Escape Artists
The Lounge at the End of the Universe => Gallimaufry => Topic started by: J.R. Blackwell on June 01, 2007, 02:49:55 PM
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So, there is this stereotype about science fiction fans, and geeks in general that we are a round and weak people, able to be shoved into lockers and rolled across the floor. I, for one, want to defeat this stereotype through intelligent eating and stimulating exercise.
Working at a sit-down job and writing as a hobby isn’t very good for staying lean and fit. However, I am unwilling to surrender to flab. I will never give ground no matter what delicious cakes come my way!
So, what do you do to stay in shape? Do you have a workout routine that works really well for you? Do you take martial arts? Kickboxing? Are you a swimmer or yogi?
What do you eat to keep that superhero physique? Do you shun carbs or eat in little portions? Do you stay away from junk food or to you skip meals? Do you have any recipes for protein shakes? Veggie stir-fry?
I want to hear what everybody does to stay fit. What worked for you? What didn’t work? If you aren’t in shape, what are you doing to get into shape?
Thanks for sharing!
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Well, my office has a gym on the first floor that's made available for employees to use free of charge, so I go there every morning for 40-50 minutes on the stairmaster.
If there's a gym very near to your office, it might be worth looking into coming in an hour earlier (thereby bypassing morning rush hour), taking a two-hour lunch break, and going to the gym.
Find a gym where the cardio machines have a place you can put your laptop. Watch movies. It's very distracting from the fact that you're exercising.
Bring lunch to work. Don't go out every day.
Eat when you're hungry. If you find yourself getting hungrier than you think you should, talk to your doctor about an appetite suppressant. (You usually need to be pretty overweight for the doctor to even consider giving you one.)
Cut back on "bad" food but don't eliminate it altogether. It's better to have a small piece of cake at the secretary's goodbye party than eat no sweets until that fateful day when you say "oh, I'll just reward myself" and eat half a dozen donuts.
Don't reward yourself with food.
I've got tons more tips like this in an old blog entry somewhere. Now if only I still had my blog so I could repost it...
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As a guy with an office job who is in good shape, here is what works for me:
Regarding Exercise:
1. Stretch out every morning. It just takes five minutes and makes you feel better all day.
2. After your stretch, do pushups or crunches (alternating days).
3. Pick a strenuous activity and do it for 30 minutes, three times a week. Normal chores don't count; this is something extra. Examples include jogging, swimming, rowing, etc.
Regarding Food:
1. Eat a big bowl of oatmeal every morning.
2. Don't snack often. If you must, then snack = fruit.
3. Eat plenty of fresh and/or steamed veggies and plenty of the flesh of lesser animals.
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If anyone is interested in taking up running, here is a good plan to try.
"The Couch to 5k Running Plan"
http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml
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It's so great to hear what other people are doing. I'm always curious.
I do the south beach thing and that works well for me. I know that a lot of people I've talked to feel like it's too strict, but for me it feels just right. I have a candy jar right next to my desk at work, and I don't touch it. It's pretty easy for me once I cut the sugar cravings though the south beach plan.
I walk twelve blocks to work and home from work every weekday. Sometimes I walk briskly and sometimes at a leisurely pace. I've noticed that 20 minute walk really does help to keep me fit.
I do Yoga six times a week, a short wake-up routine in the morning on weekdays and an hour class on Saturday. Recently I've started taking Pilate's, which is a great workout, and a nice step up and to the side from Yoga. I've also started swimming twice a week, which just feels great with the summer heat coming on.
My favorate breakfast is a banana/peanut butter smoothie. I call it a Banana-Boy Here is how to make one serving:
1/2 cup of milk
1 banana
1 tablespoon of peanut butter (any brand that uses just peanuts and salt, none of this adding sugar and other crazy stuff)
1 cup ice
1 packet of sweetener. (I like splenda, I think a little honey would be fine too - just don't go crazy!)
Blend that sucker and you'll get a nice, sweet and creamy smoothie. It's great for when you are running out the door - no cooking and you can just put it in a mug and go.
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I was a big round person about 6 months ago, but I'm steadily becoming able to see my ribs again :P
For exercise, I mostly go on long walks or bike rides over the weekend. Living in Shropshire is rather handy, as there's awesome walking possibilities all over the place.
