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What are your unpopular opinions about health / fitness?

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Replies

  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Yeah. I didn't really care about my weight until my health suffered and my doctor told me that weight-loss was the single best thing I could do to manage my condition. So, yeah, I can only speak for myself, but weightloss and avoidance of lymphedema flare-ups are pretty well intertwined at this point. Health is the goal and weightloss is the process.

    I don't agree with your doctor

    Are you a HAES proponent?

    Because I can tell you, as someone who undertook weight loss specifically because reaching a healthy body weight is recommended to manage my particular medical condition, it is totally FALSE that weight is not tied to health in many medical conditions.

    In fact, although I am a healthy weight, my goal is to get to the very low end of BMI for optimal management of my medical condition.

    I have two forms of arthritis. Arthritis is not a weight-neutral disease. Reaching and maintaining a healthy body weight is the best thing you can do for it, much as it was the same thing estherdragon could do for lymphedema. And yes, weight loss is the best thing you can do for that condition.

    Losing weight has normalized my blood sugar, blood pressure, and lipid profile. My triglycerides are down nearly 4 fold. This is one of the weirdest cases of "la la la I can't hear you" I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot, including flat earthers and people who believe in high society reptilians. Obesity is strongly linked to some diseases and the correlation is quite direct and demonstrable.

    I would argue that the lifestyle changes that you made normalized your blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. Weight loss is a byproduct of healthy lifestyle changes.

    The evidence is that for some conditions merely losing weight, however it is achieved (and there are dramatically different diets followed, including just eating less) makes a huge difference, on average, to the health problems.

    Many people have improvement in blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes/IR, to name just a few issues, just with weight loss.

    I had NO bad test results when I decided to lose weight, despite being about 50+ lbs over a healthy weight by BMI at the time. That doesn't mean that I had no health reasons to lose weight (and I was already eating a nutrient-dense diet, it's a falsehood that all fat people don't care about nutrition, and was active on and off, although I found doing anything much besides walking and light bike riding and some swimming frustrating when that fat). Instead, my obesity was a huge health risk.

    You seem to be saying since I was eating well and at times was active, just being more consistently active is all I should have worried about -- not weight loss, since I had no current health concerns, and apparently not the fact that I was embarrassed about how I looked, wanted to be able to run again and bike better, and really and truly just wanted to enjoy clothes shopping again and not be depressed every time a photo was taken of me.

    that's really sad. I'm sorry that you felt that way.

    You're projecting. That's not healthy.

    Will you please answer my question: do you think health is weight neutral?

    To be fair, I think she was referring to the last paragraph, where lemurcat expressed embarassment and depression. I could be wrong, of course.
  • MJ2victory
    MJ2victory Posts: 97 Member
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Yeah. I didn't really care about my weight until my health suffered and my doctor told me that weight-loss was the single best thing I could do to manage my condition. So, yeah, I can only speak for myself, but weightloss and avoidance of lymphedema flare-ups are pretty well intertwined at this point. Health is the goal and weightloss is the process.

    I don't agree with your doctor

    Are you a HAES proponent?

    Because I can tell you, as someone who undertook weight loss specifically because reaching a healthy body weight is recommended to manage my particular medical condition, it is totally FALSE that weight is not tied to health in many medical conditions.

    In fact, although I am a healthy weight, my goal is to get to the very low end of BMI for optimal management of my medical condition.

    I have two forms of arthritis. Arthritis is not a weight-neutral disease. Reaching and maintaining a healthy body weight is the best thing you can do for it, much as it was the same thing estherdragon could do for lymphedema. And yes, weight loss is the best thing you can do for that condition.

    Losing weight has normalized my blood sugar, blood pressure, and lipid profile. My triglycerides are down nearly 4 fold. This is one of the weirdest cases of "la la la I can't hear you" I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot, including flat earthers and people who believe in high society reptilians. Obesity is strongly linked to some diseases and the correlation is quite direct and demonstrable.

    I would argue that the lifestyle changes that you made normalized your blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. Weight loss is a byproduct of healthy lifestyle changes.

    The evidence is that for some conditions merely losing weight, however it is achieved (and there are dramatically different diets followed, including just eating less) makes a huge difference, on average, to the health problems.

    Many people have improvement in blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes/IR, to name just a few issues, just with weight loss.

