The Iron Will and Positivity Thread

[Farm Boy]

Got a fencerow or overgrown patch you can throw some seeds in where it won't get mowed in the spring/early summer and where nobody will squirt roundup on later? We walk waterways/old fencing. I don't eat much of it, but it's wild and a major seasonal treat. If you mix some into your diet store bought or otherwise, I've lately been favoring sprinkling it with some oil and parmesan and just baking it on a cookie sheet.

The broccoli/couliflower suggestion is solid, I should have some of that.

 

[Phrossack]

Got a fencerow or overgrown patch you can throw some seeds in where it won't get mowed in the spring/early summer and where nobody will squirt roundup on later? We walk waterways/old fencing. I don't eat much of it, but it's wild and a major seasonal treat. If you mix some into your diet store bought or otherwise, I've lately been favoring sprinkling it with some oil and parmesan and just baking it on a cookie sheet.

The broccoli/couliflower suggestion is solid, I should have some of that.

I live in an apartment, so not really any options for growing my own stuff, and I'm not sure I could keep up the effort needed to maintain and grow something.

 

[Mouthwash]

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

You've given up on life, can't be bothered to learn new things, but you're also denying yourself because of your relatively minuscule carbon footprint?

 

[Hygro]

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.

Amen dude.

 

[Ajidica]

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.

Weird flex, but ok.

Unfortunately I don't know how to make proper rice - mine is always pretty bad.

When making rice, what I've found works best is to use a just under 2:1 ratio of water to rice so it stays a bit dryer and less mushy when I inevitably reheat it. Sometimes I put salt in it, but that depends what I'm making it to go with.

 

[Synobun]

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

Better, although I'm not sure I'm a great reference as I've always hated the rice I boil. From the rice cooker the rice is crispier and fluffier, but you can get the mushy kind (I hate this, but I know some people like it) by just adding more water.

 

[Narz]

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.

Quality is more important than quantity.

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.

You can restrict but eventually your body will adapt and become more efficient and you're likely to gain the weight back.

For example "biggest loser" contestants had crazy metabolic shifts to the point where they're able to regain weight even on quite low calorie regimes, its tragic really.

"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.

Diets are temporary. No one wants to diet for life. Occasional fasting is sustainable and fine for long term.

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.

You're just making stuff up. What gave you the idea I'm a low-carb person?

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.

Cool. Do research on fasting and longevity. I'm too lazy. Mainstream nutritionists are not gonna to be very useful for exceptional health, neither are nonsense guides like government food pyramids.

If all you want to do is lose x-number of pounds yeah, just cut calories. I care about my long-term health more than my short term weight.

My goal is actually to gain around 10lb in the next six months but I have to do it carefully. I have no desire to just add random calories willy-nilly

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.

Its much easier than boiling rice on a stove. If you can operate a toilet you can operate a rice cooker.

 

[Narz]

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.

Cheers

"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!

Metastudies are great but they're still not going to tell you what works for you. Blueberries can be statistically great but if they don't agre with your stomach it doesn't help to know how beneficial they are generally.

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.

You can't really stop him. As long as there is free speech people will recommend any number of diets/lifestyles/etc, some so extreme they will cost lives.

If you get your blood pressure up every time you hear stuff you dont like you're harming your own health. Ads for McDonalds will cause millions of times more deaths than Mouthwash posts.

Extreme dieting is generally motivated by serious health problems (mental and physical), I know alot about this as I've been on extreme diets and had disordered eating myself and known many others who've run the gauntlet from frutitarian to raw paleo to carnivore, etc.

You're not going to change anyone by telling them they're wrong and stupid (we all do it anyway cuz it's fun but it's not actually useful)

Some people probably need to have extreme rules to function in the world.

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

No one knows the long term effects of a diet of meal replacement supplements.

 

[Lexicus]

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.

*facepalm*

 

[Farm Boy]

I live in an apartment, so not really any options for growing my own stuff, and I'm not sure I could keep up the effort needed to maintain and grow something.

Fair enough. If you can put out some flower pots you can get a tomato plant or four, and they taste better when you manage not to kill them. I often kill them.