Food-wise I'm actually doing the Weight-Watchers diet, which has been a massive success so far (I've lost about 18Kg) and believe it or not, involves eating an awfull lot of home-made curry :P
Simon Painter
Shropshire, UK
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I was a big round person about 6 months ago, but I'm steadily becoming able to see my ribs again :P
For exercise, I mostly go on long walks or bike rides over the weekend. Living in Shropshire is rather handy, as there's awesome walking possibilities all over the place.
Food-wise I'm actually doing the Weight-Watchers diet, which has been a massive success so far (I've lost about 18Kg) and believe it or not, involves eating an awfull lot of home-made curry :P
Simon Painter
Shropshire, UK
Unfortunately the suburbs in the US aren't much good for purposeful walking. I mean, yeah, I can walk 2.5 miles down the street to the grocery store but I can't carry back a week's worth of groceries for the family. Plus it's hot and my milk will get icky.
I don't mind taking the baby for a walk in her stroller and being out for an hour or so (gives me time to listen to EP after all), but the increasingly-wired culture means that your closest friends don't necessarily live near you. For comparison's sake, my closest friend (distance-wise) lives as far away from me as you are from Wolverhampton. I couldn't walk that far and be good for anything afterward, let alone the walk back home. Biking, MAYBE, if I was staying the night or at the very least had access to my friend's shower.
Where I live, the burbs are mostly 20-30-year-old houses interspersed with $700-$800k-per-home developments that spring up like mushrooms after a rain. (Do they really? I've never actually seen it happen.)
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As a living super hero, I don't actually need to go to the gym.
But my alter-ego does have a gym membership... just to keep up appearances, you understand.
My alter-ego use to have a very active job playing around on big trucks, but then he got "promoted" right in to a desk. Now he's expect to sit still for 8 hours a day. Instead he walks around the office between tasks, and does push-ups and chin-ups in unoccupied conference rooms. He goes to the gym a couple times a week for cardio and/or swimming.
Outside of work I'm just very, very active, but rock climbing and kayaking are my two favorites, followed by backpacking and hiking. And considering how urban the world is getting, I'll probably take up cycling in the near future.
Unfortunately, because of my size and active lifestyle, I have to eat every 3 hours, or my blood sugar drops and I become a rather unfortunate person to be around. My girlfriend was calculating my caloric needs for a hiking trip last year and figured out that I would consume 2300 calories a day if I were asleep and 4000 if I'm hiking. To avoid junk food and curb my hunger I munch on baby carrots and grape tomatoes, unless someone brings in peanut butter cups (damn you Reese’s! DAMN YOU!!).
I'd share my diet tips, but I think my idea of "healthy" would clog other people arteries. So instead I'll share my principal ideas.
-Eat REAL food. Cooking anything at home will be better for you than anything you'll get at a store or restaurant. Even grilled ham and cheese (provided you're using cheese and not plastic).
-Eat vegetables. Frozen, canned, fresh, genetically engineered; doesn't matter. Your body needs them. Science has yet to figure out why, or how, but people who eat vegetables are healthier than people who take the same nutrients in pill form.
-Eat fruit instead of candy bars. You'll think that they aren't as good, but after a week or two of eating fruit you'll be amazed at just how overly sweet most junk food is and it won't sound nearly as appealing.
-Eat Dessert*.
-Stop eating. If you grew up in America, chances are you were taught to "clean your plate" as a child. The theory is that it teaches a child not to waste food. This works if you make your own food and you can take as much or as little as you like, and put the rest away for later. Unfortunately we all eat out a lot and the restaurant controls our portions, so we still try to clean our plates even though there may be more on them than we really want.
-Margarine is the devil. Use something else like real butter, or whipped olive oil.
*No, really, make sure you eat dessert. It the best part of dinner!
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About 10 years ago, I lost 34 pounds in a month but that was due to an intentional excessive exposure to X-Rays. (Cancer treatment - not a weight loss method I would recommend). I was really disappointed when my superpowers never manifested. (Damn you, Stan Lee!!)
I've done weight watchers twice. Both times I lost about 30 pounds and both times I let life get in the way and I gained it all back. ( I know two men who each lost over 100 pounds on WW inside of a year - then fell off the wagon and gained most of it back.) I need to try one more time.