    I had NO bad test results when I decided to lose weight, despite being about 50+ lbs over a healthy weight by BMI at the time. That doesn't mean that I had no health reasons to lose weight (and I was already eating a nutrient-dense diet, it's a falsehood that all fat people don't care about nutrition, and was active on and off, although I found doing anything much besides walking and light bike riding and some swimming frustrating when that fat). Instead, my obesity was a huge health risk.

    You seem to be saying since I was eating well and at times was active, just being more consistently active is all I should have worried about -- not weight loss, since I had no current health concerns, and apparently not the fact that I was embarrassed about how I looked, wanted to be able to run again and bike better, and really and truly just wanted to enjoy clothes shopping again and not be depressed every time a photo was taken of me.

    that's really sad. I'm sorry that you felt that way.

    You're projecting. That's not healthy.

    Will you please answer my question: do you think health is weight neutral?

    I was responding to this statement in their post: " I was embarrassed about how I looked, wanted to be able to run again and bike better, and really and truly just wanted to enjoy clothes shopping again and not be depressed every time a photo was taken of me". It made me sad. No one should have to feel that way.

    Your question is made up of buzzwords and makes no sense. Health is really complicated and weight is literally just a manifestation of habits and choices.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    edited June 2017
    TR0berts wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Yeah. I didn't really care about my weight until my health suffered and my doctor told me that weight-loss was the single best thing I could do to manage my condition. So, yeah, I can only speak for myself, but weightloss and avoidance of lymphedema flare-ups are pretty well intertwined at this point. Health is the goal and weightloss is the process.

    I don't agree with your doctor

    Are you a HAES proponent?

    Because I can tell you, as someone who undertook weight loss specifically because reaching a healthy body weight is recommended to manage my particular medical condition, it is totally FALSE that weight is not tied to health in many medical conditions.

    In fact, although I am a healthy weight, my goal is to get to the very low end of BMI for optimal management of my medical condition.

    I have two forms of arthritis. Arthritis is not a weight-neutral disease. Reaching and maintaining a healthy body weight is the best thing you can do for it, much as it was the same thing estherdragon could do for lymphedema. And yes, weight loss is the best thing you can do for that condition.

    Losing weight has normalized my blood sugar, blood pressure, and lipid profile. My triglycerides are down nearly 4 fold. This is one of the weirdest cases of "la la la I can't hear you" I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot, including flat earthers and people who believe in high society reptilians. Obesity is strongly linked to some diseases and the correlation is quite direct and demonstrable.

    I would argue that the lifestyle changes that you made normalized your blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. Weight loss is a byproduct of healthy lifestyle changes.

    The evidence is that for some conditions merely losing weight, however it is achieved (and there are dramatically different diets followed, including just eating less) makes a huge difference, on average, to the health problems.

    Many people have improvement in blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes/IR, to name just a few issues, just with weight loss.

    I had NO bad test results when I decided to lose weight, despite being about 50+ lbs over a healthy weight by BMI at the time. That doesn't mean that I had no health reasons to lose weight (and I was already eating a nutrient-dense diet, it's a falsehood that all fat people don't care about nutrition, and was active on and off, although I found doing anything much besides walking and light bike riding and some swimming frustrating when that fat). Instead, my obesity was a huge health risk.

    You seem to be saying since I was eating well and at times was active, just being more consistently active is all I should have worried about -- not weight loss, since I had no current health concerns, and apparently not the fact that I was embarrassed about how I looked, wanted to be able to run again and bike better, and really and truly just wanted to enjoy clothes shopping again and not be depressed every time a photo was taken of me.

    that's really sad. I'm sorry that you felt that way.

    You're projecting. That's not healthy.

    Will you please answer my question: do you think health is weight neutral?

    To be fair, I think she was referring to the last paragraph, where lemurcat expressed embarassment and depression. I could be wrong, of course.

    To be honest, I've read the other poster's profile and know how she saw lemurcat's last paragraph through her own personal lens.

    Lemurcat was never as down on herself as the OP got, and that was my point.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Yeah. I didn't really care about my weight until my health suffered and my doctor told me that weight-loss was the single best thing I could do to manage my condition. So, yeah, I can only speak for myself, but weightloss and avoidance of lymphedema flare-ups are pretty well intertwined at this point. Health is the goal and weightloss is the process.

    I don't agree with your doctor

    Are you a HAES proponent?

