The 2016 Healthy Habits Thread

[kyuuei]

My work out plan has been going very well so far, and my eating? Meeehh.. it's alright. Thanksgiving was upon us, and I have some well portioned pre-packed lunches and dinners from the leftovers.. mooost of which are not very unhealthy.. roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, a pomegranate cranberry sauce, pumpkin stuffing, roasted turnips and carrots in balsamic vinegar, shishito peppers, stir-fried cabbage and chopped veggies mix, homemade sauerkraut, and some sweet potato I've been eating for breakfast with a roll. It was a solid week's worth of food in leftovers, all ready to heat and eat.

The smoke was really bad where I was, so no running this past week besides the one day when I started the plan.. Though, rain is supposedly coming through, and if it does it'll help clear some of this haze out. In the meanwhile, my stretching is coming along nicely.

 

[Smilephantomhive]

I started eating broccoli.

 

[SiegfriedSchtauffen]

In my opinion one of the most refreshing things is skipping 1-2 weeks of eating every few months. Your body can get rid of a lot of garbage and unnecessary fat and its quite refreshing. The downside: if you've never done it and have some old fat filled with fat soluble chemicals you'll probably feel completely sick.

I agree that replacing at least a part of a bad ordinary diet with "healthy" options can be a good idea. I'd focus on the low calorie vegetables, eggs, nuts. A good diet (and/or simply not overeating) is much more important than doing workout for many reasons.

 

[kyuuei]

Green Giant just put out a whole new line of veggie tater tots.. broccoli and cheese, or cauliflower.. and riced cauliflower + sweet potato, or a cauli/broccoli mix, and a whole line of frozen roasted veggies.

Preetttyyy frikken sweet! <3 I tried the cauliflower tots, and I gotta say, if you leave them to cook a liiittle longer than the directions state they come out really good!

 

[ceecee]

Green Giant just put out a whole new line of veggie tater tots.. broccoli and cheese, or cauliflower.. and riced cauliflower + sweet potato, or a cauli/broccoli mix, and a whole line of frozen roasted veggies.

Preetttyyy frikken sweet! <3 I tried the cauliflower tots, and I gotta say, if you leave them to cook a liiittle longer than the directions state they come out really good!

The roasted veggies are good and when you need speed, they're perfect. I used some roasted corn in tonkotsu ramen over the weekend (I took on the Herculean task of making the broth from scratch so I laughed that I was nuking corn). This is a smart move by GG - roasted stuff is so much better.

 

[Lark]

In my opinion one of the most refreshing things is skipping 1-2 weeks of eating every few months. Your body can get rid of a lot of garbage and unnecessary fat and its quite refreshing. The downside: if you've never done it and have some old fat filled with fat soluble chemicals you'll probably feel completely sick.

I agree that replacing at least a part of a bad ordinary diet with "healthy" options can be a good idea. I'd focus on the low calorie vegetables, eggs, nuts. A good diet (and/or simply not overeating) is much more important than doing workout for many reasons.

If you can do that properly, that's a great idea, I've got diabetes and cant really do longer stretches of avoiding foods, particularly if I'm still taking the anti-diabetic meds but I remember doing days when I wasnt diabetic when I only drank soup or coffee or something and was just really active, I slept better and felt fine but you need to have a lot of things occupying you so you dont constantly think about feeling hungry.

 

[SiegfriedSchtauffen]

If you can do that properly, that's a great idea, I've got diabetes and cant really do longer stretches of avoiding foods, particularly if I'm still taking the anti-diabetic meds but I remember doing days when I wasnt diabetic when I only drank soup or coffee or something and was just really active, I slept better and felt fine but you need to have a lot of things occupying you so you dont constantly think about feeling hungry.

Fasting for me means water only. No snacks like coffee. If my only goal is losing weight then I eat only in the evening. Very unorthodox methods and I know that 9 in 10 people reading it think that I'm religious or stupid. I simply know from practice that these work very well.

In my opinion it is very easy to do it correctly. Some people overcomplicate it and torture themselves with 30+ day fasting, special preparation, etc.... 1-2 weeks on water does no physical harm given that you had a normal diet for a few weeks before it (let's say a nutritious veggie heavy diet) and you restart eating with about 2-3 weeks on light diet (e.g.: cooked veggies). More than two weeks is difficult and probably useless or can be harmful without having experience, I wouldn't recommend it: extreme fatigue, dry skin, acidic stomach for some people, your bowel movement might be difficult to restart, bacteria population in your belly might suffer and if you start eating the bad foods the bad guys might overpopulate your belly making you sick, etc... But ~10 days is "nothing" physically (except being completely sick if you have been fat for a long time), the difficult part is the mental: extreme boredom. I've tried my limits and speak from experience.

