OT: Fitness and Nutrition Part V

[DAChampion]

It probably has a lot more to do with the fact that if youre willing to do yoga on a regular basis, youre probably someone that goes out of his way to have a healthy lifestyle.

There's that, but that should also apply to any sport, any sport really. The level of fitness seen in yoga studios though is comparatively high.

Separately there have been studies demonstrating the effectiveness of yoga in various contexts. For example, yoga lowers cortisol:
Cortisol and antidepressant effects of yoga

 

[Mrb1p]

There's that, but that should also apply to any sport, any sport really. The level of fitness seen in yoga studios though is comparatively high.

Separately there have been studies demonstrating the effectiveness of yoga in various contexts. For example, yoga lowers cortisol:
Cortisol and antidepressant effects of yoga

I'm not sure it applies to most sports. Sports are fun, sports are games. Yoga is... yeah well its exercise and not super cool ones, especially when you start.

I enjoy playing hockey a lot more than I enjoy yoga, and I actually do Yoga A LOT more than I play hockey, or any other sports, for that matter.

 

[Sorinth]

There's that, but that should also apply to any sport, any sport really. The level of fitness seen in yoga studios though is comparatively high.

Not so sure about that, I don't think there's the equivalent of beer leagues.

 

[Fazkovsky]

You are eating less than 1000 calories and not losing weight? What is your height and current weight? BTW, eating 1000 calories and less can be dangerous if not followed by a professional dietitian.

im 5'11.5 195 pounds. Yes i need to eat more. 1000 calories is dangerous but its also due to the fast of ramadan. I cant eat at home. I eat lunch at work. then supper i eat during during fast breaking. usually when it wasn't ramadan i would eat a full lunch at noon and supper and i was already close to 1000 calories. My lunches werent exactly healthy like rice, spaghetti, pate chinois,etc.I hate spending on food or cook it myself.. you add the milk and all the other stuff close to 1500-1600 calories which is a lot healthier but yet restrictive still. But some days feels like 1300 calories. 1600 calories is the mininum for my weight and age.

Btw im 28, is that still young ?

 

[Mathletic]

There are massive differences between strawberries and sugar, as it's not the case that "sugar is sugar". The strawberry contains 4 grams of fiber for every 10 grams of sugar, and it's now well measured that the body responds differently to sugar+fiber than it does to sugar alone.

Within nature, fructose always comes with fiber, with the exception of honey. The fiber means that your body will take longer to digest the sugar, your gut will be healthier, your mood will be better, you will have a lower appetite, more energy, etc. It also modifies your liver's cholesterol production.

Strawberries also contain protein. If you ate 2,500 calories/day of strawberries, you'd get 55 grams of protein/day. That's actually the RDA of sedentary people. It's not good enough for bodybuilders, but it's great for everyone else.

I'm not contesting that there are other benefits to eating unprocessed foods. I'm all for it. All I meant was that if you're in a caloric surplus, you are going to gain weight even if you're eating "healthy" foods. IMO, if you're serious about weight gains/loss you have to know what you're eating and what you're spending. Sure, there will always be variation, your body will adapt and so on but in the long run, you're very likely to reach your goals.

There's also the case of the internet celebrity Zyzz. He was an example that people pointed to, of body transformation. He died of heart failure.

I don't know the guy but it's clear he was steroids and other stuff. Hence my other point, it's not because you're an all-world athlete that you're healthy.

It is completely unknown if those drugs are harmless, they're mostly poorly researched.

I agree and I think many strength athletes have a care bears approach to them.

Yoga is good for you. Moreover, most of the regulars at yoga studios are fit. You'll see more nice asses there than you will in a cardio canyon.

It's not well understood why yoga does such a great job of improving people's health. I've read that it might be due to the lowered cortisol and improved sleep. At that point, you'll have superior body composition independently of macros and calories.

It's also good for the mind.

Not saying it's wrong doing yoga. My point was that I see too many times people diminishing the importance of obesity and its impact on health. The thing about yoga was one of the women cited as being a top influencer is obese but does yoga and is portrayed as being healthy.

 

[Mathletic]

I get what you're saying, but as I'm saying, the message goes further than that for most of these people. PEDs, Fat, wtv. Its influencing/being inspirational mostly.

