Help My Wife and I Eat Better and Lose Weight

[JSngry]

FWW...

I di macrobiotic seriously for 2+ years back in the college days and have never been healthier or more fit, not even close.

When I was at college I got my V° dan Karate degree, never been healtier or more fit..and I never followed any macrobiotic diet...I suspect it depended on my age.

Could be, but I quit macro at about age 21-22, hardly an old man and almost immediately started having minor health issues like colds/sniffles/indigestion/etc. that had been completely absent.

When I say I was healthy while macro, I mean healthy. Regular like clockworm (you could practically set your watch by the time after a meal that it was time to go), and was up close & personal with several ladies who had colds and flus of varying degrees and never had as much as a sniffle. I had energy to spare and consistently fell asleep no less that 5 minutes after hitting the bed. Slept soundly, woke up refreshed, and on and onit went. Haven't had that since, and yes, it started going away almost immediately upon letting go of the macro.

It's easy to scoff at macrobiotics, since it's so "anti-Western" in both philosophical and nutritional orientation, and if I hadn't seen it first-hand, I probably would myself. But I'm telling you - if you have the motivation, patience, and the discipline to get all the way into it correctly (and I haven't since then), it will have your body functioning at a very high level of physical and mental efficiency. No way I'll claim that it's the "only" way, as some of its more fervent advocates do, just that done as advertised, it delivers as advertised.

[JSngry]

well, yeah everyone's chemistry is diff; macro, from my observation, tends to put so much other stress on people, the health benefits compared to typically bad american diet are pretty mitigated. Tejas, how'd you get turned on to then, besides catching what i'd say was the tail-end of its semi-popular vogue?

p/s: Tejas, the new Public Enemy is not bad at all; in fact, it might be their best in 10+ years.

There was a macrobiotic cult in Denton that evolved into an actual normal community, much to the simmering angst of the cult founders. You know, they had a store and they offered classes and they invited you into their house so they could show you the way, and one guy - a very white guy - wore a turban and kinda scouted for "lost souls" to save. So...yeah. It was like that.

But after a while, it got to be people just doin' it they ownselfs. The thing that got me was this book by Michio Kuchi, The Book of Macrobiotics. I read it, and went from a "yeah, right" vibe at the beginning to a "Yeah! Right!" vibe in the middle to a "uhhhh....ok" vibe at the end. So it was the middle part, the common-sense application of yin & ying principles to diet and the principle of letting balance in your diet drive you to balnce in the rest of your life that I took away from it. And it was good, what can I say?

I can see where the thing can turn people off. It's not just "Asian", it's "Asain-cultish". But a lot of the observations about physical & behavioral manifestations of diet begin to make sense once/if you adjust your perspective away from the assumption that the way we been doing it is "natural" just because it's the way we been doing it. Yes...and no. Natural, maybe, but right and or best? Hmmmmmm.... But it is a dramatic physical and, uh...mental change, especially for hardcore "Westerners", and if you do it halfway, it ain't gonna do nothing but mess you up, so I dunno more than that right there.

But "stress"? I didn't have any, at least not from the diet. Healthy as a m-f-in horse. Ran 7 miles a day, worked out in the weight room every other day, handled school tasks, laughed & partied with aplomb. The stress really began to come after I let it go, which was triggered by the pompitudes of love, which, as the say, will getcha every time...

New PE? Why?

[JSngry]

PE Harder Than You Think

not edc's fave beat but... it's "the single," such as they are for old dudes who ain't gettin' played anymore.

Damn, that's almost...poignant...

Kinda like the dirge version 45 of "Baby I Love You" by Cher that Phil Spector produced and put out on his own WB-subsidiary label smeck dab in middle of Cher-Mania in the mid/late 70s. Waaaaay under the radar but......hey, it was a mfer and could damn near bring you to tears it's so....defiantly hopeless. You ever hear that one?

Now as for Flav, I had a funny thing happen the other week. I was revisiting "Don't Believe The Hype" and every time Flav would pop in to expoundiate the title phrase, damned if his voice didn't sound exactly like John Hammond introducing the Basie band on that Verve Newport side. The EXACT same voice. I kid you not.

So not only did John Hammond discover Bruce Springsteen, he also created Flayva Flav's voice. Was there no end to this man's generosity?

[Guy Berger]

Guy, have you dealt with serious weight loss or are your posts theoretical?

BTW, nuts are full of fat. Salt free nuts don't help much.

No, I haven't dealt with serious weight loss. But AFAIK nuts (and fat) are still good for you in moderation.

