Comments on: How to NOT Suck at Getting In Shape http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/ Level up your life, every single day. Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:50:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: ephraim http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-2747 ephraim Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:11:14 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-2747 Yeah, it's clearly just as possible for there to be fit, in-shape (from a cardiovascular or strength perspective, or from an overall health perspective) fat people as it is for there to be out of shape, unhealthy thin people. Lots of factors go into determining someone's weight, many of which are about not only genetics but childhood and adolescence eating and exercise history. I fear that putting kids on restrictive diets and feeding them chemically altered crap that the diet industry calls food (which is exactly how i was raised) contributes just as much, if not more, to producing fat adults as the general culture of sendentary life. And, scientists have been working on figuring out a way to get people to sustainably loose weight (and keep it off for more than a year, let alone more than 5 years) for the last 4 or 5 decades, and they've pretty much failed on all counts. Statistically speaking, the people who do loose weight and keep it off are the extreme exceptions. Given that, it seems like if we, as a society, really care about everyone being as healthy as possible, we need to stop asking the question "how to we make fat people thin?" and start asking the question "how do we make fat people the healthiest people they can be?"<br>I mean, maybe there is a magic weight loss solution out there that some mystery diet industry cabal has covered up because they can't keep selling $40 billion/year of diet products to people if they actually loose weight and keep it off. But, i'm not that much of a conspiracy theorist...<br><br>As for me, I haven't made any intentional changes to my diet over the past year, except that i reduced my caffeine intake because i was having problems with insomnia and anxiety. My diet isn't all that attrocious though - i live with a bunch of hippie vegetarians, so i eat a ton of veggies and whole grains. There are some weeks where i eat kale twice a day for 4 days in a row because it was 50 cents a pound at the farmer's market. Not that i don't eat crap sometimes, but my real issue is about quantity not quality. I really don't respond well to efforts to restrict food by either kind or amount, for psychological reasons that i'm sure many people share. So, it's all about balancing psychological vs. physical health. And it's a slow process for sure. Yeah, it's clearly just as possible for there to be fit, in-shape (from a cardiovascular or strength perspective, or from an overall health perspective) fat people as it is for there to be out of shape, unhealthy thin people. Lots of factors go into determining someone's weight, many of which are about not only genetics but childhood and adolescence eating and exercise history. I fear that putting kids on restrictive diets and feeding them chemically altered crap that the diet industry calls food (which is exactly how i was raised) contributes just as much, if not more, to producing fat adults as the general culture of sendentary life. And, scientists have been working on figuring out a way to get people to sustainably loose weight (and keep it off for more than a year, let alone more than 5 years) for the last 4 or 5 decades, and they've pretty much failed on all counts. Statistically speaking, the people who do loose weight and keep it off are the extreme exceptions. Given that, it seems like if we, as a society, really care about everyone being as healthy as possible, we need to stop asking the question “how to we make fat people thin?” and start asking the question “how do we make fat people the healthiest people they can be?”
I mean, maybe there is a magic weight loss solution out there that some mystery diet industry cabal has covered up because they can't keep selling $40 billion/year of diet products to people if they actually loose weight and keep it off. But, i'm not that much of a conspiracy theorist…

As for me, I haven't made any intentional changes to my diet over the past year, except that i reduced my caffeine intake because i was having problems with insomnia and anxiety. My diet isn't all that attrocious though – i live with a bunch of hippie vegetarians, so i eat a ton of veggies and whole grains. There are some weeks where i eat kale twice a day for 4 days in a row because it was 50 cents a pound at the farmer's market. Not that i don't eat crap sometimes, but my real issue is about quantity not quality. I really don't respond well to efforts to restrict food by either kind or amount, for psychological reasons that i'm sure many people share. So, it's all about balancing psychological vs. physical health. And it's a slow process for sure.

]]> By: NerdFitness http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-2746 NerdFitness Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:16:26 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-2746 Well said Evan. Getting up early sucks, especially if you've been up late before. But if you can get your ass outta bed and exercising, the rest of your day will go MUCH better than if you had slept in for another 30 minutes.<br><br>-NF Steve Well said Evan. Getting up early sucks, especially if you've been up late before. But if you can get your ass outta bed and exercising, the rest of your day will go MUCH better than if you had slept in for another 30 minutes.