And to be honest, a lot of the same could be said about most profesionnal athletes. Hockey, Football, Rugby, etc. Theyre all at such a high level that it grants diminishing return health wise.

there are health risks to any sports you practice and even more so the more you push yourself. You can die rock climbing, break your back lifting weights and so on. That's part of sports. However, taking steroids and other PEDs, especially the quantity the likes of Cohen, Hall, Shaw and so on take shouldn't be part of sports and I don't consider them to be particularly healthy although they are terrific athletes.

 

[DAChampion]

I think that part of the reason for the "big is beautiful" campaign is that people have given up on dieting and are as such looking for coping mechanism, and some of that is the fault of Big Diet. Though only a small fraction of the population, the fact is that the vast majority of people have tried to get fit, usually on multiple occasions, and failed. They're tired of the false promises, the false hope, and the lost time. Meanwhile, the slimness culture also needs to be undermined, as we have 5-10% of teenagers in the USA who are either anorexic or taking anabolic steroids.

There are vast promises out there on weight loss. These are problematic and will lead to people being discouraged in the long run. I discuss three:

1) You can go to your pharmacy and find dozens-to-hundreds of bogus supplements. If those supplements actually had medicinal properties, they would likely have side effects as well, for example yohibimbine and ephedra. Back in the early 2000s, bodybuilders were promoting ECA stacks for fat loss, but this was made illegal due to nasty side effects, I think that they were related to heart issues. However, most supplements do nothing, they're just a waste of money.

2) The false promise of "Eat less, move more" promoted by industries like Jenny Craig. The standard advice for weight loss is to cut your portion sizes at meals, and do more cardio exercise, it's all about the failed caloric model. The vast majority of the population has tried this. The problem? It doesn't work. It does work in the short-term, but the body quickly adapts and lowers metabolism rather than cutting further body fat. People get discouraged. They often end up larger than when they started due to the metabolic adaptation. Moreover, this requires a lot of willpower. If you need to lose 50 lbs, you'll have to keep this up for 25 weeks -- good f***ing luck. You won't have the willpower, and in any case your metabolism will crash. The metabolic crash was recently demonstrated in a study of contestants of the biggest loser. The more weight they loss following standard advice, the harder their metabolism crashed.

3) Youtube weightlifters understating how easy exercise is. They'll often say phrases like "if it's a priority, you make time," or "I only spend 45 minutes at the gym at a time". Both phrases are delusional. For the first one, a lot of people genuinely don't have time, either because they have kids, they take hard courses, they spend a lot of time in traffic. My sister spends 2 hours a day driving her husband is currently sick, and has two kids younger than 4 -- people like her don't have time to go the gym three to six times a week. Secondly, the gym takes a lot more than 45 minutes. It's not just the length of your workout, you need to go to and from the gym, you need to change into and out of your gym clothes, you need to follow it up with an additional shower, and you need a post-workout snack. Depending on your context, the 45 minutes can add up to 2 hours. They should be honest. If you want a genuine improvement in your physical health, you'll need to make a genuine and sustained effort. It will not be easy.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of dishonesty from the industry as to obesity. Some of you have dismissed being fat as unhealthy -- but the data on health and subcutaneous fat is actually not that convincing. It's abdominal/visceral/organ fat that seems to have a lot of bad properties. Fat in the liver screws up your cholesterol production. Fat in the pancreas screws up your insulin production. And so on. But organ fat is actually aesthetically neutral. It's subcutaneous fat which fashion expects us to reduce.

 

[Kriss E]

I give Eddie Hall full marks on his achievements, determination, passion and everything it took to get there. However, he doesn't have a healthy lifestyle by any stretch of imagination IMO. He might not make it past 50. Not so sure he's that good of an example for many kids I see. Not saying it's Eddie's fault kids take steroids but every powerlifter/strongman/weightlifter wanabee knows you have to be on roids to achieve those results.

In the same way I'm against normalizing obesity, I think in strength sports, people normalize and rationalize the use of PED's quite easily. How often do I hear "oh sarms are harmless" or "so and so drugs only do that to your body", or "oh I only take them to get through plateaus". Practicing strength sports is "healthy" (when done correctly of course ... can't help but feel the pain for all the hockey players I see squating/doing power cleans in every wrong way possible in the summer), especially when people take their diets seriously and apply themselves at becoming the best lifter possible. That's great. But when watching Hall, Stefi Cohen and whatnot there's a big unhealthy message these guys carry that I just can't get behind. It is to do whatever's possible to be the best at your sport.

