Both of my grandparents are 86 (long divorced) and still trying to do stuff. My grandpa is starting to slow down though he won’t accept it so he’s probably going to die from falling off a roof or something. My grandma is still going out dancing. Back when we both had Fitbits, I engaged her in a little steps challenge. My Aunt said, “Good fucking luck.”
Grandma smoked me.
I don’t know if this is my future, I’m not nearly as much of a go-getter as they are. My grandpa has always been a machine constantly doing stuff, my grandma has always been extremely outgoing.
I am, by contrast, an object at rest. My favorite things to do, writing and reading, are sedentary. I’ve been working it out by following that “reminder to move” prompt from my Pixel Watch and my goal is to get 250+ steps every hour between 8am and 8pm. It’s a relatively easy commitment. I don’t usually get 12/12 hours but having a goal to shoot for gets me moving more than I would otherwise (7/12 so far today, about to get 250 more.) I also take that opportunity to hydrate every hour!
I just feel like, no matter how dire your situation, there’s always something that can make it a little better. Even if it’s 3% better. I’m always looking for those things that seem little but that can add to my health. I’m not going to be impressing anyone with my massive gains but I don’t want to use, “I can’t do all that” as an excuse to do nothing.
I know from past discussions that you know this but it bears repeating: “the most dire” circumstance, meaning the least being invested in choices like exercise and nutrition, is when X amount of effort results in the most benefits and gain. Returns on investment are very much frontloaded.
Bumping this one because I just ran across a nice summary of some studies on ultra-processed foods versus “minimally” processed foods and thought of this thread, where I recall the was some discussion of this. It’s from Nature News, which requires registration (providing an email and creating a password, but no cost) for the entire article. The studies cited try to dive into the factors that have the most impact on UPF healthiness.
Taken together, work by Forde, Hall, Corbin and others points to multiple, overlapping factors underlying the links between high-UPF diets and poor health, including increased calorie consumption, higher energy density, faster eating, softer food texture and lower nutritional quality.
[snip]
Forde is also a critic of UPFs as a category, saying it is time to leave it behind as a scientific tool or basis for dietary advice. “Fundamentally, the UPF category doesn’t discriminate between foods that are good and bad for us,” he says. “NOVA was a fantastic thought experiment, but as a scheme to do either dietary research or to make public-health guidance, it’s just not fit for purpose.”
I did a double blind taste test on this urban legend. Six testers correctly identified the pig ass. Nobody was fooled. I ate THREE PIECES of pig ass just to be sure.
I just bought lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I got the “two meats on rice” meal. There were a lot of choices of meat, of which i choose roast duck and crispy roast pork. But one of the options was “pig bung”. I was tempted to get it once, just out of curiosity.
If all the meats were the same price, you chose wisely, IMO. I don’t think I’ve ever had pig ass prepared Chinese-style, but it’s hard to go wrong with roast duck and roast pork. I think I’d try the pig ass only if it were a free sample.
Yes, all the same price. “Pick two, and we’ll put them on a bed of rice with some greens”. They have all sorts of options, including cuttlefish, a roast pork that’s more like spare ribs, with red sauce, and about 6 others.
All siu mei is good, but truly I love me some roast duck.
Used to be a few eat in siu mei shops in Calgary chinatown. Would go have a bowl of noodle soup (with those thin housemade noodles), roast duck and fried lettuce. The place would be decorated with year round Christmas lights, and lots of red frilly things. If you were lucky you would get to see a couple of guys unceremoniously lug a whole pig on a spit through the dining area for the ‘changing of the pig’. Not exactly fine dining but the food was cheap, delicious and it was all pure Cantonese awesomeness. Sadly all the choices now are take out only or boring venues nodding to more Western sensibilities.
Nobody else in the family likes it but my daughter in law. Guess I better go have some dinner with her soon.