Guy

Edited August 11, 2007 by Guy

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

PE Harder Than You Think

not edc's fave beat but... it's "the single," such as they are for old dudes who ain't gettin' played anymore.

PE got some Oliver Nelson stuff into the track?

MG

[Guest donald petersen]

shalom.

please listen to me-i am not "fit" but i am ok enough that i could have had sex with a stripper from scores tonight (well maybe she was a bartender but lied-i met her downtown, not at scores) but i am anti-breakfast except drinking so much coffee that i get stomach issues and i am then a founding member of the dump city dancers, if you know what i mean. other days i eat more in the morning ie maybe a lame protein bar or a bowl of meusili but then i sort of starve myself for the big meal of the day, which will be mexican food with enough of the red and green spicy sacues that most of the food will be exploded down the pipes as i read the sporting news, if you know what i mean. even my ex-girlfriend who i saw a few days ago was impressed and said "you have lost a lot of weight". do i excercise? every now and then i will bring out my wiffle-ball nastiness (my curveball breaks like hamilton bohanon) or go to a particular basketball court nearby and bring my derrick mckey multi-faceted yet passive game to the court but the point is if you listen to me, passion will no longer be as rare as a copy of bobby hutcherson at montreux.

[Guest donald petersen]

speaking of summer...why not use bohanon's "summertime groove" as your jam as you walk briskly to improve both mentally and physically?

[king ubu]

Funny thread... I lost 13 kg in 3 1/2 months by changing diet...

less carbohydrates, more vegetables and more meat (not because I'd want that, but just because you have to eat something more than salad if you can't eat no rice, no pasta, no potatoes... or just a very small amount of them).

then, use olive oil, nothing else - no butter either... you'll get used to it quickly

no or little alcohol, and if, make it wine, not beer.

not sure about coffee.... I had none in the first month or so, but now I'm having some again, almost daily... doesn't seem to make any difference with me.

if you eat pasta, eat it "al dente", otherwise it will have a much higher impact on blood sugar.

if you eat rice, go for basmati, not your usual uncle ben's long korn one - less impact on blood sugar, too

(that't the general idea we - me and mère ubu, that is, our cat was excluded, she still gets her high end top notch darn expensive stuff... - pursued... the guy who's making a living from that concept's called Montillac or something... his concept is to omit food that has a high impact on blood sugar, hence you eat generally less carbohydrates and if you do, there's a list of stuff that's good and stuff that's not - worst are potaters in any form, beer, bread except whole-grain - another thing you'll get used to quickly.

also, eat breakfast (I never did), but don't eat normal milk-products, rather go for the low fat joghurts, cream (if need be) etc.

about cheese, I think you shouldn't eat it in the morning, and of course - someone pointed that out - not in the night, just as you should not eat anything heavy too late. rather go for another fruit or a joghurt, instead of cookies or ice-cream...

and some fruite are evil, such as banana (and I think kiwi, too), but most is ok - i've never eaten as much as in these past months, apples, grapes, berries of any kind, peaches etc.

anyway, I also started running two to three times a week again, after 10 years with no sports at all... feeling great!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

if you eat pasta, eat it "al dente",

Dunno what this means - please explain.

MG

[MoGrubb]

if you eat pasta, eat it "al dente",

Dunno what this means - please explain.

MG

"Cooked to be as still firm when bitten."

[king ubu]

if you eat pasta, eat it "al dente",

Dunno what this means - please explain.

MG

"Cooked to be as still firm when bitten."

[porcy62]

FWW...

I di macrobiotic seriously for 2+ years back in the college days and have never been healthier or more fit, not even close.

When I was at college I got my V° dan Karate degree, never been healtier or more fit..and I never followed any macrobiotic diet...I suspect it depended on my age.

Could be, but I quit macro at about age 21-22, hardly an old man and almost immediately started having minor health issues like colds/sniffles/indigestion/etc. that had been completely absent.

When I say I was healthy while macro, I mean healthy. Regular like clockworm (you could practically set your watch by the time after a meal that it was time to go), and was up close & personal with several ladies who had colds and flus of varying degrees and never had as much as a sniffle. I had energy to spare and consistently fell asleep no less that 5 minutes after hitting the bed. Slept soundly, woke up refreshed, and on and onit went. Haven't had that since, and yes, it started going away almost immediately upon letting go of the macro.

