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What are your unpopular opinions about health / fitness?
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Chef_Barbell 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)1 -
RAD_Fitness wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »estherdragonbat 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?
Srsly? The person is straight up claiming that anyone who attempts to lose weight is disordered. It's hardly twisting their words to respond to their ridiculous claim.10 -
MJ2victory wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »estherdragonbat 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).2 -
VintageFeline 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.0 -
Chef_Barbell 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.
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I have never had any health issues. I'm essentially as healthy as a person can be and always have been. All my health markers have always been as spot on as a person can reasonably hope.
My motivation for losing weight was to have abs and be even sexier than I already was. Does that mean I have a disorder?
Give me a break.16 -
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MJ2victory wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »estherdragonbat 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.
Okay. I get that it's important for you to look at it this way for some reason that's deeply personal to you.
But here's the thing -- that's your deal, born of the experience you've had in the past with a problematic issue you had with how you've dealt with weight and the pursuit of a certain goal.
That doesn't mean that everyone else has the same problems.
Trying to make your issues universal is lobbing off your responsibility for dealing with your own issues and facing them fully to work through them to a place where you're reconciled with them.
It is most emphatically not disordered for people to want to lose vanity weight.
It is most emphatically not disordered for people to say their goal is weight loss and to develop habits to support that. It doesn't matter that you think their goals should be stated the other way around. What you you decide works best, works best for YOU. What works best for someone else takes their issues into account and works best for them.
For you to have gone so far in this thread as to have told someone else that you disagree with their doctor?
You still have some healing to do from your past, if the mere mention of prescriptive weight loss by someone's physician sounds wrong to you, and you'd rather he told her "Estherdragon, you need to implement healthy lifestyle changes that may or may not result in weight loss to manage your lymphedema".19 -
I honestly never hated myself, I knew I was fat, I knew lots of things that bugged me about ability to do simple things like bend down to do up shoes would be improved if I lowered my weight but I wasn't down on myself. Not for that anyway.
my GP kindly mentioned in an appointment that my weight was going to start impacting my physical health as I was pushing the top end of obese BMI. I guess that was the penny drop moment for me. I just wanted to be healthy and capable. And yup, I have an aesthetic goal but it's certainly not at all costs. For a start it's been two years of cheerfully plodding along, enjoying the fitness improvements, finding new passions (hullo hiking!) and feeling like a total badass.
Happy byproduct is that for the most part the exercise has improved to a degree the management of my mental health. It was never going to fix it but it helps a little.
Not carrying extra weight means injuries I have been carrying are more manageable and I can now actually see about having them properly diagnosed and treated, knowing I am ready and fit enough to implement anything the physio recommends. If it turns out to be a more severe issue requiring surgery, as terrifying as that is, my recovery and long term outcomes will be so much better at a healthy weight and being fit.
I do not see, how in any light or rationale, that this is disordered. And I'd hope my psychiatrist would agree. In fact, I know she agrees. As does my GP.10 -
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.10
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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.
Step 1: Buy Gummy Bears (The brand I have is Sugarfina Inc.)
Step 2: Buy 22ga hypodermic syringe
Step 3: Buy Bourbon
Step 4: Load syringe with Bourbon
Step 5: With bevel down and at a minor angle insert the needle into the body of the bear with greatest lateral aspect to ensure the body can support the bolus.
Step 6: Withdraw syringe.
Step 7: Repeat steps 1-6 and eat.13 -
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.2 -
StealthHealth wrote: »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/25811308/3 -
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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 like the European "dubbelzout" kind. Salted and very strong. Everybody else who I know that tries it immediately spits it out and looks at me like I'm an Martian for eating it. lol5 -
Before my best three half marathon performances I "carb loaded" with lamb vindaloo, palak paneer, and naan (well, the menu might have varied some). Rice too.9
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VintageFeline wrote: »I'd actually argue there's an over-emphasis on eating clean and all veg and lean meat etc. That's an insurmountable and miserable sounding life for a lot of people. You see it all the time when people talk about dieting and all the salads they have to eat or memes about eating bacon or being skinny.
So actually, being told you don't have to live on steamed fish and broccoli for the rest of your days is MORE helpful than being told to eat your veg.
So much this. My mother raised us without sweet cereal, without fast food, low fat and diet everything because SHE struggled with her weight so we all had to eat like her. I hated it. The non-melty cheese, the diet drinks, no Fruity Pebbles or Frosted Flakes. When I escaped her clutches I ate EVERYTHING in sight and ballooned up in weight for many years. I've realized that I have a horrible relationship with food because of this. I resent having to eat healthy "like my mom." That's why this last go at weight loss has been successful for me. I still eat the pizza and the Doritos but I make them fit. That's better to me than steamed veggies, chicken, non fat dairy and tears.31 -
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.
I didn't and don't eat emotionally. I didn't and don't hate myself or my body - quite the contrary. I've eaten ample healthy foods - vegetarian, lotsa veggies, etc. - for decades . . . too ample healthy foods, formerly.
I've never had a bad relationship with food, other than enjoying it too much. I've been very active (athletic) for 15+ years.
Until a couple of years ago, I was obese. My blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides were high. I got gallbladder adenomyomatosis (inflammation, cholesterol).
Then I started weighing food, counted calories, weighed daily, which gave me lots of fun, useful data - just a big, fun science fair project, to me.
I lost 50+ pounds. My blood pressure is low normal, my lipids solidly normal, and as a bonus my arthritis & torn meniscus cause less pain, now that joints have a lighter load. I'm in my second year of maintenance, eating similarly to the way I always did, just less, and being about as active as I have been for a long time.
I'm thinking all of these huge improvements in health must be just from my better relationship with gravity?21
This discussion has been closed.
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