At 66 and taking absolutely no meds, and wearing the same clothing (literally, as well as size-wise) that I wore fresh out of college, all I can say is this:

I limit fried foods. I don't drink carbonated beverages. I don't drink alcohol. I drink lots of water. I don't eat fast-food fare.

And that's about it. I don't overindulge in anything, except perhaps Vietnamese pho, which I love!

I also stay active. No, I'm not running marathons anymore, but I do get out and about. My rule is "one flight up or two flights down" and I'll take the stairs.

In my mind, a diet is simply a plan to fail. Go on a diet to reach a goal, and then immediately go off the diet. What's the point? I think it's a lifestyle choice.

Stay active and eat sensibly. What's so hard about that?

quote:

Originally posted by fpuhan:
In my mind, a diet is simply a plan to fail. Go on a diet to reach a goal, and then immediately go off the diet. What's the point? I think it's a lifestyle choice.

Welll... Yes and no.

Dieting, as it's normally thought of is indeed a plan to fail. Person goes on a diet. Gets too little nutrition. Body goes into "lean times are coming" panic mode, starts storing as much fat as it can. That's why dieters hit a wall, become discouraged, give up. Why they gain more than they lose is ironic: They go back to their bad old habits but now it's worse because the body's in "store as much fat as I can" mode.

But sensible dieting to reach a goal, dieting that does not throw the body into panic, then slacking off to a maintenance level of nutrition/exercise is reasonable.

E.g.: What I'm doing now. If I kept up with this I'd eventually find myself a bag of skin and bones, which not only would not look good, but would lead to poor health, as well.

Not to mention life'd get awfully boring, to me, if I could never again have a beer with dinner, enjoy sipping some whiskey, have some dessert, savour some chocolate, or enjoy a bowl of tasty potato chips Never mind cornbread, mashed potatoes and gravy, pasta, General Tso's Chicken, BBQ'd ribs, an Arby's Roast Beef sandwich, fries, ...

quote:

Originally posted by fpuhan:
Stay active and eat sensibly. What's so hard about that?

Ya got me hangin'. But apparently many, many Americans have difficulty with the concept.

quote:

Originally posted by fpuhan:


In my mind, a diet is simply a plan to fail. Go on a diet to reach a goal, and then immediately go off the diet. What's the point? I think it's a lifestyle choice.

Stay active and eat sensibly. What's so hard about that?

You are spot on! It is not complicated, problem is that for the vast majority of people it is a problem of the wrong motivation along with a bunch of other mental hang ups. They need a psychiatrist not a nutritionist.

So, a person is overweight, hears about this new diet, or pill, or gimmicky exercise routine (or a combo). They go on the diet/exercise routine to get the body they always wanted. Let's say they actually succeed. When the number on the scale has digits they want to see...are they happier? Did their other problems go away? Fame and fortune arrive?

Nope! They are still the same person with all the same problems as before. Happiness is not to be found in a scale number (or dimensions of a body) anymore than in that next raise. Anyone who was a true friend or family accepted them before. So, they were doing all that for the approval of strangers and acquaintances? Sure, they got a few "you look great!" comments along the way, but people only say that to you once, not every day, gets awkward...

Long term weight loss and healthy(er) eating needs to come from intrinsic motivators not extrinsic ones. You have to accept and care about you and take care of you, not do it for someone else. Until then, yo-yo "diet" all you want, it will never last.

Outstanding book on the topic and it is free is you sign up for his newsletter: "Body Beliefs"
https://altshiftdiet.com/books/ Written for women since they primarily have body image issues, far more than men.

Strambo and all others that have contributed to this post.

Thank you !

While it is easy for some to know the way others have strayed where nutrition is concerned. We live in an instant gratification time where everything is 24/7.

This post has several things for me to consider and a lot of information to explore as I reflect on my own habits. There is always room for improvement and a few changes here and there are needed for me.

Cheers~

Strambo (or whomever else might know): How low in carb intake do you have to get to go into (nearly?) constant ketosis? And, if you're there, how fast can fat possibly come off?

By my seat-of-the-pants estimate I've been down to 50 grams of carbs/day, on average, since about the 1st of the month.

I've been interval fasting on non-post-weight-training days. (No food, supplements, etc. from dinnertime to noon the next day [16-18 hours].) Call it about twice-a-week, never on consecutive days.

Reason I ask is I'm losing weight at, for me, an unheard of rate (1/4 to 1/2 lb per day!). But I'm also getting stronger (able to do more weight/resistance, for more reps/sets), my endurance is up, my recovery time is incredibly short, I can almost daily see my stomach and "love handles" shrinking, and I'm now almost into 34" waist jeans, comfortably, whereas less than a month ago 36" waist jeans were getting snug-ish.