    Because I can tell you, as someone who undertook weight loss specifically because reaching a healthy body weight is recommended to manage my particular medical condition, it is totally FALSE that weight is not tied to health in many medical conditions.

    In fact, although I am a healthy weight, my goal is to get to the very low end of BMI for optimal management of my medical condition.

    I have two forms of arthritis. Arthritis is not a weight-neutral disease. Reaching and maintaining a healthy body weight is the best thing you can do for it, much as it was the same thing estherdragon could do for lymphedema. And yes, weight loss is the best thing you can do for that condition.

    Losing weight has normalized my blood sugar, blood pressure, and lipid profile. My triglycerides are down nearly 4 fold. This is one of the weirdest cases of "la la la I can't hear you" I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot, including flat earthers and people who believe in high society reptilians. Obesity is strongly linked to some diseases and the correlation is quite direct and demonstrable.

    I would argue that the lifestyle changes that you made normalized your blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. Weight loss is a byproduct of healthy lifestyle changes.

    The evidence is that for some conditions merely losing weight, however it is achieved (and there are dramatically different diets followed, including just eating less) makes a huge difference, on average, to the health problems.

    Many people have improvement in blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes/IR, to name just a few issues, just with weight loss.

    I had NO bad test results when I decided to lose weight, despite being about 50+ lbs over a healthy weight by BMI at the time. That doesn't mean that I had no health reasons to lose weight (and I was already eating a nutrient-dense diet, it's a falsehood that all fat people don't care about nutrition, and was active on and off, although I found doing anything much besides walking and light bike riding and some swimming frustrating when that fat). Instead, my obesity was a huge health risk.

    You seem to be saying since I was eating well and at times was active, just being more consistently active is all I should have worried about -- not weight loss, since I had no current health concerns, and apparently not the fact that I was embarrassed about how I looked, wanted to be able to run again and bike better, and really and truly just wanted to enjoy clothes shopping again and not be depressed every time a photo was taken of me.

    Why are you twisting this to make it as if he's talking about your emotional health related to the weight?

    She's a she, according to her profile.

    Why do you think I'm suggesting that she is talking about my emotional health?

    She said that the only good (non disordered) reason to lose weight was health.

    She also said that weight doesn't really lead to poor health, but only bad lifestyle, and so weight loss should involve lifestyle changes that are positive (I generally agree with this, but not everyone fat eats a bad diet -- other than by overeating, which all fat people did -- or is inactive). But more to the point, she seemed to be saying I had no health concerns from being fat (since being fat alone is not a concern), and that my other reasons for losing were invalid.

    It's possible I misunderstood, that's why I asked, but I honestly can't make any sense of your response here. I'd love for you to clarify. I didn't think she was talking about MY emotional health at all.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    ok I'm ready to weigh in on this (hahaha I crack myself up). Here are my unpopular opinions:

    1. Weighing daily is unhealthy. (not to say it isn't tempting)
    2. Weight loss should not be your objective. It's a side affect of making healthier choices.
    3. Mental health is just as important as physical health (if not more).
    4. If you lose weight bc you hate yourself, you will still hate yourself at your goal weight and you WILL gain it back.

    Sometimes, losing weight (in and of itself) is the best thing a person can do for their health.

    not if they're going to immediately gain it back because they didn't deal with their relationship with food and the emotional baggage that may have caused them to gain the weight.

    Who says they didn't deal with those issues as a means to the goal of losing weight?

    like I said in my original post: my opinion is that weight loss should be a byproduct, not the goal. The goal is to feel better, be more physically able, not eat emotionally, love yourself, etc. Weight is just your relationship with gravity. If you make lifestyle changes, you may lose weight, but it's about the weakest measurement of health.

    That's just silly.

    I can't get much more physically able. The photo to the left is me at 249 lbs. at that point I was running a 9 minute mile for reps.

    I choose to lose weight because I wish to be lighter and slightly more healthy.

    I felt great about myself summer 2015 when that photo was taken I feel great about myself now 20 lbs lighter
  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,590 Member
    edited June 2017
    gothchiq wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    I think most objections to "eat what you want within your calories" assume, weirdly, that people won't want to eat a balanced diet or will want to eat a nutrient poor or even all junk food diet and won't care how the diet makes him or her feel in deciding what he or she wants to do.

