Meh Healthy Fitness Challenge?

@ConAndLibrarian Me too. But you’re not getting a photo of me in a swimsuit even if I do drop the pounds. It might break my camera.

@RiotDemon Inconclusive. It was never followed up.

@narfcake meh.

@CaptAmehrican Very good! Keep it up!

@CaptAmehrican good on you!

@CaptAmehrican fantastic work!

@CaptAmehrican should it go by percentage lost? Heavier people tend to lose more pounds, but percentage would even it up, I think.

Is this the meh fitbit group?

@elimanningface is this an actual one? I’d join.

@connorbush if you join, I’ll join.
/giphy peer pressure

@elimanningface what about a meh garmin vivosmart group…?

@moonhat sure, why not! I don’t own one but if one was donated to me, I’d join!

BTW - I don’t think anything real is going to develop. Like most fitness plans/commitments, There seems to be a lot of interest but not much doing (myself included!).

@elimanningface I am in the market for a fitbit blaze. just fyi to anybody with some deals.

@elimanningface I JOINED THE GROUP Y’ALL

@connorbush Ebay is running a 15 off 75 promo that ends today. That might help.

@elimanningface https://www.fitbit.com/forums/topic/92S3XWHN83SKW

I think this was the ACTUAL original Mediocre fitbit group

@connorbush
I know a few people who have done well getting Fitbits and similar from Ebay.

Also, check Slickdeals.net - run a search on “Fitbit”.
If there is something current, the Slickdeals thread will tell you how to check inventory and price, other tips.

A few weeks ago, Target was getting phasing out Fitbit Gold (Charge 2, Blaze, Alta) versions in some stores, but not others. Even if a store has them marked down, the price or the inventory often does not match what the store actually has. All too often, the store is OOS or the in-store price will not match the inventory price for that item in that store.

The biggest things to remember are:
1st, Never Ever Call The Store. It’s gotta be worth a drive on a lark to see if you can get one. Otherwise, the deal’s not there. If you call to ask, it’s guaranteed that the deal won’t be there by the time you arrive.
2nd, prepare for disappointment. Half the time even when it looks good to go, the deal isn’t there when you get there.

@connorbush thanks man! I am going to join…not as the sixth member though. A little to a lot superstitious about that number.

@elimanningface @connerbush I just found a Sharper Image Circuit wireless activity tracker. Model is STRX10 in a closet.

No idea if it is good, bad or indifferent. I never used it. Anyone want to try it? I will send it free.

I am lurking here trying to get motivated.

@speediedelivery thanks! I have a fitbit but maybe a fellow mehmber could use it. We really need that sixth member, lol.

@connorbush fitbit blaze is on sale - https://slickdeals.net/f/10343360-fitbit-blaze-118-16-w-prime-large-blue-silver-amazon-prime-day-large-blue-only

@elimanningface Find a way to incorporate Misfit into Fitbit and I’m in.

@elimanningface thanks homie

@elimanningface Large only. Sigh.

@woodhouse

I don’t do much actual working out, though.

Isn’t that why you have an ax and a lot of lumber though?

@woodhouse what is that?

@RiotDemon

From what I understand, it’s a very low-carb diet with multiple (possible) health benefits (including, but not limited to: improved mental performance, weight loss, therapy for epilepsy, and improved physical endurance). Unlike other low carb diets though, keto has a restriction on protein consumption.

@woodhouse I’m on a low carb diet also, but not in ketosis. No wheat, no rice, no beans, etc. Lots of walking is the extent of my exercise. Let’s do this!

@RiotDemon It’s super low carb (> 20g per day); the idea is that once your body stops burning carbs for energy, it burns fat instead. I’m lazy, so I have meal replacement shakes that are Keto friendly for my meals, and then I add snacks that don’t have carbs as needed. I’ve lost about 20 lbs in 2 months (however, a lot of that is water weight – you don’t retain much water without carbs).

@woodhouse good for you man! i did keto for my initial weight loss in 2013. over the course of a year, i lost a little over 100 lbs. i’ve added more carbs in recently, but i’ve also been exercising a lot more. main piece of advice is do some kind of weight training, even if it’s just using body weight.

@woodhouse
What kind of meal replacement shakes? Are they likeable? Expensive? Easy to deal with?

Thx.

@f00l @woodhouse i too am looking for shakes. Please advise. I recently found out i have tonnnssss of food allergy and intolerance so im looking to do 2 shakes a day and one dull meal.

