The "Dieting" dilema; bad food, worse ideas.

Great post! And I just wanted to mention that it's people like you on this site who have made me realize things I never had before. When I was in the 7th grade, I started skipping meals, when I reached 10th grade I started to eat even less...and throw it up. That cycle had messed me up soo much. I would start to eat regular again...and put all the weight back on plus some. Of course I loved losing the weight really quick...but I was always sooo tired and litterally JUMPED at any loud noise or unespected thing becuase I was so lethargic I sopose. I got married when I was 18 and started to eat even more and not care so much about my health (my hubby has a QUICK metabilism and I was eating the exact same things as him). I got preggo when I 19, and had a miscarriage which even put me into more stress. When I was growing up...my brother was really good at reminding me constantly how chubby I was while he was eating like a cow and had a 4 pack, working on a six pack :sad: Yes, the comment he's made to me in the past still hurt me today and he doesn't even know it. And I should blame no one but myself, but I beleive if he hadn't made so many hurtful comments, I wouldn't be this large today becuase he wouldn't have made me want to do so many hurtful things to my body. Most of my life i've just been so deppressed with my weight...I even use to cut my self. All those years of mistreating my body has put even a worse toll on my body. I'm ebarrassed to say, but I even have 3/4 sleave stretch marks down my arms from all the losing then gaining so quickly :blushing: Well....it took my hubby and I a whole year to get preggo again...and after having my precious boy...I put on even 50 more pounds that didn't want to leave. After having my son, it was the FIRST time in my life I wasn't going to lose weight the BAD way by starving and throwing up....but what I didn't know was that doing my strenuous excersing and keeping my food intake at under 1,000 calories a day was BAD. I finally came across this site last month, and that's when I realized that what I thought was good, was still sooo terrible for me. I bumped my calorie intake to 1,200 min. per day, and I still excersise...but not all crazily. I have lost 16 pounds :noway: AND I FEEL SO AWSOME AND HEALTHY!!!! I love this site more than words can explain and I have people like you to thank!!!! Thank you for opening eyes and letting people know it's okay to eat more, and that you'll benefit even more from it :happy:

I have a job for all you guys out there that feel like I post good stuff.

google the following terms and read the descriptions. Hopefully it will give you a little food for thought (pun intended).

Bioavailability

cortisol

Human Growth Hormone (skip the ones about artificially introduced and steroids, they don't concern us right now)

ghrelin

leptin

EPOC (exercise Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) (think High Intensity Interval Training)

what? No takers?

I'm working on it!!!

Im at work so I have to sneak it in...lol

right, the concept is, if you work close to, or at maximal oxygen consumption, you burn more calories not only during, but for an extended period after you work out, so maybe you only work for 35 to 40 minutes, but it's equivalent to working at a moderate pace for say, an hour and a half. PLUS, it gives you benefits in that, you train your muscles to work harder and grow, AND your body recognizes the need for a more efficient oxygen delivery system, so your lungs increase capacity and your blood becomes more efficient at delivering oxygen to your muscles. It's a win-win (except it's far more painful than taking it easy at the gym)

I don't quite understand this part. Exercise causes you to store fat? The stress from exercise is equal to the stress of worrying about bills? Not to question your facts, but I've never heard anything like that before. If that's true, it seems like exercise is bad for your health, because all I ever hear is that chronic stress is terrible for your health, and actually reduces your lifespan.

I usually feel good when I exercise, however when I'm stressing over money issues I feel about as bad as I could possibly feel.

At the end of that paragraph you state that exercise is good for this and that, but overall, if it puts the body in a state equivalent to high stress situations which are bad for you and increases body fat, how could it be a good thing?

Forgive me for asking, but this is new information for me, so I need clarification.

I'll explain a little more.

during stressful times our body releases hormones, lots of hormones, most don't really affect our metabolism but a couple do in very very specific ways. Cortisol is released to block insulin from pulling energy from the blood sugar (insulin and cortisol have a FAR more complicated relationship then this, but for our purposes saying it "blocks" it is good enough), and insulin is what keeps our bloodsugar in check by helping glucose get to our cells.
Now, when the stress is brought on by exercise, other hormones are released as well, the higher the intensity of activity, the more of these other hormones are produced (specifically Human Growth Hormone and Testosterone). Now, HGH and Testosterone somewhat counteract the effects of cortisol because they trigger muscle growth and muscle stimulation, which requires more blood glucose (sugar) and thus the excess blood sugar that cortisol promotes is used up, but when we stress over things and aren't exercising, there's no counter to the cortisol, thus the extra glucose in our blood is eventually taken and converted to fat for storage by the body. This is a very simplistic description of stress and hormonal effects, but it's good enough for our topic.

