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We also live in an environment in which poor choices are the easiest.
An interesting long post up there Molgrips. A couple of I hope helpful points.
You're right about carbs after exercise helping recovery. You replace the glycogen very well if you eat the carbs immediately after exercise but leave it too long and you don't.So eat enough to replace the glycogen then resume normal eating as if you hadn't exercised.
Your mates stats are similar to mine when I was racing but I had no 5 hr limit. Train for it and your body gets very good at burning fat and absorbing food to sustain quite high levls of activity for ironman, 24 rdes, multiday aventure races.
We had arguments about fruit on the i-Dave threads, as you've clearly given up that that diet try apples. They're nice to eat, contain vitamins and fibre and are very satisfying. We always have bags of them lying aroud as horse and Edukator treats. If I feel hungry I grab an apple and munch it core and all. Apples are 50-100 calories each - I'll snack 2 or 3 a day, have one in my jersey pocket - compare that with the nutritional value and calories of a portion of ice cream.
Because they eat too much or don't exercise enough
Right , but why do they do that? When they're trying not to?
Agree on the avoiding UPFs and pure sugars diet - a cancer diagnosis earlier this year kinda forced the issue for me. Theoretically should have been looking at keto, but because we didn’t’ t want to remove whole grains as it has a detrimental effect on your micro-biome, plus the horrible side-effects of keto/ overuse of artificial sweeteners.
Nett effect is that I’ve gone from 70kg to 63kg in 4 months and my fitness has improved massively, plus my blood PSA is going down, probably assisted by some supplements.
Admittedly has been a challenge given the rubbish food selection we get from our local CoOp - periodic trips to the mainland to stock-up. Best thing is avoiding the snacking - lots of slow-burn protein really fills you up.
This takes me back to the iDave fad diet rip off saga.
I think the key similarity is simply having to make stuff yourself - that wasn't explicit in the iDiet plan but the allowable food stuff basically ruled out pre-prepared food. People argued endlessly about the science of that diet but in essence it had criteria that simply aren't met by ready meals, take aways, corner shops and all but one or two isles of the supermarket. Ruling out fruit/fruit juices etc wasn't about any good or bad nutritional aspects of those food stuffs they simply ruled out calories that aren't part of a planned meal. I think viewed through the lens of that diet it was really interesting to see how much supermarket space is dedicated to stuff that is calorific but wouldn't actually be put on a plate as part of a meal.
What that thread revealed is a lot of people didn't know how to cook. They thought they did, but they were realising that their 'cooking' was really combining and warming a selection of ready made elements.
Best thing is avoiding the snacking - lots of slow-burn protein really fills you up.
I think theres something more important to address which is we treat the sensation of 'not being full' as a problem that needs to be solved. The whole commercial diet industry seems to revolve around marketing the notion of 'feeling a bit hungry' at some point between one meal and another being a crisis that needs to be averted, rather than just 'normal'
I have found that high protein meals with a bit of simple carbs are far more effective for me at keeping me full than protein and veg alone, which doesn't really touch the sides any more.
Re the iDiet, when it worked for me I was working at an office with a canteen and every day they had a really nice cooked veg side or two along with meat. The veg was seasoned, or with sauce - i.e. an actual dish not just veg. That's quite a lot of work to cook for yourself, but it really made a difference.
Anyway, so far I have eaten zero shop-bought snacks or biscuits. I've had a pretty small amount of treats but they were home-made. So yeah seems to be having the desired effect so far. I haven't done a lot of exercise so I'm not losing weight as such but this is more about training habits currently than calories.
im happy to offer toxic judgement and diet advice - however i will focus in on the flapjack
many years ago, i got a great flapjack recipe, from here, its brilliant, oats fruit seeds nuts and chocolate topped.
I stopped making it for two reasons, the first was that it was delicious and incredibly moreish, really incredibly... the second was watching the whole block of butter, getting drowned in a mound of sugar before being flooded with golden syrup
i calculated the calories and in rough handfuls, one tray of flapjack, which i would aim to cut into 24 pieces, held nearly enough calories for a week. c.14-15000. I could inhale 5 or 6 pieces without skipping meals.
home cooking can be really good for understanding the calories in side of the most quoted and hated equation on this subject.
I'm not losing weight as such
If you're not putting any on that's still a small victory.
Cut sugar/carbs as these cause the release of insulin which is a fat storing hormone. If you consume carbs little and often then your body will be continually adding to your fat stores. If you eat low carb only, once or twice a day you will not gain weight and will eventually reach equilibrium.
Exercise is great for your mental health and muscular skeletal robustness however it has little effect on weight loss.
Insulin is a glycogen (digested carbs) storing hormone, it literally unlocks the muscles and shepherds the glycogen in. However muscles can only store so much glycogen and when they're full any excess glycogen will be converted to fat and stored around the body in the fat cells.
That's the simplistic version, the body is actually quite complicated, but insulin is not a fat storing hormone.
Indeed Bazz that's why insulin is important during and after exercise, and why you do want simple carbs during and just after exercise, and not the rest of the time. I tried to explain this to TJ but he wouldn't have it.
I could inhale 5 or 6 pieces without skipping meals.
See the funny thing is - I could, absolutely - they were amazing - but I was able to resist it in a way that I am not able to resist the UPF treats. It's maybe the fact that I made it and there was a limited quantity, and I wanted to keep it so I would not run out. And that my family could have some. The thing about supermarket biscuits is that they are cheap and easy and there can always be more. But perhaps also being whole foods the homemade stuff somehow affect my brain differently to the supermarket stuff. That is what I am experimenting with anyway.
I have had about 3 bought cakes in two weeks, and no biscuits. So it might be working on that front.
If you're not putting any on that's still a small victory.
Thanks Ed. Although my weight is naturally very stable - I don't go up unless I really pig out for ages, but likewise I don't go down easily at all.
Also homemade wholemeal bread (ok, machine homemade) is incredibly filling. I had some for breakfast the other day and didn't even want lunch at all.
The graph at the beginning is pretty remarkable.