@connorbush @f00l I buy Keto Chow (https://store.ketochow.xyz/keto-chow/); it’s about $65 plus shipping for a week supply (21 meals). You also need to buy heavy cream to mix with it (for fat/calories). The taste is great, though. I just got the salted caramel flavor, and I’m loving it.

@woodhouse

I wonder if people get tired of those formula diets over time. How long have you been on this brand?

What I want is a vegan or semi-vegan or adaptable-to-vegan-when-you-feel-like-it low carb or ketogenic leaning diet.

I know the keto thing works for weight loss when you stick to it, and that brings additional enormous health bennies.

Lately ketogenic/paleo type diets have gained, in the public fanbase, some aspects of a religion - at least, for some adherents.

The science that says that this is a good diet, and prob far better than the typical American diet, seems pretty solid from my reading (I’m an interested layperson, not an expert of any kind whatsoever). I have no doubt that a “typical” American would be quite a bit healthier if they switched to and stuck to a keto/paleo type diet than they are with their normal diet.

The science that says that these diets are the healthiest currently known, or that these diets resemble what paleo humans actually ate, seems very thin, or even, to a degree, contradicted by best current evidence on longevity and health.

I’d personally like some sort of synthesis between keto/paleo eating and the diets found to profit us most in long lifespan/health studies. I haven’t yet found a popular market book that really covers that the way I want it to.

And there’s only so much time to read up on various aspects. And I am no biochemist.

One of the problems with any keto eating is feeling “full” for a span of time, since not being hungry seems to relates to both blood chem (sugar or fat metabolism), and to a physical sense of “fullness”, if I understand correctly.

To those of you on keto/paleo type diets, how do you get yourself to feel “full”? How do you keep hunger at bay?

How do you deal with the fatigue or headaches or lightheadedness that can come with keto-type diets for some adopters?

@f00l the shakes I use are definitely not vegan, since they use cream. But they are vegetarian, and quite tasty. I’m on it for about 2 months now, and I’ve lost 20ish lbs. To feel full, I add Keto-friendly snacks (in my case, string cheese and bacon). Best of luck finding something that works for you!

@woodhouse

I would imagine you could add in V8 juice or similar veggie juice if you like it. i use that to feel full sometimes - def a diff effect than drinking water or tea.

Plus it won’t mess up your keto thing or a diabetic carb control thing.

Even better, juice your own. Non- starchy veggies, not fruit.

But that’s work and I’m lazy.

@woodhouse Wander over to the Diet Doctor’s website. Great recipes. The keto lasagna is a bit labor intensive, but I guarantee the way you make the “pasta” will be the closest in taste and texture to the real deal. I add Italian sausage to the beef, and use a half/half mixture of sour cream and ricotta. It makes a huge portion and freezes in individual servings extremely well. I buy the NOW brand of psyllium husk powder from netrition or amazon. It’s a good thing to have on hand.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/recipes

This site is also great http://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/

@LaVikinga
Good stuff

I think this is a good site for ketoand paleo info:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

And also for how to think about and use serious med-level tracking (phisycian data on a patient) of medical indicators of cardiovascular disease (which can happen even to people who are in excellent condition, workout-wise), and other home and doctor’s office health measure, and how to improve them.

Also I think these people are pretty into fitness, and pretty well informed about keto. Some of them are a bit fanatic. (Ha, ha, the Internet is for fanatics).

What I would like is a great diet that combines keto and metabolic considerations with those that have repeatedly been indicated as factors in health and longevity science. (I’m not talking about longevity hackers; rather about demographic long term populations studies, and comparative populations studies on groups that have, historically, with veritable data, demonstrated very long and healthy lives, low incidences of cardiovascular deseases, cancer, mental decline, degenerative disorders.

Incidentally, if members of these traditionally healthy groups drop their traditional group healthy behaviors and start living the snack and fast-food lifestyle, they get all the modern horrors st normal rates: obesity, cancer, mental decline, metabolic disorders, degenerative and chronic conditions.

Gary Taubes has put some good (and complex) info together in his books, but he’s a journalist, not a scientist. There is some evidence that he takes what is basically a very good idea and then runs way too far with it, thinking that he knows more than is known at this time.

I want to see a synthesis of the sort of thinking Taubes and the keto/paleo people do with the longevity and health results of the “China Study” and more recent high quality demographic longevity information.

I haven’t found the source for that th

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_at makes me happy yet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study.
(The Wikipedia article here is pretty thin.)

(there is a diff between the popular market book “The China Study” which presents the study info to a lay audience along with the author’ POV, and the actual academic “China Study”, which is solid pure science.