    I often (perhaps unfairly) wonder why the person is making those assumptions -- would that person actually WANT to eat a low nutrient diet and not eat vegetables, etc? Or does that person just look down on others and assume they aren't sensible?

    I can provide at least somewhat of an answer. Because of people that have been observed IRL doing exactly that. I have been baffled to watch men and women of various ages and places in life, not just younguns, decide that it was perfectly okay to eat ONLY fast food as long as it was in their calorie limit. A couple months go by and these people are explaining to the doctor how awful they feel, and is it a virus? Doctor does bloodwork and says WTF did you eat? And that's where I'm facepalming and saying I TRIED TO TELL YOU when they are relaying all this to me as though it's surprising.

    So what? That's their perogative. This stuff happens to people that eat supposedly healthy food too.

    Why is fast food always the devil?

    If I could get my doctor and nutritionist on the board here to give their rationales, I would.

    If people don't ask my advice I don't give it but when they do, and I give it, and they go LALALALA and binge on the worst stuff they can find, it's kind of frustrating you know? (added: esp if said people are diabetic, high cholesterol problems etc)
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    MJ2victory wrote: »
    Yeah. I didn't really care about my weight until my health suffered and my doctor told me that weight-loss was the single best thing I could do to manage my condition. So, yeah, I can only speak for myself, but weightloss and avoidance of lymphedema flare-ups are pretty well intertwined at this point. Health is the goal and weightloss is the process.

    I don't agree with your doctor

    Are you a HAES proponent?

    Because I can tell you, as someone who undertook weight loss specifically because reaching a healthy body weight is recommended to manage my particular medical condition, it is totally FALSE that weight is not tied to health in many medical conditions.

    In fact, although I am a healthy weight, my goal is to get to the very low end of BMI for optimal management of my medical condition.

    I have two forms of arthritis. Arthritis is not a weight-neutral disease. Reaching and maintaining a healthy body weight is the best thing you can do for it, much as it was the same thing estherdragon could do for lymphedema. And yes, weight loss is the best thing you can do for that condition.

    Losing weight has normalized my blood sugar, blood pressure, and lipid profile. My triglycerides are down nearly 4 fold. This is one of the weirdest cases of "la la la I can't hear you" I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot, including flat earthers and people who believe in high society reptilians. Obesity is strongly linked to some diseases and the correlation is quite direct and demonstrable.

    I would argue that the lifestyle changes that you made normalized your blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. Weight loss is a byproduct of healthy lifestyle changes.

    The evidence is that for some conditions merely losing weight, however it is achieved (and there are dramatically different diets followed, including just eating less) makes a huge difference, on average, to the health problems.

    Many people have improvement in blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes/IR, to name just a few issues, just with weight loss.

    I had NO bad test results when I decided to lose weight, despite being about 50+ lbs over a healthy weight by BMI at the time. That doesn't mean that I had no health reasons to lose weight (and I was already eating a nutrient-dense diet, it's a falsehood that all fat people don't care about nutrition, and was active on and off, although I found doing anything much besides walking and light bike riding and some swimming frustrating when that fat). Instead, my obesity was a huge health risk.

    You seem to be saying since I was eating well and at times was active, just being more consistently active is all I should have worried about -- not weight loss, since I had no current health concerns, and apparently not the fact that I was embarrassed about how I looked, wanted to be able to run again and bike better, and really and truly just wanted to enjoy clothes shopping again and not be depressed every time a photo was taken of me.

    that's really sad. I'm sorry that you felt that way.

    It wasn't that big a deal in the overall scheme of things, but yeah, I feel better now. The weird thing is that I think I cared much less about being fat than the average person, which is why I was okay with it for the time I was, but I see nothing bad at all about the decision to lose the weight and the effort I put into it (most of which involved things that I think are good for me now, at maintenance, like being active).
  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,590 Member
    gothchiq wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    I think most objections to "eat what you want within your calories" assume, weirdly, that people won't want to eat a balanced diet or will want to eat a nutrient poor or even all junk food diet and won't care how the diet makes him or her feel in deciding what he or she wants to do.

    I often (perhaps unfairly) wonder why the person is making those assumptions -- would that person actually WANT to eat a low nutrient diet and not eat vegetables, etc? Or does that person just look down on others and assume they aren't sensible?

