Your Diet and Nutrition

[Dr. Strangelove]

Man I like fat milk. Half in half is even better. I don't believe it's bad for me.

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Man I like fat milk. Half in half is even better. I don't believe it's bad for me.

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Haha I think I'd like you. I like half n half too.

In my family I'm the bad one as far as nutrition. My mom and sisters are all health conscious. They've had Thanksgivings where there was no salt, no butter, no white dinner rolls, sugarless pies, etc. Just awful.

I too would like to know what is wrong with beef. I like red meat a lot.

also...what is so wrong with white rice? My family keeps frowning at me when I say I like white rice. Is it that bad for me? What's the deal, I seem to be pretty healthy.

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A good start is to stick to the perimeter of the grocery store, that is stick to whole foods. This alone will be a big step in the right direction. Red meat is fine, in moderation, just like anything else. But seriously just starting with this step alone will make a big difference. PM me if you want any more detail.

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This is good advice, stick to natural, non-processed foods. Veggies, fruits, nuts, meat, eggs etc. And find a mix that works for you. Just stay away from white bread, fast food, soda, candy etc. Extremes usually never work with diets (ie. atkins, grapefruit diet) because they are hard to stick to. If you lift weights, get your diet up to 1 g of protien per 1lb of lean mass, and do not mix carbs with fat in any meal (ie no buttered bread). Try to keep your meal combos Fat and protien or carbs and protein. Everything in moderation though, including moderation. You can find a bunch more at t-nation.com

[Dr. Strangelove]

why would you not mix fat and carbs? If it's to keep from gaining weight I could not care less as I'm 6' and 145 pounds. Also, what is wrong with white bread?

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why would you not mix fat and carbs? If it's to keep from gaining weight I could not care less as I'm 6' and 145 pounds. Also, what is wrong with white bread?

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Most people dont need to gain weight...so yes, if you are looking to gain then mixing isnt a problem. The easy answer is mixing fat and carbs makes you burn the carbs and store the fat. White bread gives you such an insulin surge because of the refined white flour that your blood glucose levels spike, which is rarely a good thing. Google Diabetes and refined white flour.



Edit: because diet is all about calorie in and calorie out, the amount of cals are the first step in what you need to determine fi you want to gain/lose weight. Not mixing fat/carb, the 40-30-30 diet, atkins, are all a refinement of where you get your calories from. Long term nutrition is key, and Ive found out of everything that not mixing F+C and eating P+C/F+P meals makes me less lethargic, etc.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Did some reading about white bread and will eat it in moderation.

[jstnrgrs]

I've been trying to loose weight for a while, but I've had difficulty. The problem is that I haven't managed to stick to anything (I'm sure that any diet would work if I would actually stick to it).

For about a month, I've been on Nutrisystem. I prefer this to everything else I've tried because, the food is provided for you. I don't have to think about what I should eat, of how much to eat. So far, I've lost 21lbs (though I don't expect that rate to continue). I do thnk I will be able to stick with this.

The food provides balance nutrition, and tastes fine.

I haven't been exercising, but I hope to start that when I get down to 300lbs. I wish there were a cheap way to hire a personal trainer.

[Blarg]

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I've been trying to loose weight for a while, but I've had difficulty. The problem is that I haven't managed to stick to anything (I'm sure that any diet would work if I would actually stick to it).

For about a month, I've been on Nutrisystem. I prefer this to everything else I've tried because, the food is provided for you. I don't have to think about what I should eat, of how much to eat. So far, I've lost 21lbs (though I don't expect that rate to continue). I do thnk I will be able to stick with this.

The food provides balance nutrition, and tastes fine.

I haven't been exercising, but I hope to start that when I get down to 300lbs. I wish there were a cheap way to hire a personal trainer.

