Diet-Fitness-General Wellness Your Thoughts?

[DubCoffman62]

From my understanding, occasional fasting is good. But missing the morning hurts your metabolism rate. Eating something in the morning helps your metabolism get started again instead of staying in fat storage or "hibernation" mode. Even drinking a protein shake or drinking alot of water in conjunction with some fruit can get your body going. Not eating after 6-7 is a good practice due to the fact that you may store some of the food you ate before bed. All in all though, eating a extremely low amount of calories slows your metabolism as well.

Obviously exercise is important because it trains your body as to how you use the energy(calories) you are putting in it. It adapts to what you do daily. So the more you work out(times a week), the more it learns that you are using that energy on a regular basis and doesn't try to store it. That is why programs like P90X work because they have you doing something everyday and it is at an increased rate.

I'd personally recommend trying hard to not let your body learn to store the calories that you are eating. Whatever that may entail. Eating breakfast is big in that process.

I work out everyday and do cardio 4 or 5 times a week. I do drink lots of coffee in the morning, probably not good, but I do enjoy it.

 

[Thump]

OK, what's wrong with me? I've been walking for exercise for the past several months. I started in about February and went through shin splints, fatigue, the normal stuff you feel after starting something like this. Then I seemed to break through a plateau and everything got easier - my breath got better, my legs felt strong and everything was good. Then July hit, heat indexes over 110 and I slacked off for a couple of weeks. I've been back at it for the last couple of weeks, but it's like I'm back at square one with the dead legs, shin splints (bad!) and low energy.

Is this diet-related? While I've been walking, I really haven't changed my diet. Am I just wasting my time until I make dietary changes? I dropped about 15-20 lbs from FEB - JUL, but my weight has been steady since that drop.

Could be an inflamed labia.

 

[OneBuckeye]

I work out everyday and do cardio 4 or 5 times a week. I do drink lots of coffee in the morning, probably not good, but I do enjoy it.

I fast from 7pm to 11am at least most every day. It helped me get lots of muscle definition in my abs and lose that fat ring that was around my waist. Which I never thought I would accomplish. www.leangains.com has extensive research/articles on fasting. I drink black coffee in the morning which helps my subdue my hunger if I am hungry. I don't think there is anything wrong with a few cups of coffee in the morning.

 

[DubCoffman62]

I fast from 7pm to 11am at least most every day. It helped me get lots of muscle definition in my abs and lose that fat ring that was around my waist. Which I never thought I would accomplish. www.leangains.com has extensive research/articles on fasting. I drink black coffee in the morning which helps my subdue my hunger if I am hungry. I don't think there is anything wrong with a few cups of coffee in the morning.

I've found that coffee is great for curbing hunger. I just have to remember to mix in some water too.

 

[DubCoffman62]

I got in my first mini work out since the surgery. I was able to go about 20 minutes and then it was too much, my heart rate shot way up. I started walking last night, nothing heavy, just around the neighborhood for an hour. That took it out of me too. It's hard to believe how much you lose in just 10 days of inactivity. I'm sure that the trauma of the surgery had something to do with it too though.

 

[powerlifter]

I got in my first mini work out since the surgery. I was able to go about 20 minutes and then it was too much, my heart rate shot way up. I started walking last night, nothing heavy, just around the neighborhood for an hour. That took it out of me too. It's hard to believe how much you lose in just 10 days of inactivity. I'm sure that the trauma of the surgery had something to do with it too though.

Are you still on pain meds?

 

[DubCoffman62]

Are you still on pain meds?

I haven't taken them for about a day and a half.

 

[muffler dragon]

Alright party people I have an update.