-NF Steve

]]> By: ephraim http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-1525 ephraim Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:11:14 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-1525 Yeah, it's clearly just as possible for there to be fit, in-shape (from a cardiovascular or strength perspective, or from an overall health perspective) fat people as it is for there to be out of shape, unhealthy thin people. Lots of factors go into determining someone's weight, many of which are about not only genetics but childhood and adolescence eating and exercise history. I fear that putting kids on restrictive diets and feeding them chemically altered crap that the diet industry calls food (which is exactly how i was raised) contributes just as much, if not more, to producing fat adults as the general culture of sendentary life. And, scientists have been working on figuring out a way to get people to sustainably loose weight (and keep it off for more than a year, let alone more than 5 years) for the last 4 or 5 decades, and they've pretty much failed on all counts. Statistically speaking, the people who do loose weight and keep it off are the extreme exceptions. Given that, it seems like if we, as a society, really care about everyone being as healthy as possible, we need to stop asking the question "how to we make fat people thin?" and start asking the question "how do we make fat people the healthiest people they can be?"<br>I mean, maybe there is a magic weight loss solution out there that some mystery diet industry cabal has covered up because they can't keep selling $40 billion/year of diet products to people if they actually loose weight and keep it off. But, i'm not that much of a conspiracy theorist...<br><br>As for me, I haven't made any intentional changes to my diet over the past year, except that i reduced my caffeine intake because i was having problems with insomnia and anxiety. My diet isn't all that attrocious though - i live with a bunch of hippie vegetarians, so i eat a ton of veggies and whole grains. There are some weeks where i eat kale twice a day for 4 days in a row because it was 50 cents a pound at the farmer's market. Not that i don't eat crap sometimes, but my real issue is about quantity not quality. I really don't respond well to efforts to restrict food by either kind or amount, for psychological reasons that i'm sure many people share. So, it's all about balancing psychological vs. physical health. And it's a slow process for sure. Yeah, it's clearly just as possible for there to be fit, in-shape (from a cardiovascular or strength perspective, or from an overall health perspective) fat people as it is for there to be out of shape, unhealthy thin people. Lots of factors go into determining someone's weight, many of which are about not only genetics but childhood and adolescence eating and exercise history. I fear that putting kids on restrictive diets and feeding them chemically altered crap that the diet industry calls food (which is exactly how i was raised) contributes just as much, if not more, to producing fat adults as the general culture of sendentary life. And, scientists have been working on figuring out a way to get people to sustainably loose weight (and keep it off for more than a year, let alone more than 5 years) for the last 4 or 5 decades, and they've pretty much failed on all counts. Statistically speaking, the people who do loose weight and keep it off are the extreme exceptions. Given that, it seems like if we, as a society, really care about everyone being as healthy as possible, we need to stop asking the question “how to we make fat people thin?” and start asking the question “how do we make fat people the healthiest people they can be?”
I mean, maybe there is a magic weight loss solution out there that some mystery diet industry cabal has covered up because they can't keep selling $40 billion/year of diet products to people if they actually loose weight and keep it off. But, i'm not that much of a conspiracy theorist…

As for me, I haven't made any intentional changes to my diet over the past year, except that i reduced my caffeine intake because i was having problems with insomnia and anxiety. My diet isn't all that attrocious though – i live with a bunch of hippie vegetarians, so i eat a ton of veggies and whole grains. There are some weeks where i eat kale twice a day for 4 days in a row because it was 50 cents a pound at the farmer's market. Not that i don't eat crap sometimes, but my real issue is about quantity not quality. I really don't respond well to efforts to restrict food by either kind or amount, for psychological reasons that i'm sure many people share. So, it's all about balancing psychological vs. physical health. And it's a slow process for sure.

]]> By: NerdFitness http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-1524 NerdFitness Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:16:26 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-1524 Well said Evan. Getting up early sucks, especially if you've been up late before. But if you can get your ass outta bed and exercising, the rest of your day will go MUCH better than if you had slept in for another 30 minutes.<br><br>-NF Steve Well said Evan. Getting up early sucks, especially if you've been up late before. But if you can get your ass outta bed and exercising, the rest of your day will go MUCH better than if you had slept in for another 30 minutes.

-NF Steve

]]> By: Evan http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-1521 Evan Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:19:44 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-1521 I've gotta say exercising first thing in the morning is great advice... it can be tough getting up early at first, but I've been doing it for over a year and now I tend to wake up a few minutes before my alarm automatically. The fact that you've got your workout out of the way before you even start working is really great though - when you get to the end of the day and you're beat from the day's work you don't have to feel guilty about skipping a workout. I've gotta say exercising first thing in the morning is great advice… it can be tough getting up early at first, but I've been doing it for over a year and now I tend to wake up a few minutes before my alarm automatically. The fact that you've got your workout out of the way before you even start working is really great though – when you get to the end of the day and you're beat from the day's work you don't have to feel guilty about skipping a workout.

]]> By: NerdFitness http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-1520 NerdFitness Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:43:53 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-1520 Hey Nick,<br><br>I think the biggest thing your big guy has going for him is that he has you helping him along the way. A support group is so important. I'm sure once he starts to see a little bit of change, his confidence will pick up, he'll get more motivated, and his life will turn around.<br><br>Thanks for the comment.<br><br>-NF Steve Hey Nick,

I think the biggest thing your big guy has going for him is that he has you helping him along the way. A support group is so important. I'm sure once he starts to see a little bit of change, his confidence will pick up, he'll get more motivated, and his life will turn around.

Thanks for the comment.

