thought we were talking about the difference between "my horse", and "my horse that has been trained to be an endurance runner" - in both cases I assumed the horse to already be broken. So, the confusion there is likely my fault.
I assumed that the horses are both broken and trained for the event. I can't imagine it being any other way, but I admit I don't know. I'll continue about horses if you really want though.

- I see no comparison between being broken and gaining self-control, beyond the useless baseline of "your response to certain stimuli has changed".
The analogy is that if your desires for food are overwhelming your diet intention, there are ways to overcome that. Maybe it is a crappy analogy. I just don't want to derail this into horses very much, sorry.

I'm going to achieve this by losing the weight through diet control. Remember?
I remember. And I'm fairly well convinced that serious exercise isn't going to be on the menu. I find that stance somewhat boggling, but don't take that the wrong way.

The/a "solution" to my problem is 'undesirable' if it has undesireable conditions, steps, or side effects that seem to surpass the expected gains. Hopefully that's not hard to understand.
It isn't hard to understand, no. I feel like your 'weighting' of certain activities in the negative direction is perhaps out of proportion, though I don't know if I can be certain of that or how to argue about it.

Someone mentioned the number of calories in a pound of body weight, something like 3600? Taking that approximate figure, if you are attempting to lose 70 more pounds, that's a total of 252,000 calories burned more than eaten.

It'll take time no matter what, but considering that the 'burned calories' is an inextricable part of this, it sure seems obvious that increasing it through exercise will help with the goal. Especially considering that exercise will raise your resting calorie burn.
We've been over your objections to this approach of course, namely that you'll either over-eat the burn (avoidable through mind-control, or just plain ol' planning) or that the effort will prove too much trouble for too little gain. I don't agree, but I can see that you are rather firmly set in your position on this.

If I'm strawmanning about the mental effects of meditation, it's because I fail to appreciate the distinctions you are trying to make, probably because I don't really believe in the problem you propose to cure. My mind is me, and it isn't out of my control. I'm not sure it could be, absent severe mental/psychological problems on the order of insanity. My lapses of self-control are not caused by a homunculus seizing control of my body or mind; they're caused because I have conflicting desires and motivations and sometimes the short-term desires calculate as having a higher momentary priority than the long-term less-concrete desires, and thus they are more impelling and I choose to act on them.
In this and other threads you come off as too bright to be insane. Yah, I suppose there are plenty of smart crazy people out there, but I'm reluctant to start accusations of insanity.
I suppose it is possible that you have an addiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction). Maybe it is the related problem of compulsive overeating (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_overeating). This second one maps in part to behaviors you've mentioned:
An individual suffering from compulsive overeating disorder engages in frequent episodes of uncontrolled eating, or bingeing, during which they may feel frenzied or out of control, often consuming food past the point of being comfortably full.
But... is it a direct match? I really don't know, and I'm not really qualified to decide either. I toss this info out there in case it is helpful or informative.

How do I get greater control over my impulsions to succumb to short-term desires? Not by meditation, that's for sure - it doesn't address the problem of conflicting priorities (unless it is brainwashing).
Nah. Short-term desires are the kind of thing it is good for controlling. You would form a clear intention of what your actions would be re: eating, recognize how the cravings or whatever are contrary to your plan, and disregard them.
It helped me quit smoking. I'm sure it'd help with food cravings. But... you'd have to want to try it, and you don't seem to.
The correct solution is to either reduce the collective strength of the 'snack' impulsions, increase the collective strengh of the 'don't snack' impulsions, or to alter my envornment to discourage acting on the 'snack' impulsions. None of these is a matter of getting control of my mind; they're changing my priorities (or my preferred method, leveraging my quirks) so that I choose act in a different way.
I don't see a problem with that.

Anyway, given that it's impossible for meditiation to give me greater control over my mind (which is a nonsensical concept), I find myself viewing the effects of meditation as having the one effect you've described which would be a change: emptying the mind. (Certainly you described the 'corpse pose' as including this.) This is not something I wish to pursue.
Nonsense? You have conflicting desires. The 'clarity' effect is, well, hard to explain I guess, but a state where it is very easy to have a single intention that isn't swayed by these kind of conflicts. But. Not something you wish to pursue.

The unhealthy parts of my diet are normal. The healthy parts are abnormal. Seriously, is it normal to be using raw cauliflour as a snack food?
Hmm, I don't know. We'd end up parsing the word 'normal', and could come up with different conclusions ranging from 'common' to 'acceptable' to 'ideal', and everything in between.
I think cauliflower is a normal snack. I can think of people around here eating a lot of carrots, grapes, almonds, raisins- people do eat lots of healthy snacks. I think cauliflower is a good one too. I've seen it recommended combined with tuna to get a full set of amino acids; that plus some ranch dressing to make it tasty. I eat that myself sometimes, but I may not be normal ;)

What stops me from controlling my diet? My desires to eat one way interfere with my desires to eat in another way. (Clearly, elimianating all my desires isn't going to correct this in a useful way.) To get around this I have techniques, tricks if you prefer, to adjust my behaviors without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Doing what works is the bottom line. You don't need any help if you can get there on your own.

I balk hard at putting effort into things that promise to be inefficient or ineffective in proportion to their effects. Remember, I've lost eighty pounds without subjecting myself to the "effort" you refer to. It's not like I'm hunting desperately for an effective approach - so why should I give serious thought to other, likely less effective and certainly more arduous ones?
I think you'll get faster (and ultimately better) results working both sides of the calories in/calories out equation, that's all. It strikes me as patently obvious, but then our experiences and situations were/are different, and you clearly have firm beliefs about efficacy and ardor where exercise is involved.
Exercise cannot burn a significant amount of calories unless you do so much ungodly horrific exercise that you probably wouldn't have time to eat. You grossly overestimate the effectiveness of exercise and grossly underestimate the caloric content of the average food. We're talking about a mouse in a tug of war with an elephant here, and you're backing the mouse.
Nah. Say you burn 500 extra calories a day through exercise. That's 3500 a week; in 6 months that's 91,000. That seems a significant step toward the 252,000 needed to reach your goal.
I don't think I grossly underestimate the caloric content of average food, and anyway it sounds like you actually are getting good at dieting, so... don't eat it!

This would vary per person. My approaches tend to involve simply not buying the crap food. (Most of my snacking takes place in my apartment.) It's recently become more evident that I need to also strike a careful balance between "snacking too much" and "not snacking at all" (if I do the latter, I will eventually crack and binge) and have literally yesterday instituted an arbitrary (and quite silly) method of monitoring this. (Because unmonitored food is a problem waiting to happen - It'a actually a little surprising I made it six months without this problem rearing its head.)
Sounds good. And if you think your methods are silly, try doing yoga! No wait a minute, we've been over that :)
Anyway, I guess the succinct way to put it is that "mind control" is certainly not the only possible approach.
Agreed.
Anecdotes are crap; if a million people change their diet and start exercising, that doesn't mean that changing their diet and not exercising wouldn't have copmarable effects.
Nah. A line from a link upthread made the observation that if exercise caused people to gain weight, then they'd be the fattest, which obviously isn't the case. Exercising trims people up. But of course there is the calories-in side of the equation. Yes, of course.

Running is that torturous, for me. Dunno about yoga, but I'm not that interested in finding out: nothing about it seems even slightly likely to ever appeal to me*, and it would take time away from activities which I do enjoy - enjoy rather a lot in fact. (And seriously, I already don't have enough time in the day for all my hobbies. Why would I want to flush more time away on something I don't want to do?)


* I am not you.
I don't know Begbert. Keep in mind I am promoting exercise and some outside guidance/supervision so that you can learn to do it effectively. It doesn't have to be what I do. Maybe keep all this in mind if what you're doing begins to stall again and you are looking for a new method to apply.

Maybe you won't need it :)

[begbert2]

I'll continue about horses if you really want though.I don't think that further discussion about horses is really germaine to the discussion. It was kind of a tangent of a tangent anyway.