Last September, I started this step to a better quality of life after having a lengthy discussion with my Naturopath (who is the best physician I've ever had). At the time, I was simply going to do the P90x and let that jump start me. In October, Dryden directed me to some information and websites. The most dominant of which was marksdailyapple.com and what Mark Sisson has to share in general. The remaining 2 1/2 months of the P90x was additionally a transition to Primal eating. I ended P90x at around 164 lbs (5'9" frame). The weight was the only metric I had at the time. I decided at the end of the P90x that I wanted something more sustainable, and I transitioned to the Primal Blueprint Fitness (push-ups, pull/chin-ups, handstand pushups, squats, and plank). I decided this after not wanting to spend the money on CrossFit nor was I looking for something so intense. I've stayed true (80/20 rule) since last September.

Here is my bloodwork from last September and my results this year.

Lipid Panel Test 9/8/2010
Total Cholesterol 203
HDL 50
Triglycerides 159
LDL 121
Cholesterol/HDLC Ratio 4.1
Vitamin D 60

VAP Test 9/1/2011
Total Cholesterol 231
HDL 53
Triglycerides 109
LDL 152
Real LDL Size Pattern A/B
Vitamin D 72

I weighed myself last night and I was 165 lbs again.

For those unaware, the VAP test is more thorough and I'm not presenting all the data. In the words of my Naturopath, "You were fine beforehand, and you have improved." I find it interesting that my readings are elevated in the good and the bad, but because the Size Pattern came back on the A/B level (very close to A on the diagram) my physician was quite pleased which makes me quite pleased.

I should also note that I now can do a number of handstand push-ups and pull/chin-ups. I can play with my kiddos and I'm feeling good about my lot in life.

In the near future, I'll probably be getting a body fat test performed. I'll share the results when that happens.

 

[NateG]

The P90x was great. I am constantly trying to find something new to get more into a fat burn mode. I am gaining muscle weight again and need to tighten the cage. I am working on interval training. Biking (which is new to me) and I am looking for other ways to either use interval training or for other fat burning techniques. Any ideas? I will take any advice.... i have built muscle underneath... just need to showcase it now.

 

[Dryden]

Alright party people I have an update.

Last September, I started this step to a better quality of life after having a lengthy discussion with my Naturopath (who is the best physician I've ever had). At the time, I was simply going to do the P90x and let that jump start me. In October, Dryden directed me to some information and websites. The most dominant of which was marksdailyapple.com and what Mark Sisson has to share in general. The remaining 2 1/2 months of the P90x was additionally a transition to Primal eating. I ended P90x at around 164 lbs (5'9" frame). The weight was the only metric I had at the time. I decided at the end of the P90x that I wanted something more sustainable, and I transitioned to the Primal Blueprint Fitness (push-ups, pull/chin-ups, handstand pushups, squats, and plank). I decided this after not wanting to spend the money on CrossFit nor was I looking for something so intense. I've stayed true (80/20 rule) since last September.

Here is my bloodwork from last September and my results this year.

Lipid Panel Test 9/8/2010
Total Cholesterol 203
HDL 50
Triglycerides 159
LDL 121
Cholesterol/HDLC Ratio 4.1
Vitamin D 60

VAP Test 9/1/2011
Total Cholesterol 231
HDL 53
Triglycerides 109
LDL 152
Real LDL Size Pattern A/B
Vitamin D 72

I weighed myself last night and I was 165 lbs again.

For those unaware, the VAP test is more thorough and I'm not presenting all the data. In the words of my Naturopath, "You were fine beforehand, and you have improved." I find it interesting that my readings are elevated in the good and the bad, but because the Size Pattern came back on the A/B level (very close to A on the diagram) my physician was quite pleased which makes me quite pleased.

I should also note that I now can do a number of handstand push-ups and pull/chin-ups. I can play with my kiddos and I'm feeling good about my lot in life.

In the near future, I'll probably be getting a body fat test performed. I'll share the results when that happens.

