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Otis fad diet thread — yoga, fasting, and kevzilla walking on🚶‍♂️ (2 Viewers)

Ate well yesterday, but did have a drink.  Rinse/repeat.  Wife and I both agreed to have a 10+ day dry out starting Monday night, so there's that.

Did a 40-min yoga session this morning with core strength focus.  Kinda struggled in parts of it, not sure why.  Walked the dog as well.  

Don't fall off too hard over this holiday weekend.  Keep up the good work!

 
Weather was still crappy this morning, so I did 7 miles on the treadmill at 9:32 pace, putting me at 20 miles for the week.  :bowtie:  Knees are starting to feel a bit creaky though, so I’m probably due for a recovery week next week or the week after.

Avoided booze yesterday but exceeded my sodium limit a bit. Homemade tomato soup + white cheddar grilled cheeses made a perfect rainy day dinner yesterday, but even though I made the soup with low-sodium broth, the sodium in the cheese and bread got me. 

 
My experiment with IF this week went OK... first day was 6 hour eating window, then 8, then 8... not bad for deciding to start it when I woke up 3 days ago :)  

However, heading out for a Halloween party tonight and we have another one on Sunday... may have to pick up the healthiness on Monday :)

 
Hey all, getting back to it here.

I went to the doctor recently to have some blood tests done (mainly hoping my testosterone was low enough to get therapy, but no such luck there).  Cholesterol was officially high.  Doctor recommended not doing medication, but altering diet and increasing exercise for a year and see what happens.

Did some research on diets specific for this and landed on the DASH diet.  Essentially low fat, low sodium.  The only bad grades it gets on the various diet report cards is that it isn't great for weight loss. However, in addition to fat and sodium, it recommends limiting to 2000 calories per day, so it is essentially calorie restriction as well if you want to lower your ceiling.  I'm going to concentrate on keeping it at 2000 and under the fat and sodium limits, and how much I exercise will determine the weight loss.

Been doing it for a week and a half, and so far so good.  My wife has been picking DASH approved meals for supper, and while they are pretty good, the definitely need some salt (unfortunately).

 
Hey all, getting back to it here.

I went to the doctor recently to have some blood tests done (mainly hoping my testosterone was low enough to get therapy, but no such luck there).  Cholesterol was officially high.  Doctor recommended not doing medication, but altering diet and increasing exercise for a year and see what happens.

Did some research on diets specific for this and landed on the DASH diet.  Essentially low fat, low sodium.  The only bad grades it gets on the various diet report cards is that it isn't great for weight loss. However, in addition to fat and sodium, it recommends limiting to 2000 calories per day, so it is essentially calorie restriction as well if you want to lower your ceiling.  I'm going to concentrate on keeping it at 2000 and under the fat and sodium limits, and how much I exercise will determine the weight loss.

Been doing it for a week and a half, and so far so good.  My wife has been picking DASH approved meals for supper, and while they are pretty good, the definitely need some salt (unfortunately).
What did they suggest for sodium limit?  2300 or 1500mg are both pretty common.  It's not easy but it can definitely be done. 

I use myfitnesspal premium which tracks fat sodium and calories for you and has a bar code scanner for quick lookups of foods.  I watch fiber protein sodium and calories. 

The three things you need to be careful with are bread, restaurant meals and packaged foods.  Bread especially has a lot of salt you don't expect.  

It helps to have some low sodium meals.  Yogurt and berries is my favorite, sometimes add a high fiber granola.  Fresh fruits and vegetables are great but frozen is usually much better than canned.  

Mrs dash makes a good teriyaki sauce that is missing the salt flavor but still tastes good enough to scratch the itch.  Find some lower sodium sauces with kick like sweet chili.  It doesn't have to be zero sodium. 

I don't really like the salt substitutes so I just don't put anything on my food.  It sucks at first but your taste buds adjust and then you realize how salty everything is when you get something off the diet.  Unfortunately it doesn't take long to get reaccustomed to the salty flavors, but you still have to break yourself back in if you backslide. 

Good luck there's a bunch of us doing it so share what works and we'll do the same

 
The wind died down overnight, thankfully, leaving us with Chamber of Commerce weather this weekend. Pace was 18:03.