Is it possible, in ketosis, if you have the body fat to burn, and you're active (I've certainly been that, between workouts and snow clearing), that you lose fat at such a rate that you outstrip muscle mass gain?

Oh yeah, and my BP appears to be dropping. I've been at ±130/80 for a long while. Last night's and this morning's readings were around 120/75. (We'll see if that's a trend or just a blip.)

I'm certainly not dehydrated, which would be the other explanation. I'm taking 5G/day of creatine, after pre-loading ±105g week-before-last, drinking plenty of fluids, and urinating regularly.

Well, the sad fact is that this is another "controversial" subject because the most important controlling variable is genetics. So people "change their diet" and stuff happens and they think they have discovered a new diet principle or miracle supplement, etc. But different people react differently and so the controversies go on.

No question that if you want to lose weight you are going to have to eat less and/or exercise more. And your diet can get pretty far out of whack for quite a while, because the body has feedback and control mechanisms. But eventually, over a long enough period, deficiencies or overages will catch up with you. So all the "general guidelines" that you can easily google are pretty true. But some people with "good diets" still come down with deficiencies and health problems (genetics again).

So you listen to the advices and make your best guess. One very interesting documentary on the general subject of healthy food is on netflix: "What the Health". Of course it would also be considered controversial, but it presents a lot of well-corroborated evidence. I'm already a long-term vegetarian, so it didn't surprise me much, but you can make your own assessments.

Ensigmatic - All that sounds typical for someone that has gone into ketosis with high activity/exercise levels.

"How low in carb intake do you have to get to go into (nearly?) constant ketosis? And, if you're there, how fast can fat possibly come off?" It depends on the person, fat to body mass ratios, and their activity levels. Some people need to be under 20 grams carbs/day, others can stay in ketosis at 40+ grams/day. Once your body has become fully acclimated to ketosis, you can typically have more carbs and stay in ketosis.

I've been in constant ketosis since early January 2017. For the first month, I kept under 20 grams/day carbs, but now I can have up to around 45 grams/day.

As to weight loss in ketosis, there's typically a quick loss the first month during the transition to ketosis and that can be 10 to 17 pounds. That's referred to as water weight by many. More exercise can increase this rate. After that, it's sometimes gradual but many times weight can stay almost constant with quick losses of a few pounds. If you're active, you're losing fat while you're adding muscle. Muscle has higher mass than fat, so it can even out.

Keep an eye on your electrolytes in ketosis as your body needs more salt, potassium, and magnesium than before.

Excellent article my wife sent me, good thread to hang it in:

http://expand-your-consciousne...heart-disease/?t=HHL

^^^^^

I know that's been a theory regarding the mechanism of arterial damage in diabetics. I guess the unknown is the level of blood glucose required to exceed the threshold.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
Excellent article my wife sent me, good thread to hang it in:

http://expand-your-consciousne...heart-disease/?t=HHL

My wife has been saying this for years.

You will find very little highly-processed stuff in our home, other than snacks such as potato chips and the like. (And even that stuff not all the time.)

My mother never bought into that line, either.

Nor did I.

My blood cholesterol has been somewhat high for twenty years or more. Yet in that time I've had two nuclear stress tests, a heart stress echo and a leg echo. I have zero issues with my arteries or heart.

Good stuff in this thread. Will be interesting to see how much it changes in the future as more is known.

Personally, I just go with moderation, variety and common sense.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
Nutrition is an extremely confusing topic for a number of reasons. In no particular order;

It is a relatively young science and not widely studied. Our society has "experts" who always talk to us about nutrition (doctors) yet they have little formal background in it (in no way meant to be an insult to MD's, I've heard many of them say the same).

The government via FDA puts out food guidelines, recommendations, and "pyramids." These guidelines keep contradicting themselves and changing. Major nutritional "common sense" knowledge keeps changing. For example, 50's- eggs and bacon a healthy start to the day. 70's-80's, fat is the devil and your arteries will clog and you'll DIE!! Eat cereal and use margarine (trans-fats) anything but fat. Late 90's (or early 2000's?) ooooppps, we um, totally screwed up that whole trans-fat thing, turns out butter and bacon is way better than artery scoring trans-fats! You get the point, we can go down this road with sweeteners as well.

Here's a funny representation of this:



Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ua-WVg1SsA

I like this one:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAzz-kxs_rk

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
Good stuff in this thread. Will be interesting to see how much it changes in the future as more is known.