I remember. And I'm fairly well convinced that serious exercise isn't going to be on the menu. I find that stance somewhat boggling, but don't take that the wrong way.Well, it's all about priorities, limited available time, and alternate options for both ways to spend that time (that are more enjoyable) and ways to lose the weight (that take less time). My life is choked with purely recreational things that are battling over my time, and I want to do them all. I sometimes feel guilty when I think about the recreational hobbies that I'm letting lie fallow to pursue other hobbies!

Clearly this line of discussion is going to generate more rolleyes than sympathy ('oh poor baby you, having too many fun ways to spend your time'), but the long and short of it is that my time has an extremely high value to me, and any activity that wishes to compete for my time needs to promise a significant benefit or host of benefits, sufficient to compete.

So. The thing about the "hard" exercise you describe is that it tends to take time. Usually lots of it. You mention burning 500 calories a day; on my reclination bike it says I burn about 280 calories an hour. So even if you're working nearly twice as hard, you're still talking about an hour of precious, precious time being expended on the activity. For a benefit that can be literally equalled (on the weight loss front) by not eating two and a half cookies. And it takes no time to not eat two and a half cookies. :)

And then there's the level of unpleasant physical exertion that exercise promises. This is important because if exercise was fun enough, it would become competetive as a recreational activity independent of its neglible caloric burn. And for me, exercise just isn't fun. "But it is!" you might exclaim. But I've been forced to do exercise before, and it has never been fun. Sports have never been fun. Running downright hurts, but even other less painful forms of exercise simply don't do anything for me, and at best are mildly unpleasant. "But that's just because you haven't done them enough!" Yeah, and that's what they say about eating caviar. Blech, no thanks. I'm not interested in acquiring tastes - I'm not so hard up for entertainment that doing unpleasant things for prolonged periods in the hopes that I might one day become acclimatized to it is appealing to me.

So that's where I'm coming from - serious exercise is a pain in the ass that wastes precious, precious time for negligible benefits that I can largely achieve through other means more efficiently. With that in mind it should be easy to understand why I personally don't want to get within ten feet of the stuff.

It isn't hard to understand, no. I feel like your 'weighting' of certain activities in the negative direction is perhaps out of proportion, though I don't know if I can be certain of that or how to argue about it.Probably the thing that's throwing you off is the opportunity cost of serious exercise - the funner things that I can't do while sweating in yoga class. If my life was an endless dull drudge of boredom and inactive listlessness, it would be a lot easier to get me to fill some of the gaps in my empty schedule with bouts of beneficial suffering.

Someone mentioned the number of calories in a pound of body weight, something like 3600? Taking that approximate figure, if you are attempting to lose 70 more pounds, that's a total of 252,000 calories burned more than eaten.

It'll take time no matter what, but considering that the 'burned calories' is an inextricable part of this, it sure seems obvious that increasing it through exercise will help with the goal. Especially considering that exercise will raise your resting calorie burn.
We've been over your objections to this approach of course, namely that you'll either over-eat the burn (avoidable through mind-control, or just plain ol' planning) or that the effort will prove too much trouble for too little gain. I don't agree, but I can see that you are rather firmly set in your position on this.I get dubious about the idea that this is so linear that you can meaningfully sum up the calories into the thousands; the metabolism is not a computer. But regardless, the issue is that the exercise-end has such negligible effect that it's not worth pursuing.

It's like this: suppose that you want to have a car race with somebody, who graciously offers you not one but two ways to pursue your goal: You can drive the car faster in the usual way, but in addition you can also push the car ahead at the starting line before the race, as far as you like, to give you a head start. It will be in park at the time, so you're literally pushing it, not rolling it, but by working your ass off, you can gain a few extra feet of distance for efforts for every hour of work.

If a person really, really thinks that this will come down to the wire, and that a few extra yards will be the difference between the win and losing their foot, they would be prudent to push as hard and as long as they can. But me, I'll skip that just press the gas petal a little harder.

In this and other threads you come off as too bright to be insane. Yah, I suppose there are plenty of smart crazy people out there, but I'm reluctant to start accusations of insanity.If you saw the rather eclectic mix of possessions in my apartment, you might think differently. :p

I suppose it is possible that you have an addiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction). Maybe it is the related problem of compulsive overeating (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_overeating). This second one maps in part to behaviors you've mentioned:

But... is it a direct match? I really don't know, and I'm not really qualified to decide either. I toss this info out there in case it is helpful or informative.That's not a match. Generally speaking I'm not a frenzied binger; I merely haven't completely convinced myself that I dislike cookies.


Nah. Short-term desires are the kind of thing it is good for controlling. You would form a clear intention of what your actions would be re: eating, recognize how the cravings or whatever are contrary to your plan, and disregard them.
It helped me quit smoking. I'm sure it'd help with food cravings. But... you'd have to want to try it, and you don't seem to.Except I already know the cookies are contrary to the diet.

I will say, that if this clarity stuff came in a pill form, and wasn't too expensive, I might give it a shot just to see how well it works. But it doesn't come in a cheap pill - the process to get it would be time consuming and unpleasant and would actually cost more cash than I'm willing to toss at a test too. So, because of that, it's not for me.

Nonsense? You have conflicting desires. The 'clarity' effect is, well, hard to explain I guess, but a state where it is very easy to have a single intention that isn't swayed by these kind of conflicts. But. Not something you wish to pursue.Let me know when the pill form comes out.

Hmm, I don't know. We'd end up parsing the word 'normal', and could come up with different conclusions ranging from 'common' to 'acceptable' to 'ideal', and everything in between.
I think cauliflower is a normal snack. I can think of people around here eating a lot of carrots, grapes, almonds, raisins- people do eat lots of healthy snacks. I think cauliflower is a good one too. I've seen it recommended combined with tuna to get a full set of amino acids; that plus some ranch dressing to make it tasty. I eat that myself sometimes, but I may not be normal ;)Aww, don't you want to have a nifty semantic hijack? :p

Perhaps people around you eat healthy snacks, but nobody I've met does. Of course, I don't run in gym-club circles.

And ranch dressing? That's empty calories; no way, not on cauliflower, not on salad, not on anything. (It's tasty, though.) And since this is for snacking on while watching TV in my la-z-boy, no messy tuna either. Just raw cauliflour (and broccoli (they come packaged together, the way I buy them), noshed on like oversized popcorn kernels. The taste is lame, but the texture is interesting, and it supplants other tastier, more caloric snacks.

I think you'll get faster (and ultimately better) results working both sides of the calories in/calories out equation, that's all. It strikes me as patently obvious, but then our experiences and situations were/are different, and you clearly have firm beliefs about efficacy and ardor where exercise is involved.

Nah. Say you burn 500 extra calories a day through exercise. That's 3500 a week; in 6 months that's 91,000. That seems a significant step toward the 252,000 needed to reach your goal.
I don't think I grossly underestimate the caloric content of average food, and anyway it sounds like you actually are getting good at dieting, so... don't eat it!I think you overstate the effictiveness of exercise - if only in that you fail to subract out the 'at rest' calorie burn from your numbers for the caloric burn of exercise. (Remember, every activity supplants another, which has its own levels of benefits.)

And I'm not in so big a hurry to get there that I need to work both sides of the equation. Particularly when the various costs per calorie on the one side are so much higher than the costs on the other.

Sounds good. And if you think your methods are silly, try doing yoga! No wait a minute, we've been over that :)I have been carefully refraining from mocking yoga out of a desire to avoid torpedoeing the discussion. But if you want to go there, I can accomodate... :D

Nah. A line from a link upthread made the observation that if exercise caused people to gain weight, then they'd be the fattest, which obviously isn't the case. Exercising trims people up. But of course there is the calories-in side of the equation. Yes, of course.Good thing I'm not saying such a silly thing, then; I'm saying that exercise has no effect either way on weight loss/gain, or at least close enough to no effect that it is eclipsed and made negligent by other factors (specifically, diet).

And exercise does trim people up, depending on how you define "trim up" - it bulks muscles, rearranges the body mass, and perhaps trims a little fat here and there. (I get the vague impression that it can taughten skin too, but I could be completely wrong about that.) The thing it doesn't do is compete with diet control as a method of losing large amounts of weight when you take into account the time and effort required.

