More about Americans' obesity, bicycling, etc.

"Mark Weaver" wrote in message
...

One way that automatic mechanisms don't work in your favor is preference for
particular foods. In hunger-gatherer days, it didn't hurt to eat all the
sweets (ripe fruits) or red meat that you could get your hands on because
the ability to get your hands on such things was strictly limited (ripe
fruits were available only during limited times of the year, and meat only
when the hunting was good).

Yes, but another "automatic" mechanism is the way your tastes adapt to diet.
Anyone who has switched from full-fat milk to low-fat milk can't drink the
high octane any more, ditto for salt & sweet. Low caloric-density foods taste
pretty bleak until you adapt, most people don't give it that long.

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 20:42:22 +0800, Marian Rosenberg
wrote:
Exercise does act as an appetite suppressant for the post-work-out
period - extending the non-eating portion of your day.

After yesterday's bicycle ride I came home and conked out. When I woke
up I went to dinner at the cafeteria. I was chewing the fatty bits of

Today I ate pretty well. I've had about a liter of peach yogurt. I had
an ice cream. I had a big plate of meat at lunch. And I just had a
large dinner not 20 minutes ago. I'm already ravenous again.

I don't think he meant it as an appetite supressant that
works for all day.

For me, after a long ride on a hot day, I'm not hungry
for a few hours. That's about the only time I'm not
hungry for a few hour-stretch...except today, when I tried
a new deli's "The Soprano" meatball sub in a Large. Wow,
that's big enough to fill me from lunch until dinnertime!

--
Rick Onanian

Peter Cole wrote:

Yes, but another "automatic" mechanism is the
way your tastes adapt to diet. Anyone who has
switched from full-fat milk to low-fat milk can't drink
the high octane any more, ditto for salt & sweet.
Low caloric-density foods taste pretty bleak until
you adapt, most people don't give it that long.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, it's amazing how much change you can make in your
taste-satisfaction requirements, if you just give a new diet of
healthier and lower-calorie foods enough time to be integrated into your
daily habits. If you consume nothing but low-salt foods and drinks for
a few weeks, an adjustment will be occuring within. You won't know the
extent of your body's accomodation to this, until you again try eating
or drinking some salty things you previously considered as normal fare.
They will taste so briny, you won't want to finish them.

Becoming permanently committed and involved with a better and
lower-calorie style of eating is like the escape-velocity requirement
for an orbital rocket. If the necessary speed isn't reached, the rocket
will fall back immediately. If it does reach orbit, it can stay there a
long time, with only a minor bit of energy needed to keep it flying high
and fast.
The same principle applies to exercise and physical fitness. If you
find your groove, it's so much easier to stay there, than to fall back
and later try to claw your way back up.

Steve McDonald

"Steve McDonald" wrote in message
...

Mark Weaver wrote:

In hunger-gatherer (sic) days, it didn't hurt to eat
all the sweets (ripe fruits) or red meat that you
could get your hands on because the ability to get
your hands on such things was strictly limited (ripe
fruits were available only during limited times of
the year, and meat only when the hunting was
good).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Actually, most of our human and pre-human ancestral times were
spent in tropical or near-tropical zones. Fruit and edible plants, as
well as some type of prey animals were available most of the year. Only
in recent times, on an evolutionary scale, did we move into regions that
had pronounced seasonal abundance and scarcity of adequate food sources.


Well, we're talking about 50,000 years (about the time that the first paleo
people made it to Europe or Australia, for example). Human populations who
lived in non-tropical non-abundance adapted to those areas and, for better
or worse, most of us are their descendents.

The theory that we are unable to control our food intake by
conscious discipline, is to me just a weak excuse for the failure of
many people to do so.

It's not that it cannot be done, it's that to try is a BAD idea. Imagine
that maintaining weight required conscious calculations and deliberation--if
you were off by just 100 or 200 calories a day in your calculations, you'd
blow up like a balloon or whither away to nothing before too long. To
maintain a steady body weight is the reason we HAVE appetite mechanisms.

It's true that to some degree, hard endurance
exercise can give the body a message to slim down and eating habits can
change in response. But this doesn't work for all people or have enough
of an effect on others, to win the battle against overweight. Using
natural and indirect controls on our urge to overeat has to be bolstered
by also using conscious and calculated management of the diet for many,
if not most people. I've tried all the various approaches to weight
control for myself and only when I exercise hard and steady and also
follow a strict diet plan, do I have success.


If by strict diet plan, you mean eating healthy foods, then that makes
perfect sense. If by strict diet plan you mean eating smaller quantities of
healthy foods than you want and feeling hungry most of the time, that not
only sounds like an unpleasant way to live in the short term and likely to
lead to trouble in the long term.

Mark

"Mark Weaver" wrote in message
...

If by strict diet plan, you mean eating healthy foods, then that makes
perfect sense. If by strict diet plan you mean eating smaller quantities of
healthy foods than you want and feeling hungry most of the time, that not
only sounds like an unpleasant way to live in the short term and likely to
lead to trouble in the long term.

Actually, latest research indicates that this may be the best strategy for
longevity, unpleasant or not.

"Mike Latondresse" wrote in message
...
"bgaudet0801" wrote in
le.rogers.com:


Exercise does act as an appetite suppressant for the
post-work-out period -
extending the non-eating portion of your day.

It depends on the exercise I think...I find that running and cycling
tend to supress my appetite but swimming works just the opposite way as
I am ravenous after a workout.

Really? I think I might be less 'un-hungry' after swimming but never
ravenous, unless I had fasted for an unusual length of time. [My swim is a
combination of fast & slow strokes now at 55 minutes]
And although I have 'bonked' during a strenuous day of both swimming and
cycling it never happened when cycling, just swimming.

Was it here? Or in an OT thread on another newsgroup? Someone observed
that you can become 'used' to better foods. Regardless. Pravda. I grew up on
whole milk but as an young adult I switched first to 2% and then skim. Whole
milk now tastes at least unpleasant. Until 2 years ago I took sugar & cream
in my coffee. I gave up the sugar. Recently I got a coffee with sugar
inadvertently. It just didn't taste right. I used to eat a lot of deep fried
foods now to try to eat a similar meal leaves me distinctly queasy.

--
'Sell your sin
Just cash in' -Jewell

Rick Onanian wrote in
news
On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 16:41:27 -0400, David L. Johnson
wrote:
I*don't think that is true, actually. At least early on, caloric
content
of foods was determined by burning it. It may be different now, but I
would be skeptical of any calorie numbers in food.

Well, then I also question how it's calculated
just how many calories we burn. Is it based on
observations and studies of what people eat and
do, or is it determined in some way that doesn't
involve measuring calories in vs. work done?

If you tell me that there are formulas for how
many nano-calories are required to contract a
muscle cell or create a degree of body heat for
a pound of fat, well, then I guess your question
is really quite relevant.


Jesus H. Christ people.
You're making it way too complicated.

If you're fat here's how to get thinner:

1) Eat less than you do currently.
2) Ride more than you do currently.

Its not freaking rocket science.

- Boyd S.