    I can provide at least somewhat of an answer. Because of people that have been observed IRL doing exactly that. I have been baffled to watch men and women of various ages and places in life, not just younguns, decide that it was perfectly okay to eat ONLY fast food as long as it was in their calorie limit. A couple months go by and these people are explaining to the doctor how awful they feel, and is it a virus? Doctor does bloodwork and says WTF did you eat? And that's where I'm facepalming and saying I TRIED TO TELL YOU when they are relaying all this to me as though it's surprising.

    You know a lot of people in this scenario? because I have literally never heard of this. Fast food has nutrition, whether some want to believe it or not.

    I do. I'm fairly crazy and so are most of my friends. Just not always in the same ways.
  • Bry_Fitness70
    Bry_Fitness70 Posts: 2,480 Member
    gothchiq wrote: »
    gothchiq wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    I think most objections to "eat what you want within your calories" assume, weirdly, that people won't want to eat a balanced diet or will want to eat a nutrient poor or even all junk food diet and won't care how the diet makes him or her feel in deciding what he or she wants to do.

    I often (perhaps unfairly) wonder why the person is making those assumptions -- would that person actually WANT to eat a low nutrient diet and not eat vegetables, etc? Or does that person just look down on others and assume they aren't sensible?

    I can provide at least somewhat of an answer. Because of people that have been observed IRL doing exactly that. I have been baffled to watch men and women of various ages and places in life, not just younguns, decide that it was perfectly okay to eat ONLY fast food as long as it was in their calorie limit. A couple months go by and these people are explaining to the doctor how awful they feel, and is it a virus? Doctor does bloodwork and says WTF did you eat? And that's where I'm facepalming and saying I TRIED TO TELL YOU when they are relaying all this to me as though it's surprising.

    So what? That's their perogative. This stuff happens to people that eat supposedly healthy food too.

    Why is fast food always the devil?

    If I could get my doctor and nutritionist on the board here to give their rationales, I would.

    If people don't ask my advice I don't give it but when they do, and I give it, and they go LALALALA and binge on the worst stuff I can find, it's kind of frustrating you know?

    I can relate to this. Several obese acquaintances who have asked my advice about losing weight over the past few years would rather try some sort of silly fad diet that restricts them from eating a ridiculous amount of common foods that they like instead of committing to eating 10-15% less calories (of food that they like) for several months (with minor tweaks to hit macros goals) and consistently exercising.

    One of my neighbors was on some diet where she couldn’t eat dairy, pasta, bread, sauces, sugar, etc., for an entire month, and she was going through ridiculous meal prepping efforts to accommodate this. I was like “what happens after the diet ends in a month?” There was no consideration of sustainment.

  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
    gothchiq wrote: »
    I like the one candy everyone else hates. Licorice. Better even if coated in chocolate. I buy it like once a year because I will eat the whole bag.

    Black licorice? Oh the darker the better - especially tasty in homemade root beer/sarsaparilla.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
    gothchiq wrote: »
    I like the one candy everyone else hates. Licorice. Better even if coated in chocolate. I buy it like once a year because I will eat the whole bag.

    I don't mind licorice allsorts, but the 'black twizzlers'? If anyone ever gifts me any, I'll see about shipping them your way...
  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,644 Member
    gothchiq wrote: »
    Bah screw it we are never going to agree about this other stuff so whatever. I want to know where one purchases gummy bears with bourbon included.

    Agreed.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    I just had the hardest time getting syringes for my migraine medicine. I am glad I don't drink.

    I do, however, have a ton of syringes that were the wrong length that I can't use that I'd happily share if postal regulations allowed for it.
  • The_Enginerd
    The_Enginerd Posts: 3,982 Member
    edited June 2017
    RE: Athletes and pre-competition nutrition/a Calorie is just a calorie argument.

    Just leaving this here...

    In his autobiography Usain Bolt stated that when in Beijing for the World Championships 2015 he was unsure of the local food on offer so ate nothing but McDonalds chicken nugget meals during his stay. 20 nuggets for breakfast, 20 for lunch, and 40 for dinner with apple pie and fries.

    He broke 2 world records at that event: 100m - 9.79, 200m - 19.55.

    Got to admit, I was really hoping that it mentioned hot fudge sundaes, but alas, no. >:)

    I'm personally on team hamburger, but whatever it takes to reach your goals.

    "Postexercise Glycogen Recovery and Exercise Performance is Not Significantly Different Between Fast Food and Sport Supplements"

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25811308/
This discussion has been closed.