This is why everyone should take their health into their own hands and further locate an M.D. that has taken it upon himself/herself to continue studying internal medicine and nutrition beyond what they were taught in med school. The difference between one year of muffler dragons bloodwork is striking. His naturopath (correctly) interprets from the new results that things are much better than they were at this time a year ago: Trigs are down by 33%, HDL is going up, LDL is changing from B to A, and even Vitamin D is up 20%. The Vitamin D synthesis benefits alone indicate stronger bone density, better complexion, better ability to 'tan' rather than 'burn' under the sun, and protection against a host of degenerative muscle, bone and neurological disorders/diseases, as well as several common cancers. There is not a doctor in the world that could look at those four things in isolation and conclude muffler dragon is damaging his health.

Meanwhile, an M.D. that goes by "conventional wisdom" would put muffler dragon on statins just because his TC rose from 203 to 231, and because muffler dragon freely admits he now eats a high-fat, low-carb diet.

Those last two points are almost universally considered "bad" by the modern medical establishment, even though neither has ever been proven in a one single clinical trial -- they've even been disproven multiple times, but that's been largely ignored. Our belief in the Lipid Hypothesis is so strong, that despite the fact the other four results that were directly measured are irrefutably "good," it's likely that more than half of the doctors muffler dragon could visit would put him on statins anyway and order him to change his diet ASAP, because that's what we've been teaching in med school for 50 years, based on a faulty hypothesis supported by flimsy causal evidence taken back in an age when the equipment required to correctly measure what we were measuring hadn't been invented yet.

Hence, the VAP test.

For decades, we've calculated LDL using the equation [LDL = Total Cholesterol - HDL - Triglycerides / 5].

Plugging in the first set of numbers in the year-ago blood panel results in:

LDL = 203 - 50 - 159/5
LDL = 203 - 50 - 31.8
LDL = 121.2

The equation tells us LDL is 121.2. On that panel, LDL is listed as 121, so we know it was calculated. The fact is, the actual LDL at that time could have been higher or lower (perhaps even by a lot), and we'd never be any wiser. Further, what is actually important with the LDL, whether it was pattern A (good) or pattern B (very, very bad) was not indicated, since there were never any LDL tests performed to begin with.

Onto the second set of numbers, which were taken with VAP, but which we'll calculate anyway, just to demonstrate the variance:

LDL = 231 - 53 - 109/5
LDL = 231 - 53 - 21.8
LDL = 156.2

Using the same equation as we used a year ago, we get LDL at 156.2. So, on a 'standard' lipid panel, this would have been written as 156 (rounded down). However, as this was a VAP test, the LDL was actually measured, and wound up being 152 (lower than what the equation would calculate). Further, it's the dual A/B type, which is good ... it's not ideal, but it's a start. Extrapolating from this, which is all we can do since we don't have a VAP result from a year ago, and knowing the diet, we can presume the LDL type was strictly Pattern B a year ago, and it is currently evolving to Pattern A. This will be confirmed on next years test, when muffler dragon's HDL skyrockets to >60, his Vitamin D climbs another 20%, and his Trigs plummet another 30% and are below 75.

Every marker will be awesome and he'll tell his doc he feels better now than he did when he was in the prime of his youth. He'll be stronger and more physically fit than he's ever been in his life. Body fat will be 8%. And best of all, he'll declare he hasn't suffered so much as a headache or the common cold, -- even a snifle -- in over year, even though he can run a 5K in 22m shirtless and barefoot in a winter rain. And still, despite all of this, a majority of American doctors would again advise putting him on statins, because his TC next year is still going to be >230 and his LDL will probably still be borderline >150.

Our system is so hopelessly fucked. Again: take matters into your own hands.

 

[BuckBackHome]

Muff and Dryden - Thanks for sharing that information. Just curious what you think your ND and/or you think about Dr. Esselstyn and his plant-based diet?

