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What are your unpopular opinions about health / fitness?

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Replies

  • missemmamm
    missemmamm Posts: 15 Member
    Mine is that as much as most people will tell you that they do what ever food/fitness regime they do for health, most do it for looks. IMHO. Now I have seen some people make big changes because of failing health, but that's not what I mean.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member
    missemmamm wrote: »
    Mine is that as much as most people will tell you that they do what ever food/fitness regime they do for health, most do it for looks. IMHO. Now I have seen some people make big changes because of failing health, but that's not what I mean.

    I think most do it for health...that is the only motivator that seems to really get people going...the threat of early death...

    I know I finally did it for health...I've kept at it for health too...

    partially because I am vain anyway and felt I looked fine the way I was...and my husband told me so.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    robm1brown wrote: »
    I can eat well over 1900 calories in a sitting if it is the wrong type of food.

    I call that dinner
  • OliveGirl128
    OliveGirl128 Posts: 801 Member
    missemmamm wrote: »
    Mine is that as much as most people will tell you that they do what ever food/fitness regime they do for health, most do it for looks. IMHO. Now I have seen some people make big changes because of failing health, but that's not what I mean.

    Nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight for aesthetics. But, there are quite a few of us here who did lose the extra weight, due to health conditions that were improved with the weight loss, (I normalized a prediabetic glucose number, for example).

  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    missemmamm wrote: »
    Mine is that as much as most people will tell you that they do what ever food/fitness regime they do for health, most do it for looks. IMHO. Now I have seen some people make big changes because of failing health, but that's not what I mean.

    Nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight for aesthetics. But, there are quite a few of us here who did lose the extra weight, due to health conditions that were improved with the weight loss, (I normalized a prediabetic glucose number, for example).

    Yes. The one and only reason I lost weight is for my glucose numbers. I was fine with the way I looked and if I had a guarantee being fat would not affect my health I would regain at least some of the weight.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    I totally admit it was a combination of vanity (if wanting to be happier with how you look is vanity, I wouldn't necessarily call it that) and lifestyle (enjoying active leisure and wanting to be more able to run and bike long distances and hike and so on again) for me.

    I respect the health motivation and will give lip service to it, and I always thought I SHOULD eventually get back in shape for health, but absent some kind of consequence -- and I'd consider bad bloodwork a consequence but I never had it, my bloodwork was always good -- I find it disturbingly easy to keep thinking "oh, yes, for health I really should lose weight and get back in shape, but tomorrow" rather endlessly. I did that with drinking far more than recommended for long enough, I'm sure I could have continued for quite a long time thinking I had plenty of time to fix it and one more day wouldn't matter if health (absent real consequences yet, just it being a risk factor) was all that was motivating me. And maybe because I wasn't fat for that long and because I've always been at least somewhat active (walking everywhere, doing some biking, running up and down stairs just because I live in the fourth floor), I never did feel like my body was rebelling against me. But I did know I could not so easily run and was angry with myself for getting out of shape and wanted to feel more like me.

    And, sure, look better, why not?
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    missemmamm wrote: »
    Mine is that as much as most people will tell you that they do what ever food/fitness regime they do for health, most do it for looks. IMHO. Now I have seen some people make big changes because of failing health, but that's not what I mean.

    Honestly, It's just health. My reflux isn't as bad, and I can do some of the more extreme gymnastic/yoga positions with a slightly lower BW. It's really for my shoulders more than my knees, and honestly, If you're upside down on one hand, nobody cares how heavy you are(Well that's not true...it's more impressive at 260 than at 190)

  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    missemmamm wrote: »
    Mine is that as much as most people will tell you that they do what ever food/fitness regime they do for health, most do it for looks. IMHO. Now I have seen some people make big changes because of failing health, but that's not what I mean.

    My reason for fitness is all about health and necessity. Life on a farm requires a good deal of activity and at my age I have seen too many times what happens from years of being sedentary.