It's easy to scoff at macrobiotics, since it's so "anti-Western" in both philosophical and nutritional orientation, and if I hadn't seen it first-hand, I probably would myself. But I'm telling you - if you have the motivation, patience, and the discipline to get all the way into it correctly (and I haven't since then), it will have your body functioning at a very high level of physical and mental efficiency. No way I'll claim that it's the "only" way, as some of its more fervent advocates do, just that done as advertised, it delivers as advertised.

Personally I haven't any issue against macrobiotic, I have a lot against a dogmatic approach to diet, like all of macrobiotic's believers I meet.

It's pretty obvious that a regular and balance diet based on natural and clean food is the starting point for a healthier life, and I am sure that macro is a great food regime, thou totally alien to my mediterranean culture.

For me, my health problems started slowly when I moved in polluted big cities, first London then Rome. Pollution and food of unclear provenience bought at neighbourghood market had a big impact in my health. A lot of new problems that I never had when I was a boy in italian countryside and my mom growned vegetables and fruits in the garden, or bought meat and milk from local productors. No ddt, no strange stuff for growing animals, ecc. A chicken breast was one third of the the stuff I find today at the super market. How many antibiotics use them to make chicken big as cow? And what about vegetables and fruits? According to the latest studies, because of the extensive agricultural technics, a peach or a tomato has half the vitamins and minerals that had 30 years ago. So you think you are eating healty stuff, in reality, in the best hypotese, you are eating mostly water, in the worst you are eating pesticides and dangerous stuff like lead and other cancerous elements that will lay in your body until you're dead, because human body is not able to eliminate it.

About "anti-western" I don't agree with you. There is a a lot of stuff about the relation between health and food since the ancient greek philosophers, (the cradle and cornerstone of Western Culture). More then "anti-western" I would call it "anti-capitalistic".

Somewhere I have a book about the history of food and how it changed our habits and culture. A pretty interesting book.

Edited August 11, 2007 by porcy62

[Dan Gould]

Clem,

Understand that the walking is meant more as something to help my wife rather than as my sole physical activity. Given the state of her knees, if she's going to start moving, there are going to be limits.

In terms of the tennis, the work with the pro is very taxing, and believe it or not, a hundred balls in the machine set on "random oscillation" is also highly aerobic and challenging, more so than just hitting with someone because there are built-in breaks when you go pick up the balls to start again. Do that for an hour and a half and its a very taxing routine.

Now, with the legs, there are no injuries to report. It happened as I said - a normal 45 minute stepper session got cut short because my quads started aching .... and that simply continued to be the case until I got frustrated and stopped completely. It was really unfortunate because the stepper was the perfect device for me, so long as I had good music on the stereo and something to look at on TV, I could go forever, and when I first started doing it the weight came off like you wouldn't believe. I just keep hoping that if I ease into it steadily, my legs will come back.

As for the diet, yeah its kinda bland - but then again I've been discovering some rather unpleasant truths about my once "iron stomach" so I'm not sure I really care to spice things up at this point in my life.

[porcy62]

Now, with the legs, there are no injuries to report. It happened as I said - a normal 45 minute stepper session got cut short because my quads started aching .... and that simply continued to be the case until I got frustrated and stopped completely. It was really unfortunate because the stepper was the perfect device for me, so long as I had good music on the stereo and something to look at on TV, I could go forever, and when I first started doing it the weight came off like you wouldn't believe. I just keep hoping that if I ease into it steadily, my legs will come back.

If it's a problem of accumulation of lactic acid in in your quads, like it seems to me, a good way to prevent muscular problems like this is drinking a lot of water one hour before and drinking at least half a liter of water during the exercise, it prevent the formation of lactic acid.

Edited August 11, 2007 by porcy62

[Guest donald petersen]

let me also mention that my aunt and uncle have done the macrobiotic thing for many years and look like living corpses-gaunt, pale, old before their times, poor hair texture, bad teeth, general ill constitution...it could be because they are fools because, g_d, gary peacock looks great but it scared me off ever doing that thing. i would trust jsangrey's stories of explosive virility and restful sleep more, i guess.

[porcy62]

let me also mention that my aunt and uncle have done the macrobiotic thing for many years and look like living corpses-gaunt, pale, old before their times, poor hair texture, bad teeth, general ill constitution...it could be because they are fools because, g_d, gary peacock looks great but it scared me off ever doing that thing. i would trust jsangrey's stories of explosive virility and restful sleep more, i guess.

Explosive virility? Do you want that? No need to cut off your ale and pizza for it. Just give me your e-mail, I'll forward you all the spams about Cialis and Viagra I receive daily.