I bought a Wii recently. I've seen a couple of sites where people lost weight just by doing Wii sports activities for 30 minutes a day. Having tried Wii boxing, I can believe it. (btw, the Wii rocks!)
I live on the same street as my mom and my older sister. Most nights, we walk our dogs together (Sis has two yorkies. I have to "Pomermuttians"), but you don't get much walking exercise when the friggin' dogs want to stop and sniff every twenty feet. :P
I really need to get a bike - or take up running again. Hmmm....running is cheaper.
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-Eat REAL food. Cooking anything at home will be better for you than anything you'll get at a store or restaurant. Even grilled ham and cheese (provided you're using cheese and not plastic).
I think this is a fantastic suggestion. I feel like lots of big companies are always slipping weird stuff into food to preserve it or make it sweeter. Eating weird chemicals and the high fructose corn syrup (aka: Corn processed by the Devil) can't be good for a persons health. I'm one of those people who is always reading labels. I like to know what's in what I put into my body. Even if I choose to eat something not so good for me, like chocolate cake, I would rather eat a real chocolate cake with sugar and eggs and chocolate than something with weird additives and preservatives.
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-Eat REAL food. Cooking anything at home will be better for you than anything you'll get at a store or restaurant. Even grilled ham and cheese (provided you're using cheese and not plastic).
I think this is a fantastic suggestion. I feel like lots of big companies are always slipping weird stuff into food to preserve it or make it sweeter. Eating weird chemicals and the high fructose corn syrup (aka: Corn processed by the Devil) can't be good for a persons health. I'm one of those people who is always reading labels. I like to know what's in what I put into my body. Even if I choose to eat something not so good for me, like chocolate cake, I would rather eat a real chocolate cake with sugar and eggs and chocolate than something with weird additives and preservatives.
Thank you. :)
My girlfriend has done a lot to open my eyes about food and eating.
There are a lot of foods out there that we take for granted as being healthy. Like milk: the stuff you buy at the store isn't anything like what comes out of a cow. Most notably, it's nearly spoiled when you buy it. Real, fresh milk stays good for weeks in a fridge and is much healthier for you. Not to mention that most people who believe themselves to be 'lactose intolerant' aren't. Store-bought milk has been pasteurized, and the pasteurization process breaks up the proteins making them hard to digest.
But if you want to hear something truly horrifying: The FDA has to rely on food manufacturers to tell THEM if a chemical is harmful. (Heard that on NPR the other day, and I'm trying to find the segment it was on)
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There are a lot of foods out there that we take for granted as being healthy.
In West Philadelphia, where I live, there is an excellent local food fair every Saturday Morning where farmers bring their produce and meat and fresh milk. I hadn't tried the milk they were selling yet, but now I think I'll give it a go.
I have to say that anything we buy at the local food fair is far tastier than what we buy at the supermarket. It's seasonal, so you can't always get what you're craving, but it's also far more delicious.
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I've done weight watchers twice. Both times I lost about 30 pounds and both times I let life get in the way and I gained it all back. ( I know two men who each lost over 100 pounds on WW inside of a year - then fell off the wagon and gained most of it back.) I need to try one more time.
Unfortunately dieting is often done with the assumption that when the weight comes off the diet ends and you can go back to what you used to do. (I'm not saying you did this, I'm just saying what most people seem to think.) The better way is to change the lifestyle and build a habit of exercise and good eating. I think everyone knows that, they just don't want to admit it.
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I have to say that anything we buy at the local food fair is far tastier than what we buy at the supermarket. It's seasonal, so you can't always get what you're craving, but it's also far more delicious.
I haven't decided if having a global economy is a good thing or a bad thing, for just that reason. We want apples, grape, and mangos, fresh daily, year 'round, that's good because we can have more fresh produce in our diets. But it's bed because we have to import it all, meaning preservatives, pesticides, and massive carbon footprints.
I'm envious of your food fair. We're on the edge of a "food desert" out here, so there aren't any farmer's markets near by. All our stuff is purchased at a store.
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Absolutely, WW is all about retraining your eating habits. Both times, life got in the way before the new habits could be fully entrenched.
I have an especially hard time of it because I am a compulsive eater. My father used to say that the first word I ever spoke was "more." I never had a problem being a member of the clean plate club. There used to be a restaurant in town that would serve all-you-can-eat prime rib. My personal best was 7. I had asked for #8, but my mom stopped me. It's amazing I'm not way bigger than I am.
