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We all know that we have to eat a certain way right? We need to have 1500 to 2000 calories per day *just* to get the RDA of certain vitamins and minerals. We have to eat 6 times per day to keep our metabolism up there.. and of course, anything like strenuious exercise that keeps the metabolism going is good right? And most importantly we know that we have to eat certain type of food. To be healthy we need to eat healthy right? That means Kale, and veggies and fruit and the perfect mixture of the food pyramid at every meal. Right?
But somehow, on those rules we keep getting bigger and bigger and more unhealthy and more unhealthy. In fact you can really trace when these things started happening right back to... the late 80s and early 1990s.
For those who don't remember we began the era of "nutrition facts" at that time. It wasn't mandatory before. But I remember being shocked when they came out. I thought 2000 calories per day was insane for me or anyone really. But I remember thinking how .... most restaurants and fast food places would be in trouble if the calories were lower. I mean if the calories per day were 1500 how could you justify having a big mac meal which was about 1200. Nutrition facts were basically a gift for the food and resturant industry and people started naturally eating more and foods could get bigger with more calories. When I was a kid the McChicken was McDonalds chicken sandwich. Now it is a snack.. while its burgers are SOO MUCH BIGGER.
Here is the truth... we need to stop eating. Calorie counts should be so much lower. 1200 to 1500 per day. We need to eat like hunter gatherers. Not all day long but in one or two sittings like we did when we were chasing down food and eating it. We didn't have snacks. We were hungry sometimes. This will make things very hard on food businesses. If believed people won't want the 2 for 4 dollar specials at McDonalds. When you pick up a brownie and it has 400 calories in it, you will put the package back. Grocery stores will have to close half the store without "snacks". The consumption of food will drastically shrink -- if believed.
The evidence continues to pile up that metabolism and oxidative damage from the process are to be avoided. Every time you eat you are literally killing yourself. So the way to avoid early death and damage to your body is to minimize the metabolism. Suppress it.
But don't we need food for nutrients? No. The evidence shows that the NUMBER ONE thing you need nutrients for is metabolism / digestion. The less you eat, the less you need.
But don't we need exercise? Small exercise like NEAT -- non exercise activity thermogenesis -- but nothing that revs up the metabolism. As hunter gatherers we would have spent long hours looking for food (slow but long walks) and perhaps 2 minutes running after it. Not 1 hour of running flat out per day.
Back back in the old days my parents ate everything as did their relatives and no one talked about diets. I don't know. I just know I feel better OVERALL with much much less carbs and sugars at this late date in my life. And a mouthful of dental work from years prior of sugars/carbs. History speaks.
Last edited by jaminhealth; 03-31-2018 at 04:28 PM..
OP, I agree with much of what you've posted. For those of us old enough to have witnessed some of the changes, it makes sense.
I was just talking with someone yesterday about their grandchildren. He was complaining that all they all they do is snack all day. I told him that our society/culture has changed the way children eat. The first time I was faced with it personally was in the 1990s when my own children went to daycare and then school. I swear, all they did was eat all day. They had two meals and two snacks. One snack given at around 3:45. I'd pick them up and then they didn't want dinner. When they did eat, again, their meals were like snacks. I really feel this created an unhealthy relationship with food for them. I do understand that some people, with blood sugar issues, need to eat smaller and more frequently; however, in general I don't think we are biologically wired that way.
Growing up, I rarely ever snacked. Certainly that started happening when I was a teen. But in the 1960s era, at least for me, it was three meals a day, dessert probably once a week, occasionally some potato chips with lunch or something like that. I didn't necessarily have the healthiest food (I remember a lot of white bread/bologna sandwiches), but I wasn't eating all day.
Growing up, I rarely ever snacked. Certainly that started happening when I was a teen. But in the 1960s era, at least for me, it was three meals a day, dessert probably once a week, occasionally some potato chips with lunch or something like that. I didn't necessarily have the healthiest food (I remember a lot of white bread/bologna sandwiches), but I wasn't eating all day.