 

[muffler dragon]

This is why everyone should take their health into their own hands and further locate an M.D. that has taken it upon himself/herself to continue studying internal medicine and nutrition beyond what they were taught in med school. The difference between one year of muffler dragons bloodwork is striking. His naturopath (correctly) interprets from the new results that things are much better than they were at this time a year ago: Trigs are down by 33%, HDL is going up, LDL is changing from B to A, and even Vitamin D is up 20%.

I was telling my wife last night how great it is to have a physician who sees eye-to-eye with me on this. Feels excellent.

The Vitamin D synthesis benefits alone indicate stronger bone density, better complexion, better ability to 'tan' rather than 'burn' under the sun, and protection against a host of degenerative muscle, bone and neurological disorders/diseases, as well as several common cancers. There is not a doctor in the world that could look at those four things in isolation and conclude muffler dragon is damaging his health.

Typically, I "lobsterize" after being in the sun for 20-30 minutes. However, I have noticed a striking difference. I will still burn; however, the severity is not immediate and I actually have a "tan" for the first time in years. Fabulous change in more than one way.

Meanwhile, an M.D. that goes by "conventional wisdom" would put muffler dragon on statins just because his TC rose from 203 to 231, and because muffler dragon freely admits he now eats a high-fat, low-carb diet.

Which he distinctly said was not going to happen. No statins. I'm all about no drugs for as long as I can be without.

For decades, we've calculated LDL using the equation [LDL = Total Cholesterol - HDL - Triglycerides / 5].

Plugging in the first set of numbers in the year-ago blood panel results in:

LDL = 203 - 50 - 159/5
LDL = 203 - 50 - 31.8
LDL = 121.2

The equation tells us LDL is 121.2. On that panel, LDL is listed as 121, so we know it was calculated. The fact is, the actual LDL at that time could have been higher or lower (perhaps even by a lot), and we'd never be any wiser. Further, what is actually important with the LDL, whether it was pattern A (good) or pattern B (very, very bad) was not indicated, since there were never any LDL tests performed to begin with.

Great insight. I hadn't a clue as to the numerical background nor that it's simply based on a calculation. Thank you.

Onto the second set of numbers, which were taken with VAP, but which we'll calculate anyway, just to demonstrate the variance:

LDL = 231 - 53 - 109/5
LDL = 231 - 53 - 21.8
LDL = 156.2

Using the same equation as we used a year ago, we get LDL at 156.2. So, on a 'standard' lipid panel, this would have been written as 156 (rounded down). However, as this was a VAP test, the LDL was actually measured, and wound up being 152 (lower than what the equation would calculate). Further, it's the dual A/B type, which is good ... it's not ideal, but it's a start. Extrapolating from this, which is all we can do since we don't have a VAP result from a year ago, and knowing the diet, we can presume the LDL type was strictly Pattern B a year ago, and it is currently evolving to Pattern A. This will be confirmed on next years test, when muffler dragon's HDL skyrockets to >60, his Vitamin D climbs another 20%, and his Trigs plummet another 30% and are below 75.

From your lips to God's ears.

Every marker will be awesome and he'll tell his doc he feels better now than he did when he was in the prime of his youth. He'll be stronger and more physically fit than he's ever been in his life. Body fat will be 8%. And best of all, he'll declare he hasn't suffered so much as a headache or the common cold, -- even a snifle -- in over year, even though he can run a 5K in 22m shirtless and barefoot in a winter rain. And still, despite all of this, a majority of American doctors would again advise putting him on statins, because his TC next year is still going to be >230 and his LDL will probably still be borderline >150.

I haven't had a sick day since I started this (nor did I waiver on taking one). I am simply better overall.

Our system is so hopelessly [censored]ed. Again: take matters into your own hands.

Excellent advice.

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response. I truly appreciate it.

 

[muffler dragon]

Muff and Dryden - Thanks for sharing that information. Just curious what you think your ND and/or you think about Dr. Esselstyn and his plant-based diet?

I don't have any familiarity with that Doctor nor his diet; therefore, I can't offer anything at this time.