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We're on the edge of a "food desert" out here, so there aren't any farmer's markets near by. All our stuff is purchased at a store.
Where I live, they grow mostly tobacco, horses and houses. :P
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I have to say that anything we buy at the local food fair is far tastier than what we buy at the supermarket. It's seasonal, so you can't always get what you're craving, but it's also far more delicious.
I haven't decided if having a global economy is a good thing or a bad thing, for just that reason. We want apples, grape, and mangos, fresh daily, year 'round, that's good because we can have more fresh produce in our diets. But it's bed because we have to import it all, meaning preservatives, pesticides, and massive carbon footprints.
I'm envious of your food fair. We're on the edge of a "food desert" out here, so there aren't any farmer's markets near by. All our stuff is purchased at a store.
I've gotten into the eating local thing for three reasons.
1) Everything tastes better. This is even true if I'm buying from the regular store.
2) Eventhough it's commercial food, if it got to ripen a little more on the vine (or where ever), it needs fewer chemicals to make it store ready after it's picked.
3) Is the Carbon footprint. In the US an average meal uses 76 calories of energy for every calorie of nutrition to get it to the plate. I don't have stats for over here.
The signs at our store say what country the fruits and veggies come from. I always buy German or Polish (I'm not too far from the border) when I can. When I can't, I'll go to the rest of the EU, but never farther. The bannanas there today were from Costa Rica. According to Google Earth that's 6,000 miles away. Now how long was that raveling. It definately wasn't picked ripe.
For my exercise the wife and I recently got the old bikes working again. With kid seats on the back we're really mobile. It's family time and exercise all in one.
J.R., is that the Italian Market you go to, or is that in South Philly? I was from Jersey, just over the bridge.
Also since you mentioned it. Do you have a chain mail bikini? I think most of the guys here are curious.
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I'm not in great shape. I need to lose some weight. About a month ago I started playing basketball again at lunch with some guys from work. That's fun exercise to me, although we only get to do it twice a week. Since my daughter was born, I hardly ever go to the gym. I know I need to make more time to go for walks and stuff but by the time I get home from the stupid day job, we're all hungry. We should eat some fruit and then go anyway, but we often don't. What I think I really need to do is start keeping track of what I eat. Journaling it the way I did back when I was going to Weight Watchers. I think that habit might be healthier for me than even exercise.
Thaurismunths, you said margarine was of the devil? Can you give me a little more insight?
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I've vacillated between big round person and much less big round person my whole life. At the moment, thanks to a combination of a profoundly nasty six weeks and my realisation that the more filled with crap my work space is, the less I do and the more I eat, I'm on the big round end of things again.
That's going to change. Here's how:
-I walk my wife into work two or three days a week. That'll go up to five days from this week, which works out to an hour's walk every day.
-I'm going to start actually making a packed lunch to eat. It's weird how working from home means I don't bother to do anything formal, almost as weird as the fact that a couple of sandwiches and an apple in a box WILL actually help me cut down on snacking.
-Lots more fruit. LOTS more fruit.
-Every other lunchbreak I'm going to go for a forty minute run. I have even downloaded running cadences to listen to whilst I'm doing it to take my mind off it and get a rythm going.
-Back on Weight Watchers. I dropped three stone in eighteen months doing that and intend to do the same thing again.
Short to mid term plans also include:
-Ballroom dancing. Yes. Always wanted to do (Ever since Edge of Darkness in fact 'No one dances like the Brits, they DESERVE the Falklands').
-Capoeira-Being a chunky Manx dude, the concept of, after no doubt at least a year of hard work, being able to do a one handed backspring REALLY appeals.
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J.R., is that the Italian Market you go to, or is that in South Philly? I was from Jersey, just over the bridge.
Also since you mentioned it. Do you have a chain mail bikini? I think most of the guys here are curious.
No, though the Italian Market is grand. I go to a local food market in West Philadelphia at Clark Park. Clark Park is impressive in that it has the only statue of Dickens in the world. Why, you say? Because Dickens actually forbid people from making statues of him after he died. The good people at Clark park apparently comissioned and finished the statue before they figured this out. After it was there, well, it's stayed. An illegal statue in a city park. I'll take a picture sometime. It's wild.