Me too. I had three meals per day. We didn't even have desserts. I remember going over a friend's house and her mom didn't even allow lunch if Breakfast was consumed after 9 AM. Snacks weren't even a thing. It didn't matter if breakfast was sausage and other bad for you foods because you didn't exceed about 1200 cals per day.
About this same time does anyone remember the supersizing of supermarkets? We went from Stop and Shop to "super stop and shop" and Costco / BJs.
All of this was great for food companies and grocers but not for the health of the American people.
We have all been trained and some of the young people haven't ever known a life otherwise to eat too much food. And if you don't there is this real need to label you as "eating disordered" or malnourished. A few years ago I went to France and ate out at one of those faux American establishments. What shocked me was the size of the food. Small. It doesn't take a genius to see that other countries don't have this problem because they don't consume what we do.
When it takes these studies to come out and show that just a 15 % reduction in calories can help you live longer it just seems so .. DUH. And yet, nothing really comes of it. I think because food producers don't want it to change and politicians feel like well you don't have to eat it... it just annoys me though because if you are out it is just so hard not to grossly over do it.
Sometimes I watch those 600 lb life shows and it seems so obvious that these people really believe they need to be eating all the time.. and when you live in a society that pushes that at every turn and has very high calorie counts in food... 600 lbs is something that isn't crazy.
I also feel like exercise has had to change to adjust to the calorie counts. Strenuous exercise is what they push. Where that seems obviously to be bad for most people. From the injuries and there are so many of my friend who are just about always disabled due to injuries -- but then strenuous exercise increases metabolism. Which is what we don't want. But, it is pushed like mad because it allows people to consume mass quantities. Basic exercise like walking is what you need to do...
Its all common sense. If you eat more calories that you can burn then you will gain weight. We are not reinventing the wheel here. How and what we consume whether it be low carb, keto, or simple calorie reduction will still boil down to how much food we consume.
Exercise plays a vital role in one's health. Not for calorie reduction, but it certainly helps, but for over all health and well being. Diet and exercise go hand in hand.
If we stick to whole, unprocessed foods and fast foods, and focus on cooking our own meals we can keep track of what is going into our body.
The problem as I see it, is that we are passing down our obesity epidemic. Chances are very high that obese parents will raise overweight or obese kids.
Every now and then I will catch an episode of 'My 600 Pound Life', and the people that are close to the 600 pound person are almost always either obese or very close to being obese themselves. They basically live off of fast food, pizza, and sugary foods. No one is ever eating healthy foods that are prepared at home. Or if they are making the food at home it is not prepared in a healthy way and of course they are eating massive quantities of it.
Its all common sense. If you eat more calories that you can burn then you will gain weight.
No I don't really think it is common sense. It isn't about that.. it is that you need to reduce your metabolic rate because the less you use your metabolism the longer you will live and the more healthy you will be. Either you eat less (so the metabolism has a little to do at a time) or you eat less and have it within a window of time so your metabolism isn't working all day long. So it isn't that you just "eat less" to remain thin, it is that you concentrate on keeping your metabolism low and as a side effect of that you get thin. People can be thin and eat all the time and exercise like nuts to keep thin but that behavior keeps your metabolism going all day and that causes stress on the body which is what really makes you age and get sick.
It isn't necessarily about dieting.
But on that note... it puts serious doubts in a lot of common claims like
- yo yo dieting is bad for you. Err no not really as it would just be like a fast.
- you can't eat less than 1200 per day because you won't get nutrients.
- you must take a multi vitamin if you are dieting to make sure you get the nutrients.
- The RMR calculators just have to be wrong because they routinely come out wayyy to high
- Strenious exercise is good for you because it gets the metabolism up and keeps it up for hours after you are done.
Quote:
No one is ever eating healthy foods that are prepared at home.
It doesn't matter what you eat...(this is exactly the point I am trying to make) health foods don't make you healthy. Keeping the metabolism low and reducing the stress on the body keeps you healthy. The food itself likely won't make a difference.
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