If you like sparagus, please eat sparagus. You are worth the sparagus.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

See, I have no clue whether I'm getting my nutrients, or how my food makes me feel beyond taste. Taste isn't too important to me, but it's a factor. I could try bags of frozen vegetables since I can't be bothered to make fresh ones before they go bad. Unfortunately I don't know how to make proper rice - mine is always pretty bad. So it's cereal, PBJs, and pasta with fish for me.

The rice is an easy fix. Get a small rice cooker. It's awesome

 

[Mouthwash]

*facepalm*

*head smash*

See, this is fun!

 

[civvver]

Sugar addiction leading to obesity is a myth. We're fat cus calorie consumption has gone up, even as sugar consumption has gone down. It's the cheap over abundance of food that has made us fat. It's not the flavors, it's the ease of getting it. Some of the best tasting foods are made the same way as they were hundreds of years ago. Have you had a homemade pie from scratch or homemade ice cream or butter? All delicious and amazing. We started getting obese in just the last ~50 years or so cus food has become cheap and everywhere.

We also move less. Desk jobs weren't really a thing 100 years ago and we walked to go places.

 

[Mouthwash]

Sugar addiction leading to obesity is a myth. We're fat cus calorie consumption has gone up, even as sugar consumption has gone down. It's the cheap over abundance of food that has made us fat. It's not the flavors, it's the ease of getting it. Some of the best tasting foods are made the same way as they were hundreds of years ago. Have you had a homemade pie from scratch or homemade ice cream or butter? All delicious and amazing. We started getting obese in just the last ~50 years or so cus food has become cheap and everywhere.

We also move less. Desk jobs weren't really a thing 100 years ago and we walked to go places.

Modern food doesn't taste as good, but that's not a barrier to addiction. Eating McDonald's every day literally destroys your appetite for anything else, even though it has the taste and texture of salty plastic.

 

[Synobun]

Objectively false. Hating fast food is fine but you could at least use the truth to support the hate.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Metastudies are great but they're still not going to tell you what works for you. Blueberries can be statistically great but if they don't agre with your stomach it doesn't help to know how beneficial they are generally.

completely true, hence why I've been practicing IM fasting for myself, but not really been advocating it to others.

I know alot about this as I've been on extreme diets and had disordered eating myself and known many others who've run the gauntlet from frutitarian to raw paleo to carnivore, etc.

I would like to know more about your experiences if you don't mind

You can restrict but eventually your body will adapt and become more efficient and you're likely to gain the weight back.

what does this even mean? your body doesn't get "more efficient" at using calories unless you're literally starving or in ketosis, which is similiar. you only get the weight back if you go back to overeating, at this point we're talking about a psychological issue, not a diet issue.

my statement still stands: simple calory restrictive diets are the most effictive tool for weight loss. this statement doesn't say anything about gaining weight back. the best thing about calory restrictive diets is that you don't necessarily have to change what you eat, so whenever you decide to stop your diet you actually don't get that relapse, you just continue on as you're used to with slightly bigger portion sizes. so I'd say it's the direct opposite of what you claim. you have less of a chance for a bounce-back effect than with other, more severe diets!

"biggest loser" is a pretty bad example because they're not doing a calory restrictive diet, they're changing literally every aspect of the diet: what foods, what quantity, what time.. and at the same time it's an extreme calory restriction, while usually calory restrictive diets are anywhere between 10 and 30% I'd guess, which is rather marginal. it's literally the difference of one extra beer and a sandwich per day.

Diets are temporary. No one wants to diet for life. Occasional fasting is sustainable and fine for long term.

Diets are not temporary shifts in eating habits. A diet is literally what you eat day-by-day. That's the definition:
diet: the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
"a vegetarian diet"
Only recently has it been associated with "tool for weight loss". I agree about your claims wrt fasting here, just for the record. We're using it synonymously with "weight loss tool" in this discussion, simply due to lack of a better word.

also, I never said you specifically were a proponent of Atkins or paleo diet, they were simply given as examples.

Cool. Do research on fasting and longevity. I'm too lazy. Mainstream nutritionists are not gonna to be very useful for exceptional health, neither are nonsense guides like government food pyramids.

If all you want to do is lose x-number of pounds yeah, just cut calories. I care about my long-term health more than my short term weight.