I do not have a chain mail bikini. They are expensive. I have a bikini though, and it is silver, but I don't wear it outside the house. Well, until tomorrow, when I go to the beach!
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im not a health person by any means. i let my parents take care of that for me. they feed me stuff thats obviously good for me and i dont argue, and its good so i dont complain. other than that i eat a lota junk food WOOT
but im also growing at an accelerated rate (puberty does that to ya!)
as for excercize, all im doin is addin one pushup per day. i started a while back at 20, stagnated at 35, and now im doin 55 a day for about another week maybe, then ill start climbing again. its definately made an improvement, just one more per day! and i do it right around 11 each night, and i skip the weekends (let the muscles relax and heal and repair and grow)
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Exercise for it's own sake is boreing and HARD. I've tried that in the past and just cant keep motivated to carry on.
When I was younger and played football ( the American kind, yes rather odd for a Brit ) I was motivated to exercise so I got to play.
Then I got older, stopped playing football, got married, started growing sideways.
Now I live without a car. I bicycle to work, ten miles each way. Its a reason for the exercise, therefore I'm able to carry on doing it. It's great for stopping the sideways growth, and I get to listen to a LOT of podcasts 2 and half hours a day.
Snow can be a problem...
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Now I live without a car. I bicycle to work, ten miles each way. Its a reason for the exercise, therefore I'm able to carry on doing it. It's great for stopping the sideways growth, and I get to listen to a LOT of podcasts 2 and half hours a day.
I can't ride and listen to podcasts at the same time. I need to hear the traffic.
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Thaurismunths, you said margarine was of the devil? Can you give me a little more insight?
Totally:
The good, the bad and margarine. (http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/09/29/the_good_the_bad_and_margarine.htm)
Partially hydrogenated margarines and shortening are even worse for you than the highly refined vegetable oils from which they are made because of chemical changes that occur during the hydrogenation process. Man made trans fats are toxins to the body, but unfortunately your digestive system does not recognize them as such. Instead of eliminating them, your body incorporates the trans fats into the cell membranes as though they where naturally occurring fats called cis fats. Your cell actually become partially hydrogenated. This interferes with cellular metabolism because it changes the normal chemical reactions which take place in the cell.
Summarized from Fallon, Sally. Nourishing Traditions. Washington, DC: New Trends, 1999. page 15 (found on Rami Nagel's site)
Butter or Margarine which one is better for my health? (http://www.healthcastle.com/butter-or-margarine.shtml)
When margarine was first introduced into the market place, it was loaded with trans fats. Hydrogenation "solidifies" liquid vegetable oil into a spread so it is easier to use. As a result of this hydrogenation process, trans fats are produced. Similar to saturated fats, trans fats also increase LDL cholesterol (the Bad cholesterol) and lower HDL cholesterol (the Good cholesterol).
THE MARGARINE HOAX (http://www.drcranton.com/nutrition/margarin.htm)
To maintain good health it is important that we have the correct intake of omega fatty acids in our diets. Hydrogenated fats like margarine are non-foods with toxic effects and should be avoided at any cost.
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Now I live without a car. I bicycle to work, ten miles each way. Its a reason for the exercise, therefore I'm able to carry on doing it. It's great for stopping the sideways growth, and I get to listen to a LOT of podcasts 2 and half hours a day.
I can't ride and listen to podcasts at the same time. I need to hear the traffic.
I almost got a ticket for biking with headphones on back in 1997.
With the suburban sprawl sprawling farther and farther each year, the amount of time people spend in their cars will continue to rise. Gyms will continue to be built (a huge new Gold's just went up about 5 miles away) and people will continue to not go to them. It's all a conspiracy between the fitness industry and the housing industry.
(No, not really.)
I think part of the problem is poor urban planning. In some cities, like Atlanta, if you don't live in a certain place, you can't get to work any way except by car, or you have to change buses and trains so many times that it ceases to be worth your while.
I go to bed an hour earlier and wake up an hour earlier these days. It gives me time to exercise, and all I had to do was forego Adult Swim. Not such a hardship, not with a TiVo. Plus I only fight traffic in one direction.
Sean McMullen's Souls in the Great Machine has paraline trains where the riders pedal, thereby adding speed to the train which is mostly powered by wind. If you pedal more than you have to, you get a credit for your next trip or some other benefit, like first crack at the showers. I'd totally ride one of those.