    But the weight loss was more or less about looks. I'd been thin for most of my adult life and when I put on some weight I just didn't look or feel like me anymore. Losing the weight was as much about feeling good in my skin as liking what I saw in the mirror, though both are important to me.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member

    LOL Gladly but the US has already performed the DEFINITIVE study lasting several decades with tens of millions of participants...
    I will acknowledge up front that correlation does not prove causation... But.
    From the time the US Food Guide came out turning the wisdom of lifetimes (eat meat and vegetables and supplement with a little starch 'cause it's cheap calories... remember you feed prisoners bread and water, or your poor bread and beer) completely upside down with carbs as the majority on the base of a "food pyramid" Obesity and diabetes have gone up in a logarithmic scale every year.
    "Adult Onset Diabetes" was NEVER (yes I'm using an absolute) seen In ANYONE under 25 before this. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease had also NEVER been seen in a child.
    Both of these conditions are now common. There is a PERFECT 1:1 correlation.
    Not proof? Sure, the same way there was no "proof" that smoking was harmful in the 70s.
    I can also just look in a mirror or at my Dexa history.
    The thermogenic effect of food has also shown numerous times that while carbs and protein each provide 4 calories per gram, protein requires energy expenditure to process.

    Do you know what makes up most of the calories in vegetables? Hint: it's neither fat nor protein.

    And guess what also happened at the same time as any food guidelines came out? A never before in history seen abundance of food for virtually everyone in society from the poorest to the richest alongside the steady decline of physical jobs.

    Not to speak of the fact that the people never actually followed the guidelines to begin with (which btw. called for lots of vegetables and a decent amount of protein...).

    And smoking was considered a health hazard for a very long time, you're parroting a bunch of myths here.

    And lastly the TEF of foods is so small it's basically insignificant. It's 7 calories per 10% of protein per 1000 calories eaten, i.e. if you eat 2000 calories and eat a whopping 200 grams of protein (more than enough for any bodybuilder) = 40% of your calories vs. eating 50 grams of protein (absolute minimum recommendation) = 10% of your calories that's 7 calories * 2 * 3 = 42 extra calories. Big deal.

    So tl;dr: not a single thing you just said was true.

    BTW. that's 1:1 exactly the same arguments I've seen countless times repeated, do you guys get a pamphlet somewhere?

    1) Food was both abundant and cheap in North America throughout the 1950s and 1960s
    2) Diabetes was not common, and most instances were genetic conditions
    3) No case of non alcoholic fatty liver disease had ever been recorded in anyone under 50
    4) No case of type 2 diabetes had ever been recorded in a child (thus the no longer valid name "Adult Onset Diabetes")

    I acknowledge your inference that vegetables are carbs... and submit that I don't think a vegetarian lifestyle is healthy or natural for humans, we don't have have hooves. :-)

    Denial is not just a river in Northern Africa. It's also one of the reasons for record breaking storms, rising sea levels, the obesity epidemic, and childhood diabetes.
    Until recently it was also the reason the Flintstones and Buggs Bunny were allowed to advertise cigarettes.

    The mainstream is just beginning to acknowledge that more fat and less carbs than have been recommended for decades are far healthier. (the CBC even recently publicized a large, peer reviewed study promoting that conclusion)

    Mark my words.
    Carbs should be the smallest of your macros. (fats and protein are what you evolved over millions of years to run on)

    Climate change is scientific fact, not a theory (and human activity is its primary cause)

    Populations have thrived on high carb diets. I suggest you read up on Blue Zones.

    Here's an image showing a breakdown of the diet from one of the populations studied, the traditional Okinawan diet (note that I said traditional, not the diet there that's had Western food introduced).

    tjq4da55hkje.jpg

    The most interesting thing to me to note about that diet is the overall calorie consumption. It's quite low.

    I know that someone else can come along and pull out another population that thrived with another macro mix, and I think that's the point. I'd be interested mainly in their overall calorie consumption, not in their macro mix. I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar to the Okinawans.

    The Inuit people actually have a diet high in fats and protein.

    I believe the average calorie consumption is quoted at 3100...with 50% of it coming from fat.

    Then there is the Masai..

    I know that there has been research done on both populations and have found some issues with it like bone density etc but per one study I read...