I think PEDs should be legal and controlled. I don't care how many roids I inject, I'll never get to Eddie Hall level.
I don't think most people are willing to just shoot up non-stop to become high level lifters. I think those are myths we have been born into and constantly fed by society.
It is pretty funny to hear my non-fitness friends discuss this topic. They don't know anything about PEDs or Roids, but they will argue to death that it is super dangerous and completely unhealthy. They also say it's terrible like heroin, which I assume is a subconscience link they make because drug+bad+needle=heroin.
Not saying this to be your case though, but I do feel PEDs get a seriously unjustified bad rep. There is a lot of educating and fixing to be done but we are nowhere near that.

 

[Kriss E]

im 5'11.5 195 pounds. Yes i need to eat more. 1000 calories is dangerous but its also due to the fast of ramadan. I cant eat at home. I eat lunch at work. then supper i eat during during fast breaking. usually when it wasn't ramadan i would eat a full lunch at noon and supper and i was already close to 1000 calories. My lunches werent exactly healthy like rice, spaghetti, pate chinois,etc.I hate spending on food or cook it myself.. you add the milk and all the other stuff close to 1500-1600 calories which is a lot healthier but yet restrictive still. But some days feels like 1300 calories. 1600 calories is the mininum for my weight and age.

Btw im 28, is that still young ?

You undereating is probably why you are not losing weight.
Also, fasting doesn't mean you need to eat less. You have plenty of time during a ramadan fast to load up on food. Maybe tricky at first especially if you are used to eating so little, but you can do it.

 

[Fazkovsky]

2 glasses of milk of 2% fat maybe the issue

If I increase daily recommended fat intake or carbs intake I won’t lose weight right even if calories are low ?

Stupid fat I should drink 1 glass of skim milk and 1 2%

 

[DAChampion]

2 glasses of milk of 2% fat maybe the issue

If I increase daily recommended fat intake or carbs intake I won’t lose weight right even if calories are low ?

Stupid fat I should drink 1 glass of skim milk and 1 2%

Why are you even posting if you're not reading any of the replies to your posts?

 

[Fazkovsky]

Why are you even posting if you're not reading any of the replies to your posts?

I read it , I need to eat more but I wanted to see if I can lose a bit of weight for now there is only - week left to Ramadan

And I need a reply to this specific question , will you lose weight if you eat more fat than recommended if you on low calories ? I heard a story that a guy wasn’t losing weight because he had too much Olive oil

I don’t see what is the issue maybe beside the saturated fat which is almost 40% of rda already with 2 glasses of milk only ? Should be losing weight

 

[DAChampion]

I think PEDs should be legal and controlled. I don't care how many roids I inject, I'll never get to Eddie Hall level.
I don't think most people are willing to just shoot up non-stop to become high level lifters. I think those are myths we have been born into and constantly fed by society.
It is pretty funny to hear my non-fitness friends discuss this topic. They don't know anything about PEDs or Roids, but they will argue to death that it is super dangerous and completely unhealthy. They also say it's terrible like heroin, which I assume is a subconscience link they make because drug+bad+needle=heroin.
Not saying this to be your case though, but I do feel PEDs get a seriously unjustified bad rep. There is a lot of educating and fixing to be done but we are nowhere near that.

A lot of these PEDs are poorly researched, so they're automatically dangerous. Moreover many of them are used in combinations which are themselves not researched.

There is also no shortage of cases of people who have suffered health problems from PEDs. Some are successful, but many are not. Testosterone for example comes with the risk of roid rage, depleted natural testosterone production, impotency and erectile dysfunction, and breast growth. The breast growth is due to testosterone being converted to estrogen, so some people add in breast cancer drugs like Arimidex and Letrozole to inhibit that conversion. But those people suffer the risk o significant mental side effects and bone fractures.

Ideally, PEDs should first be tested in animals, and then tested on a select group of people for a period of a year.

You undereating is probably why you are not losing weight.
Also, fasting doesn't mean you need to eat less. You have plenty of time during a ramadan fast to load up on food. Maybe tricky at first especially if you are used to eating so little, but you can do it.