The scale says I lost 0.5 pounds this week. Should have been better, but there were a couple of drinks last night. On the plus side, Longhorn football at 11AM ruins my appetite  :X

 
I was down almost 20 and closing in on the 180s again but then had a birthday night of debauchery and lots of beer yesterday.  I’m going to try and fast as long as I can hold out today to punish myself 😂.

I’ve got almost one month until my next AT backpacking trip.  Any pounds I can shed between now and then is one less pound I have to carry.  @Otis - is a 30 day fast advised?

 
bostonfred said:
I don't really like the salt substitutes so I just don't put anything on my food.  It sucks at first but your taste buds adjust and then you realize how salty everything is when you get something off the diet.  Unfortunately it doesn't take long to get reaccustomed to the salty flavors, but you still have to break yourself back in if you backslide. 
Have you tried other spices? I don’t have much salt these days and have learned to prefer combinations of garlic, black pepper, cumin, paprika and some others.  

 
bostonfred said:
What did they suggest for sodium limit?  2300 or 1500mg are both pretty common.  It's not easy but it can definitely be done. 

I use myfitnesspal premium which tracks fat sodium and calories for you and has a bar code scanner for quick lookups of foods.  I watch fiber protein sodium and calories. 

The three things you need to be careful with are bread, restaurant meals and packaged foods.  Bread especially has a lot of salt you don't expect.  

It helps to have some low sodium meals.  Yogurt and berries is my favorite, sometimes add a high fiber granola.  Fresh fruits and vegetables are great but frozen is usually much better than canned.  

Mrs dash makes a good teriyaki sauce that is missing the salt flavor but still tastes good enough to scratch the itch.  Find some lower sodium sauces with kick like sweet chili.  It doesn't have to be zero sodium. 

I don't really like the salt substitutes so I just don't put anything on my food.  It sucks at first but your taste buds adjust and then you realize how salty everything is when you get something off the diet.  Unfortunately it doesn't take long to get reaccustomed to the salty flavors, but you still have to break yourself back in if you backslide. 

Good luck there's a bunch of us doing it so share what works and we'll do the same
I use Myfitness pal as well.  (The free version also tracks sodium, so I've been using that).  I have not actually had a follow up with my doctor, there is still one blood test they are waiting on the results for the last time I checked the portal.  Once I see that come back, I have to go back and actually have a conversation.  However, I wanted to start a change sooner rather than later.  I'm shooting for the 2300 level, which is a drastic change to my current diet (poor).  I'll adjust if needed.

I printed up a 7 day example DASH meal plan, and base breakfast and lunch off their examples, and go through their low/zero sodium snack suggestions for my snacks.  So far so good, other than dinners.  They haven't been bad, and I'm sure I'll just adjust.  But, soups/stews type meals, even with other spices just seem bland without salt.  Salt doesn't have to be so heavy that it tastes salty to be good, it just brings out the taste in everything.  Hopefully I will be able to adjust.

 
Once again I pushed my BP right up to that 120/80 limit over the weekend. I was actually quite good on Sunday, but Saturday is when the booze was flowing and the pizza was abundant. Stayed relatively active though, walking 6.5 total miles on Saturday and 10 on Sunday. My legs were feeling good enough to run this morning, so I did 5 miles at 9:20 pace. Hope everyone else is doing well!

 
Balmy 33 degrees this morning. Tried a quicker run for the first time in a month, doing 4 miles at 8:09 pace. The original plan was a slow 5 miles, but I woke up late. :lol:  We'll see how the foot is feeling tomorrow.

Avoided booze yesterday and kept sodium & sugar under control. Been pretty quiet in here, hope everyone else is doing well!

 
S’up people?  I started working again. :sadbanana:  

There are a couple of upsides.  Money and  it does add a ton of activity to my day. Averaged 19k steps last week.  25k on Saturday. My feet and ankle hurt.  Great timing on the ankle. :mellow:   

Still having a couple beers most nights. Strictly medicinal. And that’s ok. Especially if I can start adding in a workout, in addition to work. 