I experienced bad health involving overweight and terrible insulin sensitivity. 2 weeks on water completely eliminated the wrecked insulin sensitivity problem along with my high blood pressure and heart rate. I have no experience with diabetes but long ago when I did some research on fasting I've seen a few sources (some of them are about 100 years old) that claimed type 2 diabetes can be cured completely with fasting or extreme reduction of carbohydrate intake. It is somewhat contradicting what you are saying but our versions of fasting seem to differ a lot.

EDIT: Just to avoid confusion: Some people with specific conditions/illnesses can't fast safely. My claim that fasting for a few days is harmless applies to people without special conditions. Most people fall into this category.

 

[Lark]

Fasting for me means water only. No snacks like coffee. If my only goal is losing weight then I eat only in the evening. Very unorthodox methods and I know that 9 in 10 people reading it think that I'm religious or stupid. I simply know from practice that these work very well.

In my opinion it is very easy to do it correctly. Some people overcomplicate it and torture themselves with 30+ day fasting, special preparation, etc.... 1-2 weeks on water does no physical harm given that you had a normal diet for a few weeks before it (let's say a nutritious veggie heavy diet) and you restart eating with about 2-3 weeks on light diet (e.g.: cooked veggies). More than two weeks is difficult and probably useless or can be harmful without having experience, I wouldn't recommend it: extreme fatigue, dry skin, acidic stomach for some people, your bowel movement might be difficult to restart, bacteria population in your belly might suffer and if you start eating the bad foods the bad guys might overpopulate your belly making you sick, etc... But ~10 days is "nothing" physically (except being completely sick if you have been fat for a long time), the difficult part is the mental: extreme boredom. I've tried my limits and speak from experience.

I experienced bad health involving overweight and terrible insulin sensitivity. 2 weeks on water completely eliminated the wrecked insulin sensitivity problem along with my high blood pressure and heart rate. I have no experience with diabetes but long ago when I did some research on fasting I've seen a few sources (some of them are about 100 years old) that claimed type 2 diabetes can be cured completely with fasting or extreme reduction of carbohydrate intake. It is somewhat contradicting what you are saying but our versions of fasting seem to differ a lot.

EDIT: Just to avoid confusion: Some people with specific illnesses can't fast safely. My claim that fasting for a few days is harmless applies to people without special conditions. Most people fall into this category.

I wouldnt give up coffee but then I drink it black, dont know if you would still consider that a snack.

You are right that reducing or eliminating carbohydrate intake radically effects insulin sensitivity, I've also read about the fasting "curing" type 2 diabetes as well, more specifically that a 400 calorie diet was supported by scientific research as a means of "reversing" it.

Although what I said was that I could not fast because of the meds that I'm presently dependent upon, they lower my blood sugar which is influenced by food intake, I could only adopt that sort of fasting if I was able to prepare over time and line up frequent medicals and blood tests to see how and when to adjust my medication.

 

[solpi]

The year's almost done and I've spent the last 2 and a half weeks ruining my diet by binging on doritos and chocolate.

Last winter I gained more than I thought I could. I'm naturally skinny but I overate a lot due to sheer boredom and possibly stress. Anyway, over the summer I decided to educate myself on nutrition, dieting, exercise.. anything that would make me lose weight. I grew heavily attentive to my diet. I cut dairy off (because of acne) and made sure I got the nutrition I needed every day. I managed to lose 15 pounds (woah, so much, I know. but I'm very small and 15 pounds made quite a difference) and reached my desired weight in around September and I'm still at that weight.
I quit coffee as well. I used to need 4 cups to wake me up and when I didn't get enough I'd go through the day with a migraine and a very foggy brain. I switched to tea and then decaf tea and occasionally some decaf coffee. I heavily prefer coffee over tea, and I disliked tea when I started, but decaf tea's easier to get a hold of.

My computer broke and instead of spending $600 to build a new computer, I bought a guitar. I figured it was time to quit sitting on my ass for 12 hours straight playing video games and being irritable when playing those games, and it worked. I still have a laptop, but I haven't played a video game in months. Learning how to play an instrument is on my bucket list and getting a guitar was the healthier decision for me.