There are Muslims who gain weight during Ramadan. It's inevitable if you pig out at night. Getting 3,000 calories of crap in one meal is easy.

 

[DAChampion]

I read it , I need to eat more but I wanted to see if I can lose a bit of weight for now there is only - week left to Ramadan

And I need a reply to this specific question , will you lose weight if you eat more fat than recommended if you on low calories ? I heard a story that a guy wasn’t losing weight because he had too much Olive oil

I don’t see what is the issue maybe beside the saturated fat which is almost 40% of rda already with 2 glasses of milk only ? Should be losing weight

Lots of people have told you that you eat too many carbs, that you should have more fat. Your first idea after all is to switch from reduced-fat milk (2%) to skim milk. Do you not see how ridiculous that is?

Skim milk is actually inferior and you should be going for 3.25% milk. Children who grow up drinking skim milk are on average fatter than those who drink full-fat milk. That is likely due to the full-fat milk being more satisfying. Further, a lot of the vitamins and minerals are dissolved in the fat.

As for you, either:

1) You're lying/confused about your dietary intake;
2) You have suffered a metabolic crash, in which case you should be eating and exercising more.

You're not the anecdote of the guy who was having too much olive oil. You don't even know if that story is true. Further, you're not having any olive oil, so that's not you.

 

[Lshap]

Meanwhile, there is a lot of dishonesty from the industry as to obesity. Some of you have dismissed being fat as unhealthy -- but the data on health and subcutaneous fat is actually not that convincing. It's abdominal/visceral/organ fat that seems to have a lot of bad properties. Fat in the liver screws up your cholesterol production. Fat in the pancreas screws up your insulin production. And so on. But organ fat is actually aesthetically neutral. It's subcutaneous fat which fashion expects us to reduce.

Great post overall. I found this last paragraph really interesting because visceral/organ fat sounds typical of a problem we underestimate because we don't see it.

 

[Mrb1p]

Im getting leaner and leaner now. Probably closw to 15ish BF, all the way down from 20ish in mid winter. Ill be ready for summer in september.

Smolov killin my knee so far, starting the main meso right now, fun!

 

[Mathletic]

I think that part of the reason for the "big is beautiful" campaign is that people have given up on dieting and are as such looking for coping mechanism, and some of that is the fault of Big Diet. Though only a small fraction of the population, the fact is that the vast majority of people have tried to get fit, usually on multiple occasions, and failed. They're tired of the false promises, the false hope, and the lost time. Meanwhile, the slimness culture also needs to be undermined, as we have 5-10% of teenagers in the USA who are either anorexic or taking anabolic steroids.

There are vast promises out there on weight loss. These are problematic and will lead to people being discouraged in the long run. I discuss three:

1) You can go to your pharmacy and find dozens-to-hundreds of bogus supplements. If those supplements actually had medicinal properties, they would likely have side effects as well, for example yohibimbine and ephedra. Back in the early 2000s, bodybuilders were promoting ECA stacks for fat loss, but this was made illegal due to nasty side effects, I think that they were related to heart issues. However, most supplements do nothing, they're just a waste of money.

2) The false promise of "Eat less, move more" promoted by industries like Jenny Craig. The standard advice for weight loss is to cut your portion sizes at meals, and do more cardio exercise, it's all about the failed caloric model. The vast majority of the population has tried this. The problem? It doesn't work. It does work in the short-term, but the body quickly adapts and lowers metabolism rather than cutting further body fat. People get discouraged. They often end up larger than when they started due to the metabolic adaptation. Moreover, this requires a lot of willpower. If you need to lose 50 lbs, you'll have to keep this up for 25 weeks -- good ****ing luck. You won't have the willpower, and in any case your metabolism will crash. The metabolic crash was recently demonstrated in a study of contestants of the biggest loser. The more weight they loss following standard advice, the harder their metabolism crashed.