 
I did booze yesterday.  I did also go into the office for the first time since March, 2020 and was quite active.  Amazing how sedentary you can be working remotely every day.  Anyways easily hit my calorie goal.  Today will avoid booze and get a nice body combat session in.

 
So looks like the foot is a stress fracture. Doc said it's got all the classic signs. Going for an x-ray in 2 hours and will see how it goes from there. He said they don't always show up on x-rays, may need an MRI to see it.

Said usually about 8 weeks to heal. From googling, exercise bike might be an option with a walking boot. Could maybe find somewhere I can swim or do water running as another option potentially.

A bit bummed, but I suppose it could be worse.

 
Ok so I'm a little weirded out right now because I apparently dreamt about migas last night and woke up with one of those really good ones like not a run of the mill, and not the bed denting super powered 110 percent but the kind thats like 100 percent but could dip down to 75 or 80 and then get right back to 100 because you are just in a great place right now and then I am pretty sure I googled migas to find out what they are and all day I was thinking kev must have mentioned them and I thought about migas but no apparently I dreamed about black beans eggs and tortillas and had an unexpected physical response so I made them for lunch probably not authentic or anything but they were pretty good and no it didn't happen again and no I didn't want to #### them or anything it didn't even cross my mind and just wondering if this stuff happens to anyone else

 
Did some research on diets specific for this and landed on the DASH diet.  Essentially low fat, low sodium.  The only bad grades it gets on the various diet report cards is that it isn't great for weight loss. However, in addition to fat and sodium, it recommends limiting to 2000 calories per day, so it is essentially calorie restriction as well if you want to lower your ceiling.  I'm going to concentrate on keeping it at 2000 and under the fat and sodium limits, and how much I exercise will determine the weight loss.


Try pickling vegetables with vinegar. It will satiate some of your salt cravings from time to time, it will drive up your fiber intake and fermented foods are generally good for you. Improve your gut bacteria and you generally help everything across the board.

Vinegar can be extremely versatile. It's not expensive. It's very accessible.

In your situation, you want to drive fiber. So that means steel cut oats with almonds as your first meal.

Pick a day once a week and do a 24 hour fast. It will do quite a bit for you to help you reset.

I'm not a huge fan of counting calories/daily calorie restriction as a constant methodology. Seeing people in this thread weigh themselves daily is a type of self flogging if you ask me.

If you are the type who likes to eat, then you like to eat. Satiation is a big deal for your emotional and mental well being. Constant deprivation is a pseudo form of prison. The best thing for folks who like to eat is to train in activities that have high attrition. Basically boxing training. The amount of energy people expend in boxing training is pretty staggering.

Again, vinegar, fiber and a day of pure fasting a week are points to note.

Good luck

 
In moderation, right?


Personally I believe major cravings should be met head on.

I have a thing for bacon double cheeseburgers. I like piles and piles of bacon. I also like onion rings shoved into it. One of the motivations for me not to drink  ( I'm just not a drinker period) is I'll look at a beer and think, "I'd rather have a bacon double cheeseburger"

One of the most befuddling things in my life was watching Menace II Society, where a crackhead has a bag of cheeseburgers but wants to trade that, plus sexual favors, for crack. Why would you want crack when you could have a bacon double cheeseburger?

The trick to dealing with cravings is to isolate them out. If I want a bacon double cheese burger, it will be the only thing I'll eat all day. ( But I'm a proponent of OMAD/IF) Certainly it's not going to hit all my macro nutrients for that day. But I'll just keep having that meal night after night until the craving dies off.

If you want Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, then eat a whole bag. But just make it that one meal for the entire day. You'll say that will make you sick, just going to town on PBC after PBC. But that's the point.

The mistake is eating a bunch of other stuff all day then eating half a bag of PBCs.

Saturate your cravings. Once in a while is OK. You want it for a reason. Life is short. But get rid of everything else that day. And I mean saturate it. If I eat a bacon double cheese burger three days in a row, after that, I'm not into it anymore. It's kind of like my dating life. I spin plates for a reason. This one here or that one there is only for Tuesdays. Just Tuesdays is plenty of saturation of that one person for the week.