Periodically claims are made, esp by fanatic keto enthusiasts, that the China Study methods and data analysis have been debunked or proven flawed. The persons making these these “debunk” claims tend not to have any serious academic background. The academic world thinks the study is sound. And similar results have been found in other studies considered to be solid.

Talking or reading about diet can get someone into a maze of claim and counterclaim comparable to a horrible political debate.

Nutrition/health claims are an area where motivations of extreme enthusiasm and wanting to “have all the answers” tends to get way way way ahead of assessing how much we know at this time.

I can understand why. Who doesn’t want feel they have figured “the right thing to do”? We all tend to want “solutions”, even if we don’t actually have them yet.

I’m betting that most of us could take simple steps to be a lot healthier than we are; if we can manage to resist the unhealthy tides of modern lifestyles.

I am healthier than I used to be that way, but I have a long way to go.

@f00l I’m going with the “eat less garbage and exercise more” diet. I hear it’s pretty good.

@sammydog01

That’s true.

It’s also true that a lot of modern packaged and fast foods are designed to trick you biologically into not doing just that. Trick you so that you have no idea what you ate and you want more.

and metabolism is a big motherfucker, scientifically speaking, from what I have read.

I suppose you are the one who would by far understand that best, among us.

I want things to be simple and clear. But simple can mean a lot of work, if I simply choose to eat as my grandparents did. There’s so damned much to avoid!

@f00l Haven’t been to Mark’s site in awhile. It got a bit too militant for me, but it is a good starting point for people who want to shift to the lifestyle. I got confirmation on my suspicions that my body reacted to diet sodas and artificial sweeteners in almost the same way it did with processed sugar. I avoid them now, and stick to stevia as a sweetener in my iced tea and coffee.

It got infinitely easier for me when I decided to dump the wheat completely, as well as soy (with the exception of soy sauce now and then). I eat regular foods. Fresh or frozen vegetables, same for meat. Fruit=dessert in my world. I eat dairy. I adore bacon. If I want crackers, I make them myself. For the most part, if it has to go through more than three or four steps from the ground to my plate, then I tend to avoid it. I eat good fats, including animal fats. My ratio of good cholesterol to bad is 2.1. Pretty damned great!
How critics can tell me my diet of meats, vegetables, fruits, dairy, nuts, no sodas at all, or lots of artificial sweeteners, is UNHEALTHY is beyond me. 20 years ago I lost more weight than I weigh now by changing my lifestyle. Not a drastic diet, but a sensible one. My labs are great and I am the ONLY one in my immediate family who has not been diagnosed with diabetes (and it looks like I won’t be any time soon if I continue walking the path I walk).
I look a hella lot younger than my 56 years, and I feel great.
I can only tell people my experiences and hope to lead by example. Change is hard, but one would think the chance to live a long, beautiful, HEALTHY life should be enough motivation for anyone.

@LaVikinga

Your diet sounds really great to me.

I don’t usually eat meat or animal sourced food at home, unless take-out, or unless the ice cream aisle got to me. Partly philosophy, partly keeping things simple.

I think your reaction is artificial sweeteners is far more common than was once thought? It’s true that those don’t flood the circulation with sugar or with HFCS, but the artificial sweeteners do seem to kick off a insulin surge?

I’m not clean on artificial sweeteners, but I sharply limit it. Each few months I cut out another item that has them. Or try to persuade myself to.

I stopped doing sodas unless I was out at the movies or something. Not only the sugar or artificial sweeteners, also the acid content. Some physicians seem to feel there is a possible connection between very acidic sodas and osteoporosis. : (

I do indulge more than I ought with energy drinks. The artificially sweetened ones. : (. Bad me.

I mostly stopped doing grains and starchy veggies at home.

I usually avoid or way minimize grains when out.

Unless I walk by a rack of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish on a big sale. : (
Then all is lost for a little while. My brain starts going “just this once won’t hurt”…

I try to get in at out of a grocery store quickly and limit where I go and not wander around. Fresh food only. Sometimes this works.

When I eat out I try to order and eat in a very healthy way. Unless Tex-Mex. or unless I’m in a bad mood and think “what the hell” to myself.

All bets are off with Tex-Mex, but it depends on the place.

A number of otherwise very nice places and people I know seem to have donuts and cookies around. I try to pretend I didn’t see them and they don’t exist. Usually this works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

At least my blood glucose and good cholesterol levels look good. The rest of it is prob good for my age.

