Posts by minda_spk

I've definitely been that person before you exercises daily for months and then completely stops and does nothing for months. I think the biggest part of it mentality. So many of us have an on/off idea of how it works, and it kills us in the end.

My solution was to give myself what I call minimum and maximum goals. My minimum goal is to workout twice a week, my maximum goal is five. As long as I hit to, I'm good. I feel good about myself, I don't feel 'off track,' etc. I work towards working out 5 times a week, but it's not always realistic, sometimes life happens, and I don't want a missed workout or two to be an excuse to stop altogether.

As an added note, I highly recommend the New Rules of Lifting for Women.

For the record, I don't count calories and still find OP misled.

The best plan is the one you can stick to. I know that I can not count calories daily, it is not a sustainable behavior for me. So when I started counting I made it a point to put together calorie consistent meals (I know 10 different breakfast food combinations that equal about 400 calories), to practice eyeballing portions, etc. I am not an organized person, I know this, and construct my diet accordingly. My best friend is one of those people that makes to do lists for fun, she counts her calories, and it doesn't stress her out the way it does me. We're both losing weight. Neither of us is more wrong or right, we both do what works for us. I don't eat out often, I don't eat much processed food, and I eat the same foods a lot, so in many ways my preferred foods and personality lend to my ability to lose weight without counting.

Now, I roll my eyes when people freak out because something has 10 more calories than they thought, but I have a lot of respect for calorie counters. I've met people here that have lost weight and maintained that loss for years by continuing to count calories.

The real question: why are you posting on calorie count that people shouldn't count calories?

I don't know enough about Stevia to have any idea about the health dangers or whether they actually exist. However, I am boggled by these mass assumptions that 'natural' things are automatically less dangerous than 'chemical' things. There are lots of perfectly natural, picked straight off the plant, poisons.

I'm not saying Stevia is a poison, but those same types of studies are the reason so many people view aspartame and sucralose as unhealthy... because they injected a bunch of it concentrated into a rat and it got cancer. Stevia doesn't appear to be much different, natural or not.

I second new rules of lifting for women. It's fabulous.

Original Post by se1289:

And who cares if its against them as long as it betters everybody.

 The former Soviet Union was one of the safest place to live in history, does that make what the governement was doing good?

I'm squarely on the fence for this one : )
On the one hand, I have serious reservations about anything being mandatory to have children. If such a plan were to be implemented I would suggest it come with some benefit (tax credit was mentioned?) and be voluntary. At the very least, I think classes should be available for parents free of charge. While you can't make people attend or pay attention, that doesn't mean you're not helping anybody. Some people will pay attention.

As for what constitutes good parenting, based on the child's outcome, there is a fair amount known about what it is. Authoritarian parenting styles, community involvement, etc. And even if parenting style isn't the focus, even more basic topics like how to deal with colic, when your child needs a doctor, what constitutes abuse, etc.

To adopt here you must take a parenting class, be cpr certified, and have a social worker inspect your home.

And I do think people living on government aid should be required to be on BC.

I agree with umney, total calories is most important for weight loss, but those veggies and fruits are more important to health and reducing health risks.

Do you like juices? Soups with veggies in them?

Try adding them into other foods you like in small amounts. Many things are 'acquired' tastes for people : ) Or try one of those cookbooks designed for parents wanting to 'sneak' vegetables into foods without their kids being able to taste them.

Oh, and perhaps not as relevant, we teach autistic kids who won't eat vegetables to put them in their mouth at the same time as they do other foods. So a green bean, and then immediately a bit of chicken.

My point is simply that the study in no way supports the idea that meat eaters and not meat eaters who eat similarly 'healthy' diets have any difference in health risks.

It confuses your body? Before you were losing weight were you eating the exact same number of calories everyday? Even if it were, confusing your body while at a calorie deficit is a good thing. It can delay your metabolism figuring out that it should adjust to less calories.

Personally, when I first started calorie counting I realized that my hunger cycles. Some days I'm insanely hungry, others not so much. Forcing myself to eat the same number of calories everyday meant that everyday I was either forcing myself to finish, or going to bed hungry. So for me, averaging my calories just makes more sense. Typically, the days after I workout with weights are 'high' days (because I'm famished all day), all other days are 'low' days. And I average my calorie target. 

Original Post by loriklorik:

Original Post by minda_spk:

 they would all just live out miserable lives having to be dependent on others and never excelling at anything.

 But tricking them into believing they are excelling at something is better? Why not find something they CAN do?

I am not speaking of the more extreme cases of autism or anything along those lines (if they don't know what is going on and don't understand the sittuation, again, no harm in letting them think they won). But for those with more functioning brains...why not find something they can do and really let them achieve something?