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I think part of the problem is poor urban planning. In some cities, like Atlanta, if you don't live in a certain place, you can't get to work any way except by car, or you have to change buses and trains so many times that it ceases to be worth your while.
Louisville (KY) is like that. The city is laid out like half of a wagon wheel. If you live in the burbs and work downtown, I've heard that taking the bus is great, because that's where most of the bus routes go. But a lot of people, like me, live in one part of the burbs and work in another. If you want to travel along the rim instead of along the spoke, taking a bus is almost impossible. My drive to work is 20 minutes. Taking the bus would require 2 hours on 4 or 5 different buses.
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I think part of the problem is poor urban planning. In some cities, like Atlanta, if you don't live in a certain place, you can't get to work any way except by car, or you have to change buses and trains so many times that it ceases to be worth your while.
Louisville (KY) is like that. The city is laid out like half of a wagon wheel. If you live in the burbs and work downtown, I've heard that taking the bus is great, because that's where most of the bus routes go. But a lot of people, like me, live in one part of the burbs and work in another. If you want to travel along the rim instead of along the spoke, taking a bus is almost impossible. My drive to work is 20 minutes. Taking the bus would require 2 hours on 4 or 5 different buses.
I figure if they connected 265 in the north and south it would be a lot easier.
(I did traffic for seven years. I'm a roadgeek.)
Back when I ran Traffic.com in Atlanta, we had a guy who lived all the way across the city from the office. Despite the fact that he didn't own a car and had to take mass transit to and from work, he was one of the most dependable employees I had and after I left, a full-time position became available and he got it. (He bought a car in late 2005.) I admire his dedication, and I'm glad the company was able to reward him for it.
It takes that kind of dedication to ride the bus or take the train in some mid-size cities like Louisville or Orlando (and poorly-designed large cities like Atlanta), and not go insane.
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whares the spandex and Chain-mail bikinis?
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Damn. I though I knew something about this but there are some real pros here. So let me ask a question for those who've been around the block a few times more than me. Sorry but I have to start out with a little bit of history.
I've played basketball my entire life. And stayed around 180ish (@6') as a result. for about 6 months I wasn't able to find time to play, and gained about 30 pounds. For the last 6 months I have been walking for about 3-3.5 miles, 4 days a week. My caloric consumption is hardly ever more than 1500 calories. And I am losing weight SO slowly. Then I go to my little sister's graduation, 2 days of eating and BAM. set me back 2 weeks. I started putting in time at the gym again, like 3-4 hours on the court, 2-3 times a week. I'm so used to being able to drop 20-30 pounds in a month before basketball season starts up again, but damn! After this last down time, I haven't been able to bounce back. Am I facing a metabolic shutdown? I just turned 29 and my body's quitting on me. So I'm burining an extra 5500-7000 calories a week. That should be about 2 lbs of solid fat. But I'm not really losing weight any more.
Has anyone gone through this? I mean, WTH?
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I'm so used to being able to drop 20-30 pounds in a month before basketball season starts up again, but damn! After this last down time, I haven't been able to bounce back. Am I facing a metabolic shutdown?
That's a big part of your problem right there. One of the dangers of being a wrestler is the constant up and down. Crash dieting really screws with your system, each time making it harder to shed weight because your body just knows that it's going to be 'starved' again soon. To protect itself your body will add more fat cells and fill them up to make sure you'll have an energy supply for the next time your energy needs out-strip your energy intake.
Also: Welcome to getting old(er). Men’s metabolisms start slowing down around 25. If you've made it to 30 before that happened, you're a head of the game.
Lastly, fat doesn't work like most people think it does. When you gain fat your body creates capacitors (fat cells) and then fills them with energy (fat), but when you discharge them (burn the fat) you still have the capacitor. What that means is that even after a month of crash diet and hard exercise your body still has all the empty storage facilities and it doesn't take nearly as long to fill an existing warehouse as it does to build a new one and fill it so gaining weight back can happen very quickly. Two days is a bit quick. Most likely, you had only lost, and gained back, water weight. Crash diets that let you lose 20 pounds in a month are largely based on water weight. Also a crash diet just proves to your body that it will need that massive energy reserve, and more, because eventually you're going to ‘starve’ again and it wants to be ready. Given enough time your body will break down empty fat cells, but it takes months of maintaining yourself or liposuction to do it.