I don't know Begbert. Keep in mind I am promoting exercise and some outside guidance/supervision so that you can learn to do it effectively. It doesn't have to be what I do. Maybe keep all this in mind if what you're doing begins to stall again and you are looking for a new method to apply.I'm actually much more averse to getting professional help than I am to exercise in general. Exercise alone is time consuming and unpleasant. Exercise with a trainer is time consuming, unpleasant, has an audience for my failings, and beyond all that has an ongoing financial cost too.

Maybe you won't need it :)If I can stick to the diet, I won't.

[MsWhatsit]

Big if. If you are interested in anecdotal information about how I've managed to stick with my diet for the past several months, I can give that, but maybe that's not really germane to this thread. (Incidentally, there is a Weight Loss thread somewhere in MPSIMS that gets regular traffic, although I think at the moment it has fallen off the front page.)

[begbert2]

Big if. If you are interested in anecdotal information about how I've managed to stick with my diet for the past several months, I can give that, but maybe that's not really germane to this thread. (Incidentally, there is a Weight Loss thread somewhere in MPSIMS that gets regular traffic, although I think at the moment it has fallen off the front page.)Sticking to exercise is an equally big if.


(And I only spout on about myself when asked or it seems directly germaine to what I'm responding to. Sorry if that bugs people...)

[MsWhatsit]

Sorry; I didn't mean to be dismissive. One of my personal peeves is the people who say that it's impossible to lose weight because nobody has that much willpower, or whatever. My 25-pounds-lighter butt begs to differ. I just didn't want to go into advice mode if that was not wanted. :)

[begbert2]

Sorry; I didn't mean to be dismissive. One of my personal peeves is the people who say that it's impossible to lose weight because nobody has that much willpower, or whatever. My 25-pounds-lighter butt begs to differ. I just didn't want to go into advice mode if that was not wanted. :)Wait, I said or implied that it's impossible to lose weight because nobody has that much willpower? Wha?

[MsWhatsit]

No! I meant, I was sorry for coming off as dismissive of your weight-loss efforts because I hate it when people do it to me in a slightly different context.

This thread is making me stupid, apparently. (Har har, save the jokes.)

[begbert2]

No! I meant, I was sorry for coming off as dismissive of your weight-loss efforts because I hate it when people do it to me in a slightly different context.

This thread is making me stupid, apparently. (Har har, save the jokes.)Ah, okay, I get it.

(This thread is making me paranoid about saying or implying something I don't mean.)

[Try2B Comprehensive]

For once I feel neither paranoid nor stupid. How ironic is that :p

[Randolph]

For what it's worth: NY Times, "Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious" (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/phys-ed-why-exercise-makes-you-less-anxious/)

[begbert2]

For what it's worth: NY Times, "Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious" (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/phys-ed-why-exercise-makes-you-less-anxious/)It's a good thing Dr. Greenwood doesn't have a clear bias or anything, or it would make it difficult to unskeptically accept his findings about the rats and his extrapolations about humans.

[rhubarbarin]

Moderate activity is good for you. 'Exercise' is good too, but not proven so far to be any better for general health.

Exercise makes me feel better overall, but I stick to non-punishing activities such as gardening, walking, a bit of jogging and some sprinting exercises, lifting a couple weights, swimming, and yoga, and I never exhaust myself or 'drip with sweat' (gross). Yoga is the only thing that has ever lessened my severe menstrual pain - if that isn't a benefit I don't know what is. But nothing I do is difficult. If something hurts or makes your heart pound like crazy, that means you are overtaxing your body and should let up. Pain=no gain for me.

I think it's pretty stupid to assume that everyone will get the same psychological benefits from exercise. The people I know that exercise, usually do it because they love it and have since their Little League coach made them run laps (or alternatively, because they are afraid of getting fat and they think getting on the treadmill is what keeps them thin). The people I know that don't, don't because they really don't like exertion and usually haven't since their early years in gym class.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Well, it's all about priorities, limited available time, and alternate options for both ways to spend that time (that are more enjoyable) and ways to lose the weight (that take less time). My life is choked with purely recreational things that are battling over my time, and I want to do them all. I sometimes feel guilty when I think about the recreational hobbies that I'm letting lie fallow to pursue other hobbies!

Clearly this line of discussion is going to generate more rolleyes than sympathy ('oh poor baby you, having too many fun ways to spend your time'), but the long and short of it is that my time has an extremely high value to me, and any activity that wishes to compete for my time needs to promise a significant benefit or host of benefits, sufficient to compete.

So. The thing about the "hard" exercise you describe is that it tends to take time. Usually lots of it. You mention burning 500 calories a day; on my reclination bike it says I burn about 280 calories an hour. So even if you're working nearly twice as hard, you're still talking about an hour of precious, precious time being expended on the activity. For a benefit that can be literally equalled (on the weight loss front) by not eating two and a half cookies. And it takes no time to not eat two and a half cookies. :)

And then there's the level of unpleasant physical exertion that exercise promises. This is important because if exercise was fun enough, it would become competetive as a recreational activity independent of its neglible caloric burn. And for me, exercise just isn't fun. "But it is!" you might exclaim. But I've been forced to do exercise before, and it has never been fun. Sports have never been fun. Running downright hurts, but even other less painful forms of exercise simply don't do anything for me, and at best are mildly unpleasant. "But that's just because you haven't done them enough!" Yeah, and that's what they say about eating caviar. Blech, no thanks. I'm not interested in acquiring tastes - I'm not so hard up for entertainment that doing unpleasant things for prolonged periods in the hopes that I might one day become acclimatized to it is appealing to me.

So that's where I'm coming from - serious exercise is a pain in the ass that wastes precious, precious time for negligible benefits that I can largely achieve through other means more efficiently. With that in mind it should be easy to understand why I personally don't want to get within ten feet of the stuff.

Probably the thing that's throwing you off is the opportunity cost of serious exercise - the funner things that I can't do while sweating in yoga class. If my life was an endless dull drudge of boredom and inactive listlessness, it would be a lot easier to get me to fill some of the gaps in my empty schedule with bouts of beneficial suffering.

I get dubious about the idea that this is so linear that you can meaningfully sum up the calories into the thousands; the metabolism is not a computer. But regardless, the issue is that the exercise-end has such negligible effect that it's not worth pursuing.

It's like this: suppose that you want to have a car race with somebody, who graciously offers you not one but two ways to pursue your goal: You can drive the car faster in the usual way, but in addition you can also push the car ahead at the starting line before the race, as far as you like, to give you a head start. It will be in park at the time, so you're literally pushing it, not rolling it, but by working your ass off, you can gain a few extra feet of distance for efforts for every hour of work.

If a person really, really thinks that this will come down to the wire, and that a few extra yards will be the difference between the win and losing their foot, they would be prudent to push as hard and as long as they can. But me, I'll skip that just press the gas petal a little harder.

No offense Begbert, but all of this is completely unsatisfactory!

1) The body may not be a computer, but it is not a figment of your imagination either. Do you have an alternative (and math-based) hypothesis on what would happen if you ate 252,000 less calories than you burned? Let's hear it!

2) Your race car analogy is terrible. It is as if you are looking at this situation through the viewfinder of a camera whose lenses have been set askance each other.
Check out this article about weight loss and diabetes (http://diabetes.webmd.com/features/diabetes-weight-loss-finding-the-right-path?page=2). You'll notice that extreme dieting isn't advised due to its effects on your condition. Your best bet is to incorporate some exercise. Consider one quote:
Simply cutting lots of carbs -- a common dieting strategy -- can be dangerous, Gerbstadt says. When your body doesn't have carbs to burn for fuel, your metabolism changes into what's known as ketosis -- and fat is burned instead. You'll feel less hungry, and eat less than you usually do -- but long-term ketosis can cause health problems.

