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Fat Geeks Healthier Than You Thought
DoubleWhopper writes "Sound the trumpets! Being a fat geek may not increase your risk of death after all. According to this ABC News article, a re-examination of the available data suggests obesity is still a health risk, but the 'pleasantly plump' among us 'do not have the same health risks as obese individuals.' But, from the article: 'People shouldn't think that this study gives them a free trip to the pork rind buffet.' Believe what you want, but you'd better hope I don't get to the Twinkies aisle before you."
Actually, according to the article, slightly "overweight" people actually have a lower mortality rate (read as: they live longer) than people in the "ideal weight" category. This actually turns conventional thinking about health on it's head. Or rather it might make the "ideal weight" a little heavier than has been pushed.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
"Jos. Louis" are a sort of mass-market chocolate cake sold in Quebec. They're made by Vachon, and hella-tasty. It's actually named after the founder family's two sons, Joseph and Louis, not after the boxer. They also have a vanilla version called a "May West". No explanation for that name.
Caution about this statement: being OBESE gives you a greater chance of having diseases which lead to a higher mortality rate (I.E. shorter life.) According to the article, moderately OVERWEIGHT people actually have a LOWER mortality rate than people in the "ideal weight" category as was previously accepted. Overweight and obese are very different classifications.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
There seems to be a number of factors that can contribute to being skinny: smoking and poor diet offer different challenges.
If you're smoking, quit. You will soon replace your smoking with snacking and fill out in no time.
If you are young and not eating well, which seems to be the case, you've got to worry. It seems that people like this have a tendency to just go to obesity once their metabolism slows down.
So just start working on eating regular, healthy meals that are easy to make and eat. I'd stick with stuff like pork stir fry, it's easy to make, easy to store and reheat and has a lot of good fat calories. London Broils are also a good source of calories and nutrients. Don't over cook your food, use real butter, drink whole milk and stay away from prefab food -- it's all salt and no helpful calories. -- at least not the right kind.
Eat breakfast every morning, and go for a walk or some other sort of exercise daily to get your body hungry. Also work on drinking more water, this will help open up your ailementary canal to more food.
Good luck!
It doesn't really matter if you're skinny, plump, or fat until you actually reach the "obese" limit. But even if you aren't obese, that doesn't mean you're living healthy. Everyone remembers that kid who ate nothing but fries, ho-hos, and mountain dew but still weighed 140 pounds at 6' tall all through high school and college (perhaps some of you were that kid). The damage done to that body is way beyong someone who eats fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole foods but weighs in at 220 pounds and 6' tall. Just watch your diet and do some exercise during the week. If your metabolism is a little slow and you hold onto a little more weight, it's fine.
Overweight people may live longer
But experts pointed out that the study only looked at how long people lived and not at obesity-related diseases.
That is a serious condition called gynecomastia.
If you have it, get to a doctor ASAP! You likely have severe endocrine problems. Make sure they find and treat those problems (likely high estrogen and low testosterone) and not just say "you're fat".
Endocrine problems can lead to diabetes (itself an endocrine problem), depression (sometimes to the point of suicide or commitment to an insane asylum), forgetfulness (sometimes permanent), anxiety (to the point of phobias), loss of concentration (to the point you are ineffective at work), rage (to the point of danger), high blood pressure (to the point of severe headaches, and possible heart attack and stroke), and osteoporosis (to the point of fractures and stooped posture - yes, this can and does occur in men too). Hot flashes can also occur.
I forgot to mention - NO SEX DRIVE!
Keeping this anonymous because I suffered from endocrine problems (only minor boobs). Luckily my endo put me on some meds which control most of the endocrine problems. Still some boobs, but hopefully those'll go away.
As one poster already pointed out, the story merely suggests that somewhat fat people are more "healthy" than obese people
As anoother poster pointed out, that is not all the study said. The study looked at how body mass index corresponded to mortality rates. What they found was that there was a rough ordering:
Morbidly Obese>underweight>"ideal" weight>slightly overweight
Considering that the leading causes of death such as heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes still have such intimate relationships with weight, I would still rather be thin than chronically sick.
Study after study has been confirming the links these diseases have with being overweight. When you consider quality of life arguments against controlling weight (i.e. - denying yourself those delicious delicacies), also consider the huge benefits in reduced medical expenses and better overall well-being you will enjoy.
Perhaps you should check for Hyperthyrodism.
Good luck.
Adolfo
You could go to a hospital for a bad cold...and leave with a flesh-eating staph infection. BTW, the people who work in hospitals are totally underrated.