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I'm so used to being able to drop 20-30 pounds in a month before basketball season starts up again, but damn! After this last down time, I haven't been able to bounce back. Am I facing a metabolic shutdown?
That's a big part of your problem right there. One of the dangers of being a wrestler is the constant up and down. Crash dieting really screws with your system, each time making it harder to shed weight because your body just knows that it's going to be 'starved' again soon. To protect itself your body will add more fat cells and fill them up to make sure you'll have an energy supply for the next time your energy needs out-strip your energy intake.
Also: Welcome to getting old(er). Men’s metabolisms start slowing down around 25. If you've made it to 30 before that happened, you're a head of the game.
Lastly, fat doesn't work like most people think it does. When you gain fat your body creates capacitors (fat cells) and then fills them with energy (fat), but when you discharge them (burn the fat) you still have the capacitor. What that means is that even after a month of crash diet and hard exercise your body still has all the empty storage facilities and it doesn't take nearly as long to fill an existing warehouse as it does to build a new one and fill it so gaining weight back can happen very quickly. Two days is a bit quick. Most likely, you had only lost, and gained back, water weight. Crash diets that let you lose 20 pounds in a month are largely based on water weight. Also a crash diet just proves to your body that it will need that massive energy reserve, and more, because eventually you're going to ‘starve’ again and it wants to be ready. Given enough time your body will break down empty fat cells, but it takes months of maintaining yourself or liposuction to do it.
I spent this day with a girl who was extremely overweight. Unintentionally I absolutely fell for her. Once I realized I was really hooked, I told her that I worried about her health and would help her lose weight.
Our plan had all kinds of rewards for each pound and at different "mile markers". It also had the very strict rule, "No losing more than two pounds in a week." The goal was one a week and staying level was OK and two was OK, but she lost rewards if she did more than two a week twice in two months. When we broke up she wasn't thin, but she was seventy pounds lighter and a lot healthier.
Slow and steady wins the race.
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Damnit. Good points. Yeah, I've been trying to lose 2 lbs / week lately but it's simply not happening. In the mean time. I'll just keep my calories low and my excercise high. I need to really cement my healthier changes in my lifestyle. Women be damned! They always come along and want to eat out and keep crap in the house.
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In the May 23rd Scientific American podcast on eating disorders in adult women, the scientist/author explained how people's metabolisms slow down when they diet. So when they fall off the diet, they gain more weight than if they had never started. Also, diets create cravings for the things you are forbidden to eat. She said all diets are ineffective and sometimes even cause weight gain EXCEPT Weight Watchers, because WW is a lifestyle change.
Re the preservatives and additives and whatnot. Is there evidence that these things are bad for us? Creepy, sure. But we are eating more of them and living longer than ever before. I haven't heard of anyone getting sick from them, except for ones that are already banned.
Edit: After some googling I found that they may increase hyperactivity in children (http://www.mindfully.org/Food/Additives/Artificial-Coloring-Preservatives25may04.htm).
I'm not sure about the carbon footprint argument, either. How much carbon is spent on those bananas per bunch? I looked for some data on this one, but couldn't find anything convincing.
But if the farmer's market stuff tastes better then go for it.
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I'm not sure about the carbon footprint argument, either. How much carbon is spent on those bananas per bunch? I looked for some data on this one, but couldn't find anything convincing.
I might have misled you in to looking for the wrong thing. When I said "carbon footprint" I was thinking of the studies done on the number of calories used to create one calorie of edible food, including pesticides, farm implements, preparation, and transportation. All together they are a huge number of calories used to transport food from field to table, and since we use mostly fossil fuels, that means food has a huge carbon footprint.
According to 321Energy.com (http://www.321energy.com/editorials/church/church040205.html) "The industrial food supply system is one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels and one of the greatest producers of greenhouse gases."
And SustainableTable.org (http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/energy/) says "A 2002 study from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated that, using our current system, three calories of energy were needed to create one calorie of edible food. And that was on average. Some foods take far more, for instance grain-fed beef, which requires thirty-five calories for every calorie of beef produced. x What’s more, the John Hopkins study didn’t include the energy used in processing and transporting food. Studies that do estimate that it takes an average of seven to ten calories of input energy to produce one calorie of food.xi"
Eating fresh and locally cuts down on that foot print a lot because the food doesn’t travel as far and it doesn’t need to be prepared or preserved.