So, no, moderation doesn't really work. Most of you know moderation doesn't really work from personal experience. Selective saturation works.

Some of you will ask, why Tuesdays. Well, when my godson was a kid, Fridays were for miniature golf and making pizzas. We'd make pizzas. One big one for us and he got to make one small one for himself. I made sure no matter what happened, I did not interfere with Friday night. Plates get Tuesdays, they don't get family time.

There was a single mother in Bothell who used to get edgy about that. Why couldn't she get Wednesday night as well. Well, Wednesday is bacon double cheeseburger night. Duh.

I digress.

The point remains. Selective saturation is not good business, but it's better business. Sometimes better business is what you need.

 
snipped?  i had this done a few months ago.  recovery was un-fun.  and way longer than anticipated.
Yea. All of my neighbors were feeling 100% in 2-3 days. Here I am on day 11. I’d say I’m 90% recovered in that I don’t feel any more real pain, but still have occasional moments of discomfort that is difficult to describe. Being on the bike triggered that discomfort with every pedal rotation. 

 
So looks like the foot is a stress fracture. ....

Said usually about 8 weeks to heal. From googling, exercise bike might be an option with a walking boot. Could maybe find somewhere I can swim or do water running as another option potentially.


During the pandemic, finding a functional pool situation is going to be a lot harder.

Animal movements would likely be more viable. Things like bear crawls and crab walks and such. While that might seem counter intuitive, you are distributing your weight in a much different way. Everything upright is going to tax your foot. Then to compensate for your foot, you might start to trigger something somewhere else ( like a shoulder or hip if you are using a walking device or cane or etc)

Animal movements are extremely taxing on the core. It helps to do them on a mat like a Dollamur. This would also open up some basic BJJ and Judo movements like shrimping and floor crawls. And you would open up some basic rolls and functional ground and pound with a detached heavy bag.

If you did five 3 minute sustained rounds of pure ground and pound a day, and did it for three months, you'd really drive your fitness to another level.

Good luck on your recovery. I was gone for a long time, but I always considered you a good soldier here, for what it's worth.

 
I took five weeks off from my self-diagnosed stress fracture. It still bugs me, three months later.  :oldunsure:

One more nice day before tomorrow's forecast washout. Pace was 18:12.


Heavybag Ground & Pound MMA Drill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lG0Rldh-2A

So one of keys here is movement and close contact. One of tricks to ground and point is you can't just be static and you can't create "gaps" All the gaps between you and your opponent is room for him to counter strike or leverage an escape. While it might seem easy just by looking at it, try it for three minutes straight.

Point to note, the coach here is using actual punches. For beginners, I'd recommend sticking to hammer fists and forearm shivers. Then graduate up to occasional elbows, knee strikes and punches. For safety, for beginners, I'd recommended 16 ounce boxing gloves and 180 inch hand wraps to start. Wear headgear like a doo rag or some type of skull cap to keep the sweat off of the bag.

A heavy bag actually isn't the most ideal. The most ideal is getting an old rug/carpet and rolling it into a burrito shape ( more flat and rectangular) , then using 55 gallon drum liners to cover it. Then high quality duct tape. The shape of this is actually more in line with a human torso than a heavy bag.

10 Different Animal Walk Exercises

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14BjRxE7f1o

I'm going to be fair and say some of the above are not going to be suited for someone with a foot injury. And there are variables like age, weight, type of injury, current physical condition, previous injury history, etc, etc.

But the above movements are simply going to be more effective than a treadmill or stationary bike. If you spend 15 minutes on a treadmill or you spend 15 minutes doing crab walks, which do you think will get you stronger and much faster?

******

The major point being if you have injury limitations, then change the dynamic. Get to the ground. Spread out your weight. Consider efficiency for your time and energy and output.

 
I might be able to eat an infinite number of Goldfish(tm) crackers.


15 Fast Footwork Exercises Increase Your Foot Speed With These Speed Ladder Drills

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMY5Cj39xN8

*****

So in general, it's much harder to get adult women into the free weight room or into a power rack. A more practical ramp, besides the basic air squat, is the speed ladder.