 So low functioning kids don't know the difference anyway, so let them win, and high-functioning kids should be taught to to actually do something they excel at in comparison to the general population. If the premises this thought is based on were true, I might agree with you. However: 1. low functioning kids still know the difference between winning and losing. 2. high functioning kids are still at a striking disadvantage to beating their nuerotypical peers. Examples: (My examples deal more with autism because I'm an ABA tutor, so that's where most of my experience is)

1. Low functioning kids: A 6 year old with no verbal skills (no signing, no anything) aside from the sign for 'eat.' He is currently learning things like motor imitation (to clap his hands when I do, etc), and responding to commands to 'look at,' 'take,' or 'touch'. He also loves Usher and Kanye West and knows the difference between winning and losing (and will participate in a foot race).

2. High functioning kids: A 13 year old who is highly functional, spends part of his day in a normal classroom, is articulate, understands current events, etc. Why can't we foster some extracurricular activity for him to excel at? Well, for one, both autism and down's syndrome come with motor function problems, so physically difficult to do well at sports. As for other things, he gets home from school at 5pm, spends 3 evenings a week with an ABA tutor, one evening with a speech therapist, it takes him longer than 'normal' to complete homework and I'm pretty sure his parents would just fall over dead if someone suggested that in addition to their focus on his personal care skills, social skills, and academic work, shouldn't they be encouraging some extra activity that he excels at?

The point is that a lot of these problems have both neurological and physical effects, making competency at a sport an acheivement, without having to 'win.' The people I know with Down's syndrome would have been thrilled at scoring even if they knew it were set-up. While actually scoring is great, the fact that their peers, coaches, and community conspired to do something nice would have touched them. Special ed programs don't emphasize 'winning' and 'being the best' the way other areas do. These are children who in adulthood may still be dependent or semi-dependent on others, and they will be regarded by the majority of people as weird. So they learn to value the kindness of others, to function as a group, and to appreciate relationships. In that regard, being able to participate in a game with a team I imagine he had admired was the victory. The goal was just icing on the cake.

ETA: An afterthought: I'm not sure about down's syndrome, but we teach children with autism leisure activities. Like how to do puzzles, play board games, instruments, etc. We teach these things as a way to relax, have fun, and alleviate boredom (and to replace obsessive behaviors that have previously been used for such things). If we added in the idea of competition, I'm fairly sure this lesson would completely backfire. For you or I, sports may be fun, adding in the challenge of competition may be more fun. For a child whose whole world is an overwhelming challenge, it defeats the purpose.

Lorik. Adolescents with autism spectrum disorders have a huge rate of depression because at this point they realize that they are not like everyone else and they are being judged by standards that they don't even understand. Perhaps you should write a book about how they should grow some self respect and get over it. The thing is, they can't. They can not magically become neurotypical (the pc way of saying 'normal'). People with moderate to severe mental retardation have the slight advantage of withstanding the fact that their different, or having a social community in which they fit into.

However, the world is full of people like you who think that those not living up to your standards have 'no self respect.' I would guess is has more to do with wanting to feel superior to the retarded kids.

Holding people to standards they can never meet because of a neurological condition is just cruel. In your perfect 'just treat them all like equals' world, down's syndrome kids would flunk out of school, autistic kids would never learn to speak and they would all just live out miserable lives having to be dependent on others and never excelling at anything.

Maybe america has a heart, but I'm not so sure about Lorik

*tries to imagine the cosmo article with exercises to spot reduce FUPA*

If rubbing alcohol is just wiped on skin, it has a cooling effect (because it evaporates so quickly). When it's rubbed/massaged on, it has a warming effect. It's not fabulous, and I make no medical promises : ) but I find that it helps. Massaging your legs while in a tub of hot water would probably have a similar effect.

Most of the 'don't eat at night' advice is based on research of people eating in the middle of the night, not in the evening. What the research shows is that the body metabolizes and experiences hunger differently at different points in the circadian rhythm. Now, If you eat at sleep on the same schedule everyday, there is really no effect on your body based on the time that you eat. However, people who switch between day shifts and night shifts monthly or bi-monthly may have more difficulty losing weight.

And then the fad-diet folks latch on and say "No eating after 5pm/7pm/9pm"... whatever

Original Post by josh3623:

and logging calories when you are halfway to your goal and you still need to lose 20 pounds Is hardly   "meticulously logging calories for the rest of their lives".

 Except that long-term weight loss is all about sustainability. If I know I'm not going to log my calories meticulously for the rest of my life, there is good reason for me to stop counting even with weight left to lose.

Thin girl: I rarely count. I've gradually phased it out. I count every now and then to make sure I'm on par, but my goal is really to learn, and make a habit of, eating healthy foods without having to think that hard about it. I'm still losing weight. I think the biggest thing is that you shouldn't think of your weekends as 'pig-out' time, but as test runs for maintenence. After the first weekend log in your calories and see around how much you eat when you're not counting. If you want the 'treat' eat maintenence. Adjust from there.