"Ketosis decreases oxygen delivery to the tissues, which puts stress on eyes, kidneys, heart, liver," Gerbstadt says. "That's why the low-carb, high-protein Atkins diet is not really safe for people with diabetes. Diabetics need to try to stick with a more balanced diet so your body can handle nutrients without going into ketosis."

Yes yes yes, I understand your feelings about the subject. Don't misplace my skepticism here. I have no doubt that each and every one of your diversions is fully engrossing and amusing. And I'm sure you have built up exercise in your mind to be the worst possible fate. And I completely understand that your time is valuable.

But your conclusions are thoroughly wrong! The opportunity costs of not exercising are potentially a significantly shortened life-span, an acceleration of your condition and a likely increase in the amount of time you will feel unwell. (plus you'll fail to hold up your end of the social contract if you neglect your health and require all kinds of unnecessary care later, which the rest of us will pay for one way or another) All of which will make any of the full assortment of amusements seem like a self-destructive waste of time- in hindsight- if they crowd out taking care of yourself.

I'm not going after your sovereignty. It is your choice. You could look at the facts in as blurry a way as you like, to the point that the relative values of things are completely indiscernible, then base your conclusion on 'I don't wanna'. Fine. At least acknowledge that retreating to a conclusion based on nothing more than the fact of your personal sovereignty is to deny all the relevant data. It is something other than a fact-based decision. In important matters, non-fact based decisions are... ignorant!

I think you overstate the effictiveness of exercise - if only in that you fail to subract out the 'at rest' calorie burn from your numbers for the caloric burn of exercise. (Remember, every activity supplants another, which has its own levels of benefits.)
I used the calculation that deducted the 'at rest' calorie burn.

And I'm not in so big a hurry to get there that I need to work both sides of the equation. Particularly when the various costs per calorie on the one side are so much higher than the costs on the other.

That isn't very comprehensive of you. And the cost of delaying is so much higher than what small pains it would require to take action.

I have been carefully refraining from mocking yoga out of a desire to avoid torpedoeing the discussion. But if you want to go there, I can accomodate... :D
As long as it doesn't involve showing me a drawing of a blind amputee fish devouring a smaller fish with the word 'yoga' in it, I can probably take it :D

And exercise does trim people up, depending on how you define "trim up" - it bulks muscles, rearranges the body mass, and perhaps trims a little fat here and there. (I get the vague impression that it can taughten skin too, but I could be completely wrong about that.) The thing it doesn't do is compete with diet control as a method of losing large amounts of weight when you take into account the time and effort required.
So. Your (mostly) uninformed concepts of the time and effort involved are the obstacle. This is the touchy part of the discussion, but the thing I stated at the very beginning- it is all in your head. A fact-based decision on this question will lead to the conclusion that it behooves you to start taking some exercise. Your feelings can't be trusted in this instance. Your (mostly false) concepts about exercise are not helping you. Consider finding a way to let go of them.

I'm actually much more averse to getting professional help than I am to exercise in general. Exercise alone is time consuming and unpleasant. Exercise with a trainer is time consuming, unpleasant, has an audience for my failings, and beyond all that has an ongoing financial cost too.
Right, an aversion is getting in your way, another thing I stated at the beginning of this. This one isn't helping you either and ought to be discarded. Consider another quote from the article I linked above:
Check with your doctor before starting a diabetes weight loss plan, then consult with a diabetes educator or nutritionist, advises Larry C. Deeb, MD, a diabetes specialist in Tallahassee, Fla. and president-elect of the American Diabetes Association.

"Don't try to lose weight on your own," says Deeb. "With a doctor and a good nutritionist, it's very safe to do. This is very important if you're taking insulin or medications."
It all boils down to one thing, one that I think you will find more difficult than actually exercising. You will need to change your mind.

[begbert2]

No offense Begbert, but all of this is completely unsatisfactory!To *you*, but you're hardly unbiased in this matter.

1) The body may not be a computer, but it is not a figment of your imagination either. Do you have an alternative (and math-based) hypothesis on what would happen if you ate 252,000 less calories than you burned? Let's hear it!You'd poop less. 252,000 calories less, given enough time.

Okay, the actual answer is that in addition to the pooping you'd eat a little more and that your body would likely adjust your energy management a little, and together that would be enough to compensate for the neglible added caloric drain of exercise. But you don't like the true answers, so I thought I'd mix it up.

And I do poop a lot less now that I eat less. It's a little disconcerting, at times.

2) Your race car analogy is terrible. It is as if you are looking at this situation through the viewfinder of a camera whose lenses have been set askance each other.I notice that you don't have a sensible** reason why the race car analogy is terrible. Since I'm left to speculate, I'm going to assume it's terrible because it's terribly accurate Exercise is indeed a lot of work for little gain, whereas dieting is a great deal less work*, for a substantially greater, more consitent, and more reliable gain. Certainly, this true fact is a terrible thing for your position in this thread relating exercise and weight loss.

* Easy from the standpoint of time and effort. It is difficult from the standpoint of self-control, sometimes very difficult. But, maintining an exercise regimen is too, and as best I can tell most of the same techniques that make it easier to keep up the exercise can also be applied effectively to maintaining the diet.

** See the next bit
Check out this article about weight loss and diabetes (http://diabetes.webmd.com/features/diabetes-weight-loss-finding-the-right-path?page=2). You'll notice that extreme dieting isn't advised due to its effects on your condition. Your best bet is to incorporate some exercise. Consider one quote:You are now arguing that losing weight loss through diet is a bad idea.

Think about that for a moment.

I read it as a sign of desperation. You know that a regulated and conservative diet is a much better approach for losing weight than exercise, and that this kills the exercise argument for losing weight, and so you are forced to attempt to devalue and discourage the diet approach in order to make the much worse alternative seem a little less bad in comparison.


Oh, and I don't have ketosis. I'm not on atkins or anything screwy; I'm just engaging in portion control. Heck, I probably don't eat that much less than you do - just enough to be losing a tiny bit of weight.
Yes yes yes, I understand your feelings about the subject. Don't misplace my skepticism here. I have no doubt that each and every one of your diversions is fully engrossing and amusing. And I'm sure you have built up exercise in your mind to be the worst possible fate. And I completely understand that your time is valuable.

But your conclusions are thoroughly wrong! The opportunity costs of not exercising are potentially a significantly shortened life-span, an acceleration of your condition and a likely increase in the amount of time you will feel unwell. (plus you'll fail to hold up your end of the social contract if you neglect your health and require all kinds of unnecessary care later, which the rest of us will pay for one way or another) All of which will make any of the full assortment of amusements seem like a self-destructive waste of time- in hindsight- if they crowd out taking care of yourself.

I'm not going after your sovereignty. It is your choice. You could look at the facts in as blurry a way as you like, to the point that the relative values of things are completely indiscernible, then base your conclusion on 'I don't wanna'. Fine. At least acknowledge that retreating to a conclusion based on nothing more than the fact of your personal sovereignty is to deny all the relevant data. It is something other than a fact-based decision. In important matters, non-fact based decisions are... ignorant!Blurry my ass. Indescernible my ass. Relevent data my ass. You are shoveling horseshit here, my friend.

The hard cruel fact is that it's really easy for a cost/benefit of options to chuck exercise right in the trash bin, particularly the severe exercise regimens you are using to build up your laughable 252,000 calorie figure. Sure, sure, you find it fun, I get that. And you think that because you love it, everyone would love it. I understand that too, even though it's silly. But your personal entertainment preferences aside, a person doesn't have to be deluded or mistaken or wrong to decide that exercise is just not worth the bloody time and effort.

You just have to have better things to do with your time.

I used the calculation that deducted the 'at rest' calorie burn.I seem to recall somebody else doing the same and getting much more conservative numbers - two and a half cookies a day, for a reasonable amount of exercise.

But, but, but, over ten years that's 9131.25 cookies! Yeah, yeah. Big timespans make numbers big, wooo. Big frikking deal. If you have to resort to silly tactics like that, you know your position is on shaky ground.

That isn't very comprehensive of you. And the cost of delaying is so much higher than what small pains it would require to take action.It's comprehensive of me not to make bullshit distortions about the costs and benefits.