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I've found a few easy things that help me lose weight:
1. Drink lots of water - it keeps you full and keeps you from drinking cokes (soft drinks). If you don't like water, squeeze some lime into it. If you want something special, have mineral water. Just don't drink cokes (I'll be run out of Atlanta for saying that).
2. Use the stairs - Our lab is on the 6th floor. Except for an older lady and a pregnant lady, everyone uses the stairs. You can too.
3. Keep healthy snacks around the house - fruit, nuts (watch portions), prewashed baby carrots, cheese (again watch the portions). Don't keep chips or "easy" sweets. If you really want a dessert, it should be something you have to make intentionally.
4. Unplug your TV - you can still watch TV, but having to plug it in every time makes it a conscious decision.
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Thau, thanks for the links. I've become skeptical of the whole global warming movement, but I'll check those out. More people need to supply links and evidence to back up their opinions.
A guy I know lost weight by eating half of every meal. He didn't have to make judgment calls about what was or was not healthy, and he could order whatever he wanted. But when he was halfway through the meal he would grab his napkin and toss it on his plate. By doing this his "food" became "garbage" and he wasn't tempted to pick at it. It was a very simple, clear rule to follow and didn't involve keeping track of anything.
Feel free to disregard the above anecdote. After my scolding about not supplying links, "a guy I know" is the worst citation possible.
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I'll throw my anecdotal weight behind wakela and sayeth.
In regards to eating half a meal, I think this is especially true about restaurants - way too much on my plate.
It's little daily things that help. Park at the end of the lot, take the stairs, don't drink pop. Then work in sports you like - find a pick up game and have fun.
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Wakela: Kudos to that guy you know. That's a lot of will power to stop eating half way through, but the idea of tossing your napkin on it is a good one.
Slic: You know, there's one thing I've never understood. My girlfriend and I are members of a Rec. Center that has a climbing wall, Olympic swimming pool, and the usual fitness and child-care facilities, but every time we get there people are trolling around or waiting patiently for a parking spot as close to the doors as possible. Are they afraid of over-exerting themselves before they work out? Maybe we live in bat country and don't know it?
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Wakela: Kudos to that guy you know. That's a lot of will power to stop eating half way through, but the idea of tossing your napkin on it is a good one.
Slic: You know, there's one thing I've never understood. My girlfriend and I are members of a Rec. Center that has a climbing wall, Olympic swimming pool, and the usual fitness and child-care facilities, but every time we get there people are trolling around or waiting patiently for a parking spot as close to the doors as possible. Are they afraid of over-exerting themselves before they work out? Maybe we live in bat country and don't know it?
These days at the grocery store and at Target (two stores I visit weekly) I park out by the cart corrals. Nothing's more annoying than hooking your cart on those concrete carstops at the end of spots and then having someone say you're lazy for not bringing it back in.
The only valid reason for a healthy person to make a concerted effort to park close to a building is if inclement weather threatens.
(http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6/batcountryqo5.jpg)
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Are they afraid of over-exerting themselves before they work out? Maybe we live in bat country and don't know it?
That's a good one - same for me and soccer. People run around to warm up but will make sure to park 3 ft closer if they can.
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Somewhere I have a great picture of a health club with an escalator at the entrance, but, alas, I cannot find it. :(
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Somewhere I have a great picture of a health club with an escalator at the entrance, but, alas, I cannot find it. :(
Mine had an elevator for handicapped people (which is a good), but it was hysterical to watch the aerobics class end and everybody go and wait for the elevator.
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About 3 years ago I took up SCA Rapier Combat, when I was 50 yrs old.
Me on the right, in a red doublet:
(http://northernelectric.ca/medieval/rapier/nswarcamp_2005.jpg)
In addition to the weekly practises, we (wife, son, plus a few friends) sometimes get together in our backyard and have at it, followed by a barbecue.
(http://northernelectric.ca/medieval/practise/four_fighters.jpg)
(The guy with no mask is in instructor mode, going quarter-speed. He's probably about to tell my wife to bring her hand down to her front and start using it defensively.)
I never did any "normal" sports before this, and it finally got me off the couch and away from the computer for a few hours a week at least.