But I could do way better. I have very annoying relations who run marathons and do ironmans and are crossfit fanatics. It makes me grumpy sometimes thinking about them and all that fitness and “why am I not doing that …”

Then I text them that I’m in a bad mood and it’s their fault that I am being a grump because they are so annoyingly healthy and fit.

I then usually get a variety of humorous and extremely unsympathetic responses.

@f00l The diet sodas DO cause a glucose rise in me. I swear if I start drinking them, I keep craving them and other junk food. I DO eat rice, and potatoes. Not often, but french fries are a gift from heaven.
If I’m gonna binge on junk food, I binge on Cape Cod chips, or these parsnip chips from Trader Joe’s. Once in a blue moon, I’ll eat popcorn until I’m sick. I’ve found work around recipes for doughnuts, sweet bread, pizza dough, etc., but alas, nothing to replace the beloved tortilla chips. Can’t have Doritos or Stacy’s Pita chips hanging around. I hear them call to me. Their delicious siren’s song…
Guacamole on a piece of crisp bacon is decadently good.
It looks like I’m out for the count on my running days. Blew a mensicus beyond repair. Knee feels like it inflates after a few days of running. Have a feeling it’s a Baker’s cyst. I love to run. It’s the one exercise I can turn my mind off and just do. Plus the endorphins are addictive.

@LaVikinga

Sorry about the knee. That sounds bad.

Only, if you wanna turn yourself over to a physician, they can do amazing thing. If you let them just have at you.

I’m always a bit of a weenie in that. Surgery and all.

Yeah, the artificial sweeteners might do what you describe to me too. IDK. I might have to test that.

Chips are lying in wait for me at all times. They sing the siren’s sing to me. At Tex-Mex places, I just fold.

I try to avoid bad stuff by not eating out too often.

I do eat potatoes and grains some, when out. I just try to talk self out of it first. Sometimes that works.

I have been known to put the donuts and cookies where other people have to walk right by them. That way perhaps they’ll go away before I lose my mind.

@f00l Surgeries are a familiar thing for me. I usually can push myself back to normal pretty darn quickly. Had a rotator cuff repair done a few years back. I am an impatient patient and got really frustrated that I wasn’t allowed push the PT faster.
I’ve been told if I undergo the knee arthroscopy to clean up the frayed bits, it will markedly increase the odds of having to have a knee replacement in the future. I know the downtime for the arthroscopy is NOT something I want to have to put up with during the summer. I’ll probably see if I can get the fluid aspirated without having any corticosteroid injections. Doctors seem to want to inject that crap for everything because they swear it promotes healing. Nope. Don’t want to deal with the side effects.

@LaVikinga

Good for you with the steroid suspicious.

I wouldn’t want to run the risk of upping the odds on knee replacement either.

Maybe they’ll come up with some better procedure in a few years

I have a blown knee. Happened about 1970. I don’t know exactly what the medical terms are, but it’s bad.

Sometime I step in an unusual way, and the knee messes up. I have to live it being swollen and painful and wrap it for a whole them. If I do something really bad I could be in crutches or have no choice about the surgery.

The knee is really really “loose”.

As long as I stick to front-to-back motion I’m ok. So i can jog/run. Bike. Etc.

Skiing bad. Tennis bad. Too much sideways strain. Uneven surfaces can be risky. Jumping bad, too easy to land wrong. I can hike ok on trails, but without a trail it can be risky. Put foot wrong, too much sideways pressure, knee goes out, then will need crutches for a while. Not to mention pain. Not fun when you’re not near a vehicle.

1 knee surgery, way back when. Wanna avoid the next knee surgery for a few more decades, unless the physician magic improves a lot.

@f00l You can buy this, but your library probably has it to borrow. The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest via Amazon

@OldCatLady

Yeah I own that one in audible. It’s pretty interesting, but a bit too much like a PBS special. Nice intro, could use more hard info.

Fort Worth is supposedly a “Blue Zones” city. Only, as far as I can tell, than means exactly nothing except a rally, some bumper stickers, and a few billboards.

@sligett I had my annual check-up yesterday. I need to grow 7" to get my BMI to normal. It’s a goal…

@sammydog01

Hey, just this one perpetual day off of being healthy won’t matter or hurt anything, will it?

@CaptAmehrican Data nerds are welcome.

That is the fun part after all, right?

@connorbush Me too! OK one day in a row.

@huja Way to go!

@huja this is cool and all, but do you really want people to know where you hang out?

@RiotDemon No worries. As I like to say, my wife is a minor somebody. I’m a major nobody. No one cares where I hang out.

@huja Meeting Street, lol. I like it!

