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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   1996 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for May 15, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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A 2 hour window where you eat very little is probably a big improvement on its own for most people. You need to plan out your meals much better and cannot mindlessly snack (you at least need to check you're not within the window first).

Forgot to add that one! Rules make it harder to consume calories. But... I don't think that explains it. Even intermittent fasting is not a particularly effective strategy. The problem is that fasting now just makes you hungry later.

I think it's worth trying, but improving physical health is really a lifelong goal. These gimmick diets might work for losing the initial weight, but you need to be willing to keep the diet up forever or learn the fundamental skills involved if you don't want the weight to come right back.

Funny how modern humans need "fundamental skills" but people 50 years ago just lived their normal lives and stayed skinny. This strikes me as Usain Bolt saying "you need to develop the skills to run fast" as if 99% of it wasn't God-given.

Funny how modern humans need "fundamental skills" but people 50 years ago just lived their normal lives and stayed skinny. This strikes me as Usain Bolt saying "you need to develop the skills to run fast" as if 99% of it wasn't God-given.

This doesn't contradict my point. These fundamental skills may not have been necessary in the past, but environmental factors have made them necessary nowadays. If people in the 70's time-travelled to today they'd need to develop those skills too.

Food today is cheaper, more plentiful, more tasty, and less healthy than your average king would have had access to in the past. Exercise is also much less important; you can get anywhere by car, and most modern entertainment is available right from the comfort of your home.

I'm not blaming you for needing to lose weight. I probably need to lose more weight than you do. But no diet is a silver bullet, especially if you don't intend to follow it forever.

I'm not blaming you for needing to lose weight. I probably need to lose more weight than you do. But no diet is a silver bullet, especially if you don't intend to follow it forever.

For the record, I don't expect the Shangri-La diet to work. I just hope it does. If it does, I probably will follow it forever.

Exercise is also much less important; you can get anywhere by car, and most modern entertainment is available right from the comfort of your home.

This is a red herring, IMO. Activity is not the problem. In fact, it has been reported that Americans are MORE active than they were in the 1970s when things like yoga and jogging were virtually unheard of.

It's common knowledge that you get fit in the gym but you lose weight in the kitchen. I am above the 90th percentile for activity. I can run circles around most people my age. My resting heart rate is in the 40s. And I lift. But I am still over 20% body fat according to scans. If you're focused on activity, you're barking up the wrong tree.

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