Mod Parent: Non-Chinese +1
On-topic: Being your natural weight is what's healthy. Eat natural (i.e. traditional) food and always leave a little space in your stomach after a meal. Doesn't mean you'll be rake thin, but you'll be healthy.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
This is wrong. I have just finished a 9 month experiment on myself as a result of being informed by my doctor that I was clinically obese (back in July last year). My BMI had reached 30 and I was suffering from various digestion related problems.
I did a simple calorie controlled diet reducing my intake from approximately 3200 per day to under 1700 (for each 500 calories a day you cut you should lose 1lb a week) and as a result my weight dropped initially by up to 5lbs per week but eventually settled at 1-2lbs per week. My starting weight was 238lbs and my waist was 41" which made me look chunky for my 6'3" height. Anyway, I controlled my intake of calories and had a more balanced diet where I introduced more fruit and vegetables but I did not go to the gym once. The most I ever did was walk to work and back which was about half an hour each way. In 9 months I have lost 56lbs bringing my BMI down to 23.5 and have reduced my waist to 32". I feel great and have now returned to normal intake levels. I did this without increasing my exercise rate noticibly. The reason for this is that if you go to the gym and really work hard the best you are going to do is burn about 400 calories per hour. Cut out one bag of potato chips or chocolate bar and you have done yourself as much good. A bit of exercise will improve your overall fitness but it will not help you lose weight much at all.
Oh, and the best bit about this diet was that it wasn't a stupid fad diet like Atkins, it works well and I was still able to eat pizza, burgers, kebabs, curry and all that other great stuff and I still lost a load of weight. I didn't feel hungry all the time either because I knew the number of calories available to me each day and had food available that was filling and low in calories but would be finished off with a small piece of chocolate or some other treat. Losing weight is not about working yourself to death in a gym or cutting out all the food you love, it is about moderation and knowing what you are eating. Easiest diet I ever did.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
I feel like a lazy bum sitting in front of a computer all day, and it actually motivates me go to the gym. I know several other geeks that feel the same way, two of them are professional bodybuilders.
:)
One thing sitting in front of the computer all day does is give you plenty of time to do research on the web on proper nutrition and workout techniques also. This means that if you do things properly, you can go to the gym less than most people, and get better results.
Nutrition is about 80% of it. If you want a nice quick recipe without doing much research, check out this. This will give you a good base to start from and modify to your particular situation. Yeah, it costs money for a downloadable PDF, but, if you're too lazy to do the research, it's worth it. I bought this awhile ago to see what it was about, and it's basically the same thing I came up with 4 years ago or so. I went from about 150 to 195 with 9% bodyfat using this over the first 2 years. To keep in proper Slashdot tradition of likening everything to computers, it's like hacking your body.
I think the hardest part is making it a routine thing. Force yourself to do it for 3 weeks, and it will become a habit. You'll feel lazy if you don't go. And the part about eating 6 smaller meals a day, it works wonders. You'll not only keep fat off, but if you found yourself tired in the afternoon, you won't be anymore.
If you really wanna do some research, there's a book called Supertraining by Mel Siff. I think it's out of print now, but last I checked Amazon still had some. It's expensive, but there's a wealth of information there. It gives you the basis behind everything, not canned workout schedules or nutrition, you'll have to come up with that yourself.
For those of you that run companies, or are in charge of offices, get some funds to have an office weight/workout room. Your employees will have more energy and be less likely to stare at the wall all afternoon. Plus, some will stay and work late after they have finished their workout if they workout after work hours. Company subsidized gym memberships are nice, but if the gym isn't around the corner or convenient to go to, people are less likely to go.
A word on supplements... ion-exchanged whey protein isolate is the best you will find. It absorbs the fastest, and less goes to waste. Isopure seems to be the only brand out there that is 100% isolate. Don't waste your money on cheap protein. Creatine also seems to work for some people, although some find that it irritates their stomach. As far as other supplements go, pretty much all of it is garbage. The only other supplement that worked was androstedione, and as of a couple of months ago, it's illegal. I took it for about 2 weeks, but it made me wanna rough people up, so I stopped. DPS is the cheapest place I've found for supplements. Buy yourself some Isopure and some Rage or Tri-o-plex bars for a snack. If you're trying to build muscle, you'll need extra protein so you're not wasting your time in the gym.