I would say that I don't believe you can get the results I've seen nor sustain yourself on a plant-based diet. That's presumption, but it's based on a LOT of reading in the last year.

 

[Dryden]

Muff and Dryden - Thanks for sharing that information. Just curious what you think your ND and/or you think about Dr. Esselstyn and his plant-based diet?

Plant based diets are great.

If you're a rabbit.

Esselstyn's diet will help you lose weight and lower your cholesterol, but virtually any diet can help you lose weight, and there is no scientific merit to lowering your cholesterol, so I don't know why you'd deliberately attempt to do it.

Here's an example of what's wrong with the medical profession, and this is from the first few pages of Esselstyn's book (paragraph 1 comes from page 1, paragraph 2 comes from page 4, they're two ways of spinning the same story):

[Joe Crowe] was having a heart attack. He was only forty-four years old. He had no family history of heart disease, was not overweight or diabetic, and did not have high blood pressure or a bad cholesterol count. In short, he was not the usual candidate for a heart attack. Nonetheless, he had been struck - and struck hard.

...

Since he already exercised, did not use tobacco, and had a relatively low cholesterol count of 156 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), there seemed to be nothing he could modify, no obvious reforms in lifestyle that might halt the disease.

OK. Let's recount what doctors tell you to do to not get heart disease:

- Don't smoke
- Lose weight
- Exercise
- Lower your cholesterol (<200 mg/dL)
- Don't "inherit" heart disease from your parents
- Avoid saturated fat
- Reduce stress

That's it, right? That's the standard list of things you need to undertake to prevent heart disease. Doctors have been telling us this since the day Time Magazine put a picture of bacon and eggs arranged in a frowny face on the cover. So, the very first thing Dr Esselstyn proceeds to do is admit that the medical establishment has no idea what causes heart disease. After all, a fellow doctor came down with heart disease at the age 44 despite not having five of the seven common risk factors associated with CVD, -- I'll say the doctor probably did suffer from stress, we'll never know about the animal fat -- and having an ideal cholesterol (ideal by conventional wisdom's recommendation). Despite all of this, Joe Crowe wound up on a table anyway, and so Dr Esselstyn's recommendation to reverse Joe Crowe's heart disease is to lower cholesterol even more.

If it seems I'm really harping on the cholesterol thing here, I am, because that was the entire impetus of Esselstyn writing the book!

Look, the 12 test subjects that Esselstyn follows may have reversed heart disease, but without a detailed study of what they ate or how they moved about for the 40+ years leading up to their heart attacks, we have no idea what actually changed once they were placed on Esselstyn's diet. This is what you must always consider when weighing cause/effect of why a diet works. It's what makes nutrition so complex. People have to eat something, so it is impossible to ever change a single variable in a study. Right? You can't just follow the instruction, "Don't eat this, instead eat that," and conclude that eliminating this cured your ailment. How do you know that the addition of that wasn't the cure, or vice versa?

The prohibition of ALL fats and oils from the diet simply does not fit with established science. Esselstyn's diet may work, but does it work for the reasons he says it does, and can he prove it when he makes a sweeping recommendation to have omnivores adopt an herbavores' diet and lower their base cholesterol (which is ~230 in perfectly healthy civilizations that don't eat the Western diet, but do eat lots of fat and oils, and don't get heart disease) to <150, making a person "heart-attack proof"?

By the way, we also learn during the course of Esselstyn's book that all twelve subjects lowered their cholesterol to <150, and we also know that all twelve were placed on statin drugs at some point -- so I don't know how that proves the diet does what it says it does. Maybe it was the statins? Esselstyn's "science" is junk, and would not hold up to peer-review scrutiny.

