Getting Too Fat to Sail

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by poiu

Like MarkJ said.

Your Dad is probably in a medium income area. Take a trip to a low income, highly populated neighbourhood and find the biggest shopping mall - that's where you find the biggest proportion of waddlers. Near 70% I observed once in Atlanta. Then go to the other extreme, say a mall in Aspen. Maybe 10%.

Weird that. A healthy diet can actually be cheap, yet the more prosperous are eating the cheap veg, lentils, rice and fruit rather than the Big Mac, large fries, super sized full sugar soda with a Twinkie desert.

Your correct, I have noticed that myself for years, and it goes back 50 years for me, which was before the proliferation of fast food.

So, why is that? I don't have theory, but I do believe that obesity does seem more prevalent in lower income areas.

Myself, I am Obese, never have been before and hope when we start cruising we will lose weight with hopefully lower stress etc.

[Lizzy Belle]

Originally Posted by poiu

A healthy diet can actually be cheap, yet the more prosperous are eating the cheap veg, lentils, rice and fruit rather than the Big Mac, large fries, super sized full sugar soda with a Twinkie desert.

A healthy diet is cheaper then a fast food diet, although people on a very tight budget always try to convince me otherwise. Yet I don't spent nearly as much as they do on food

There's a lady here -a BIG lady- who claims she can't afford healthy food for her or her overweight kids (and they're young too!). So she's buying fast food all the time.

The "cheap" fries and burger will cost her about €6 for her, and an extra €2 for the fries for the kids. That's an €10 meal!

For half that, I can cook those kids and her a healthy meal. But cooking a meal takes time: buying the groceries, taking them home, actually preparing and cooking the food .. Way easier to just buy fries & burgers - leaves her more time to complain about how expensive food is and how she can't afford it

Oops, sorry - rant over Just makes me angry when I see young kids not getting a healthy meal and having serious weight and health issues before they're even 10 years old.

I raised my kid alone -- on a below minimum income for the first years thx to a deadbeat ex -- and he ate healthy, real food ... Grew up to be a very healthy young man, who not only knows how to eat healthy but can also buy the groceries, cook a decent meal and does the dishes

[Tayana42]

When we started getting serious about eating healthier we began by reading the labels on anything we bought at the grocery store and comparing the so called nutrition information. We finally came to the conclusion that anything with a label isn't healthy. Now we try to stick with whole, fresh foods. We are mostly vegan now with occasional fresh (non-farm) fish. My wife is a great cook and I have no sense of giving up anything. I'm lucky to have the wonderful meals she makes. Eating out is not too difficult with salads, Asian restaurants, Mexican beans and rice dishes, etc. By the way, I eat more now than I ever did before and have lost 40 lbs without trying to lose weight.


S/V B'Shert

[jongleur]

Rich people don't add more noodles
to their hamburger helper. They eat
another buttered scallop.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by Muckle Flugga

Yeah… well, I note how few people walk anywhere, how few take the stairs, how few carry anything any distance… and how few realise that these simple things burn far more on average than going to any gym will do, because if you just do them, they will of necessity be sustained and prolonged activities.

A fat cell doesn't know whether you are exercising, lying on the couch, eating donuts or fasting. It responds to its local energy and hormonal environment and nothing else.

If your insulin levels are high, you're fat cells will not release fat, period, regardless of whether you are eating, exercising, or sleeping.

People who are living with chronically raised insulin levels who try to create an energy deficit, whether through exercise or calorie restriction, find their metabolism slows down and their hunger ramps up. They end up lethargic and ravenous because they are literally starving, on the cellular level. The copious amounts of energy stored in their fat cells are not available, because their high insulin levels keep it locked away.

So what happens, when they try to diet and exercise, is that they get gluttonous and lazy, and they lose muscle tissue and cannibalize their internal organs, and they do not lose fat.