As long as it doesn't involve showing me a drawing of a blind amputee fish devouring a smaller fish with the word 'yoga' in it, I can probably take it :DQuite seriously, I don't really laugh at yogaers or exercise fiends. I shake my head in pity. Poor folks, wasting their lives like that...

But they live longer! Yeah, a longer waste. And given that the actual lifespan differences we're talking here aren't that big, I'd much prefer to be happier for a little less time than to have spent more time sweating than I gained as a result.

So. Your (mostly) uninformed concepts of the time and effort involved are the obstacle. This is the touchy part of the discussion, but the thing I stated at the very beginning- it is all in your head. A fact-based decision on this question will lead to the conclusion that it behooves you to start taking some exercise. Your feelings can't be trusted in this instance. Your (mostly false) concepts about exercise are not helping you. Consider finding a way to let go of them.I have taken some exercise. I just haven't taken ludicrously large amounts of foolishly wasteful exercise.

But ludicrously large amounts of foolishly wasteful exercise is fun! Er, right. Maybe if you have been so terribly unfortunate as to never experienced anything that is actually fun. Maybe. (Note: I have heard that sex counts as good exercise. Which tells us there are exceptions to every rule.)

Right, an aversion is getting in your way, another thing I stated at the beginning of this. This one isn't helping you either and ought to be discarded. Consider another quote from the article I linked above:What you're not comprehending (despite me giving, and you quoting, an extremely long and detailed explation) is that my aversions are rational. It's not a sign of weak will to be averse to wasting money. It's a rational decision of the kind we expect a rational person to make. And being aware that I don't want to look like a moron is also a rational decision. (Sure, you don't realize that people doing yoga look like morons. That's a problem I can't help you with - and wouldn't want to; you like your bizzare hobby, so why should I dissuade you from it? Knock yourself out. But leave me out of it.)

My aversions are getting in my way the same way my brakes "get in the way" of me crashing my car. My aversions are parts of my rational mind that keep me from doing things that are a bad idea. You don't think it's a bad idea, you say? Well, you're wrong. Or you have priorities that are different than mine - which is to say they're skewed. Oh, you say my priorities are the ones that are skewed? That's just a matter of perspective, with your vote against mine, and mine wins.

And my doctor is ecstatic about my weight loss. She (probably not too seriously) said she wanted to have me stand in the lobby and tell all her other diabetic patients to do what I was doing.

It all boils down to one thing, one that I think you will find more difficult than actually exercising. You will need to change your mind.(Putting aside the usual crapfest about how supposedly easy exercise is...)

You're right it would be difficult. After all, I would both have to convince myself of the lie that maintaining a proper diet isn't the clearly better approach to losing weight, but I would also have to convince myself that all my hobbies aren't really that fun after all.

If I had been caught at a low point in my life and then stumbled on and believed the lie of the supremacy of exercise, then it would be a great deal easier I'm sure.

[rhubarbarin]

But begbert, I don't care that you have taken control of your health, followed doctors orders, changed your diet, get moderate cardiac exertion on your exercise bike, and have lost extra body fat with plans to continue with your lifestyle changes in order to lose more.

Ur doin it rong.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

Ur doin it rong.

That's not very nice.

One thing begbert and I have in common is that we both want to see his success.

I would like to sharpen that in the interest of: more! faster!

[MsWhatsit]

Quite seriously, I don't really laugh at yogaers or exercise fiends. I shake my head in pity. Poor folks, wasting their lives like that...

[...]

I have taken some exercise. I just haven't taken ludicrously large amounts of foolishly wasteful exercise.

But ludicrously large amounts of foolishly wasteful exercise is fun! Er, right. Maybe if you have been so terribly unfortunate as to never experienced anything that is actually fun. Maybe.

[...]

And being aware that I don't want to look like a moron is also a rational decision. (Sure, you don't realize that people doing yoga look like morons. That's a problem I can't help you with - and wouldn't want to; you like your bizzare hobby, so why should I dissuade you from it? Knock yourself out. But leave me out of it.)




God, this is rude. That is really uncalled for. What the hell do you care if someone else wants to run or do yoga or anything else? And what gives you the authority to tell someone else that what they consider is fun is not actually fun? Speak for yourself.

Congratulations on the weight loss, though.

[Try2B Comprehensive]

To *you*, but you're hardly unbiased in this matter.[QUOTE]
I'm biased toward the facts. I thought that was the kind of bias that is ok.

[QUOTE]You'd poop less. 252,000 calories less, given enough time.

Okay, the actual answer is that in addition to the pooping you'd eat a little more and that your body would likely adjust your energy management a little, and together that would be enough to compensate for the neglible added caloric drain of exercise. But you don't like the true answers, so I thought I'd mix it up.
1. No you're not going to poop 252k calories less.
2. The energy management your body would perform is to increase your muscle mass, which would in fact increase the speed of your metabolism. Forget about getting 'ripped'. It would only take a little bit of effort to achieve this effect.
3. You're on a diet. If you eat more, don't blame the failure on the exercise when the blame falls on the diet. Sheesh!



I notice that you don't have a sensible** reason why the race car analogy is terrible. Since I'm left to speculate, I'm going to assume it's terrible because it's terribly accurate Exercise is indeed a lot of work for little gain, whereas dieting is a great deal less work*, for a substantially greater, more consitent, and more reliable gain. Certainly, this true fact is a terrible thing for your position in this thread relating exercise and weight loss.

* Easy from the standpoint of time and effort. It is difficult from the standpoint of self-control, sometimes very difficult. But, maintining an exercise regimen is too, and as best I can tell most of the same techniques that make it easier to keep up the exercise can also be applied effectively to maintaining the diet.
The race car analogy is poor because it is exactly backward. You compare dieting to hitting the accelerator and exercise to pushing a car that is in park. Fact is, there is only a limited amount of caloric lee-way available through dieting. Maybe someone else knows the specific numbers, but if you're living off 2000 calories a day, there is your starvation 'hard limit'. Assuming you're not that motivated, at what point does your body go into starvation mode? 20% below daily need? 50%? This would be a good one to answer, but in any case once you go into that state your body will seek to preserve its fat stores and slow down its operation, basically making dieting that much harder. I'm guessing you're trying to consume about 300 calories or so per day less than you burn? Sure it'll work, but it will take a lot of time.
Exercise on the other hand isn't limited in the way dieting is. Sure, if you suffer from a lack of volition it can seem rilly hard to get started. If we can set that consideration aside for just a moment, observe that top athletes like that swimmer Phelps guy eat something like 12,000 calories a day. He isn't the least bit fat.

Dieting is much more like the brake on a car, contrary to your metaphor. It causes the body to slow down. Exercise is more like the accelerator- how many calories you burn is limited pretty much only by your gumption.


You are now arguing that losing weight loss through diet is a bad idea.

Think about that for a moment.
It isn't a bad idea. More later.

I read it as a sign of desperation. You know that a regulated and conservative diet is a much better approach for losing weight than exercise, and that this kills the exercise argument for losing weight, and so you are forced to attempt to devalue and discourage the diet approach in order to make the much worse alternative seem a little less bad in comparison.
No sir. My point lies elsewhere. See below. Good to see you got some fight in ya though!