Make sure you stretch properly, or you'll injure yourself or cause scar tissue to form. I can't emphasize enough how important stretching is. Also, make sure you do exercises with proper form. I injured my neck because someone showed me how to do shoulder presses with dumbells incorrectly. Most personal trainers at gyms I've been to don't even have any sort of personal trainer certification. It is definitely worth your money to find one that actually has some sort of credentials, at least initially. You don't want to learn to do things incorrectly and hurt yourself like I did. If you injure discs in your neck or back, they will never heal completely, I'll probably need surgery someday.
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Light breakfast
Salad for lunch or dinner
Reasonable meal with protien and carbs the rest of the time
Run 3 times a week, lift twice a week. Running = 40 minutes, lifting = working major muscle groups another, half hour a day.
Have a few hardy meals a week, enjoy yourselves.
No regular soda, no candy. No fast food.
If you like those, sorry, find an endorphin high, find a food high, find somethign to take you off the urge of crap.
You might have to sacrifice an hour of MMPORPG a week, maybe an hour of non-profit coding. But isn't not beign a fat ass, being someone people can appreciate, being someone you don't have to meet online worth it. Comment me down if you will for being unrealistic and being unappreciative of people that "are big boned" but dammit this is somthign I overcame and you can to. I council poeple at my work at this all the time, I've helped at least half a dozen coworkers lose FIFTY pounds EACH, you CAN TOO!!!
I don't actually have any disagreement with this, I walk to work and back which is far more exercise than most folk do but what I disagree with is the implication that some feel going to the gym will make them lose weight. It is quite likely that if you are pretty heavy as I was that going to gym is going to induce a heart attack. Start off by doing a bit of steady exercise like walking regularly which will improve your heart condition and then you can start doing more serious exercise.
Probably, now. Certainly couldn't have done so a year ago. I was heavy and out of condition such that stairs were a problem. This was down to some surgery I had a few years back that imobilised me for six months so I lost the ability to run at all and I ended up getting fat and the extra weight prevented me from being able to run or even walk well. Losing weight by dieting has made the impact of exercise much less damaging to me. I had to lose the weight to be in a position to actually be able to exercise. Just walking for an hour a day is excellent for fitness too and since last year and the change in diet my resting pulse has dropped from about 80bpm to under 60, again without all the thrashing about in a gym or jogging (which by the way I couldn't do anyway because of the surgery and the strain on my joints it induced).
Of course but when we talk about exercise and being overweight etc it is important for people to be able to start somewhere and the first thing to do is to reduce your overall weight and that really can only be achieved by dieting. The exercise will improve your fitness but the diet will reduce the damage the weight and exercise are likely to do to you.
Cutting out anything is really not what we want to do, it makes us feel rotten and that makes us less likely to continue with the diet. My attitude was that if I wanted a burger then that was fine if it was within the range of available calories. Diet soda, yeah, not had a regular soda in nearly two years now and that makes a huge difference. Don't put lots of salt in your food, don't order a large burger when a small one will do the trick, and order regular fries rather than going for the larger or supersize. Fast food is nice at times and saying you can't ever eat it is really not going to help. Just cut down the portions, have some salad too, don't have loads of dressing on there. As your weight comes down you can build in some walking into your day, gradually you will find as I have that you can run. The joy I felt the day I found I actually had a spring in my step again (go look at my web site for why) and I could sustain my weight up on my toes again, well, it has been five years since I was last able to run and the fact I can do so again is a revelation.
All these forms of exercise are pretty much impossible to do when you are very heavy and unfit. You need to lose the weight first and then you can build up to these. Like I say, I can now do exercis
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Personal experience doesn't mean its the rule, its just that, personal experience.
Jonathanjk.com
Muscles get stronger via low reps, high tension, but they get bulky from high reps, low tension.
That sounds reversed.
Low reps, lots of weight = bulky muscle. The kind that is strong in the strict sense (can lift lots of weight) but doesn't last very long (only a couple times). This is typically what bodybuilders go for to get that huge muscled look.
High reps, less weight = lean muscle. This is not as strong in absolute terms (less weight can be lifted) but lasts for much longer (many reps, like climbing a rope). This is typically what most atheletes want because you want to be strong, light, and fast. This is more "normal" strength and allows maximum use of your body.
Yes, it's normally spelt 'Tao' in the Western Alphabet, and technically, the movie is called 'Tao... ,' but at least in Mandarin the word begins with a sort of sharp 'D' sound so the GP is fair in what he says.
a la "Osama" vs. "Usama", "Gadaffi" vs. "Qadaffi", I guess.