The only way to avoid this is to get their insulin levels down. And that means a strict low-carb, high-fat diet. No amount of exercise will work, and no amount of dieting will work, unless it involves reducing carbs.

[a64pilot]

Here, as in the Netherlands?

I only spent about a week there and it's been a few years ago, and I don't remember the locals being Obese at all, in fact they on average were the most attractive Women I have ever seen, anywhere.
We were in Arnehm, there is an an Air force base there and I took them two Apache helicopters for them to look at and for their open house and we hung out with their pilots for awhile.
Anyway, there was this I guess she was an exchange pilot, an Egyptian girl, and all the Dutch pilots thought she was gorgeous while I thought she was plain, a little short, heavy and not attractive.
Then I figured it out, most of the Dutch Women were tall, blue eyed, blonds, what us American pilots though of as just gorgeous, the Egyptian girl was different and I guess that is why she was attractive to the Dutch pilots

[Lizzy Belle]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Here, as in the Netherlands?

Yes

Originally Posted by a64pilot

We were in Arnehm,

Oh, that's very, very close to my 'home town', Nijmegen. I used to work in Arnhem

Obesity is becoming a serious problem here too. At least, when looking at just our country. Compared to Europe and other countries, we're doing fine, but we're now at about 1 in 8 people (12%) being obese (or 'dangerously overweight'), and the number (and people ) keeps growing.

Especially the kids have more and more problems, due to all the refined sugar etc. in all the food. Even babyfood -the ones you buy in little jars- contains a load of sugar - on avarage, 6 sugar cubes per baby meal / jar Not even going to mention the "healthy" cookies etc. for babies and kids ...

Most parents aren't aware cos who reads the labels? And baby food is healthy, right? Even the Child health care centres say it's better to buy babyfood then give them anything you cooked yourself

[Sandero]

Food today is full of non nutritional thins like sugar and fillers... YUCK... it apparently doesn't even satisfy hunger and so people keep stuffing their pie holes.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by Sandero

Food today is full of non nutritional thins like sugar and fillers... YUCK... it apparently doesn't even satisfy hunger and so people keep stuffing their pie holes.

Yep.

In the Standard American Diet, 25% of calories are from added sugars, and 15% from added industrial seed oils (corn, soy, canola, etc.)

It's not food, it's industrial food-like substances.

[Blue Crab]

[a64pilot]

I am no nutritionist, but I believe refined sugar to be evil.
I believe in the US there are three basic food groups, sugar, fat and salt. Many years ago I attended a Master fitness trainer workshop in the Army, there i found out that Mcdonalds fries are so golden brown and good because they are sugar coated, and fat is added to the chicken bits whatever they are called.
Some things, like "American" cheese, I will not eat, there is no dairy product in American cheese, it's made from oil. As an experiment I left some out by an ant bed, and ants and other insects ignore it, I guess they don't see it as food?

And George Carlin had it right, what is "cheese food", cheese has to eat?

[Canibul]

Back before I saw the light, I used to hit what I considered the four basic food groups every day. But for me, in my 20's, 30's, and 40's, those four basic food groups were caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and fingernails.

[Lizzy Belle]

I once tried to go sugar-free (as in, no added sugar, including all ingredients like syrup, dextrose etc which is also sugar) for a month, while still buying my groceries in a local supermarket.

Can't. Be. Done.

Once you start reading labels, you'll find yourself buying fresh veggies more and more, and skipping anything in a package / bottle / jar etc - all processed foods, pretty much.

I especially love all the "light" or "low fat" products, which have switched out a certain % of (usually harmless) fat for ... sugar!

[Canibul]

I like your line about any thing with a label is basically bad for you. Makes sense. I mean, if it needs a label to explain the chemicals in it....

I was just reading yesterday what happens in your body for the two hours after drinking a Diet Coke. Scary.

[a64pilot]

I never chewed nails, but when younger I sure had the other three covered.
Now just caffeine and alcohol, after Retirement, I hope to delete the caffeine.