The Myth of Moderate Exercise • Hacker News Board

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#11

Post by menloparkbum » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 12:33 AM UTC

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #7

ardit33 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. White americans, are similiar to Europeans (more like a mix), yet they are a lot fatter. And how do you explain people in North California, or northern VA/DC/Maryland being a lot slimer than people just a state away. It seems more a enviroment/culturual/city walkability thing

The walkability and culture things are pretty critical, but my armchair opinion is that the biggest factor is fat consumption. Americans eat something like 20% as much fat as they did in the 40s, and the drop off since the early 80s has been fairly sharp. People are eating much less fat and much more starch, with all the insulin and fat storage implications that brings. Across time and between nations now the role of…

People also consume many more calories in places where they didn't in the past. For instance, a soy latte from Starbucks has 210 calories. If you don't change anything in your diet or exercise habits and drink one of these every work day, you'll gain 15 pounds in a year.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#12

Post by fallentimes » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 12:33 AM UTC

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #10

fallentimes wrote: post #5

Yankee apologists are bad enough. Now we have fat people apologists. It really isn't hard: exercise moderately, take walk breaks, get enough sleep, consume primarily vegetables then fruit then meat/carbs. Eat five small meals a day and focus on lower calories.

Who the hell could eat primarily vegetables? You'd be on the shitter half the day. Also, a fruit heavy diet is particularly bad for weight loss. Humans don't deal with fructose too well.

I do and I'm not. You should eat a lot more vegetables than fruit - I should have articulated that better.

I'm not saying you have to follow such a diet, but the fattie excuses are laughable when solutions are right in front of them. For more information on diet: http://www.lesmills.com/files/globalcentral/Consumers/Health...

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#13

Post by streblo » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 12:35 AM UTC

I don't understand why people think staying fit is such a god damn mystery. Exercise a few hours a week, eat a well balanced diet, get enough sleep. How hard is that?

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#14

Post by kingkongrevenge » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 12:36 AM UTC

menloparkbum wrote: post #11

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The walkability and culture things are pretty critical, but my armchair opinion is that the biggest factor is fat consumption. Americans eat something like 20% as much fat as they did in the 40s, and the drop off since the early 80s has been fairly sharp. People are eating much less fat and much more starch, with all the insulin and fat storage implications that brings. Across time and between nations now the role of…

People also consume many more calories in places where they didn't in the past. For instance, a soy latte from Starbucks has 210 calories. If you don't change anything in your diet or exercise habits and drink one of these every work day, you'll gain 15 pounds in a year.

I don't know this for sure, but if I recall correctly people eat fewer calories now than they did in the 70s. I know it's not a dramatically different number either way. It's the composition of the calorie that has changed. I'm firmly convinced of the fat vs starch theory. People eat much less fat and oils now and eat more starch.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#15

Post by menloparkbum » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 12:37 AM UTC

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #10

fallentimes wrote: post #5

Yankee apologists are bad enough. Now we have fat people apologists. It really isn't hard: exercise moderately, take walk breaks, get enough sleep, consume primarily vegetables then fruit then meat/carbs. Eat five small meals a day and focus on lower calories.

Who the hell could eat primarily vegetables? You'd be on the shitter half the day. Also, a fruit heavy diet is particularly bad for weight loss. Humans don't deal with fructose too well.

It depends on the vegetables. I eat mostly vegetables, chicken and fish and don't have that problem.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#16

Post by kingkongrevenge » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 12:47 AM UTC

fallentimes wrote: post #12

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who the hell could eat primarily vegetables? You'd be on the shitter half the day. Also, a fruit heavy diet is particularly bad for weight loss. Humans don't deal with fructose too well.

I do and I'm not. You should eat a lot more vegetables than fruit - I should have articulated that better. I'm not saying you have to follow such a diet, but the fattie excuses are laughable when solutions are right in front of them. For more information on diet: http://www.lesmills.com/files/globalcentral/Consumers/Health...

The "seven a day" recommendation seems to be baseless myth. Nobody can figure out where it came from. Surveys find no correlation to life span or health beyond two servings of vegetables a day.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#17

Post by kingkongrevenge » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 12:52 AM UTC

natrius wrote: post #8

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #2

> Research suggests that weight may largely be regulated by biology, which helps determine the body's "set point," So where did all the fatties come from? They didn't used to be here. This is ridiculous. There are big, obvious changes in diet and exercise levels since the 70s that have correlated well with rising obesity.

One theory says that the food you eat can affect your set point. High-calorie, strongly flavored foods that are easily digested (which make up most of the modern American diet) raise your set point. Breaking the flavor-calorie association with flavorless calories supposedly lowers your set point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shangri-La_Diet

> High-calorie, strongly flavored foods that are easily digested

I think French cuisine is WAY more flavorful and calorie dense, and they're thin.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#18

Post by fallentimes » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 12:56 AM UTC

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #16

fallentimes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do and I'm not. You should eat a lot more vegetables than fruit - I should have articulated that better. I'm not saying you have to follow such a diet, but the fattie excuses are laughable when solutions are right in front of them. For more information on diet: http://www.lesmills.com/files/globalcentral/Consumers/Health...

The "seven a day" recommendation seems to be baseless myth. Nobody can figure out where it came from. Surveys find no correlation to life span or health beyond two servings of vegetables a day.

Interesting - do you happen to have a source? Here's some for me:

http://docnews.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/3/10/8

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-03-15-fruits-vegeta...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070415183652.ht...

Regardless, I definitely agree with your starch points at the top of the thread.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#19

Post by kingkongrevenge » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 1:25 AM UTC

fallentimes wrote: post #18

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "seven a day" recommendation seems to be baseless myth. Nobody can figure out where it came from. Surveys find no correlation to life span or health beyond two servings of vegetables a day.

Interesting - do you happen to have a source? Here's some for me: http://docnews.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/3/10/8 http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-03-15-fruits-vegeta... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070415183652.ht... Regardless, I definitely agree with your starch points at the top of the thread.

I just quickly went through the references and every one of them is either: a pooled analysis (inscrutable), a relative risk factor analysis (worthless; assumptions piled on assumptions), or doesn't indicate anything about servings.

I have in the past seen actual population studies, not pop media articles, looking at relative vegetable consumption and coming up blank. High rates of heart disease in indian vegetarians, very low rates of heart disease in low vegetable consumption mormons, etc.

Actual controlled experiments (not surveys) come up blank when they feed people more fruit and vegetables than a relatively low cut-off. Of course surveys are going to be very hard to get any useful information out of because of course health conscious people in America will tend to eat vegetables; that doesn't establish causation, only that they follow one piece of advice whether valid or not. Look at these actual experiments:

  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Search&Term=%22Freese%20R%22[Author]&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus

Consistently no significant blood chemistry effects from high fruit/veg diets.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#20

Post by william42 » Thu, Jul 31, 2008, 1:43 AM UTC

fallentimes wrote: post #5

Yankee apologists are bad enough. Now we have fat people apologists. It really isn't hard: exercise moderately, take walk breaks, get enough sleep, consume primarily vegetables then fruit then meat/carbs. Eat five small meals a day and focus on lower calories.

Yankee apologists?