>> Mmm, interesting. I had no idea starch was so great. Well, at least I 
>> can still max out on pasta and potatoe wedges then! There's no way I'm 
>> going to willingly eat slimy fish though. :-P
> 
> There are lots of different types of fish, not all are slimy.

Perhaps. But the guidelines specifically call for slimey fish.

> Potato 
> wedges are often not very healthy if they have been fried in bad stuff, 
> check the packaging.

If we're making our own, usually vegetable oil. If they're bought... who 
knows?

>> Well, at work I have cheese sandwiches. Given that there are no food 
>> preparation facilities of any kind, I'm struggling to think what else 
>> I could possibly eat. Crisps? That hardly seems like an improvement.
> 
> I have no food preparation facilities here either, but there are much 
> healthier things to eat than cheese sandwiches (I guess you are having 
> white bread still, right?).

What can I say? White bread has a nicer texture. :-P

> First make sure you're eating brown bread 
> and not white, then you can have soup with it

Mmm, cold soup... :-S

[Sure, I could use packet soup instead. But I fail to believe that 
eating redydrated soup dust is more healthy than eating a cheese sandwich.]

> salad with chicken or tuna

Cold meat. Yay. :-/

> even just cutting out half the cheese and 
> replacing it with some salad will be a good start.

Hey, why not just go the whole hog and eat bread on its own?

> If you prepare food 
> in the evening then make a little more and take it to eat cold the next 
> day if suitable (do you have a microwave at work?).

Don't have a microwave. The only thing we have is boiling water for 
making tea.

>> I often have cheese on toast in the evening, but that's just because 
>> there's usually no "real" food in the building.
> 
> What, you're incapable of stopping in a supermarket on the way home from 
> work?

I won't bore you with the political details. Suffice it to say that if I 
was living by myself, it would be a total non-issue. I'd buy the food I 
want to eat, and I'd eat it. The problem is my mother... Let's not even 
go into that one.

>> When it's available, I tend to eat pizza (so... basically cheese then) 
>> or cook some chicken. Or some other kind of meat. Or maybe just 
>> noodles. (Not very filling though...)
> 
> Get some of those big packets of frozen chopped up mixed vegetables from 
> the supermarket, whilst not as good as the fresh stuff it's much faster 
> to prepare and is almost as good.  Then throw a bit of chicken in the 
> oven, boil some noodles/rice/pasta, heat up some tomoato-based sauce (or 
> make your own if you are getting in to it) and you've got a really 
> healthy, tasty and quick meal.



>> I spent 2 years of my life cycling over 2 hours per day. It made NO 
>> DIFFERENCE at all.
> 
> Perhaps because you weren't having a weight problem back then?

No, but you would have *thought* I'd get at least slightly fitter, no?

>> And let me tell you, each day I arrived at my destination *exhausted*. 
>> Still it made no difference.
> 
> But I bet at the end of the 2 years you could make that journey way 
> faster than at the beginning, if not you are not human!

Travel time at the start of my course: 1.2 hours.
Travel time at the end of my course: 1.2 hours.

Nope. No measurable difference.

(Let us not even go into the fact that 1.2 hours to travel 4.6 miles is 
an average speed of something like 5 MPH, which is pretty slow for a 
bicycle...)

>> I agree. I'm a sprinter, I never could do long distances.
> 
> It's just practise.  Do 1 minute longer each day, that's definitely 
> possible to sustain for a few weeks, also don't start out sprinting, 
> start out thinking you're going to sustain this for 30 minutes - it 
> makes a difference.

I think the key here is to find something that I can realistically stick 
at. I mean, currently I have barely enough time each evening to do the 
stuff I *want* to do! So cutting out a huge chunk of that time to do 
something mind-blowingly boring and probably futile isn't going to be easy.

>> Er, yeah, right. I know of people who have been doing that for decades 
>> and still can't lose weight.
> 
> While eating healthily the whole time? Don't believe you unless they 
> have some medical condition.

Well, my mum seems to eat nothing _but_ dead plants. And she's still huge...

(It's quite amusing to be told "you eat so unhealthily, you're going to 
get really ill" by a woman who eats nothing but supposedly "healthy" 
food and is never the less criplingly unhealthy...)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible a écrit :
> I think the key here is to find something that I can realistically stick 
> at. I mean, currently I have barely enough time each evening to do the 
> stuff I *want* to do! So cutting out a huge chunk of that time to do 
> something mind-blowingly boring and probably futile isn't going to be easy.

You'd have to find something that you find interesting even just on the 
intellectual level, I believe. That way you'll get exercise without 
being bored...

For me it's been martial arts. I think anything that has a complex 
technical component would fit the bill though... Not necessarily 
something very violent, take aikido for example. Something technical 
enough that it keeps your brain working a bit. Plus you'll learn some 
Japanese :-) Plus there are more girls in aikido than in other arts :-D

-- 
Vincent

Post a reply to this message

Invisible a écrit :
>> So what's your weight now then, given that you've been 80 for years 
>> and you've recently gained a load?
> 
> This is the operative question...

Hey maybe you've not gained weight but just lost density :-)

-- 
Vincent

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> My diet is 80% cheese, 15% chocolate, and 5% other stuff. My lifestyle 
> consists of spending hours sitting completely motionless in front of a 
> computer, and also sleeping.

This is great to gain weight and loose metabolism, you go slowly and 
silently down to a road of physical misfit. And from the above you eat a 
lot of fatty food, change that, go to a Nutritionist to eat balanced and 
healthy.

> Given the above, I ought to be an eighty tonne walrus like my other. But 
> I've always been a stick insect. But now, suddenly, I'm getting fat. If 
> I'd *changed* something I could understand. But I haven't. The only 
> difference I can think of is that I now do dance classes...

