Fitness Thread

[Martin Hash]

StA has been encouraging me to do something in the fitness realm to "get famous." (I took him to be sincere even though he often uses similar language to be insulting.) Fitness is not something I'm interested in but I am interested in health, and I just happen to be a State recognized expert in the field of health, as demonstrated by a Medical license.

The first step to health is diet. I mentioned this to my youngest son, Haven, while I was in Peru, and he said he drank Ensure because he didn't like to take the time out of his busy schedule to eat, and that he knew lots of people who did the same. He said there's a whole Internet culture around it. I decided to develop a dietary supplement that would fulfill his needs, and maybe there is a big market for it?

First, there's some things that have to be set straight because there is so much misinformation out there:
1) Caffeine keeps you sharp and has no real downside except overconsumption. A lot of people don't like coffee, so they consume diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, etc. Those drinks are relatively cheap, abundant, and give you something to satiate your habit of oral consumption while simultaneously delivering a steady dose of caffeine.
2) There's NOTHING WRONG with artificial sweetener.
3) Calories are NOT the way to measure consumption, carbs are.
4) Eating Fat is GOOD not bad.
5) You get enough vitamins in your food, you don't need supplements.
6) You don't lose weight by exercising.

I got more to say but I'll start here.

[Speaker to Animals]

I am reading about some good reasons to avoid sucralose, though. It apparently destroys about half the good bacteria in your gut.

I think aspertaim is much maligned, and most of that nonsense is funded by the sugar industry.

Refined sugars are really fucking bad for you. But I actually see people recommending sugar sodas over diet drinks, and it's pretty infuriating.

[Martin Hash]

Alcohol

Why do guys get beer-guts but they don't get whiskey-guts? Your body uses glucose and ketones for energy. It can get ketones by breaking down adipose tissue which is why you want to be in keto, but it can also get ketones from alcohol. Drunks don't need to eat food because whiskey will keep them alive, and they lose weight because they aren't consuming any carbs, except if they drink beer. Beer is carbs and ketones, less because less alcohol, but enough to allow the carbs to go straight around your middle.

[Martin Hash]

Sugar

You body runs on glucose, and if it can't get that it uses the ketones stored in your adipose tissue, a fancy name for fat. When you've limited your glucose intake and you're losing fat, that's colloquially called being in “keto.” Glucose, as you probably know, is a sugar, and you've probably heard that carbohydrates are just sugar that hasn't been digested yet. Since most glucose you consume starts out as carbohydrates, such as bread, rice, and potatoes, that's why all the diets stress “low carbs” rather than “low sugar,” even though it's sugar that is really being limited.

There are other kinds of sugars besides glucose; the most common being fructose, the kind of sugar found in fruit. Your body has a special mechanism for using fructose that gets overloaded easily, so too much fruit will usually turn into body fat. As a strategy though, if you eat fruit that keeps its fructose locked up in the cells, then a lot of it will pass through your body without turning into fat but still be satisfyingly good. That's why fruit juice is the absolute worst thing you can drink, because that fructose is raw and it's going to end up around your waste as fat. If you have a choice of fruit to eat, the chunkier the better; apples for example. The next worse kind of sugar is the kind in breakfast cereals, called sucrose, because it is a combination of glucose and fructose. Only 30% of the glucose ends up as adipose tissue but all the fructose does. The worst kind of common sugar, the kind in many sweet drinks, is high fructose corn syrup; consuming it is as bad as drinking fruit juice.

[Speaker to Animals]

I feel like total garbage in the gym if I don't consume enough carbs. I just try to keep them limited to fruits and vegetables most of the time, though budget requires I use starches now and again.

If I were an endurance athlete of some kind, I could see burning ketones all the time, but the only time I would consider training without good glycogen stores is if I am in a severe cut, which I am not going to do anyway.

[Martin Hash]

Exercise

When people hear the phrase “diet & exercise” they assume exercising will lose weight but it does NOT. What fat you burn off exercising is about equal to the amount of muscle you gain, and that increased strength is what you're exercising for. When muscles get used, they speed up cell replacement. New cells are stronger which makes you stronger, and younger too. Since your bones have to last as long as you do, not all exercise is good for you. Jogging and playing tennis is going to ruin your joints in the long run. Still, if you just can't stay interested in exercising unless you're competing or improving a skill, then wrestling is better than nothing. The easiest and most effective exercise is called cardio, for your heart. Using an “elliptical” exercise machine (it looks like you're cross-country skiing) while listening or watching your iPhone is the least boring, most convenient exercise: 20 minutes a day is your minimum. And remember, it actually makes your cells younger.

[Martin Hash]

Weight

Your goal of dieting is to stay within the healthy weight range for your height & sex. My strategy is to hover right at the upper boundary because it takes a lot of will power and inconvenience to keep weight off, so I just use enough to stay within my range. You may find that your face or torso simply looks better at a lower weight, so your weight goals may be different but there's really no reason to lose weight below your optimal range.

[Martin Hash]

Processed Food

You can't digest cellulose, the stuff plants are made of, which is why consuming UNPROCESSED vegetables, etc. has a low impact on weight even though they have carbs. A lot of people don't know why being unprocessed is important? “Processed” is this case means powdered; enzymes in your body can't break down cellulose UNLESS it has been ground up really small. That's why white bread delivers the full carb jolt but cracked wheat bread has significantly less impact, because white flour is really refined.

[TheReal_ND]

Do the much maligned fat

[Martin Hash]

Fitness

Many people pursue the siren song of fitness because of the accolades they receive from others, or simply because it makes them feel better about themselves. Workouts also have a more direct lure: for some people, endorphins and dopamine are released during strenuous activity. Endorphins trigger your body's opiate receptors, providing an analgesic effect, meaning you feel no pain; and dopamine is the primary pleasure neurotransmitter in your brain, the same feeling that cocaine stimulates. These people are literally getting high when they work out. Lucky you if you're one of them but if you're like most folks, fitness is a challenging goal, secondary to cardio health which doesn't require strenuous exercise for long periods of time. You may not have the muscle tone but you'll live just as long.