Blurry my ass. Indescernible my ass. Relevent data my ass. You are shoveling horseshit here, my friend.
We're getting somewhere. Now take the other glove off.
The hard cruel fact is that it's really easy for a cost/benefit of options to chuck exercise right in the trash bin, particularly the severe exercise regimens you are using to build up your laughable 252,000 calorie figure.
The only hard cruel fact in this whole discussion is the fact that you have diabetes. I don't mean any insult to you with any of this.
And we aren't talking about a severe exercise regimen. I proposed something that might burn around 500 cal/day. It really is not the outrageous proposition you make it out to be.
Sure, sure, you find it fun, I get that. And you think that because you love it, everyone would love it. I understand that too, even though it's silly. But your personal entertainment preferences aside, a person doesn't have to be deluded or mistaken or wrong to decide that exercise is just not worth the bloody time and effort.
Keep in mind that you have the mindset of a person who weighs 300+ lbs. You're well below that now, and as you continue to lose more weight, more physicality will become available to you since you won't have the burden of carrying all that weight. You are attempting to lose what amounts to a transformative amount of weight. You really ought to be prepared to adjust some of your ideas at some point.
You just have to have better things to do with your time.
Meh. You mentioned something about a mouse vs. an elephant earlier. I doubt I get more than 4 hours of exercise a week (these days). That seems to be plenty to keep me in good shape without any care to diet.
Let's see, 4 hours/week amounts to... 2.3% of your time. Not exactly something you need to join a cult to do.
But, but, but, over ten years that's 9131.25 cookies! Yeah, yeah. Big timespans make numbers big, wooo. Big frikking deal. If you have to resort to silly tactics like that, you know your position is on shaky ground.
How long is it going to take to burn off 252,000 calories at 300/day? 2.3 years. Except that by your own account the dieting stalls here and there. Again, you can save yourself quite a lot of time with the simple application of some focused effort.

It's comprehensive of me not to make bullshit distortions about the costs and benefits.
Where's the distortion? Outside of your metaphors I mean.

Quite seriously, I don't really laugh at yogaers or exercise fiends. I shake my head in pity. Poor folks, wasting their lives like that...

But they live longer! Yeah, a longer waste. And given that the actual lifespan differences we're talking here aren't that big, I'd much prefer to be happier for a little less time than to have spent more time sweating than I gained as a result.

I have taken some exercise. I just haven't taken ludicrously large amounts of foolishly wasteful exercise.

But ludicrously large amounts of foolishly wasteful exercise is fun! Er, right. Maybe if you have been so terribly unfortunate as to never experienced anything that is actually fun. Maybe. (Note: I have heard that sex counts as good exercise. Which tells us there are exceptions to every rule.)
Well, you're right that people do kind of look like morons doing yoga. This is never an issue though, since there are no spectators, only participants. This 'head full of morons' phenomenon is IMHO a possible side-effect of watching a lot of TV. Can't go 3 minutes of that without being presented with a different species of moron.
I hope you'll reveal the rest of your mockeries about exercise and exercisers. Really, I think it might do you some good to bring it all out into the light. Let's hear it!
-Lifespan differences: The point is the difference in life span and quality for managed diabetes vs. not-managed diabetes.
-Fun: For one, joy>fun. For two, you're not in shape, so how can you be confident you know what you're talking about? For three, I pretty much wore out fun. Maybe we should start another thread where you try to tell me what I'm missing in the fun department. I'd be a good sport, promise!
Ludicrously: I'm trying to stick to solid numbers, and you want to cling to the notion that the only levels of exercise possible are 'none' and 'ludicrous'. Get real, exercise brings results.
What you're not comprehending (despite me giving, and you quoting, an extremely long and detailed explation) is that my aversions are rational.
I hope you can give a direct answer to my point here. Yes, your aversion is mostly irrational.
I don't feel that you are being real about your circumstances. You are facing a clear and present danger to everything you care about. Diabetes can cheat you, begbert, cheat you personally, worse than AIG, GM, and George W combined. It can destroy your health before you come to an untimely end.
Under the circumstances, your priorities are... irrational. You talk about all this fun you're having and how much you don't want to waste your time, meanwhile taking half measures to manage your diabetes. How much time would losing 1/4 of your years waste? How much fun would you have facing the worst consequences of your disease?
You aren't in a situation where being obese is tolerable any longer. To prioritize your personal convenience, or some small percentage of your leisure and amusement so that you can go on with a half-measure approach to such a threat seems crazy. You really don't want to waste time pussy-footing around with this one. The longer you wait, the bigger your risk. I strongly recommend you take action.


It's not a sign of weak will to be averse to wasting money. It's a rational decision of the kind we expect a rational person to make. And being aware that I don't want to look like a moron is also a rational decision. (Sure, you don't realize that people doing yoga look like morons. That's a problem I can't help you with - and wouldn't want to; you like your bizzare hobby, so why should I dissuade you from it? Knock yourself out. But leave me out of it.)
Hey, don't do yoga if it bothers you so much. I'm pushing regular exercise. If your issue is looking like a moron, let me ask: who's watching? And who the fuck are they anyway?

My aversions are getting in my way the same way my brakes "get in the way" of me crashing my car. My aversions are parts of my rational mind that keep me from doing things that are a bad idea. You don't think it's a bad idea, you say? Well, you're wrong. Or you have priorities that are different than mine - which is to say they're skewed. Oh, you say my priorities are the ones that are skewed? That's just a matter of perspective, with your vote against mine, and mine wins.
Yes of course your vote wins. I don't see how you can defend your priorities in this way when your actions put all your priorities, including your life, at risk.
And my doctor is ecstatic about my weight loss. She (probably not too seriously) said she wanted to have me stand in the lobby and tell all her other diabetic patients to do what I was doing.
I'm happy for your success so far too, though I think it should be clear by this point that my role is not to blow sunshine up your ass. Have you ever watched anyone get their life fucked up by diabetes?

You're right it would be difficult. After all, I would both have to convince myself of the lie that maintaining a proper diet isn't the clearly better approach to losing weight, but I would also have to convince myself that all my hobbies aren't really that fun after all.
My point isn't either/or, it is both. And, how much fun is anything if you go into a phase of seemingly endless illness?

If I had been caught at a low point in my life and then stumbled on and believed the lie of the supremacy of exercise, then it would be a great deal easier I'm sure.
That's it. Got any more fight in ya? When you're done letting me have it, turn on whatever it is that is coming between you and your health. Fight!

[Tero1111]

Little by little. One after dinner mint at a time.

[begbert2]

God, this is rude. That is really uncalled for. What the hell do you care if someone else wants to run or do yoga or anything else? And what gives you the authority to tell someone else that what they consider is fun is not actually fun? Speak for yourself.

Congratulations on the weight loss, though.Read the conversation real close. He is caring about wether I want to run or do yoga or (my preference) anything else. He is telling me what is fun.

Personally, I don't care what he does with his time. Yoga makes him happy? He should do it all he wants. Running makes him feel manly and virile? More power to him. But he's not talking about him. He's talking about me.

(90 down - 60 to go)


Try2b Comprehensive, your position seems to be based upon the misconception that exercise is some kind of solution to my diabetes problem. It's not. It's got minor maintenence benefits. It is certainly not a cure. As far as I know, there is no cure. Though I have heard that significant weight loss followed by a persistent maintenence of a lower weight can 'put the brakes on' the progression of the disease, perhaps sufficiently so that a bus'll take me out before the body parts start falling off.

Let's repeat. Exercise has minor maintenence benefits on the body, of the type diabetics (or anyone, really) might find beneficial to some degree, particularly if they should happen to make it to old-fart age. But the thing a diabetic in my boat really needs to worry about, first and foremost (aside from transient considerations like momentary blood sugar issues, which I personally don't have) is weight loss.

Which conveniently enough is the subject of this thread.

So. Suppose I wanna lose weight. Suppose I wanted to take less than 2.3 years to do it. (I forget how much weight that is actually supposed to add up to, which probably doesn't matter because it's absurd to think that the biology works that linearly.) The solution to losing this weight is to manage the diet.

Especially since, if you happen to have the sort of diet where you get to 350lbs, you would have to manage the diet anyway to avoid completely steamrolling the dribbling of calories you're burning per day - a fact you reference yourself.

So. I say that dieting works.

And you say that exercise works if you also diet too.

Sounds to me like we have a concensus: for losing weight, diet works. Exercise, not so much.


Other details:

- You suggest burning 500 calories a day is no big deal. However, according to my exercise bike, that would take at least an hour and a half. A day. Or, alternatively, I'd have to work considerably harder in a shorter amount of time. I call that excessive exercise. I don't much care what you call it.