-NF Steve

]]> By: NerdFitness http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-1519 NerdFitness Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:42:33 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-1519 Suse,<br><br>First of all, thank you for agreeing with me that the Shawshank Redemption is the best movie ever made. Have you read the Stephen King short story that inspired the movie? The movie is incredibly faithful to the book and a pretty great read. The only major difference is that Red is a big Irish white guy in the book - I'm glad they gave Morgan Freeman the role for the movie; couldn't imagine it without him.<br><br>I think the big thing to remember is that motivation is different for everybody. I just want people to find that one thing that gets them going in the morning, because I think exercise is the BEST things you can do to improve your life.<br><br>Since discovering the Paleo diet, I've done some reading on our evolutionary tree. Because we developed when food was scarce and being fit was a necessity, our bodies and minds are genetically predisposed to operate at peak efficiency when we're active and exercising. Modern convenience has limited the scarcity and direct need for physical activity...but damn it's still important!<br><br>Suse, shoot me an email if you have any more questions and I'll see if I can help you work through it.<br><br>-NF Steve Suse,

First of all, thank you for agreeing with me that the Shawshank Redemption is the best movie ever made. Have you read the Stephen King short story that inspired the movie? The movie is incredibly faithful to the book and a pretty great read. The only major difference is that Red is a big Irish white guy in the book – I'm glad they gave Morgan Freeman the role for the movie; couldn't imagine it without him.

I think the big thing to remember is that motivation is different for everybody. I just want people to find that one thing that gets them going in the morning, because I think exercise is the BEST things you can do to improve your life.

Since discovering the Paleo diet, I've done some reading on our evolutionary tree. Because we developed when food was scarce and being fit was a necessity, our bodies and minds are genetically predisposed to operate at peak efficiency when we're active and exercising. Modern convenience has limited the scarcity and direct need for physical activity…but damn it's still important!

Suse, shoot me an email if you have any more questions and I'll see if I can help you work through it.

-NF Steve

]]> By: NerdFitness http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-1518 NerdFitness Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:34:06 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-1518 Hey Brett!<br><br>I hear ya. I'm pretty sure they shoot you if you DON'T play Ultimate Frisbee every day up in VT. Also, you have to drink Maple Syrup and eat Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream or you're given a citation. Where up there were you staying?<br><br>The winter months make staying motivated almost impossible. Its dark when you leave your house for work, it's dark when you come home for work, it rains practically every day, and the last thing you want to do is go brave the elements or get into a stuffy gym. <br><br>I think the bootcamp group sounds like an awesome idea. Group accountability is amazing. I don't remember the exact figures, but the success, muscle gain, and weight loss is MUCH higher for people who have others around them doing the same thing. It's tough to give up on an exercise when 10 people around you are finishing it.<br><br>I know I lift more, push harder, and run faster when I'm exercising with my buddy Joe. Motivation and competition - embrace it people!<br><br>I just finished a bodyweight circuit workout tonight that KICKED my ass...and it took 18 minutes. I'll be writing about it hopefully next week.<br><br>-NF Steve Hey Brett!

I hear ya. I'm pretty sure they shoot you if you DON'T play Ultimate Frisbee every day up in VT. Also, you have to drink Maple Syrup and eat Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream or you're given a citation. Where up there were you staying?

The winter months make staying motivated almost impossible. Its dark when you leave your house for work, it's dark when you come home for work, it rains practically every day, and the last thing you want to do is go brave the elements or get into a stuffy gym.

I think the bootcamp group sounds like an awesome idea. Group accountability is amazing. I don't remember the exact figures, but the success, muscle gain, and weight loss is MUCH higher for people who have others around them doing the same thing. It's tough to give up on an exercise when 10 people around you are finishing it.

I know I lift more, push harder, and run faster when I'm exercising with my buddy Joe. Motivation and competition – embrace it people!

I just finished a bodyweight circuit workout tonight that KICKED my ass…and it took 18 minutes. I'll be writing about it hopefully next week.

-NF Steve

]]> By: NerdFitness http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-1517 NerdFitness Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:29:04 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-1517 Great point guys. I'm reading "Good Calories, Bad Calories" right now...maybe the most dense book I've ever read (it has a 70-page bibliography). It's incredible how political a lot of the decisions are regarding dietary recommendations, especially considering how few of those recommendations have been proven in ANY clinical trial.<br><br>I'm the last person you'd suspect as a conspiracy theorist, but this book has certainly got me thinking that you need to be careful about where you get your advice and information.<br><br>-NF Steve Great point guys. I'm reading “Good Calories, Bad Calories” right now…maybe the most dense book I've ever read (it has a 70-page bibliography). It's incredible how political a lot of the decisions are regarding dietary recommendations, especially considering how few of those recommendations have been proven in ANY clinical trial.

I'm the last person you'd suspect as a conspiracy theorist, but this book has certainly got me thinking that you need to be careful about where you get your advice and information.

-NF Steve

]]> By: NickMinerva http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/03/how-to-not-suck-at-getting-in-shape/comment-page-1/#comment-1516 NickMinerva Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:15:15 +0000 http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/?p=3918#comment-1516 Great Post! I am trying to help a guy who is 23, 5'5" and almost 300 pounds, not to mention diabetes runs in his family. I will for sure be using what I read here! Great Post! I am trying to help a guy who is 23, 5'5″ and almost 300 pounds, not to mention diabetes runs in his family. I will for sure be using what I read here!

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