*Replaced lately with serious yoga, OK, so I'm getting new-agey -- I practice Zen too -- despite these being ancient practices, thousands of years old. All you red-meat Marxists may utter snorts of disapproval. The only thing I miss is fish. And no, I don't do crystals, magnets, tarot or astrology. Tarot and astrology are old too, but have no predictive value or, in _my_ experience, health or spiritual benefits.
My research indicated that the main issue for 80% of people is whether they burn more calories, in whatever way, than they take in, from any source. For the other 20%, there is a genetic predisposition to weight gain and in some cases obesity -- well, naturally, since between genetics/biology and environment, that's all there is -- but the fact is that some people have a very hard time losing weight no matter what they do. (Or in some cases, gaining it.)
Burning more calories than you use is harder than you'd think. 15 minutes on an elliptical walker or starir stepper or treadmill at an average of about 165 steps a minute burns about 200 calories for me. (I hate aerobics.) Two oz of potato chips or one schoop of ice cream is 300 calories, likewise a skinless chicken breast. Six oz of filet mignon is about 350 calories. In contrast a half cup of green beans is`20 c, a half cup of canned black beans 100 c.
The deal average dietary target is about 2000 c; the UN says we Americans average double that. And most of us don't exercise and do lead sedentary lives in bodies designed a hunter-gatherer diet of high activity and low calory consumption. True, you burn calories just sleeping or sitting, but mostly not enough. It's possible in the modern world to live healthy desk-bound lives without excess weight gain, bad genes aside. The French, famously, eat stuff that would make Americans bloat like Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh (just to be even handed here) -- but they eat small portions and walk a lot. We don't. We supersize and drive everywhere.
Long and short. Being a veggie and shopping at a normal supermarket will save you money and help you lose weight. Being a vegan's a pain in the neck. Being a carnivorne and even gorging on sweets (other problems with that, tooth decay, sugar crash) won't necessarily make you fat as long as you burn more calories than you absorb. The average person probably doesn't need more than about 2000 a day. You can take in a lot more ios you burn it off. Exercise, even walking, is good all around. I don't mean exercise speed-walking, I mean, just walking. Taking the stairs rather than the elevator.
If you do special exercise workout, you can maked weight routine aerobic by doing circuits, not stopping to rest between lifts. I decided that strength training was mindless, replaced it with yoga, which is great for core strength, not so much for getting cut. I used to look from the neck down like a movie star or Men's Health model. Really! Now, not so much. It's not all gone. I'm lean and fit but not, as my son used to say, "beasty." Well, looking like Arnie was never a goal. Michelangelo's David isn't "beasty" either.
On the other hand I can now do an unsupported shoulder stand, other balancing things I couldn't imagine before, this after only, say six months with serious practice (as much as I used to do strength training). And yoga, never mind Zen do things, good things, to your head that cannot be described but have to be expreienced. I think the veggie viet helps.
One thing yoga isn't is aerobic. I'm contemplated taking up a vigorous martial art, Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Jui Jitsu, that will have an aspect of mindfulness and burn caollories. At my dojo they do Akido, a sort of rigorous mock samarai sword fighting with wooden sword like sticks. I haven't done it but I gather it has benefits and effects ssimilar to Zen. I already do Zen, and Akido doesn't look aerobic.
OK, enough semi-informed health talk for the day. Burn more caolories than you absorb. Get some exercise. If you want to do interesting things to your head, do yoga or Zen meditation. The yoga's good anaerobic exercise. There's nothing you haver to believe, btw, wrt to either of them, no metaphysics, theology, nothing inconsistent with hard-assed materialism or any religion you choose.
--- On Sat, 9/19/09, Left-Wing Wacko <leftwingwacko at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Left-Wing Wacko <leftwingwacko at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] the paradox of choice
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Saturday, September 19, 2009, 10:29 PM
> On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 12:10 PM,
> shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>
> wrote:
> eam, real sugar. i like it nasty.
> >
> > then she told me that she used to drink soy milk all
> the time. that was
> > until she realized that she was gaining weight. she
> said that she thought
> > that by drinking soy milk and changing her diet to be
> more organic, then
> > she'd lose weight.
>
> Ha! I once knew a guy who was a vegan and only
> shopped at Wild Oats
> (bought out by Whole Foods) and only bought organic.
> I asked, how the
> hell can you afford that stuff? He claimed that the
> food was soooo
> nutritious that he bought much less food, saving money in
> the long
> run. I said, ok, whatever.
>
> Sheldon
>
>
> >
> > yeah. i shit you not.
> >
> > i've heard the same, before, from people who went
> vegetarian. they were
> > convinced that animal proteins and fats made them fat.
> so, they went with
> > veggies -- since beans and rice and crap are less
> calorie laden.
> >
> > *snirk*
> >
> > shag
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
>
> --
> http://left-wingwacko.blogspot.com/
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>