Women's strength profile tends to be lower body. That's just how we are biologically designed. Also more women have more experience with dance and stretching/mobility/flexibility work. So speed ladder drills are just more appealing in general as a starter movement.

You can do speed ladder drills in your living room. Or your garage. Or your front lawn. They aren't expensive. They are very portable and light. It's very easy to get your heart rate up and it will help with your balance and mind/body connection.

Consider it a type of active meditation.

This type of training would help you, but it's your choice. I'm not going to yell at you or pressure you as I would some of the guys here. But I'd like you to see that being comfortable with being uncomfortable is how you grow. It also helps a person learn how to truly accept themselves.

 
I was down almost 20 and closing in on the 180s again but then had a birthday night of debauchery and lots of beer yesterday.  I’m going to try and fast as long as I can hold out today to punish myself 😂.

I’ve got almost one month until my next AT backpacking trip.  Any pounds I can shed between now and then is one less pound I have to carry.  @Otis - is a 30 day fast advised?
I’m no doctor but I’m always down for a good fast.

Halloween and the lead up to it was a debacle.  Halloween candy everywhere including lots in my belly.  

That said, I went to the office today.  Tons of steps on the commute, stairs, subway, etc.  Mrs. O and I haven’t drank this week and we’re trying to cut it out or down for a bit.  We said we would try not to drink until Thanksgiving, but that’s a tall order.  We’ll see.  

 
Try pickling vegetables with vinegar. It will satiate some of your salt cravings from time to time, it will drive up your fiber intake and fermented foods are generally good for you. Improve your gut bacteria and you generally help everything across the board.

Vinegar can be extremely versatile. It's not expensive. It's very accessible.

In your situation, you want to drive fiber. So that means steel cut oats with almonds as your first meal.

Pick a day once a week and do a 24 hour fast. It will do quite a bit for you to help you reset.

I'm not a huge fan of counting calories/daily calorie restriction as a constant methodology. Seeing people in this thread weigh themselves daily is a type of self flogging if you ask me.

If you are the type who likes to eat, then you like to eat. Satiation is a big deal for your emotional and mental well being. Constant deprivation is a pseudo form of prison. The best thing for folks who like to eat is to train in activities that have high attrition. Basically boxing training. The amount of energy people expend in boxing training is pretty staggering.

Again, vinegar, fiber and a day of pure fasting a week are points to note.

Good luck
I actually have been taking a fiber supplement for quite a while.  My first meal is a protein shake with the fiber, and some fruit.  That fits moderately well into DASH (the protein source has some sodium, but as long as I am busy at work, it keeps me full until lunch so it is ok).

I've dipped my toes into fasting previously, trying the intermittent fasting with different diets.  It worked well, but I can't get over the mental hurdle of a 24 hour fast.  I definitely suffer from "hangriness' (I get irritable when I'm hungry).  I can't imagine what I would be like if I didn't eat for 24 hours.  Seems like a mental prison, which is exactly what you're recommending against with calorie restriction.  I do think 24 fasts are good ideas from what I've read, some readings make them sound like miracle workers for the body, but I just can't imagine doing it.

I also don't weigh myself daily.  I do weigh myself weekly, same time of day each week.  When trying to lose weight, or at least eat well enough not to gain weight, I need that to keep me in line.  Totally agree daily is pointless and counterproductive.

 
I have never understood the advice of not weighing yourself.  Weigh ins are good information about how your body works.  Weigh yourself the day you start a diet and the next day to see how fast the water weight comes off.  Weigh yourself before bed and when you first wake up, before and after a poop, right after exercise. If you’re worried that seeing daily fluctuations will bother you, then learning about those fluctuations seems like the best way to get them to stop bothering you.  Get to know your body.

Intermittent fasting, keto, my fitness pal, noom, weight watchers, nutrisystem… they can all work but some work better for one person than another.  Keto has clear disadvantages if you are restricting fruits and vegetables but some people find it really sustainable and get their nutrients with limited carbs.  protein is great but too much apparently can be detrimental so make sure you read up about it and talk to your doctor.  

intermittent fasting isn’t magic, and it turns out most of the benefit is calorie restriction without counting.  You can still over eat while fasting and bacon cheeseburgers are certainly one quick way to do it.  But it’s an easy structure to follow, and the most important part of weight loss is staying on structure in the long term

I find that I get carb cravings when I first start a diet and they quickly come back especially if I have a drinking night… that’s probably what @Bull Dozieris referencing with hangriness. They seem to go away around the time my water weight is burnt off completely.  Fasting helps to burn off the water weight faster, so that might help in the shorter term. 