- also, minor point: if I did 4 hours of exercise a week (which I occasionally do, though not this past week), that would not be 2.3% of my time. I dunno about you, but I sleep occasionally, and that time is not mine to use for other things. Also I work, and that time is not mine either. So, by my calculations I have about 67 hours of free time a week. If I did 4 hours of exersize, that would be 6% of my usable time. Or if I did 500 calories of exercise a day (conservatively estimated at 11 hours), that would be 16% of my time. So, congratulations on only understating the time costs by a factor of seven. (Here's one of those you distortions you were asking about, by the way.)

- You argue that my opinions about exercise are obsolete because they're the opinions of a 300+ pound person, and that unbeknownst to me my body would now love excessive exercise. Problem is, I've been thin before. I was a stick all through high school, because my diet was rather tightly controlled. (Seriously, I never snacked.) And exercise sucked beyond all reason. PE was hell. Running killed me. (Badmitten was okay, as it involved a lot of standing still.) So, whoops. Guess your experience doesn't translate well to me, huh?

- "there are no spectators, only participants". I wasn't aware that having your eyes gouged out was a necessary prerequisite for doing (or teaching) yoga. Strangely enough learning it does doesn't make the sport any more appealing to me.

- your speil on aversions being irrational ending with the statement that I should take action. Dude, I am taking action. I am losing weight like a mofo. I am just not doing it your way. Because frankly, I prefer a way that works. This year. That dieting is also less of a pain in the ass for me than exercise is just icing on the cake.

[Guinastasia]

begbert2, if you're not pooping, perhaps you need more fiber? Try FiberOne bars. Not power, or energy bars -- they're fiber bars. They're really good. And yogurt. Yogurt is yummy.

Gotta keep the mail movin'!

[Jolly Roger]

To the OP...this skit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeqYyvRbHws)is why you see so many overweight folks.

[MsWhatsit]

begbert, the reason that weight loss is important for diabetics is that it tends to improve blood sugar control. If your blood sugar control is already perfect, you don't need to lose weight. All complications of diabetes are caused by poor blood sugar control over time. Excessive weight is just a contributing factor to poor blood sugar control.

Also, telling someone that they look like a moron is 1) subjective and 2) rude. I don't care what he said to you first. This is a lesson that I work on teaching my second-grader as well, although hopefully he'll figure out before he's 40 years old.

[begbert2]

begbert2, if you're not pooping, perhaps you need more fiber? Try FiberOne bars. Not power, or energy bars -- they're fiber bars. They're really good. And yogurt. Yogurt is yummy.

Gotta keep the mail movin'!It's not that I'm not pooping, it's that I'm pooping substantially less than when I...wait for it...ate substantially more. The notion that there's a correlation there is supported by incidents a little while back where I would binge for a day, and dump more copiously the day after. And I don't actually think I'm pooping to little for what I eat; the only reason I mentioned it all was to support my freewheeling 'theory' that poop was the major determiner in your caloric levels, 'cause I was tired of repeating the actual determiner over and over and over to no apparent effect.

Oh, and I do eat one of those little cups of low-fat yogurt each day. It's my daily dairy!



begbert, the reason that weight loss is important for diabetics is that it tends to improve blood sugar control. If your blood sugar control is already perfect, you don't need to lose weight. All complications of diabetes are caused by poor blood sugar control over time. Excessive weight is just a contributing factor to poor blood sugar control.I'm afraid I don't believe this. It contradicts everything I've heard everywhere, including from my doctor. Now, I couldn't tell you what the mechanism by which obesity exacerbates type-2 diabetes is, but I'm pretty sure it exists, and isn't just the blood sugar. After all obesity is a cause of diabetes prior to when your blood sugar suddenly decides to go out of whack.

Also, my blood sugar is only perfect due to the magic of modern pharmacology. If I stopped taking the pills, I doubt it would be. I do still have the disease, after all.

Also, telling someone that they look like a moron is 1) subjective and 2) rude. I don't care what he said to you first. This is a lesson that I work on teaching my second-grader as well, although hopefully he'll figure out before he's 40 years old.I'm not 40 yet either, so I guess I dodged that bullet!

As for the being rude thing, I have a hard time getting bothered about the idea of insulting people's hobbies, probably because most or all of my hobbies are so very, very insultable. So I kind of expect a mature person to grin and accept that their hobbies are dumb in various ways, and not care because they like the hobby anyway - which Try2B Comprehensive did.

Plus the fact that yoga looks goofy is kind of relevent to the discussion, because the point of relevence is that I don't want to be seen looking goofy doing it. This actually works even though it is a subjective assessment, because this issue is specific to my perspective on things anyway.

[filmore]

Quite seriously, I don't really laugh at yogaers or exercise fiends. I shake my head in pity. Poor folks, wasting their lives like that...



As for the being rude thing, I have a hard time getting bothered about the idea of insulting people's hobbies, probably because most or all of my hobbies are so very, very insultable. So I kind of expect a mature person to grin and accept that their hobbies are dumb in various ways, and not care because they like the hobby anyway - which Try2B Comprehensive did.

Plus the fact that yoga looks goofy is kind of relevent to the discussion, because the point of relevence is that I don't want to be seen looking goofy doing it. This actually works even though it is a subjective assessment, because this issue is specific to my perspective on things anyway.

I'd expect an overweight person to be more sensitive to how negative comments can hurt. "Quite seriously, I don't really laugh at my overweight friends. I shake my head in pity. Poor folks, wasting their lives like that..." How many overweight people here have posted how worried they are about joining a gym because they think everyone will make fun of them?

Begbert, I really don't understand your point in this thread. I could see if everyone was saying exercise was the only way to lose weight and you were trying to prove them wrong. But we're not saying that. Exercise can be useful to losing weight. You have to agree with that. Even you are doing some exercising. You have to agree with the fact that there is some benefit.

But when you're posting how exercise is ineffective and people look like morons doing it, you're doing a disservice to overweight people. There are two ways to lose weight: eat less or be more active. Don't discourage people from trying one of the ways to lose weight. Most people gain 2 pounds per year (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/25078). A little extra exercise of 100 calories per day would negate that gain.

[MsWhatsit]

Go ask your doctor why obesity is bad for diabetics. My guess is she'll say something to the effect of, "Because it makes blood sugar control more difficult." Body fat tends to increase insulin resistance. Sure, being obese is a risk factor for diabetes. So is having a genetic predisposition. That doesn't mean that either of those things in and of themselves increase your blood sugar. If it did, then every single fat person would have high blood sugar and be diabetic, and they're certainly not. A friend of mine who used to weigh well over 300 pounds would routinely get beautiful blood sugar results on her yearly physical exam.

You don't have to believe me. Ask your doctor or read some books on diabetes. You continue to demonstrate that you have a very poor understanding of your disease.

[begbert2]

I'd expect an overweight person to be more sensitive to how negative comments can hurt. "Quite seriously, I don't really laugh at my overweight friends. I shake my head in pity. Poor folks, wasting their lives like that..." How many overweight people here have posted how worried they are about joining a gym because they think everyone will make fun of them?If you don't appreciate the incomparability of "persistent traits" and "momentary activities", then there is no way to discuss this with you.Begbert, I really don't understand your point in this thread. I could see if everyone was saying exercise was the only way to lose weight and you were trying to prove them wrong. But we're not saying that. Exercise can be useful to losing weight. You have to agree with that. Even you are doing some exercising. You have to agree with the fact that there is some benefit.

But when you're posting how exercise is ineffective and people look like morons doing it, you're doing a disservice to overweight people. There are two ways to lose weight: eat less or be more active. Don't discourage people from trying one of the ways to lose weight. Most people gain 2 pounds per year (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/25078). A little extra exercise of 100 calories per day would negate that gain.I disagree that exercise is useful for losing weight. Exercise has other benefits, but not for losing weight. If you're doing it for the express purpose of losing weight, you are acting on false information and wasting your time.

I do some exercising, but not to lose weight. I do it mainly because I'm a moron with habits, who will continue to entertain a habit even after it has proven to be ineffective. Also, I bought the bloody bike, and if I never ever use it it just sits around taking up space for no reason.