Overall, 2016 was the most difficult year of my life and I've been through some shit. However, I did grow quite a bit. My depression I've had since I was 10 is gone and I've educated myself on politics and activist agendas when I was quite the ignorant asshole the year before (I'm friendly[ish] now, too.). I've never been so insecure and lost in my life, either. Normally I'm very prideful and sure of myself but I grew soft this year. I'm good now though, thankfully. I've been doing alright since mid October. I feel like myself again and I hope the unhealthy habits I grew out of this year will stay gone and I hope that the healthy habits will be kept. Both the mental ones and the physical ones.

 

[Lark]

Overall, 2016 was the most difficult year of my life and I've been through some shit. However, I did grow quite a bit. My depression I've had since I was 10 is gone and I've educated myself on politics and activist agendas when I was quite the ignorant asshole the year before (I'm friendly[ish] now, too.). I've never been so insecure and lost in my life, either. Normally I'm very prideful and sure of myself but I grew soft this year. I'm good now though, thankfully. I've been doing alright since mid October. I feel like myself again and I hope the unhealthy habits I grew out of this year will stay gone and I hope that the healthy habits will be kept. Both the mental ones and the physical ones.

I've not seen you posting but I think this is very relateable and I want to wish you luck with keeping up the good progress.

Hope to see you posting in the 2017 healthy habits thread when someone gets around to creating it.

 

[kyuuei]

Ending this thread for me off with a great video

 

[SiegfriedSchtauffen]

Overall, 2016 was the most difficult year of my life and I've been through some shit. However, I did grow quite a bit. My depression I've had since I was 10 is gone and I've educated myself on politics and activist agendas when I was quite the ignorant asshole the year before (I'm friendly[ish] now, too.). I've never been so insecure and lost in my life, either. Normally I'm very prideful and sure of myself but I grew soft this year. I'm good now though, thankfully. I've been doing alright since mid October. I feel like myself again and I hope the unhealthy habits I grew out of this year will stay gone and I hope that the healthy habits will be kept. Both the mental ones and the physical ones.

Congrats. Getting some shit done and progressing feels great. It is even better when you can define and pursue great goals consciously. In my opinion there is no such thing as depression (as other people define it) - it is a lack of real goals that makes life flat and pure shit.

I wouldnt give up coffee but then I drink it black, dont know if you would still consider that a snack.

Aside from water I consider everything else as snack. If you eat something delicious (let's say zero calorie sweets) you lie to your body and it triggers certain physiological reactions preparing to process what you eat. Water fasting is about giving rest to certain aspects of the physiology of your body (e.g.: not processing carbohydrates or anything coming from outside). The body of the average person is under non-stop physiological stress (coming from external sources like food) from birth to death.

You are right that reducing or eliminating carbohydrate intake radically effects insulin sensitivity, I've also read about the fasting "curing" type 2 diabetes as well, more specifically that a 400 calorie diet was supported by scientific research as a means of "reversing" it.

The body is a very complex set of control feedback systems (in which insulin is a signal). A control feedback system (even a simple one, not to mention a complex one like the body) can become unstable or its signals can "blow up", go crazy, or disappear and sometimes it's very difficult to bring them back to normal. (There is actually an area of science that tries to model such systems.) In practice one relatively good way to reset a system that went crazy is lowering the signals and then slowly bringing them back to normal levels preventing another blow-up. This is what fasting can do with your screwed up body. Even if certain parts of your body are under stress during fast (e.g. your liver: while your body is eating itself and breaks down fat and other stuff that releases lots of crap to be cleaned up), some other parts of your body have complete rest (e.g.: the chemical pathways used to process incoming sugars).
400 calorie is one correct meal. Its actually a very large portion if it consists of low calorie ingredients (certain veggies). If you eat only 400kcal/day then its best to eat it in the evening. After a few days your body gets used to this rhythm and you won't be hungry during the day and your stomach won't start becoming acidic around lunchtime. If you eat a bit in the morning or midday then your insulin spikes and makes you hungry till the end of day.

Although what I said was that I could not fast because of the meds that I'm presently dependent upon, they lower my blood sugar which is influenced by food intake, I could only adopt that sort of fasting if I was able to prepare over time and line up frequent medicals and blood tests to see how and when to adjust my medication.