Lots of great ways to get fiber and protein, fruit smoothies with protein powder or Greek or Icelandic yogurt are great, flax seed and raspberries and blackberries are all pretty good.  Broccoli and cauliflower really good later in the day.  Black beans, mission carb balance tortillas and canned vegetables are good but for those of us watching sodium it’s probably an indulgence not a staple.  It sounds like 25 to 30g is the most protein you can really absorb in one sitting, so having nothing all day and then a pound of chicken breast at night doesn’t work as well as you’d hope. Spreading it out helps me feel full all day and absorb the protein which is really important when I’m lifting and running and stuff.

love all the food and exercise recommendations and would love to hear things that real people eat that work for them. It seems like all these diet blogs are like fifteen ingredients and usually sound gross or too difficult to make so if you have easy midweek ideas especially please share

 
I have never understood the advice of not weighing yourself. 


For beginners and for people who consistently struggle with their weight, simpler is often better.

Obviously there are people here in the forums who are advanced in their knowledge/experience base. And with those people, I'm sure I could have have a long conversation on the benefits of the different type of bar knurling. Or the pros and cons of Tonal or Mirror or any of those platforms. Or how to game progressive overload different ways to make a breakthrough.

But for most people, simpler is better. All the advanced people could spend 100 pages talking about the core science behind Pavel Tsatsouline's Greasing The Groove. Or it's just easier to tell people to do 10 air squats every time they take a break at work on the hour.

Good habits are easier to form if they come from simple methodology. I could go into a long discussion about problems with external validation seeking, virtue signaling, self sabotage, dopamine hits you get from talking about weight loss plans that are counterproductive, but it's just easy to tell beginners to not focus on it "now" Not forever. But for "now"  You also have to look at your audience. Otis is what? 50 years old? His college timeline and knowledge/access to compound lifts is not and was not the same when he was in college decades ago. There are lots of people in my age bracket who are completely computer illiterate. They didn't grow up with it. I struggle with some things, I'm not a digital native, far from it. I'm fortunate enough to have a fully formed IT department though who have no choice but to deal with all my questions.

If I was in a martial arts gym, this might be different. But in here? People need small wins and progressive baby steps. Fitness like anything else, you need some experience first to learn how to learn. Until people can get to that point, putting them on simple pathways is just more sustainable.

 
Mrs. O kept me on the straight and narrow last night.  Was a long day and the drink cravings were real.  I didn't, thanks to her.  And I'm grateful for that.  Don't know where tonight will bring me, but I'm glad about where last night ended up.

 
Had my usual Wednesday rest day yesterday, then ran 5 miles this morning at 9:24 pace. I've avoided booze and kept my sugar in check the last couple days, but sodium has been rough. My BP has remained at healthy levels though -- clocked in at 110/70 last night. I think the combination of exercise + supplements is allowing me to get away with more diet slip-ups, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Hope everyone else is doing well!

 
Grey and raw out there, right on the edge of what I'm willing to tolerate in my old age. On your skin, we lost 40 degrees from Tuesday night to Thursday morning. Pulled on some sweats and ground it out, and my hands got warm (meaning I can take the hoodie off without dying) about ten minutes from the end. Pace was 18:16.

 
I find that I get carb cravings when I first start a diet and they quickly come back especially if I have a drinking night… that’s probably what @Bull Dozieris referencing with hangriness. They seem to go away around the time my water weight is burnt off completely.  Fasting helps to burn off the water weight faster, so that might help in the shorter term. 
I get hangry whether I'm dieting or not.  When I go too long without foot, I get irritable.  Plain and simple.  it happens when I'm  not watching what I'm eating.  It happened on Keto.  And it happens when just counting calories.  It's probably a blood sugar thing. 

 

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