This should be helping since is physical exercise.

Post a reply to this message

Saul Luizaga <sau### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> > My diet is 80% cheese, 15% chocolate, and 5% other stuff. My lifestyle 
> > consists of spending hours sitting completely motionless in front of a 
> > computer, and also sleeping.

> This is great to gain weight and loose metabolism, you go slowly and 
> silently down to a road of physical misfit. And from the above you eat a 
> lot of fatty food, change that, go to a Nutritionist to eat balanced and 
> healthy.

  Actually modern nutritionist knowledge is slowly changing the classical
notion of fats&cholesterol = bad.

  It is becoming more and more clear that fats+carbohydrates, especially
when the latter is unhealthily abundant, is the killer combination. Fats
in themselves are not that bad, but when you combine them with tons and
tons of carbohydrates, that's when the body starts really storing the stuff.

  The reason is simple: The main energy source for the body is carbohydrates.
When you eat a balanced diet, you get approximately the right amount of
carbohydrates for your energy needs, and your body then neither consumes
nor increases its fat reserves. When your weight is normal, this is the
optimal situation.

  The problem with eating tons of carbohydrates is that now your body is
getting a lot more energy than it needs. This triggers the body to start
storing those fats. (Also some of the extra carbs are also *converted*
into fats and stored, besides the actual fats you are eating.)

  If you eat tons of fat but only some carbs, your body is actually not
getting extra energy (the body converts fats into energy very slowly, so
eating tons of it is almost as if you were not eating them at all, assuming
you are not eating tons of carbs as well). Thus those extra fats are not
stored, but ejected by your body.

  Of course this doesn't mean that eating tons of fat and no carbs is
healthy either. Fats can start building up on your artery walls and other
such nasty stuff, so it's not really a good idea to hog on tons of fat.
The other extreme: Not eating fats almost at all, is also not very healthy
because the body *needs* fats for many things.

  Also eating meat/fats and no carbs (the so-called Atkins diet) has proven
to be unhealthy in the long run because the body needs carbs as well. So
the most healthy diet is always balanced: Some carbs, some fats, a good
amount of proteins, and a healthy amount of other nutrients.

  The problem with the modern western eating culture is that most foods
contain tons and tons of processed carbohydrates which digest fast. Not
only does this overwhelm your energy needs (triggering the fat storing
processes of your body), but it gets you "sugar highs", getting you
basically addicted to these carb rushes. When you get addicted enough,
it will be *very* difficult to stop. This is the worst possible situation.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Also eating meat/fats and no carbs (the so-called Atkins diet) has proven
> to be unhealthy in the long run because the body needs carbs as well.

I saw an interesting documentary once about the diet of Eskimos. (As in, 
native americans inhabiting places where it's always snowy.) Their only 
source of food is fish, seals, and so on - basically fatty meat. One of the 
investigators lived on such a diet for a couple of years and found very 
little unhealthy effects.

This has been an interesting anecdote, not science. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>> If you prepare food
>> in the evening then make a little more and take it to eat cold the next
>> day if suitable (do you have a microwave at work?).
> 
> Don't have a microwave. The only thing we have is boiling water for
> making tea.

Wow, we do have a microwave and I'm sure we're a way smaller company than
you :)

>>> I spent 2 years of my life cycling over 2 hours per day. It made NO
>>> DIFFERENCE at all.
>> 
>> Perhaps because you weren't having a weight problem back then?
> 
> No, but you would have *thought* I'd get at least slightly fitter, no?

Maybe you avoided getting fatter? You say it made no difference, but this
time again, you don't know what would have happened if you *didn't* cycle.

Post a reply to this message

Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> I was just like you. For about 8 years, my weight remained at 60-62 kg.
> I could eat whatever I wanted and it wouldn't make a difference.

The doctor says I'm underweight. With the amount of exercise I do (ha),
you'd expect I'd be a fat ball of fat!

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   The problem with the modern western eating culture is that most foods
> contain tons and tons of processed carbohydrates which digest fast. Not
> only does this overwhelm your energy needs (triggering the fat storing
> processes of your body), but it gets you "sugar highs", getting you
> basically addicted to these carb rushes. When you get addicted enough,
> it will be *very* difficult to stop. This is the worst possible situation.

The "digest fast" part is important too. Food that can get digested fast
makes your digestive system use less energy. Less energy = less carbs used.

Post a reply to this message

> What can I say? White bread has a nicer texture. :-P

And I like eating chocolate better than vegetables, doesn't mean I eat it 
the whole time though.

> Cold meat. Yay. :-/

What, you have never enjoyed a good ploughmans?

> Don't have a microwave.

Can't you buy one, I got one for our office here, they're only like 40 quid 
and can be easily put somewhere (no plumbing or gas required, just a mains 
outlet).

> No, but you would have *thought* I'd get at least slightly fitter, no?

I expect you did.

> (Let us not even go into the fact that 1.2 hours to travel 4.6 miles is an 
> average speed of something like 5 MPH,

Hehe sounds like you weren't really pushing yourself then, dude people can 
WALK 4.6 miles in 1.2 hours!  In a bike, even if you're totally unfit you 
should be able to do 4.6 miles in under 30 minutes, after a year of training 
under 20 or even 15 minutes no problem.

> I think the key here is to find something that I can realistically stick 
> at. I mean, currently I have barely enough time each evening to do the 
> stuff I *want* to do! So cutting out a huge chunk of that time to do 
> something mind-blowingly boring and probably futile isn't going to be 
> easy.

Nobody said it was going to be easy.

> Well, my mum seems to eat nothing _but_ dead plants. And she's still 
> huge...

How much exercise does she do per week?

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