My goal is actually to gain around 10lb in the next six months but I have to do it carefully. I have no desire to just add random calories willy-nilly

Look, don't come into a thread with proper sourced discussion, make a grandiose claim that is obviously wrong and then say **** like "I'm too lazy to do research". If you can't back it up, don't talk ****

I mean we don't even disagree on most points, it's just that you formulated it in such an all-encompassing, generalized, over-the-top way that one couldn't help but disagree. Fasting is great, it may be good for your health short term, it may even be good for your health long term, it may help with chronic disease, with psychological problems, it may even help with treating cancer. It's phenomenal and has so much possibility in the future. But right now we still know very little (especially in the west, if you want to read proper scientific data better go to Russia, where it has been used extensively to treat asthma and rheuma patients!).

It feels kinda rude to barge in and tell me I'm wrong about this and that wrt fasting, when I've put in a lot of work doing research and you haven't.

Again, I said "calory restrictive diet is the best tool for weight loss", so yeah, I am talking exactly about "losing x-number of pounds". A calory restrictive diet is not something you can do forever, sustainably. otherwise you'd fall of the bone. It is designed to help with weight loss for periods of weeks or months, not to keep you healthy for years or decades. The point is to lose weight without damaging your health.

What you are talking about is a grand approach to eating well and living well, which is an entirely different topic, and one I'd have a lot to say about but perhaps another time. It is however a topic I'd love to see discussed ITT, so please go ahead.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

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.

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.

there is not a single food in today's food landscape that has not been bred selectively..

you don't believe that? I don't give a **** what you believe my dude, it is a matter of fact. many SEAsian dishes are incredibly low in fat, carbs and sugar because they're mostly veges, meat and spice, so they're low in calories and high in flavor. what the hell is so hard to understand about that?

example: Tom Sam, Tom Yum, Morning Glory, Daal, Curried Vegetable, Mixed Pickles, Fish Curry, Sprout Salad, Palak Paneer, Yum Talay, Gai pad med mamuang, the list is infinite..

how is it not useful to others? you can make these dishes right now with ingredients from your local super market.

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.

A rice cooker is designed so that even a trained monkey could use it. Put in rice. Put in Water. Plug in. Done. They even have little lines so you know exactly how much water and rice you need. Then you can put your broccoli inside the steamer basket and you have both ready at the same time. It's the most low-effort meal in a planet barring microwaved TV dinners.

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.

This post makes me want to strangle you, honestly. I've never in my entire life seen such profound ignorance displayed with such attitude. Get a grip.

The foods that my ancestors ate, by the way, don't exist anymore. Because we've been cutting biodiversity in favor of markets and mass production. They're literally all gone. All streamlined in order to grow faster, yield more. All those breeds of Kohl, cruciferous vegetables, root vegetables, fruits, they're extinct now you genius. Only the one strand that produced the most has been preserved. And it's the same in almost every western country. Most of the breeds people were growing even 200 years ago are gone now. Same goes for animals, too. You're so clueless it physically hurts me.

 

[jarred!]

Sugar addiction leading to obesity is a myth. We're fat cus calorie consumption has gone up, even as sugar consumption has gone down. It's the cheap over abundance of food that has made us fat. It's not the flavors, it's the ease of getting it. Some of the best tasting foods are made the same way as they were hundreds of years ago. Have you had a homemade pie from scratch or homemade ice cream or butter? All delicious and amazing. We started getting obese in just the last ~50 years or so cus food has become cheap and everywhere.

We also move less. Desk jobs weren't really a thing 100 years ago and we walked to go places.

A Calorie in is not the same as a Calorie out. Eating high sugar, low fiber foods (high glycemic index) are digested quickly and cause blood sugar spikes, which cause Insulin spikes. High concentrations of Insulin leads to rapid glycogenesis (carbs you eat stored as glycogen) and lipogenesis (carbs stored as triglycerides), leading to a subsequent drop in blood sugar, causing lethargy and hunger, leading to you eating more.
High fiber and low glycemic index foods are digested slowly and the effect on blood sugar is minimal.
That's why sugar is bad.

