The Iron Will and Positivity Thread

[Mouthwash]

I feel like people are ignoring my very reasonable suggestion to stop tricking your body with artificial extreme tastes.

 

[Farm Boy]

I feel like people are ignoring my very reasonable suggestion to stop tricking your body with artificial extreme tastes.

Well, you haven't defined artificial particularly well. There were some studies a while back that El Mac was mentioning that diet soda screwed you up by making you store fat your body expected by the flavoring but didn't get from the content. It's possible. Spices are really good, but they aren't necessarily a problem. People do overeat sugar and salt. And switching to a low salt diet isn't a bad idea, it just really sucks until you get used to it. Working in canned vegetables if you aren't eating them is going to be a significantly bigger win with working in decent fiber than any loss from the salt.

 

[Lexicus]

I feel like we've been over this before.

Probably. The implication that only things present in the ancestral environment can be nutritious is ridiculous.

 

[Synobun]

I feel like people are ignoring my very reasonable suggestion to stop tricking your body with artificial extreme tastes.

We take it for granted today, but a single Dorito has more extreme nacho flavor than a peasant in the 1400s would get in his whole lifetime.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

This is a disclaimer for Everyone ITT: If we are talking about "DIET" from a nutritional science POV we are usually talking about simple calory restriction. Diet is not simply about what you eat, but mostly about how many calories and where you get them from. Currently there is more or less a consensus that a simple calory restrictive diet combined with exercise is the best way to lose weight. Faux-diets like Paleo, Raw Veganism, Low Carb and all that other Women's Magazine bs need not apply. You can eat just about anything as long as you do not overeat calories. Remember the subway guy. He isn't healthy, but his diet was very effective. Please keep this in mind.

Your friends are wrong, fasting is better than dieting.

Fasting really isn't dangerous unless you're doing it wrong. Dieting is dangerous.

no offense but unless you post some really valuable research, and that means one or better multiple metastudies on the topic, I'll just ignore this.

saying "no you!!" doesn't do anything for me. I'm invested in this topic scientifically, I've read dozens of studies, and most of them agree that simple caloric reduction is still the best way to lose weight.

"fasting is better than dieting" is in itself a stupid statement. better for what? "dieting is dangerous" what the ****? is restricting caloric intake by 10% dangerous? because that's literally what a diet is.

it seems your view of diets is spooked by things like Atkins or Paleo or other unscientific bullcrap, but that's not what nutritional scientists consider a proper diet.

since this thread has been pretty accurate and scientific so far (and I've even been corrected on some of my stances a few pages back, with evidence!) I would prefer to keep it that way.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

On the subject of positivity (I'm gonna treat this as a random raves thread for mental & physical health related matters), I've been meditating 4-days in a row now (10 min 1x per day) after a nearly 6-month lapse. I've been very consistent at the gym, really enjoying myself even when I'm not enjoying myself (if that makes sense) and consistent with yoga. On the negative end of the spectrum I'm out of work and rather discouraged about it (in Florida summer is the slow season but I could still be trying much harder to find work) and pretty lonely. I have a faraway ladyfriend who's texting my everyday but she's not here with me now which is what I need, also I'm not sure how I really feel about it since we spent all of two days together and frankly I'm not sure I'm cut out for thoroughly exclusive relationships. Some other negative things happening regarding my ex ignoring court orders that I won't get into. Finally, besides fitness I feel a bit lost as to what I should be doing with my life & thus I'm wasting boatloads of time online thruout the day.

But overall, the lesson is that life & self-assessment doesn't have to be all or nothing. A person could be totally f-ing up in certain areas & very consistent, making steady progress in others and it's good to give yourself props for what you're doing right while not shying away from what you're doing wrong.

this is exactly what this thread is for and I'm really happy you're using it as intended It's a thread for personal growth, discipline, goal-setting and positivity in general.

Every time I read this thread or any findings on nutrition and diet, I end up a lot more confused than I was before. I must conclude that everything is simultaneously the next superfood and utterly unhealthy to eat, and that I will always have some nutrient deficiency.