Personally, I just go with moderation, variety and common sense.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
Nutrition is an extremely confusing topic for a number of reasons. In no particular order;

It is a relatively young science and not widely studied. Our society has "experts" who always talk to us about nutrition (doctors) yet they have little formal background in it (in no way meant to be an insult to MD's, I've heard many of them say the same).

The government via FDA puts out food guidelines, recommendations, and "pyramids." These guidelines keep contradicting themselves and changing. Major nutritional "common sense" knowledge keeps changing. For example, 50's- eggs and bacon a healthy start to the day. 70's-80's, fat is the devil and your arteries will clog and you'll DIE!! Eat cereal and use margarine (trans-fats) anything but fat. Late 90's (or early 2000's?) ooooppps, we um, totally screwed up that whole trans-fat thing, turns out butter and bacon is way better than artery scoring trans-fats! You get the point, we can go down this road with sweeteners as well.

Here's a funny representation of this:



Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ua-WVg1SsA

That video was on my mind when I wrote the OP, funny stuff.

Speaking of carb intake and ketosis: The amazing changes intermittent fasting does to your body and brain:



I will say this: When I was on that 21-day Fat Loss Challenge, by the end of which I'm pretty sure I was in nearly constant ketosis, my BP dropped by about 10 in both systolic and diastolic. I stopped, and now it's back up.

Good video. It didn't even get into the benefits of autophagy, body getting rid of unwanted cell materials.

It's to the point now that I don't even notice a 16 hr IF, it is just normal. Great way to save time in the am and I'm no more hungry at lunch than if I had breakfast, whether I worked out in the morning or not.

I think every person interested in health should at least try a ketogenic diet for 30 days to get their body fat-adapted (make your metabolism re-learn it) and then IF on occasion up to 20+ hrs.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:I think every person interested in health should at least try a ketogenic diet for 30 days to get their body fat-adapted (make your metabolism re-learn it) and then IF on occasion up to 20+ hrs.

I think we all agree that obesity is much more prevalent than it was 50 years ago. I would not argue that portion size and excessive calorie intake is the problem. It is. OTOH: People of my parents and grandparents generations sure as heck weren't doing 16-20 hour fasts. They ate breakfast, lunch and dinner.

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:I think every person interested in health should at least try a ketogenic diet for 30 days to get their body fat-adapted (make your metabolism re-learn it) and then IF on occasion up to 20+ hrs.

I think we all agree that obesity is much more prevalent than it was 50 years ago. I would not argue that portion size and excessive calorie intake is the problem. It is. OTOH: People of my parents and grandparents generations sure as heck weren't doing 16-20 hour fasts. They ate breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The health benefits of fasting and intermittent fasting are independent and separate from mere weight control. Of course you can lose weight and not fast (I do it all the time!)

IF is not about eating less calories, you should still hit whatever your daily nutrient goals are, you just do it in a shorter eating window while extending the fasted state for all the benefits that come along with that.

The reason why I started both this thread and the one on fitness is to actually talk about being healthy and fit, not constantly conflate nutrition and exercise together only with weight loss as only being important. Nutrition and fitness are just as important on their own no matter one's physical dimensions.

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
It's to the point now that I don't even notice a 16 hr IF, it is just normal. Great way to save time in the am and I'm no more hungry at lunch than if I had breakfast, whether I worked out in the morning or not.

I was at that point by the end of that Challenge. Then I turned around and undid much of it over the next 10-12 days

Got back on my more normal "diet" on the 2nd: Eliminate all "discretionary eating" (aka: "snacking"), all simple carbs, suffer with a "diet beer" with dinner and no spirits on what used to be "work nights" (Sunday-Thursday) and work days. Slack Friday evening through Sunday daytime, but not going crazy.

When I interval fast I do it on non-post-weight-training days. On post-weight-training mornings I like to get the additional protein. (But I have searched-out lower-carb alternatives, so there's that.) And if I feel hunger pangs on weight day evenings I like to grab a handful of nuts. (Again: Protein.)

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
I think every person interested in health should at least try a ketogenic diet for 30 days to get their body fat-adapted (make your metabolism re-learn it) and then IF on occasion up to 20+ hrs.

I agree. When I did it I made two months worth of gains in 21 days. Other than my wife having to figure out ways to eliminate carbs from our diet to the extent possible, it was actually pretty easy. (And she enjoys experimental cooking, so...)

And, like you: When I did interval fast I really didn't get hangry.

The blood pressure drop, alone, made it worth it, in my view.