    "...research often times brings forth more questions than answers...."

    I don't think that pulling out "extremes" in today's climate of all the available food really proves anything other than this is what they did and they are in an extreme.
  • Bry_Fitness70
    Bry_Fitness70 Posts: 2,480 Member
    edited August 2017

    LOL Gladly but the US has already performed the DEFINITIVE study lasting several decades with tens of millions of participants...
    I will acknowledge up front that correlation does not prove causation... But.
    From the time the US Food Guide came out turning the wisdom of lifetimes (eat meat and vegetables and supplement with a little starch 'cause it's cheap calories... remember you feed prisoners bread and water, or your poor bread and beer) completely upside down with carbs as the majority on the base of a "food pyramid" Obesity and diabetes have gone up in a logarithmic scale every year.
    "Adult Onset Diabetes" was NEVER (yes I'm using an absolute) seen In ANYONE under 25 before this. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease had also NEVER been seen in a child.
    Both of these conditions are now common. There is a PERFECT 1:1 correlation.
    Not proof? Sure, the same way there was no "proof" that smoking was harmful in the 70s.
    I can also just look in a mirror or at my Dexa history.
    The thermogenic effect of food has also shown numerous times that while carbs and protein each provide 4 calories per gram, protein requires energy expenditure to process.

    Do you know what makes up most of the calories in vegetables? Hint: it's neither fat nor protein.

    And guess what also happened at the same time as any food guidelines came out? A never before in history seen abundance of food for virtually everyone in society from the poorest to the richest alongside the steady decline of physical jobs.

    Not to speak of the fact that the people never actually followed the guidelines to begin with (which btw. called for lots of vegetables and a decent amount of protein...).

    And smoking was considered a health hazard for a very long time, you're parroting a bunch of myths here.

    And lastly the TEF of foods is so small it's basically insignificant. It's 7 calories per 10% of protein per 1000 calories eaten, i.e. if you eat 2000 calories and eat a whopping 200 grams of protein (more than enough for any bodybuilder) = 40% of your calories vs. eating 50 grams of protein (absolute minimum recommendation) = 10% of your calories that's 7 calories * 2 * 3 = 42 extra calories. Big deal.

    So tl;dr: not a single thing you just said was true.

    BTW. that's 1:1 exactly the same arguments I've seen countless times repeated, do you guys get a pamphlet somewhere?

    1) Food was both abundant and cheap in North America throughout the 1950s and 1960s
    2) Diabetes was not common, and most instances were genetic conditions
    3) No case of non alcoholic fatty liver disease had ever been recorded in anyone under 50
    4) No case of type 2 diabetes had ever been recorded in a child (thus the no longer valid name "Adult Onset Diabetes")

    I acknowledge your inference that vegetables are carbs... and submit that I don't think a vegetarian lifestyle is healthy or natural for humans, we don't have have hooves. :-)

    Denial is not just a river in Northern Africa. It's also one of the reasons for record breaking storms, rising sea levels, the obesity epidemic, and childhood diabetes.
    Until recently it was also the reason the Flintstones and Buggs Bunny were allowed to advertise cigarettes.

    The mainstream is just beginning to acknowledge that more fat and less carbs than have been recommended for decades are far healthier. (the CBC even recently publicized a large, peer reviewed study promoting that conclusion)

    Mark my words.
    Carbs should be the smallest of your macros. (fats and protein are what you evolved over millions of years to run on)

    Climate change is scientific fact, not a theory (and human activity is its primary cause)

    I can go to the grocery store tomorrow and fill my cart with foods comprised of any macros mix I choose, and this has generally been the case in the US for the past 100 years; almost all of those poor health conditions are entirely the result of bad eating habits created by affluence and the ease of availability of high carb / sugar / sodium / saturated foods through our industrialized food supply. I fail to see what climate change has had to do with any “first world” food choices.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,009 Member
    edited August 2017
    obesity is likely a multi-factorial issue.
    And this is really all we know...
    Attempts to explain it by saying it comes down to one factor and one factor only are foolish and wrong-headed.

    Indeed...

This discussion has been closed.