Seriously, it seems like all info on nutrition contradicts all other info, and I have no way of sorting the wheat from the chaff. Whole grains are both healthy and are dangerous carbohydrates. Fish is nutritious and full of toxins. Vegetables are both crucial and unnecessary. And that's without even touching the issues of ethics and environmentalism. I suppose my only option is to accept a short and unhealthy life. Really, all I want is to eat the same meals almost every day that are nutritious, low calorie, and extremely easy to prepare.

Cue a dozen people chiming in to say that their diet is the one nutritious one, unlike all the others.

"Diet advisor", "Nutritionist" and so forth as labels are not always protected by law in every country. You should only believe what you'll find in a study in a reputable journal. Better yet, just read metastudies, they are 1000x as valuable for a layman, since scientists already did the work of sorting through the bs for you!

Cut the flavor and combinations out (e.g. only eat totally plain meat, or a single type of veggie, by itself - I'd recommend eating as much as you want of one, then moving on to the other). After that, your cravings should be pretty well aligned with your needs.

Or don't, because certain people with an emotional investment in food think this is a dumb 'paleo' idea.

It is a very dumb paleo idea and you have no clue about nutritional science, as you have proven many times before. I don't want you giving advice that is potentially harmful. You can do your whacko diets. I think it's cool, I think it's good you're trying something else. I think we need more people who are willing to experiment. But never, ever, recommend your diet to someone else. Even if it works perfectly for you, just don't. It might be harmful to someone else.

There is no human being (aside from perhaps ones with bizarre conditions) who isn't motivated by taste or satiety. Also, I was not aware that we had nutrient bricks and shakes in the ancestral environment.

Except literally everyone who uses supplements like Soylent, which is tens of thousands of people. Again, you're utterly clueless.

 

[Mouthwash]

Probably. The implication that only things present in the ancestral environment can be nutritious is ridiculous.

That's, uh, not even close to what I was saying but props for effort.

This is a disclaimer for Everyone ITT: If we are talking about "DIET" from a nutritional science POV we are usually talking about simple calory restriction. Diet is not simply about what you eat, but mostly about how many calories and where you get them from. Currently there is more or less a consensus that a simple calory restrictive diet combined with exercise is the best way to lose weight. Faux-diets like Paleo, Raw Veganism, Low Carb and all that other Women's Magazine bs need not apply. Please keep this in mind.

The problem is that people cannot eat less, even when they want to. How do you tackle that without also tackling hunger/satiety?

 

[Synobun]

"Diet advisor", "Nutritionist" and so forth as labels are not always protected by law in every country. You should only believe what you'll find in a study in a reputable journal. Better yet, just read metastudies, they are 1000x as valuable for a layman, since scientists already did the work of sorting through the bs for you!

Even when protected, I've honestly found that most are just cashing in a paycheque and calling it a day. I'm someone that certain diets make me bleed and become perpetually ill, so good nutritional advice has been essential. I also have an eating disorder. I've found the best results with personal trial and error and, as you suggest, journals. Professional guidance has been... bad. My last nutritionist unironically printed out the old "eat a lot of grains and drink a lot of milk" pie chart from the late 90s/early 00s.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I feel like people are ignoring my very reasonable suggestion to stop tricking your body with artificial extreme tastes.

Your artificial/natural dichotomy is dumb and useless. MSG naturally occurs in thousands of foods. So which category does it belong to? Are all tomatoes unnatural flavor bombs? lmao

That's, uh, not even close to what I was saying but props for effort.



The problem is that people cannot eat less, even when they want to. How do you tackle that without also tackling hunger/satiety?

Overeating in itself is not the problem. You could eat 100 cucumbers a day and not gain weight. The problem is that people eat too many things that are too high in calories, it's very simple.

Your flavor analogy also fails utterly:

Indian food is often very, very low in calories. But it is packed with flavor and spices. The same goes for Thai, or Vietnamese, or really almost any Asian cuisine besides Korean and Chinese. And most African cuisines besides NA. You can eat flavorful stuff all day and still lose weight.

You do make one good point, which is that hunger/satiety plays a huge role in succesful dieting. Which is why I always advise to:
1) Keep snacks around: Pickled cucumbers, Carrot sticks, whatever
2) Eat lots of fiber
3) Eat complex carbs

All of these tackle the hunger problem.

