Stopped giving a s*** about nutrition because it stresses me out

it's scary wrote:

YMMV wrote:

If you are eating the right diet, it is not stressful any more than proper training is "stressful". A bit of discipline is needed, just like you wouldn't do just random workouts with no guiding principles to fulfill your running potential. If you want to realize your health potential, your diet should be free of cravings and impulses, should provide consistent energy all day, it should leave you free from pain, injuries and inflammation, and make it effortless to maintain lean muscle mass, i.e less than 10% bodyfat for men. When the shirts come off in the summer it is easy to tell who has theses things figured out.

Just like with training methods, study what others are doing, try it yourself, and see if it works or not. And as with training, rather than being stuck in dogma ("x" miles/week, hit every split, etc), allow your diet to evolve based on your body's feedback. You may be very pleasantly surprised where you end up in a few years.

One thing is for sure, if you get all of your information from mainstream media, you will get the results that every one else is getting. Which, in my country anyway, is of a very low standard and personally unacceptable. Just take a look at pictures of random people in the U.S. from the 40s, 50s and '60s, compared to teh general public today. Something very wrong happened with food and diet in the '70s and the result is the Tsunami of obesity and health dysfunction we see today.

The mind and body as a system is very complex and dynamic, especially in the context of aging and performance. Nature doesn't care about your beliefs or good intentions. It's either evolve or die out. On the other hand, when it all comes together, the simplicity, freedom, power and ease is almost overwhelming to behold. You have become that rarest breed: the happy, healthy human animal.

You are insane. Have a Snickers.

YMMV wrote:

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-myth-burn-calories

Walking and exercise are nice, I do more than my share, but almost worthless for weight control. One phenomenon I never used to see is obese people that are aerobically fit: these folks (many were clearly athletes when younger) cruise around the track at an impressive clip, while sporting ridiculous waistlines and rolls of fat. They obviously are putting in the work to be in some kind of shape, but destroying it when it comes time to put food in their mouths. Even some 17-minute 5K types have 35+ inch waistlines nowadays. Those weren't around even 20 years ago (well there was one famous Kenyan...)

In the '70s I was running 60-90 mpw. Nowadays I run about 60% of that, and have less body fat. This despite not having to exert any greater willpower, other than making better choices at the grocery and not "grabbing a bite" of fast food throughout the day.

What's changed is what and how I eat.

What's changed overall is stuff like food technology: fast food chains substituting lard and saturated fat with toxic, unsatiating PUFA seed oils in the '70s and sugar water conglomerates now are packaging soft drinks in 2L bottles instead of 12 oz cans. Coca cola was 6oz when my dad grew up, and vending machines weren't on every corner. I remember when 7-11 was open from...7AM to 11PM! The only vending machine in our school was an apple machine. People didn't eat six times a day when I grew up. Every mom knew how to say: "No, you have to wait until dinner".

Things like these, all constellated around "low fat/high carb (but plant oils are OK!)", have transformed food into a powerful, hyperpalatable, addictive drug with Fat Bomb ratio of 45% refined carbs + 45% seed oils + 10% crappy protein. This is the evolution in the marketplace, playing in human weainess for this amalgamation of chemicals. It used to be about eating a decent meal, with at least some real food like bacon and eggs a few times a day, now it's just another dopamine hit every few hours, mirroring social media. And the rest of the world, including China, where people were dying of famine by the millions when I was child is facing skyrocketing obesity and diabetes. I find it unbelievable that the entire world suddenly developed a weaker "willpower" and increased laziness, except in the face of systemic changes and increasingly processed and fake food systems. Even the vegans agree with me on that. People aren't lazier, if anything they put in longer hours at the office and on the commute, but they are operating on unconscious triggers exploited by food system design.

tireeed wrote:

YMMV wrote:

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-myth-burn-calories

Walking and exercise are nice, I do more than my share, but almost worthless for weight control. One phenomenon I never used to see is obese people that are aerobically fit: these folks (many were clearly athletes when younger) cruise around the track at an impressive clip, while sporting ridiculous waistlines and rolls of fat. They obviously are putting in the work to be in some kind of shape, but destroying it when it comes time to put food in their mouths. Even some 17-minute 5K types have 35+ inch waistlines nowadays. Those weren't around even 20 years ago (well there was one famous Kenyan...)

In the '70s I was running 60-90 mpw. Nowadays I run about 60% of that, and have less body fat. This despite not having to exert any greater willpower, other than making better choices at the grocery and not "grabbing a bite" of fast food throughout the day.

What's changed is what and how I eat.

What's changed overall is stuff like food technology: fast food chains substituting lard and saturated fat with toxic, unsatiating PUFA seed oils in the '70s and sugar water conglomerates now are packaging soft drinks in 2L bottles instead of 12 oz cans. Coca cola was 6oz when my dad grew up, and vending machines weren't on every corner. I remember when 7-11 was open from...7AM to 11PM! The only vending machine in our school was an apple machine. People didn't eat six times a day when I grew up. Every mom knew how to say: "No, you have to wait until dinner".

