You can’t outrun a bad diet, is a truism… so if you eat in a piss-pour manner, there is no way you can compensate for that in a gym.
So I try to create a thread about (just slightly) better eating to complement the - great - information on this thread (which I personally consider one of those “internet-nuggets-of-great-info”):
One of the great things about the “lift-weight-thread” is … the regulars there (@puzzlegal , @DSeid@Dr_Paprika@Moriarty@Sage_Rat ), show and discuss quite eloquently that even the most miniscule physical activities (walk 2 flights of stairs instead of taking the lift) has measurable effect.
You don’t have to spent hours in a gym to see health benefits
The goal of THIS thread is to do the same for “eat just a tiny bit better” will improve your life, without resorting to eat only rabbit-food.
In my mid-40ies I started Intermittent Fasting (IF) …
sounds pretty significant, doesn’t it ….
Nahh … I just stopped eating at around 8.00pm (pro-tip: brush your teeth then, so you have a good reason to not snack again) … and I never was much of a breakfast guy … so I - once or twice a week did not eat before lunch - which is 2pm where I live (black coffee and unsweetened tea is OK) … and doing the math I had already 16 hours of Fasting in me (felt like cheating, b/c 10 or so hours of sleep were “free” hours).
About a decade later, I still do this (I moved up to 5-6 days per week, as I no longer have any hunger before noon). I sometimes get job-related breakfast invites - there I eat normal, b/c … hey, why not munch down a couple of danish/croissants/muffins…right?
Long story short: Being in my 50ies, I still use the same size Levi’s I did as a young lad (w30L32) …
Again, my advise - do what you THINK works for you (for me calorie-counting and eating salads wont work) … and do it every now and then … eating better is def. not a diet (that you start in jan and end in june), but a change in lifestyle that you keep doing.
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Hey, why not try this TODAY (if inclined to give IF a go)
My advice would be to cut down on or preferably eliminate snacking altogether. Snacking is mindless eating because you’re bored, you’re tired, it’s a certain time of day, or you’re watching TV. When I did Intermittent Fasting three years ago, I realized snacking accounted for nearly 25% of my total daily calories. My first step in IF was to skip breakfast, and at the same time, I also stopped snacking, whether they were healthy snacks or not. After I finished dieting, I never went back to snacking, and when someone offers me a snack, I always say, “No, thanks. I’m trying to live healthier.”
My diet is not that great, so any changes will be beneficial. I’m interested in nutrition and not crashing in the afternoon if I can help it.
Since returning to the office I’ve been working on things I can graze on throughout the day rather than going out for lunch. Then taking my lunch break to go for a short walk. The other side of this, though, is that people are constantly bringing in sweets, so there’s no way to control my environment. I’m trying to find a new normal that is better than the old normal.
Little doubt than even a little bit better on the nutrition front makes a difference, unfortunately I don’t think it has the same amazing dose response curve that exercise does?
Still I suspect fairly small decisions can have outsized impacts. It is more how big of an impact even a little exercise has.
Eating at home or packed lunch all but say twice a week. Cutting out added sugar drinks and juices. Taking portion sizes half of what you think you would eat and waiting five minutes before taking more. Moving towards half of each plate being vegetables and fruits. So on.
When we give advice the rule of thumb is to help the family pick just two or three changes to make at a time. More and nothing gets done. It overwhelms. The cutting out added sugar drinks is consistently the biggest impact for the least effort.
My understanding is that the Mediterranean diet is the best diet for health.
However, I think just increasing the amount of peanuts in your diet reduces death rates almost as much as totally revamping your diet (20-22% for peanuts vs 25-30% for eating Mediterranean).
The thing is, I don’t know how much these things work in isolation. There are a lot of supposed health foods that are good for you due to the phytochemicals, macronutrients and micronutrients they have.
Coffee, blueberries, pomegranate, peanuts, green tea, whole grains, protein supplements, etc
I have no idea how much adding a little of that into a shitty diet reduces morbidity and mortality vs totally revamping your diet.
We have to be honest and admit that diet and exercise have a strong morality component to them. People who eat poorly and don’t exercise are seen as sinful (gluttonous, slothful) and they are supposed to amend for these sins by eating a diet of modesty and a life of activity. So we can’t really have a discussion about the health impacts of diet and exercise w/o admitting that we unconsciously place so much moral judgment on these things, which makes it hard to have an unbiased discussion about health issues w/o always coming back to ‘you have to amend for the sins of being slothful and gluttonous by revamping your lifestyle’
Intermittent fasting by comparison triggers cellular repair mechanisms in your body. I don’t know if there is any other way to trigger that.