Just speak for yourself instead of generalizing your problem to the entire world. You, personally, cannot stop eating tasty stuff that makes you fat. That's okay, I'm in the same boat. We don't have to be ashamed, just acknowledge our problems are not universal. Different people are overweight for different reasons. I personally don't really eat any sweets or deserts, my calories mainly come from fat and carbs. Other people are fat because they overeat on cake, cereals or chocolate.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Even when protected, I've honestly found that most are just cashing in a paycheque and calling it a day. I'm someone that certain diets make me bleed and become perpetually ill, so good nutritional advice has been essential. I also have an eating disorder. I've found the best results with personal trial and error and, as you suggest, journals. Professional guidance has been... bad. My last nutritionist unironically printed out the old "eat a lot of grains and drink a lot of milk" pie chart from the late 90s/early 00s.

Very good point and very accurate. Many nutritional scientists look down on nutritionists, because "they're not good enough to do research". Really, the reason for the clinch between the two is that nutritional scientists are often reduced to "diet advisors" in public discourse when in reality they're doing valuable work. Nutritional scientists have this image of not being a real scientist, not wearing lab coats, but instead doing crossfit and advising people about what leafy greens to eat. It's a shame, but that's how it is.

In general I want to thank you for being such a voice of reason in this thread, your advice is always solid, you're never generalizing or trying to force your beliefs onto others, and in general in line with what I've read/discussed about nutritional science.

 

[Mouthwash]

Your artificial/natural dichotomy is dumb and useless. MSG naturally occurs in thousands of foods. So which category does it belong to? Are all tomatoes unnatural flavor bombs? lmao

MSG should be eaten in those foods, then (assuming those foods haven't been selectively bred to contain high amounts of it), not used as a flavor enhancer. That's literally the whole argument.

Overeating in itself is not the problem. You could eat 100 cucumbers a day and not gain weight. The problem is that people eat too many things that are too high in calories, it's very simple.

Pointless semantic quibbling; just define 'what you eat' to be calories instead of arbitrary units of food.

Your flavor analogy also fails utterly:

Indian food is often very, very low in calories. But it is packed with flavor and spices. The same goes for Thai, or Vietnamese, or really almost any Asian cuisine besides Korean and Chinese. And most African cuisines besides NA. You can eat flavorful stuff all day and still lose weight.

I don't believe that, unless their ancestors ate those exact foods in pre-Columbian times. If that's the case, then it's still not very useful to others.

Just speak for yourself instead of generalizing your problem to the entire world. You, personally, cannot stop eating tasty stuff that makes you fat. That's okay, I'm in the same boat. We don't have to be ashamed, just acknowledge our problems are not universal. Different people are overweight for different reasons. I personally don't really eat any sweets or deserts, my calories mainly come from fat and carbs. Other people are fat because they overeat on cake, cereals or chocolate.

I can't grasp why sweets and deserts are allowed to exist in the first place, much less fed to children. If 30% of the population is immune to the addictive effects of crystal meth, that's not valid grounds to legalize it.

 

[Lexicus]

MSG should be eaten in those foods, then (assuming those foods haven't been selectively bred to contain high amounts of it), not used as a flavor enhancer. That's literally the whole argument.

Can you name any foods you eat that haven't undergone selective breeding at some point?

 

[Mouthwash]

Can you name any foods you eat that haven't undergone selective breeding at some point?

There aren't many, but it's easy to identify the worst offenders.

 

[Lexicus]

There aren't many, but it's easy to identify the worst offenders.

Is it? Let's hear you do it then.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, if you go back one generation we had a significant amount of people raised directly on farms with enough experience of privation to always clean their plate, to always pick seasonal berries and preserve them, and find a homemade cake on their birthday a major treat. Butter was a chore. They also led much more active lifestyles. They played with guns, grew up around open belt driven equipment, mixed rocket fuel as adolescent projects. Kids/adults these days are not overstimulated. They're distracted by addictive toys, but they're inert. And addicts don't taste sweet better, they don't get high higher, they don't orgasm harder. They feel these things less, and attempt to devour more of what they can get. Go a little farther back again and you had ration stamps. Needing to police dessert for national fatness wasn't a thing. You'll notice that as we've gotten fatter, we've scaled back the crap in some foods, often those marketed to children. Count Chocula in the 1980s was not the same thing Count Chocula is in 2019. It has less sugar in it now. Still not a great choice, but we're moving that way. Don't worry, people in all their glorious knowing best for you will be getting around more and more to what you can put in your mouth.