3) Youtube weightlifters understating how easy exercise is. They'll often say phrases like "if it's a priority, you make time," or "I only spend 45 minutes at the gym at a time". Both phrases are delusional. For the first one, a lot of people genuinely don't have time, either because they have kids, they take hard courses, they spend a lot of time in traffic. My sister spends 2 hours a day driving her husband is currently sick, and has two kids younger than 4 -- people like her don't have time to go the gym three to six times a week. Secondly, the gym takes a lot more than 45 minutes. It's not just the length of your workout, you need to go to and from the gym, you need to change into and out of your gym clothes, you need to follow it up with an additional shower, and you need a post-workout snack. Depending on your context, the 45 minutes can add up to 2 hours. They should be honest. If you want a genuine improvement in your physical health, you'll need to make a genuine and sustained effort. It will not be easy.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of dishonesty from the industry as to obesity. Some of you have dismissed being fat as unhealthy -- but the data on health and subcutaneous fat is actually not that convincing. It's abdominal/visceral/organ fat that seems to have a lot of bad properties. Fat in the liver screws up your cholesterol production. Fat in the pancreas screws up your insulin production. And so on. But organ fat is actually aesthetically neutral. It's subcutaneous fat which fashion expects us to reduce.

Great post. I honeslty never gave much thought about what kind of fat you're burning. From what I read and saw in the past was that people who dropped fat overall, also saw improved health markers. So, I never gave much thought about organ fat vs. subcutaneous fat. I saw that in one of your recent posts, and I thought I'd have to give a look into that in upcoming months.

I understand that there's really no magic bullet when it comes to dropping fat. I'm in fairly good shape, so friends of mine will ask me for advice when they want to drop or add a few pounds. From my personnal experience (myself and friends), I see a clear difference between those who track their calories, follow a high protein diet and take breaks once in a while and those who go with the flow. I generally point out to a study where participants were 3 weeks in caloric deficit, one week at maintenance calories and still ended up losing as much fat as the other group. I also tell them to track their caloric intake for the week, see how much they lost week to week and adjust their baseline level. Honestly, those who do that see results quite rapidly and those results tend to last. Obviously, not everyone can do that. If you're never home and have all sorts of obstacles, I feel your pain. But I still think it's the best way to go for the average person willing to make these efforts. Also, with a systematic approach, it's not that hard to keep track of what you're eating.

I think PEDs should be legal and controlled. I don't care how many roids I inject, I'll never get to Eddie Hall level.
I don't think most people are willing to just shoot up non-stop to become high level lifters. I think those are myths we have been born into and constantly fed by society.
It is pretty funny to hear my non-fitness friends discuss this topic. They don't know anything about PEDs or Roids, but they will argue to death that it is super dangerous and completely unhealthy. They also say it's terrible like heroin, which I assume is a subconscience link they make because drug+bad+needle=heroin.
Not saying this to be your case though, but I do feel PEDs get a seriously unjustified bad rep. There is a lot of educating and fixing to be done but we are nowhere near that.

I wholeheartedly agree that Eddie Hall's strength doesn't come solely from steroids. I'm well aware that some people who take them have shitty bodies and shitty strength. Hall has been training since forever and has tremendous dedication, work ethic and effort on competition day. My only point about Hall and the likes is that I don't consider them to be healthy. You can watch any video following him in his off days and it looks like hell. He has trouble breathing and so on. Taking steroids for all these years is definitely not healthy, even if you're strong as hell.

I agree that steroids and other PED's should be more accessible. At least, there would be better control over them. I saw a study go by not long ago where they analyzed the content of different sarms products and more than half of them didn't contain any sarms at all. Even if they're illegal, they're very easy to find on the black market.

I agree that most people take them once in a while and don't use them on a daily basis. However, I've seen first hand how harmful they can be. A friend of mine (25 years old) had to stop training for a year because of heart issues. He still has incredible strength but there's definite risks even if you're "smart" about them. I still think, in strength, circles, people take PED's too lightly. Some take them, don't see side effects immediately and think they'l be fine forever but once the shit hits the fan, it's not always pretty. I often hear of studies where participants took so and so PED and were fine. Problem with that is the the dosage is quite different from those used to bulk. I think the majority of lifters I know who think they know about steroids have very little knowledge about chemistry, medicine and so on and have too much confidence in themselves.

Personally, I have nothing against people using, as long as they compete in non-tested federations. I absolutely hate all the fake nattys in the QPF who pretend they're clean because they aren't using anymore.