It's funny that you are taking medications to lower your blood sugar and at the same time it prevents you from fasting that would be the best possible way to reduce your blood sugar (to almost zero), not to mention that its a natural method and could result in permanent improvements or cure. Am I the only one to see a contradiction here? I would definitely switch from meds to fasting... (Well, I know that not too many people agree with my unorthodox methods, have less willpower and lower priority on health that is #1 for me. )

The problem is that fasting is extremely difficult because:

• Eating is a strong natural addiction and #1 source of joy. You can't even drop coffee (which I consider and addiction like smoking). First you should work on that.
• The first few fasts make you feel very sick. Even after the first few ones that are absolutely terrible sometimes fasting takes effort and are just unpleasant. (Well, since I have experience I know difference between simply difficult and unusually unpleasant so I can cancel unpleasant ones.)
• Extreme boredom. You should stack up some books with topics you are interested in and perhaps will help you in your future plans to stimulate your motivation. During a fast you need it, a bit of interest isn't enough.
• Its best to be out of work during the fast.
• If you are among people (family/colleagues) then eating is a social ceremony from which you have to exclude yourself. For a wolf like me this isn't an issue.

Sorry for the long post. As a compensation I'll soon disappear for another year from the forums to have some more fun...

 

[Lark]

It's funny that you are taking medications to lower your blood sugar and at the same time it prevents you from fasting that would be the best possible way to reduce your blood sugar (to almost zero), not to mention that its a natural method and could result in permanent improvements or cure. Am I the only one to see a contradiction here? I would definitely switch from meds to fasting... (Well, I know that not too many people agree with my unorthodox methods, have less willpower and lower priority on health that is #1 for me. )

The problem is that fasting is extremely difficult because:

• Eating is a strong natural addiction and #1 source of joy. You can't even drop coffee (which I consider and addiction like smoking). First you should work on that.
• The first few fasts make you feel very sick. Even after the first few ones that are absolutely terrible sometimes fasting takes effort and are just unpleasant. (Well, since I have experience I know difference between simply difficult and unusually unpleasant so I can cancel unpleasant ones.)
• Extreme boredom. You should stack up some books with topics you are interested in and perhaps will help you in your future plans to stimulate your motivation. During a fast you need it, a bit of interest isn't enough.
• Its best to be out of work during the fast.
• If you are among people (family/colleagues) then eating is a social ceremony from which you have to exclude yourself. For a wolf like me this isn't an issue.

Sorry for the long post. As a compensation I'll soon disappear for another year from the forums to have some more fun...

Yeah, its not as easy as that, and its got nothing to do with the orthodoxy or lack there of of the idea of fasting, if I'd been able to adopt the tactics you've discussed when I was pre-diabetic maybe but not now, at least not immediately.

The medications I've used to control the diabetes, increase insulin sensitivity etc. are something that I've been told I could review and perhaps come of over time but cutting them out all at once would be reckless to say the least. No matter how good fasting turned out to be it would not be an instant fix and I doubt it'd reduce my blood sugars to a prediabetic control right away, it could cause low blood sugar, which is dangerous, combining the meds and fasting definitely would.

Anyway, I know you mean well, I've read a lot about the matter and know a lot of what you're talking about first hand.

 

[SiegfriedSchtauffen]

Yeah, its not as easy as that, and its got nothing to do with the orthodoxy or lack there of of the idea of fasting, if I'd been able to adopt the tactics you've discussed when I was pre-diabetic maybe but not now, at least not immediately.

I'm not saying that jumping off your medication and food right away and heading for a weeks long fast would be possible (but not saying the opposite either ). However, adapting a 2 or 3 stage approach is definitely possible and probably wouldn't take long. E.g.: stage 1: no coffe, and reducing food to evening-only within 2-4 weeks (at the same time I'm pretty sure that less medication would be enough but I don't know whether you have a reliable method to measure/adjust it). To me a goal like this seems to be realistic and more than achievable. The obstacle is mental. You have to give up a lot for weeks, but the possible rewards are huge. I usually like games like that! You can't even say that there's nothing to motivate yourself! You can cancel anytime if you change your mind and retry as many times as you like which definitely lowers risks and might encourage you to slowly brush it under the carpet. It is worth at least a try.

If you check out some related forums you'll see that those with determination achieve huge improvements in very short periods of time solving arrays of serious problems. E.g.: Lowering diabetes medication to a fraction of the previous dose or getting rid of blood pressure medications within 2-3 weeks, etc... (I can't speak for diabetes meds, but the blood pressure lowering effect of fasting is unbeatable - actually some people have too low blood pressure during fast.)

I held 3 mini fasts and then a longer one within a month. The docs said they've never seen as quick improvement as that. Elimination of overweigh, heart rate problems and insuline sensitivity problems within a month (while most people who acquire blood pressure or insulin sensitivity problems live with them till the end of their lives). I usually do things the hardcore way - I prefer intense suffering for shorter period than less intense pain over a longer period but this is again - my own craziness - not necessarily the best path for others. Still a good example of what's possible.