 

[Phrossack]

I'm the same with rice. I can't seem to make a decent pot to save my life even if I follow recipes to the letter.

Getting a rice cooker helped a lot. And you can get one that's multi-functional too so you can steam veggies at the same time.

Really, if you're willing to learn how to use it, an Instant Pot might be a good fit for you. It takes a lot of stress out of cooking and combines a bunch of single-function appliances together.

Nutrient-wise, it's tricky. There are ways to pinpoint what you need more of and what you need less of, but they require a lot of tracking and effort. It can easily take a year or longer to figure it out. It's a lot of trial and error, and for most people the effort required is simply not worth it since your diet and health will never be so at odds for it to truly matter (unless you eat terribly, of course).

Pasta and fish is good. How do you handle vegetables? Can you add a decent amount without running into any big issues? That could be a useful first step in seeing if your body feels any different after at least 2-3 weeks of incorporating something new. It's possible that you won't feel any different, though, or that you'll feel worse.

Going in for blood work can tell you right away if you have any serious deficiencies. But I don't know how much that would cost you in the land of the free.

That's the thing - I'm unwilling to put the effort into anything in life anymore, since I've mostly given up on it, so I'm not sure I'd take the trouble to learn to use a rice cooker unless it's as easy as boiling rice on the stove. There's no way I'm going to put effort into studying myself for a year, unfortunately. I may look into the Instant Pot though, so thanks.

These days I admit I don't really eat vegetables anymore. When I made stir fries, I ate vegetables daily, but now it's inconvenient to fit them into my meal and I don't know of any that go well with white sauce. I also find stir fries make it very difficult to split the food into equal meals with easily counted calories. Fish and pasta with sauce is very easy to measure.

 

[Farm Boy]

Asparagus? For the white sauce. If you felt like trying. I don't hate the combination.

 

[Mouthwash]

Is it? Let's hear you do it then.

Any fruit that associated with sugar (oranges, grapes, apples, etc.) should be avoided. Other than that, you should be fine if you stick with foods your ancestors ate (I would recommend cutting corn, tomatoes, squash, peanuts, and potatoes if you are not of Amerindian descent).

Meat, being the same 'stuff' as our bodies, is very hard to screw up even through breeding. Just leave it tough.

 

[Synobun]

That's the thing - I'm unwilling to put the effort into anything in life anymore, since I've mostly given up on it, so I'm not sure I'd take the trouble to learn to use a rice cooker unless it's as easy as boiling rice on the stove.

Easier, if that's any consolation. Cup of water, cup of rice, close, press a button, wait 10-20 minutes, done. You can add spices and stuff into the water if you'd like, but it's optional.

As for white sauce, broccoli and cauliflower pair very well with it. Cauliflower is ungodly expensive, at least here, but broccoli can be pretty cheap. Not as cheap as frozen veggies/the staples like corn and carrots, but not absurdly costly.

It's a lot of effort, sadly, but mashing potatoes and carrots together is pretty filling and tastes good. The mashing part is a total pain though.

 

[Phrossack]

Asparagus? For the white sauce. If you felt like trying. I don't hate the combination.

I like asparagus, but it has an awfully high carbon footprint, so I'm not sure I'd want to eat it daily.

Easier, if that's any consolation. Cup of water, cup of rice, close, press a button, wait 10-20 minutes, done. You can add spices and stuff into the water if you'd like, but it's optional.

As for white sauce, broccoli and cauliflower pair very well with it. Cauliflower is ungodly expensive, at least here, but broccoli can be pretty cheap. Not as cheap as frozen veggies/the staples like corn and carrots, but not absurdly costly.

It's a lot of effort, sadly, but mashing potatoes and carrots together is pretty filling and tastes good. The mashing part is a total pain though.

Interesting. How does the taste and texture compare to that of boiled rice?