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Do some exercise, anything. You are investing in bad health for as long as you do no exercise. You do not need to be in great shape or even good shape to do exercise, and you do not have to do a punishing amount of exercise to still get a very good benefit. And of course, if you're wanting to wait to lose weight before exercising, well -- exercising will get you to that point faster, and when you get there, you will arrive in better health and more ready to exercise without feeling as beaten up by it.

Some simple things like working on stretching your arms and legs, or taking walks to a store or in a park, can have a good effect and start you progressing down a long-term path of fitness. Leaning against a wall and doing a few push-up like presses here and there is another thing that can get a lot of your muscles involved, and if you do just a few, you won't even have time to get tired.

This latter exercising protocol is known as "greasing the groove." What you do is just do an exercise or two almost every day of the week, like 5 out of 6 or 7 days. Make them relatively tough, but not necessarily maximal efforts at all. Doing even one to three of them is absolutely fine.

Concentrate on what you're doing and try to do it right. You're training your neuromuscular system in its entirety by doing this in such short bursts, to recruit more muscle fibers and use your muscles better. Doing it in short bursts means your concentration level can always be high, and you can ingrain good habits rather than practicing bad ones, as you do when an exercise routine is wearing you out. Your reward will be increased muscle recruitment and more efficient muscle because of the neurological reinforcement.

You will also accumulate substantial volume per week, even doing one to three reps, if you do it several times a day, just at whatever odd moments occur to you. This will increase your strength in the expected way, not just through better neuromuscular coordination, but by way of the usual breakdown and rebuilding of muscle.

These two things working together will make you stronger a lot quicker than you might expect, leading to surprising bursts of improvement. You can start working on that strength right now, a very little at a time, and still get very good results.

The key is to keep the load manageable so you can repeat it. Never do more than five reps. If you have energy left over, either do a harder variation of the exercise or add more weight, or occasionally add another set of up to five. But ideally, just save your strength for a little later, even if it's only an hour away. Doing short bursts will keep your concentration high, and keep you from getting sore and having to cut back your volume. And of course, it will keep you from the injury that is more likely at your high body weight. Short bursts means you will be able to keep going day after day, rarely needing anything more than the occasional day off, if that.

It doesn't sound like much, but if you do three reps of an exercise four times a day, and take off two days out of five, you're doing 70 a week, with plenty of rest. If you are doing something fairly difficult, though not a real huge strain, that kind of volume adds up to a lot of stimulus to your system. (Traditionally the GTG protocol calls for 80% of max weight usage, or just think of it as 4/5 of what you think your effort can max out at. You can do it at closer to max effort too, but then you will be doing fewer reps, or should.) The beauty part is you barely feel the work, since one to five reps of non-max effort is just not that hard even for people out of shape. And if you gradually come to increase either the reps or the frequency just a little, you'll wind doing a LOT more work, and getting even more benefit.

I've used this protocol with great success myself, going up hundreds of pounds in the deadlift in half a year, and making very nice progress on some other exercises too. Do this on one to three different exercises and you will see a major increase in your physical abilities within a surprisingly short amount of time. You absolutely don't have to bust a gut to start it, or to continue it either. I'd highly suggest trying it out. Pick some exercise and stick with it for at least two months to give it a fair chance to work. Overhead presses with a dumbbell, bent over rows with a dumbbell, bodyweight deep knee bends, push-ups against a wall, table, or sink if you can't do them yet on the floor, etc. You don't have to wait. Unless you're in a wheelchair, there's absolutely SOMETHING fairly tough but not exhausting you can do for one to three repetitions(up to five when you get in better shape), and then repeat here and there during the day and evening. So don't be intimidated by the thought of exercise; you don't have to be in good shape to get in better shape. NOTABLY better.

[Victor]

low reps and high weight for lifting weights generally will add mass.

[Blarg]

Very little if any, and not alone. They'll build strength more than anything. To add anything more than the small amount of mass anyone gets when starting an exercise program doing virtually type of exercise program at all, you need to eat a lot, get good sleep, etc. One or two sets of five reps or under won't add much mass at all, especially without drastically increasing your eating, on most people.