I'm, personally, completely against them because more is always better and more always leads to more risks. From that point on, it's an arms race to who's more willing to put their health at risk. You can take creatine but once you go passed 5 grams a day there's no longer any benefits + there's no side effects other than bloating. Same for protein or anything of the sort. That's where I draw the line.

Im getting leaner and leaner now. Probably closw to 15ish BF, all the way down from 20ish in mid winter. Ill be ready for summer in september.

Smolov killin my knee so far, starting the main meso right now, fun!

same boat as you

 

[Mrb1p]

A good indicator of Eddie's fantastic athleticism is his career in swimming. Guy was a national champ and he still is an incredibly fast and quick swimmer. He claims he still swims a 29 seconds on the 50 meters, that's like 9 seconds off the world record, it's freaking amazing.

Also Eddie is a pretty extreme case, he's a lot smaller than his competitors, he competes against giants like Shaw and Hafthor who are almost a foot taller, he's just not made for strongman, really. I think he's going off every thing because he knows he'll die if he keeps up, hes mentioned it a few times.

 

[Suiteness]

That's what it comes down to at the end of the day, these people are already fantastic athletes. Take a random Instagram bimbo and shoot her up with a bunch up of gear and she won't magically be able to keep up with Stefanie Cohen. Just like 99% of gym goers will never achieve the ridiculous genetic gifts that Symeon Panda acquired at birth even if they hop on the same "training" regimen he has.

 

[Mrb1p]

That's what it comes down to at the end of the day, these people are already fantastic athletes. Take a random Instagram bimbo and shoot her up with a bunch up of gear and she won't magically be able to keep up with Stefanie Cohen. Just like 99% of gym goers will never achieve the ridiculous genetic gifts that Symeon Panda acquired at birth even if they hop on the same "training" regimen he has.

I personally think physique is easier to attain than performance based greatness, but yes, thats true.

 

[Mathletic]

That's what it comes down to at the end of the day, these people are already fantastic athletes. Take a random Instagram bimbo and shoot her up with a bunch up of gear and she won't magically be able to keep up with Stefanie Cohen. Just like 99% of gym goers will never achieve the ridiculous genetic gifts that Symeon Panda acquired at birth even if they hop on the same "training" regimen he has.

I agree but there's no doubt steroids work and work fast. There's a few guys who used in the past, at my gym, and one of the guys was a 200 pound lifter and his deadlift rose by a good 125-150 pounds very rapidly. He'd deadlift 600 pounds after only a few cycles. He had a good work ethic but really not great. Definitely not as great as one of our guys who's 230 with low body fat percentage and took a hell of a lot more time getting there.

 

[Suiteness]

I personally think physique is easier to attain than performance based greatness, but yes, thats true.

Oh definitely, but you can't outrun bad genetics. If you have sh*&*ty insertions for your pectorals or your biceps, blasting tons of gear won't do a damn thing for you on that.

I agree but there's no doubt steroids work and work fast. There's a few guys who used in the past, at my gym, and one of the guys was a 200 pound lifter and his deadlift rose by a good 125-150 pounds very rapidly. He'd deadlift 600 pounds after only a few cycles. He had a good work ethic but really not great.

And this how serious injuries happen. You'll have guys who've never learned how to lift properly suddenly lifting a gang of weight with snap city form, just an accident waiting to happen.

 

[Mrb1p]

I agree but there's no doubt steroids work and work fast. There's a few guys who used in the past, at my gym, and one of the guys was a 200 pound lifter and his deadlift rose by a good 125-150 pounds very rapidly. He'd deadlift 600 pounds after only a few cycles. He had a good work ethic but really not great. Definitely not as great as one of our guy who's 230 with low body fat percentage and took a hell of a lot more time getting there.

I dream of a 600 deadlift at night

 

[Mathletic]

And this how serious injuries happen. You'll have guys who've never learned how to lift properly suddenly lifting a gang of weight with snap city form, just an accident waiting to happen.

His technique is really good, however.

 

[Mathletic]

I dream of a 600 deadlift at night

Another guy who works out with us once in a while will take part of the Montreal meet in a week and a half. He'll likely make the province's record at a 163 pound bodyweight with a 600 pound deadlift. He finally decided to join the QPF despite his hate for all the fake nattys in the federation. He knows perfectly well he's competing against guys on juice.