@tnhillbillygal Hey there- I am exactly with you- I’d like to lose 30 (at least) also, I am getting desperate and it does not help my depression. Is there some sort of meh group we can create here? Maybe even pics of our feet on the scale type thing for accountability etc? I’ll do anything. I Just need some kind of motivation.

@moonhat @tnhillbillygal I’m in the 30 pounds extra club too. I’m working on the steps thing- I can send you a tracker, tnhillbillygal, if you want to join in. It’s a start anyway. Whisper your address and you can join moonhat and me online.

@moonhat @sammydog01 Which kind of tracker are you all using? I have a fitbit charge 2. Would that work? I’m glad to have some input and encouragement

@moonhat @tnhillbillygal I have a misfit tracker. Actually about 20 misfit trackers. I’ll check and see if they can be imported into anything else.

@moonhat @sammydog01 If you both are using the misfit and I need it to be in the club, I’ll gladly pay you for one

@moonhat @tnhillbillygal Maybe we should set up a Slack group to chat since we all know each other? @tinamarie1974 too? I’m not really comfortable with the lose it app.

@moonhat @sammydog01 @tinamarie1974 @tnhillbillygal I’d be interested in joining as well if you’ll have me. I bought a misfit during this last sale. I’m also terrible at accountability. I rarely cook but I’m trying to get better about that as well.

@tinamarie1974 I was looking at keto this morning. Is it hard to stick to? When I have tried in the past, I have always just done tracking calories. It works but is slow going. I have never kept up with my macros.

@tinamarie1974 @tnhillbillygal i did keto as well a few years. is it hard to stick to? it depends on you. i cut the carbs cold turkey because i knew that would work best for me. for the first month or so, i stayed away from non-sugar sweets as well (diet coke, low carb treats, etc). i noticed that when i had artificially sweetened things, my carb cravings kicked in hard. so, i cut all those out until i had them under control.

i’d also say stay away, at least initially, from the pre-packaged low carb meals if you can.

the nice thing is that i didn’t have to count calories, just macros. there’s plenty of free sites to enter in what you’ve eaten that will show you approximate percentages.

@tnhillbillygal it is tough for me because I am not a huge meat eater. Now I have it at EVERY meal. My dr put me on 1700 cal/35 carbs a day and to be honest the first month was 7th level of hell tough. After that it got easier. I found restaurants I could eat at, cookbooks and recipes I could use. Lots of prep but you get use to it quickly.

The results keep me going and I allow a cheat day every month or two. If you decide to do it I can send you cookbook or web site suggestions.

The other thing is you cannot trust nutritional info ppl list. I usually double check on the myfitnesspal app just to be sure. You would be suprised how “off” some recipes are

@carl669 @tinamarie1974 I think my main problem would be staying away from rice. I really like rice and have it several times a week. I’m going to look at it more because I think I need something to jumpstart things.

I would love your website suggestions. I am skeptical of online articles because I’m on sites that hire the writers and I know they aren’t qualified to write on them and are just regurgitating info they see from someone else, lol.

@tinamarie1974 @tnhillbillygal

i entered my stuff on fitbit’s forum. you don’t actually need to own a fitbit to have an account.

i used this site to calc my macros:
https://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/

this site has a lot of recipes:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/recipes

as for the rice, that’s a hard one. there’s cauliflower rice, but it’s not the same. (it is tasty though with a good sauce on it)

@carl669 @tnhillbillygal pasta, bread and rice are all tough for me. I have found that I use cauliflower rice A LOT now. To be honest as long as it is incorporated in a dish I cannot tell the difference. That said a scoop on my plate w no sauce, spice, etc mixed in tastes like cauliflower.

@carl669 @tnhillbillygal so these books plus there is a dessert one. Simple recipes. I’ll look up web sites for you when I make it home.

@tnhillbillygal

One of my favorite things to keep around was cream cheese pancakes:

2oz of cream cheese
2 eggs
tsp of vanilla
tsp of cinnamon

blend it all really well in a nutribullet type thing. cook over medium for about a minute on each side. it comes out kind of like a spongy crepe. eat with sugar-free syrup or maybe a bit of homemade whipped cream.

swap out the vanilla and cinnamon for garlic powder, onion powder, oregano and salt for a savory version. good for using as a rollup with meat and cheese and sriracha.

@carl669 love that web site. Thank you!

@carl669 @tinamarie1974 Thank you both! Looking through everything and printing out recipes

@carl669 @tnhillbillygal sorry I just got home. A dew other web sites are skinnytaste.com and ruled.me - that one has a great brownie recipe

@sammydog01 a slack?