"Exercise more" is propaganda from the food industry. They don't want you to actually make healthy, informed food choices, rather keep eating their garbage and then hate yourself when you exercise for and hour a day and keep gaining weight.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Sugar addiction leading to obesity is a myth. We're fat cus calorie consumption has gone up, even as sugar consumption has gone down. It's the cheap over abundance of food that has made us fat. It's not the flavors, it's the ease of getting it. Some of the best tasting foods are made the same way as they were hundreds of years ago. Have you had a homemade pie from scratch or homemade ice cream or butter? All delicious and amazing. We started getting obese in just the last ~50 years or so cus food has become cheap and everywhere.

We also move less. Desk jobs weren't really a thing 100 years ago and we walked to go places.

It's not a myth, but it's merely one factor out of many. It's definitely a relevant factor and it's very weird to deny it. Sugar nowadays is in many products where it really doesn't belong, and in wayy high concentrations. Like salad dressings for example, or cereal. It is true that sugar consumption in general has gone down, but we still get too many of our calories from sugar, as opposed to healthy fats, protein and so forth. Sugar, as we've discussed before, spikes the blood sugar, and therefore creates hunger attacks. So sugar is directly responsible for overeating calories, too, by proxy.

There is no single reason why so many people are obese now, it's a mix of nearly infinite factors like lack of exercise, sedentary lifestyle, too many simple carbs, sugars, fats, high availability, junk food.. And so forth.

Modern food doesn't taste as good, but that's not a barrier to addiction. Eating McDonald's every day literally destroys your appetite for anything else, even though it has the taste and texture of salty plastic.

And why is that? Can you give an explanation or just make idiotic statements?

A Calorie in is not the same as a Calorie out. Eating high sugar, low fiber foods (high glycemic index) are digested quickly and cause blood sugar spikes, which cause Insulin spikes. High concentrations of Insulin leads to rapid glycogenesis (carbs you eat stored as glycogen) and lipogenesis (carbs stored as triglycerides), leading to a subsequent drop in blood sugar, causing lethargy and hunger, leading to you eating more.
High fiber and low glycemic index foods are digested slowly and the effect on blood sugar is minimal.
That's why sugar is bad.

"Exercise more" is propaganda from the food industry. They don't want you to actually make healthy, informed food choices, rather keep eating their garbage and then hate yourself when you exercise for and hour a day and keep gaining weight.

exactly my words bro. could've spared me a cold minute if I looked for your post instead of making the same reply

 

[Mouthwash]

Objectively false. Hating fast food is fine but you could at least use the truth to support the hate.

Which part is false?

there is not a single food in today's food landscape that has not been bred selectively..

But some are grotesquely unnatural.

you don't believe that? I don't give a **** what you believe my dude, it is a matter of fact. many SEAsian dishes are incredibly low in fat, carbs and sugar because they're mostly veges, meat and spice, so they're low in calories and high in flavor. what the hell is so hard to understand about that?

example: Tom Sam, Tom Yum, Morning Glory, Daal, Curried Vegetable, Mixed Pickles, Fish Curry, Sprout Salad, Palak Paneer, Yum Talay, Gai pad med mamuang, the list is infinite..

how is it not useful to others? you can make these dishes right now with ingredients from your local super market.

I'm saying avoid foods that your ancestors never touched because you aren't genetically adapted to them. I can't point out exactly where and how; but it's a good policy to have.

Although, now that I think about it, four centuries of eating New World crops might be enough. I have no idea.

This post makes me want to strangle you, honestly. I've never in my entire life seen such profound ignorance displayed with such attitude.

The foods that my ancestors ate, by the way, don't exist anymore. Because we've been cutting biodiversity in favor of markets and mass production. They're literally all gone. All streamlined in order to grow faster, yield more. All those breeds of Kohl, cruciferous vegetables, root vegetables, fruits, they're extinct now you genius. Only the one strand that produced the most has been preserved. And it's the same in almost every western country. Most of the breeds people were growing even 200 years ago are gone now. Same goes for animals, too. You're so clueless it physically hurts me.

Sure. But if they still roughly contain the same proportion of macronutrients, and have a similar taste and texture, that should be fine.

And why is that? Can you give an explanation or just make idiotic statements?

Hrm? Honestly, I thought this was just undisputed common knowledge. Happened to me as a kid.