Things like these, all constellated around "low fat/high carb (but plant oils are OK!)", have transformed food into a powerful, hyperpalatable, addictive drug with Fat Bomb ratio of 45% refined carbs + 45% seed oils + 10% crappy protein. This is the evolution in the marketplace, playing in human weainess for this amalgamation of chemicals. It used to be about eating a decent meal, with at least some real food like bacon and eggs a few times a day, now it's just another dopamine hit every few hours, mirroring social media. And the rest of the world, including China, where people were dying of famine by the millions when I was child is facing skyrocketing obesity and diabetes. I find it unbelievable that the entire world suddenly developed a weaker "willpower" and increased laziness, except in the face of systemic changes and increasingly processed and fake food systems. Even the vegans agree with me on that. People aren't lazier, if anything they put in longer hours at the office and on the commute, but they are operating on unconscious triggers exploited by food system design.

Here we go again... Please, give people some rest from your crap.

why are so many people are blatantly against health? wrote:

YMMV makes sense. The reason people are finding it harder to lose weight isn’t really because of laziness, it’s more to do with the fact we have damaged metabolisms and our diets are not really edible anymore. Instead of eating good, real food we are eating things tha our bodies cannot metabolise. They won’t kill us straight away - they might not even kill us at all but the real price we pay for eating this way is reduced quality of life and DNA damage. These food may take a long, long time to finally kill us but over a few years they can make us very, very unhealthy and very, very unhappy. I don’t understand people who say “oh well, I’m gonna eat this entire cake because we are here for a good time, nkt a long time” ... I just think to myself, well, you would be having a “good time” in life if you had a healthy happy body and brain and didn’t need to rely on sweet tastes for a temporary enjoyment... so you’re not really having a good time are you?

Pansy wrote:

This. Stop being a pansy. Core, lifting, stretching, eating properly, sleeping enough, running form, trying to apply science to your training etc. Is all BS. Want to get good at running? It is simple. Just run a lot. Often 2-3 times a day. Race a lot. Do some kind of workout every so often(every 2-3 days, or so.). Bill Rodgers ran a 2:09 marathon without all the BS modern American elite men do. Toshihiko Seko and David Bedford, 200+ miles a week and lots of beer. Yet we hear pansies on here worrying about if one bear will kill them. Peter Snell drank Coke cola. Yet we have aneroxic people go crazy over that new York Times headline the other day here. You hear pansies on here worrying about the most minute BS. Just Stop. Just focus on running a lot and everything else doesn't really matter, if you are putting in your mileage.

Let's Get To The Bottom Of This wrote:

YMMV wrote:

One thing is for sure, if you get all of your information from mainstream media, you will get the results that every one else is getting. Which, in my country anyway, is of a very low standard and personally unacceptable. Just take a look at pictures of random people in the U.S. from the 40s, 50s and '60s, compared to teh general public today. Something very wrong happened with food and diet in the '70s and the result is the Tsunami of obesity and health dysfunction we see today.

What were the folks eating and doing right in 40s, 50s and 60s? What changed so drastically in the 70s?

As a youngster growing up in the 60s, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as all four lived in the same town with my family. For breakfast they ate a lot of bacon & eggs, toast, pancakes, pastries & drank O.J. & tons of coffee. Lunches were sandwiches with lunchmeat, potatos, pasta & more coffee. Dinners were steaks, hamburgers, pasta, potatoes, baked bread & more coffee. Deserts were ice cream or pastries.

One of my grandfathers loved his stogies & a good glass of wine before bed. None of them were overweight, none of them needed prescription meds, none of them ran or workout at a gym; though all of them walked virtually everyday.

All four lived into their very late 80s/early 90s dying of natural causes at home with the exception of one grandmother who was nursing home bound for the last five yrs of her life due to glaucoma & dementia. Their diets were composed of a wide variety of foods but had fair amount of "carbs" - certainly something you wouldn't endorse.

Fat is first wrote:

Let's Get To The Bottom Of This wrote:

What were the folks eating and doing right in 40s, 50s and 60s? What changed so drastically in the 70s?

As a youngster growing up in the 60s, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as all four lived in the same town with my family. For breakfast they ate a lot of bacon & eggs, toast, pancakes, pastries & drank O.J. & tons of coffee. Lunches were sandwiches with lunchmeat, potatos, pasta & more coffee. Dinners were steaks, hamburgers, pasta, potatoes, baked bread & more coffee. Deserts were ice cream or pastries.

One of my grandfathers loved his stogies & a good glass of wine before bed. None of them were overweight, none of them needed prescription meds, none of them ran or workout at a gym; though all of them walked virtually everyday.

All four lived into their very late 80s/early 90s dying of natural causes at home with the exception of one grandmother who was nursing home bound for the last five yrs of her life due to glaucoma & dementia. Their diets were composed of a wide variety of foods but had fair amount of "carbs" - certainly something you wouldn't endorse.

All the meals you mention start off with protein and fat. That's the key. Now they are just carbs and fake fat.