People still have heart attacks when their cholesterols are below 150, and men are five-times more likely to suffer a stroke when their cholesterol goes that low. Esselstyn spends lots of time talking about Total Cholesterol and LDL, and completely misses HDL, Triglycerides, and LDL particle size (which is a far bigger predictor of heart disease, since LDL particles are too big to permeate an artery wall and become a plaque when they're Pattern A). It's oxidized Pattern B LDL that causes plaques. We know this, because despite the fact that we do bypasses (or autopsies) on people with cholesterols ranging from 140 to 240, we never perform these procedures on people with Pattern A LDL, because they don't have heart disease.

See the problem? Going back to my previous post ... you can only discern the LDL pattern from a VAP, and your doctor won't order a VAP unless you specifically request it. A doctor I went to a month ago didn't even know what the hell a VAP test was, or that it was an option at Fairfield Medical Center, where I had my bloodtest done!

I'll put it this way ... Let's forget about things like lipoproteins, triglycerides, whether they're high-density or low-density, and how many deciliters of what you should have coursing through your body. Forget all of it, and know this:

Cholesterol is a waxy fat essential to mammalian life -- it is used to repair/regenerate cells. It is so important to cell growth that the chemistry of cholesterol is in your DNA. Every single cell in your body has this blueprint, and every cell can make its own cholesterol if it has to.​

Now, knowing that, would you think it'd be better to have more or less of it?

Further, if you had a rigid, broken artery (damaged cells), what would you expect to find built up there trying to repair those damaged cells?

See the problem? 50 years ago, one researcher at the University of Minnesota deduced that since cholesterol was in the arteries of people with heart disease, cholesterol must be causing the heart disease. That's completely backwards ... something else in the diet is causing the heart disease (mounting evidence now supports high-carb processed junk, which is what changes your LDL particle size from Pattern A to Pattern B) and the cholesterol starts collecting there because it is trying to do its job, since it is actually the cure to damaged cells.

Let's continue the thought further ... if cholesterol repairs and grows cells, does it now seem all that odd that cancer grew to an epidemic right around the time we all started deliberately trying to lower the one thing in our bodies that would regulate how cells are supposed to work?

Don't take my word for it.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315575770&sr=1-1"]Amazon.com: Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage) (9781400033461): Gary Taubes: Books[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Great-Cholesterol-Really-Causes-Disease/dp/1844546101/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315575809&sr=1-1"]Amazon.com: The Great Cholesterol Con: The Truth About What Really Causes Heart Disease and How to Avoid It (9781844546107): Dr. Malcolm Kendrick: Books[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Cholesterol-are-Good-You/dp/919755538X/ref=pd_sim_b_4"]Amazon.com: Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You (9789197555388): Uffe Ravnskov: Books[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Statin-Drugs-Effects-Misguided-Cholesterol/dp/0970081790/ref=pd_sim_b_6"]Amazon.com: Statin Drugs Side Effects and the Misguided War on Cholesterol (9780970081797): Duane Graveline: Books[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Doctors-Heart-Beyond-Modern-Exercise/dp/0938045652/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315576011&sr=1-2"]Amazon.com: The Doctor's Heart Cure, Beyond the Modern Myths of Diet and Exercise (9780938045656): Al Sears M.D.: Books[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Know-Your-Fats-Understanding-Cholesterol/dp/0967812607/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315575792&sr=1-1"]Amazon.com: Know Your Fats : The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol (9780967812601): Mary G. Enig: Books[/ame]

 

[muffler dragon]

A doctor I went to a month ago didn't even know what the hell a VAP test was, or that it was an option at Fairfield Medical Center, where I had my bloodtest done!http://www.amazon.com/Know-Your-Fat...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315575792&sr=1-1

My Naturopath is the first person to ever talk to me about a VAP test. Three years ago, an orthopedic doctor I went to for a couple visits wanted to put me on statins because I was at 205 TC. That was just one of the reasons why I left that cat. My mom's doctor in Marietta had never heard of a VAP test till I told her should request one (based on my Naturopath's urging). It really is sad and disturbing that so much medicine is based on faulty pretenses and incorrect diagnoses.