As to how we feel when we work out, yeah, we generally feel good after we work out, but not because our body is happy, it's because our body release other hormones to make us feel good, to counteract all those aches and pains, and fatigue. Why? Because way back when, you didn't want to be running from a Cave bear and suddenly feel fatigued and tired, you wanted a feeling of euphoria for 2 reasons, 1) to be able to run through the pain of any injuries you might have acquired while being chased, and 2) to eliminate the fear response in animals which is to freeze and become indecisive. The main chemicals for this are adrenaline and dopamine. And THAT'S why you feel good after you work out, not because your muscles are pleased with you.

Exercise doesn't cause you to store fat, rather exercise is more of a contributor to fat burning, my main point of this section was that while exercise is a good booster for the fat metabolism, it's healthy eating that will be the driving force for reducing body fat, not exercise (unless you have the time and energy to work out 3 to 4 hours a day at a high level of effort, and even then, it WILL eventually catch up with you as you age).

Hope this helps.

I have read on many sites, been told by 2 doctors, had a gym trainer (highly educated) all tell me 97% food, 3% exercise! I was astounded! I thought I had to bust my butt 2 hours a day at the gym, when all I really need to LOSE WEIGHT was to eat a better choice of foods.

Now of course those muscles in my arms, legs, stomach........well everywhere!! they sure do look good to me! Also, the exercise has decreased the cholesterol and BP.......so it is really important.

But there are ppl on this very site who have lost 70-80-90 pounds without ever going to the gym or breaking out an exercise DVD.

I think this was the point of this paragraph.......or that is how I read it.
:flowerforyou:

Bumping with another observation:

While the "technicalities" of losing weight have more to do with nutrition than exercise, for me, exercise is the catalyst because I go looking for "food highs" if I'm not receiving a steady diet of those happy endorphins released by physical movement keeping me sane.

Being a big-time emotional eater, that makes the ratio more like 90/10 (yes, it's that much of an issue for me.)

I dunno, I tend to think they both go hand-in-hand. Though for some people, with more efficient metabolisms, get away with less activity. You gotta have fuel to burn the oven. And you gotta burn the oven to burn the fuel. Nahhhhhhhwhati'masayin!?!?

I hear you, but I'm talking more about just avoiding binging. I can't do that without "burning the oven", because I'm so dependent on those endorphins. While the mechanics of the weight loss have to do with that balance, the emotional aspect controls what is going into the oven (and how much of it).

Case in point: At the start of last summer we were undergoing a HUGE financial system replacement, major stress all around. I started the summer by fixing my stress with the vending machine (Milky Way Darks, sigh.) It worked temporarily, but when the summer was over, my weight and my stress level were at an all time high. When fall hit, I decided to forsake the vending machine and my lunch three times a week in favor of walking to the gym (I ate at my desk when I got back). An amazing thing happened: my weight and my stress started back down the hill, and I started getting all kinds of messages thanking me for my "incredibly upbeat attitude" and "amazing customer service".

At the time I thought the weight loss was all due to the extra calorie burn, which it was in part; I mean it's pretty apparent that replacing candy bars with exercise has to result in something positive on the scale. But more than that was the fact that my workouts enabled me to exercise some self-control at all the other times I would typically be driven to the vending machine. And made me a genuinely happier person to boot.

Basically a lot of words saying "Exercise, good."

Basically a lot of words saying "Exercise, good."

Nina I am also finding the exercise helps to de-stress me. Instead of eating, I rode my bike and felt 10x better. Thanks for bringing that to my attn.

A person once told me that the moments you feel too stressed to go to the gym are the moments you need to go the most. :flowerforyou:

watch out with that "heaven" talk......Mike is on the warpath. Or someone who got their little feelings hurt. Pathetic.

:laugh: Yeah - be careful there!

didn't say anything on the rules about discussion regarding disagreement with forum rules. So yeah,
what a bunch of crap. :drinker: