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Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

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171–180 of 207 posts

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#171
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter needs over 12 hours of sleep, and has trouble falling asleep before it gets dark. I'm not going to make her get up earlier without very good cause. Also I would not trust you to supervise preschool children in a public space. You clearly do not know what is required to do so responsibly.

Over-supervising children hurt them more than helps. Children need their freedom too. Besides, if you do not exercise - it's bad for your children. It's especially bad if they do not exercise either (because you don't have time to play with them, and don't allow them play alone, because you want them to be extra safe).

Ah, classic. Everyone always thinks that they know better than you how to take care of your kids. I have never understood how people like you don't realize exactly how rude you are.

But for your information, over-supervision means different things at different ages. It is not over-supervision to insist that there is always an available adult that a 4 year old knows how to get the attention of. It is over-supervision to insist that you always be within earshot of a 14 year old. It is one thing for my daughter to be playing in my back yard with me inside of the house. It would be quite another for there to be no adult available when she suddenly realizes that she needs to poop because I am running around the block and won't be back for 15 minutes. (The problem is not that she will have an accident, it is that she does not wipe herself sufficiently well.)

Also what is exercise is relative to your abilities. For instance yesterday we went on a 2 hour hike up a mountain before the heat of the day set in. For her there was a definite cardio element. For me, traveling at her pace, not so much. (My wife and son set out a bit earlier and went at their pace. When we met up they had done 3x the vertical that I did, and had much better exercise.)

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#172
post #159
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I can do HN with the kids in the house and use my ears to supervise. I can't do that with exercise. (My son is right now sitting next to me, counting and recounting his allowance.) 2. I can comfortably do HN while it is too hot outside to exercise.

hm. a machine solves both problems; I mean, I don't have kids but most of the cardio I've done in the last 5 years or so has been on a machine; instead of watching children, I watch silly action movies. For me? it's to distract me from the monotony. Action movies were made for my attention span; but it seems you could just as easily supervise children. That said, I certainly feel a lot more difference from resistance…

This is a reasonable alternative, but I hate it because of the monotony. Taking care of kids involves lots of little interactions and quiet periods, so would not break the monotony. But perhaps I should look into getting a setup where I can do that while I'm on the computer, killing two birds with one stone.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#173

Obesity and Fitness are not revolutionized by a forum full of people telling you what worked for them. The revolution comes when people find what works for themselves. So far, it's very far away. News flash: Most people don't go on Reddit. gasp Calm down. I'm sorry I frightened you. But it turns out you don't get a revolution by a small number of people who use a particular forum looking for fitness tips from their f…

This sounds like a pretty good approach. Why must it be "in the future"? Why don't you work on it yourself? This is Hacker News, after all.

His description is exactly what the site founded by the author of the post (and where I work) is :)

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#174
I love reading fitness and health debates. I think this is still an area that is very much still an unknown. There are studies this way and that way, diets range from no meat to mostly meat, and exercise itself is debated, be it which is best or what have you.

I don't personally know, and IMO the question is too complex. I don't believe there is a single, unified solution. I personally do High intensity stuff, sprinting and weightlifting, and while I'm fat, it isn't because of my diet. I drink, a lot. And love it. I'm not quite an alcoholic, at least in most people's eyes (Europe for example), but it has some negative effects. It also probably keeps me from ever hitting the 2x BW bench, 2.5 BW squat and 3x BW Deadlift, but what the hell. I try to have a balanced, fun life. I'm healthy, even if I'm at ~20% Body Fat.

I truly believe in the Calories in Calories out method, from a physical or mathematical perspective but get that psychology and other factors make this more than a simple "law of thermodynamics" issue. Yes, the law still stands, but if there is no human motivation to a diet/lifestyle change, then it isn't going to work.

We need a lifestyle change that works, and I don't think there is a single, master lifestyle that will work for everybody.

I for one, have no interest in endurance running. It works when you do have an interest, a passion, or the motivation to make it work, but so does keto - another thing I'm not a huge fan of. I eat plenty of protein, don't get me wrong (~150 g/day) but I don't think "high" protein diets work for everybody (though I do feel everybody should eat 150-160g a day, just a IMO thing).

Anyway, on topic, I don't like Reddit's /r/fitnees or even the spawns of it (/r/fitnesscirclejerk etc), as they tend to be filled with acerbic know it alls that are very insulting and not very much fun to interact with.

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#175
post #137
post #111

"Reddit’s voting system provides a reliably transparent soundboard for fitness knowledge." Any studies showing that? I find such online discussions interesting, and certainly sometimes they might reveal better information than just going to your doctors office. But these are just people hanging out online - just because they vote something up doesn't mean it is proven, it just means they like to believe it. In fact,…

> because the low carbers accidentally also reduced calorie intake Accidentally is a loaded word there, because if low carb diets tend to make people eat less, then that is an enormous, critical advantage over competing diets.

Totally agree - as I said, it would be difficult to sustain a low calories diet on chocolate, simply because of the craving it induces.

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#176

Obesity and Fitness are not revolutionized by a forum full of people telling you what worked for them. The revolution comes when people find what works for themselves. So far, it's very far away. News flash: Most people don't go on Reddit. gasp Calm down. I'm sorry I frightened you. But it turns out you don't get a revolution by a small number of people who use a particular forum looking for fitness tips from their f…

> In the future, you will be able to go online, fill out a questionnaire, and for a small monthly fee receive one of several pre-programmed diet and exercise programs, complete with local gyms that are part of the program and can help you perform your exercise requirements.

As opposed to present-day, where people have to join a gym, and then receive a programme?

> A local food store will also be part of the program, with a special aisle of diet food for you to buy from.

Eeugh, special diet food. Unless that "special aisle" is known as the "vegetable section".

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#177
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about hiring teenager next door to watch for your kids while they are sleeping and you exercise?

They are all getting ready for school in the morning themselves. And besides, have you ever tried convincing teenagers to get up earlier in the morning? (The ones that I know around here would prefer to sleep in.)

My now teenager wakes up for school herself at ~6am starting from ~age 8.

Though I know that other kids might be different. But you need to find only one babysitter.

How many teenagers in your neighborhood did you ask?

Besides, there are not only teenagers, but housewives who wake up in the morning anyway.

Or how about this: you exercise while your wife and your daughter are sleeping (or your wife is getting ready to go to work. Or while your daughter is sleeping alone.

Or take your daughter on a run with you in a stroller. She may keep sleeping if it's an issue to wake up.

You may ask your older kid to babysit younger daughter while you are taking 20-minutes run with your cell phone and give another cell phone to your older kid.

You may take two 10-minutes runs if you worry that kids cannot be left alone for 20-minutes.

There are so many ways to find a way/time to exercise ...

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#178
post #148
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not many people's spouses are in medical residency, and have children who are too young to be left unsupervised for 20 minutes. Even if you broaden it a bit (single parents, spouse in the military on deployment, etc) you are not looking at 90+% of the population. And most people looking after small children are pretty active anyway (due to all the lifting, running around, and so on).

http://singleparents.about.com/od/legalissues/p/portrait.htm estimates over 13 million single parents in the USA. Granted, not all of their children are small, but a lot are. Also in every family with small kids, if one parent wants a piece of freedom, it puts pressure on the other parent. So even if it is theoretically possible, if half of those parents get the freedom to exercise in the morning, the other half do n…

Staying as a single adult in the house is a long-term choice. You can: marry, invite your friend to live together, invite your parents, rent our a room or two in your house and ask for occasional babysitting help from them.

You can move into somebody else's house too.

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#179
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Found that men who ran two or more marathons per year were 41 percent less likely to suffer from high blood pressure, 32 percent less likely to have high cholesterol, and 87 percent less likely to be diabetic than non-marathoners. Isn't it obvious selection bias? People with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and with diabets do not run marathones. >Americans are more into protein and more into weightlifting than…

If you walk into non high-end supermarket a-la Whole Foods or PPC it's just hard, and in some categories impossible, to buy healthy food. What supermarket are you referring to? I've had no difficulty finding healthy food at Pathmark, C-Town, Supremo, or any other low end supermarket.

Yes, unless one has an overly restrictive view of what "healthy" means, that's an unbelievable statement. I've never been to a grocery store that didn't sell lean meat, cheese, fresh vegetables, potatoes, dried beans, and so on. And I've been to some grocery stores in pretty bad neighborhoods...

Re: Obesity and Fitness Are Revolutionized By Reddit, Not Doctors

#180
post #19

From reading the article I get the impression that the author isn't that familiar with the scientific literature at all. The evidence he presents against the usefulness of cardio for weight loss compares a group of weightlifters against a group of runners who ran only 20km per week and they still lost marginally more weight than the weightlifters! Cardio really should be a minimum of an hour per day, at least 5 days…

> Cardio really should be a minimum of an hour per day, at least 5 days a week if weight control is the goal.

This is mistaken, and recommending this myth (at least five hours a week) is part of why so few people can stick to a fitness regimen.

HIIT, and in particular, Tabata intervals, have been proven to alter your body's metabolic processes within 6 weeks, with just 10 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. Once the metabolism shifts, the person begins to burn fat "at rest" far more than the long exercise type of athlete.

The goal isn't to lose calories during the exercise itself, but to shift how your body stores and uses energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_trainin...

"HIIT is somewhat counterintuitive in this regard, but has nonetheless been shown to burn fat more effectively."

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmc...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Metabolism:_Clinic...

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