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.............. Evolutionarily speaking, our species is highly adapted to surviving during famines and extremely poorly adapted to continuous excess. It is almost impossible for most people to calorie restrict when surrounded by temptation. It's not how we are programmed.
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From my reading over the years, my understanding is the same as yours. During times of excess, we are programmed to eat a lot and put on fat so that we have reserves to get us through the lean times. But in modern civilization there are no lean times. Oops, big problem!
I do what I want to do. You're not the boss of me!
Fortunately as I get older I get wiser. And it's a good thing that our bodies do send us those warning signals when we aren't on the right track. I try to "listen" to my body.
Eat right most of the time and get a little exercise. Exercise the brain, too. See the doctor regularly and do what she tells me to do. Otherwise why go? Second opinions are ok.
Health comes first.
Both DH and I are blessed with good genes. And so are our kids. That helps a lot.
But I like a lot of variety in my life and so the idea of moderation is appealing to me.
Listen to Bella, OP. You're not even in your 40s yet. That's when everything hits. I wish I had listened more carefully to advice like hers 26 years ago. I am slim now, and never obese, avoided unhealthy foods, but it's the movement. We are meant to be constantly moving. I failed in that dept and am paying for it in late 60s.
I do what I want to do. You're not the boss of me!
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Whom are you addressing there? My post is the one immediately before yours, but I was not telling anyone what to do; rather, I made a general comment about our evolutionary biology.
A lot of ambiguity can be avoided if we either quote the post we are responding to, or adddress the poster by user name. Sometimes I begin a post this way: "To Poster X:"
My mother smoked form the time she was 14 till she had a massive heart attack at 58. Besides the smoking she ate well, never drank alcohol and exercised. Maintained a healthy weight. The smoking alone is what caused her heart attack. She luckily survived it, but was told if she didn't quit the smoking immediately she would have another heart attack within a year and that one would definitely kill her. That day she quit and it has now been almost 5 years. The damage is done, but it is so important that the younger generations realize what smoking can do to their bodies years down the road!
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I honestly don't know how people with small children and sedentary jobs stay healthy. Just getting to 10,000 steps takes up a lot of the free time office workers have in the evenings because they move so little during the day. Take that into account with small children who require a lot of direct care/supervision, and you have a recipe for no activity.
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People taking care of small children are lucky if they get to sit down once or twice a day!
There is a lot more to obesity than simply eating too much and exercising too little. The resultant metabolic syndrome and diabetes epidemic have created the world's largest healthcare problem.
There is also the fact that junk food is created to be easy to eat. Easy to chew, swallow, consume quickly. Compare eating a sandwich on wonder bread versus a hearty, homemade sour dough. Big big difference in time and effort. It would be easy to consume 2 wonder bread sandwiches in the time taken to eat 1 on sour dough. Same with all fast food. This is by design.
Our boss invested in those desktop things that raise your work area up so you can stand instead of sitting all day. I only use it when my upper back starts to hurt from being hunched over my desk.
We had those where I used to work too. They were great because you could readjust them anytime you wanted so you didn't have to sit or stand all throughout the work day but could vary your position as needed.
From my reading over the years, my understanding is the same as yours. During times of excess, we are programmed to eat a lot and put on fat so that we have reserves to get us through the lean times. But in modern civilization there are no lean times. Oops, big problem!
Yes and as human society becomes more empathetic and tolerant we also have less 'public shaming', not that it is a bad thing, however, when I was a child it was shameful to be 'fat'. People tried harder to stay healthy. Maybe for all the wrong reasons.
And the food industry has become adept at creating and marketing edible, disease causing grub.
Getting back to the topic title, I have a saying that I've been using a long time that goes like this, "I'm only good as my last workout and I'm what I eat."
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