I have also lately been told to do some exercise by my doctor, because my "good" cholesterol levels were a little low in my blood test. Let's note that the purpose of this is NOT to lose weight. Of course, her advice on this matter is barely a blip on my radar; I'm not particularly worried about my "good" cholesterol level at the moment.

People who tell people that exercise is a good way to lose weight are doing a disservice to fat people, because it's not true. Particularly for fat people, who will almost certainly not be doing the excessive levels of exercise required to burn enough calories to matter. Telling them that they should be exercising is just shoving them into a time-consuming unpleasant activity that will not be effective, and which as a result will impell them to give up and quit their entire diet program altogether. Gee, what a great result to be pushing them towards!

There are two ways to lose weight: eat less, and eat better foods. Exercise has effects so negligible that they may safely be disregarded. (Seriously, you just told me it's a easy way to alter your weight two pounds in the span of a year. Just think about that for a while.)



And you said "If your blood sugar control is already perfect, you don't need to lose weight." That is a false statement. You start bringing in secondary side effects of weight, then you are talking about "the mechanism by which obesity exacerbates type-2 diabetes", and you have changed your position to agree with me.

But if you want to keep pretending that you're oh so smart and I'm oh so ignorant about diabetes, go ahead. It just convinces me you're more interested in scoring points than in the facts.

[MsWhatsit]

And you said "If your blood sugar control is already perfect, you don't need to lose weight." That is a false statement. You start bringing in secondary side effects of weight, then you are talking about "the mechanism by which obesity exacerbates type-2 diabetes", and you have changed your position to agree with me.

But if you want to keep pretending that you're oh so smart and I'm oh so ignorant about diabetes, go ahead. It just convinces me you're more interested in scoring points than in the facts.

I'm not trying to score points. I think you misunderstood what I said. What causes complications of diabetes is high blood sugar over time. If your blood sugar is perfect, then you're good to go. Yeah, having more fat can make it tougher to get your blood sugar in good control, but if your blood sugar is already in great control, then that's clearly not a problem for you, is it?

The issue with foot amputations is vascular damage caused by high blood glucose. There's some research out there right now that says that maybe high blood glucose isn't 100% of the cause of complications (which I just found out five minutes ago by surfing around the NIH website) but certainly the extreme complications such as amputation are caused by vascular damage (supported by the NIH website, FYI), which again, is caused by high blood glucose. Being fat will not cause you to have a foot amputation. It may make it harder for you to control your blood glucose, although even that is up in the air, because there is also research indicating that some people's insulin resistance changes significantly with changes in body fat, and some people's does not. (Ungrammatical, but you get the point, I hope.)

Here's something I've learned in years of being in and out of different diabetes clinics, seen by different experts, including GPs, diabetes nurses, and endocrinologists: Most people with diabetes don't want to learn a damn thing about their disease. (I am not saying this includes you, begbert; I am leading up to a bigger point, here.) Most people just want to take the pills or do the exercises or whatever, and get better. They do not want to know what the mechanism of the disease is. They do not want to know what causes it. They do not want to have to do a lot of work. They just want a relatively easy way to fix it. Doctors have experience with this type of patient, and tend to assume that most patients are going to be like this, and so a lot of times they give patients the dumbed-down version of reality, i.e. just enough information to get the patient into a good blood glucose range. So you tend to hear things like, "Being overweight will cause your diabetes to be worse," which is kind of true in a sense, but not necessarily true, and not technically all that accurate.

Anyway, this experience of mine is why I keep urging you to do some reading on your own. I am certainly not telling you not to lose weight, as that has benefits all on its own. I am just saying that the goal with diabetes is primarily to get your blood glucose into the normal range most or all of the time. Weight loss is only important insofar as it helps you meet that primary goal.

[begbert2]

I'm not trying to score points. I think you misunderstood what I said. What causes complications of diabetes is high blood sugar over time. If your blood sugar is perfect, then you're good to go. Yeah, having more fat can make it tougher to get your blood sugar in good control, but if your blood sugar is already in great control, then that's clearly not a problem for you, is it?

The issue with foot amputations is vascular damage caused by high blood glucose. There's some research out there right now that says that maybe high blood glucose isn't 100% of the cause of complications (which I just found out five minutes ago by surfing around the NIH website) but certainly the extreme complications such as amputation are caused by vascular damage (supported by the NIH website, FYI), which again, is caused by high blood glucose. Being fat will not cause you to have a foot amputation. It may make it harder for you to control your blood glucose, although even that is up in the air, because there is also research indicating that some people's insulin resistance changes significantly with changes in body fat, and some people's does not. (Ungrammatical, but you get the point, I hope.)

Here's something I've learned in years of being in and out of different diabetes clinics, seen by different experts, including GPs, diabetes nurses, and endocrinologists: Most people with diabetes don't want to learn a damn thing about their disease. (I am not saying this includes you, begbert; I am leading up to a bigger point, here.) Most people just want to take the pills or do the exercises or whatever, and get better. They do not want to know what the mechanism of the disease is. They do not want to know what causes it. They do not want to have to do a lot of work. They just want a relatively easy way to fix it. Doctors have experience with this type of patient, and tend to assume that most patients are going to be like this, and so a lot of times they give patients the dumbed-down version of reality, i.e. just enough information to get the patient into a good blood glucose range. So you tend to hear things like, "Being overweight will cause your diabetes to be worse," which is kind of true in a sense, but not necessarily true, and not technically all that accurate.

Anyway, this experience of mine is why I keep urging you to do some reading on your own. I am certainly not telling you not to lose weight, as that has benefits all on its own. I am just saying that the goal with diabetes is primarily to get your blood glucose into the normal range most or all of the time. Weight loss is only important insofar as it helps you meet that primary goal.Oh, that definitely includes me. I don't want to make diabetes a time-consuming hobby any more than I want to make exercise a time-consuming hobby; as previously noted I have better things to do with my time.

I'm torn about the diabetes discussion, because on the one hand as soon as it departs from the issue of weight loss it doesn't belong in this thread, but on the other hand it's mildly interesting anyway (as long as I'm watching things compile, anyway). But I'll ask one question anyway. I was told this thing was a progressive disease. If it can be completely halted by controlling blood sugar, which my metformin hydrochloride does a perfect job of doing, then it's effectively not one; it will be held in place indefinitely. Which is it?

[MsWhatsit]

I am not a doctor, but this question is of personal interest to me as well and I've spent some time trying to find out the answer, and as far as I can tell, the answer is: You can reduce your risk of complications almost (but not completely) down to zero, by keeping your blood sugar in the normal range. If you do not keep your blood sugar in the normal range, then the disease will indeed progress slowly. It does incremental damage over time (which is one of the reasons it can be hard to get people to take it seriously - it is hard to put out any effort to fix something when you feel completely 100% OK right now).

Now, there are some people who apparently develop complications of diabetes even though their blood sugar is in good control. My personal opinion about this is as follows. This is all personal conjecture and I don't have cites for it, I'm just speculating here. First, even keeping your blood sugar in "good control" may not actually be keeping it in the range of a normal, non-diabetic person's blood sugar, so even "good control" may lead to minor damage over a long period of time. Second, there is possibly some mechanism that causes damage to the body besides for high blood glucose. I've seen speculation in some studies that diabetics' blood can be harmful to nerves and blood vessels in and of itself, even when blood glucose is not high. So that's a possibility. Third, a lot of people who are diagnosed as diabetic ran high blood glucose numbers for some time prior to diagnosis, so some damage could have been done at that time.

But, it is known that if you get your blood glucose into the normal range, this greatly minimizes the risk of complications, and can apparently reverse some complications such as neuropathy. So, it's not a 100% guarantee but it's close.

I am with you, by the way, on not making this a time-consuming hobby. I did spend quite a bit of time reading up on it when I was first diagnosed, partially because that's just how I am, and partially because I was pregnant when diagnosed and wanted to make extra sure I wasn't harming my baby. But once you have the info, you have the info (more or less - research does change over time; but you still have the basics).

And yeah, this is a major hijack, I know, but it's like page 15 and I don't think that many people are still with us anyway. :p

[begbert2]

Thanks for the response.