Guess this is not dissimilar to the Japanese use of the (supposed) 'r' sound, which is meant to be more like a cross between a western 'l' and western 'r'. In a reversal of the mistake many English-speaking Japanese make (mixing up ls and rs), a (supposed) stereotypical 'gaijin' mistake in Japanese is making the 'r' sound too hard (see here and here).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
BMI is not intended to be used to asess elite athletes.
For the vast majority of the population, it is a fairly good indicator of overweight or obese.
A cheap sweetner used in many food products and mostly associated with the non-food product of softdrinks or sugar water.
Research has shown that HFCS can contribute as much as 1/3 to high triglicerides (FAT) in your blood and body.
Having never weighed above 140 in my pre 40 years, I was supprised to be scaling out at 200 a couple years ago. Both my Family doctor and Chiropractor wanted me to lower my triglicerides, lose weight. Otherwise my family doctor was going to put me on meds for that besides colesterol.
I heard about the report, took HFCS out of my diet, dropped 30 Lbs and have pretty much kept it off with any effort. Just the decision to not eat food with HFCS in them.
Good food actually taste alot better.
So it really depends on what you are eating to be a bit overweight, as to how healthy you are...
Hmmm, don't geeks generally eat the wrong foods?
after the film my friend and i discussed how it was that he could put on so much weight so fast and came to the conclusion it was not the high fat content of the food, but more likely the growth hormones in the meat and fat and the general overprocessing of the food in general.
Are you sure it's nothing to do with him eating 5000 calories a day?
Her take was that she could probably eat the same amount of pure fat by eating organicly reared, delicious smoked spec and fresh whipped cream and there is no way she'd put on that sort of weight.
What a load of shit. The body doesn't care where the food comes from, all it cares about is the calories. If you eat an excess of calories, your body stores it as fat, and it doesn't care whether it's processed, hormone-reared or fucking organic.
You're talking about young people. The health problems related to obesity are things that take a toll on your body over a period of time. They might make you easily short of breath, fatigued, etc. early on, but it's not until you reach your 50's and 60's that you're likely to die prematurely from obesity-related issues.
Also, just because someone is a health freak doesn't mean he knows what he's doing. Take your marathon runners, for example. Running marathons is absolutely NOT healthy. True, you have to get your cardiovascular system in good shape to be able to do it, but exercise is best in small, intense doses followed by adequate nutrition and rest.
Ever notice how marathon runners look like they have practically no muscle? Once their bodies use up their stored glycogen, to keep them going their bodies have to feed off the proteins that make up their muscle and immune system. It is extremely typical for runners to get sick after a marathon. I wouldn't be surprised if the frequently compromised immune systems of marathon runners increase their risk for things like cancer as well.
I for one don't want to live till I'm 100, that's another 80 years. What's the point in living that long? My life's shit enough as it is, I don't want it to last longer, I want it to be shorter!
Simple. If you live 100 years today, there's a good chance that you may live a lot longer unless some sort of war or economic collapse makes the world go down the drain. Just imagine all the cool stuff that will be available 80 years from now.
At the moment, food is all I have to look forward to, it's all I enjoy. I hate exercise, it makes me feel like shit, and I never have the energy, thanks to my shift-working job I haven't had a proper night's sleep in months.
That's because you're not healthy right now. I've been on both sides of that (and I'm currently in a lazy, unexercising state again). You have more energy, sleep better, and feel less depressed when you have a good workout regimen. It sounds like you're not in a healthy mental state right now if food is all you have to look forward to. Trust me, if you keep up a regular exercise schedule for a month (and not just a few half-hearted attempts), you will enjoy life more.
Exercise isn't something, though, that you can do without a regular schedule for it. I'm currently the voice of experience right now about missing workouts. Once you fall off the wagon, it gets harder and harder to get motivated to get back, and you're back to not feeling as energetic and motivated. (I need to start getting up early again and get back to that.)
With my lifestyle I never have to run anywhere, or life anything heavy, so what do I need health for?
Do it for your brain. If the rest of your body isn't in top shape, neither is your brain. This is especially true of your endocrine system. Body fat is not just an inactive storage system. It seriously affects the levels of insulin and a variety of stress hormones in the bodies of obese people. This helps lead to depression and a corresponding stunted social life. If that's not something you care to fix, that's fine, but you better not have any regrets 10-20 years from now when it's going to be a lot harder to deal with.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
*AND* most importantly, BMI fails to take ino consideration: muscle mass.
A healthy trim male can do a significant amount of weight lifting, have 10% body fat and be considered obese via the BMI index because of all the muscle mass created by weight lifting.
A mumu wearing couch potato can have 50% body fat, be two twinkies away from a massive heart attack and have the same BMI as the healthy person.