A Taboo Subject

[storeynicholas]

Didn't the Count D'Orsay say somewhere that orgies should generally be avoided as they have a tendency to rumple one's cravat?
NJS

[Jack Albans]

Ah.

Though I see there is some wiggle room through the use of the words 'generally,' and 'tendency.'

...A gathering including John Polidori and Matthew Lewis over ten days at some infamous poet's estate, perhaps?

[S. Gillette]

I always find a bit of dancing (standard and latin ballroom) to be very effective in order to stay in shape.

[carl browne]

Thank you for a lively and amusing discussion.

For the last 5 months I have been doing the following:

www.crossfit.com/

groups have been forming worldwide. It's done me a world of good. Not just for general health, weight loss and muscle tone, but posture, coordination, endurance as well. One hour, three or four days a week.

And no, I don't have a vested interest in it.

C

[Edward Bainbridge]

As far as I know, diets don't much work, unless your current eating habits are actually bad and dieting means changing to a reasonable well-balanced regime. Exercising is what keeps you slimmer, and it's more important to do that regularly than what kind of exercise it is exactly.

Some other trivia:

• Bodybuilding, which, by the way, as such is not less effective for weight loss than jogging and the like, can form your body to your wishes, but only through muscles, that is to say, you can't get rid of fat pads in one part of your body by training this particular part, eg do crunches to get rid of a belly. You can just do whatever you like to get rid of the fat (take the dogs out, ride, play football, lift weights, do crunches), and if you like, build muscles wherever you like, eg do crunches for a "sixpack". Doing enough crunches for defined "sixpack" muscles, but not enough to lose your belly will give you a sixpack that's hidden under the fat layers.

• If you've built up your muscles and stop exercising, they'll turn into fat, and you'll look worse than before.

• Most or all fashionable diets of the sort that tell you to forgo specific things or pause between two kinds of food are esoteric and some are bad for your health. Just read up what serious studies have to say about your favourite diet.

• Yes, there are predispositions that make it easy for some to stay in shape, and make it impossible for others: very individual basal metabolic rates, all kinds of diseases &c.

• The yo-yo effect isn't just a mental matter - falling back to bad eating habits once you're slim again and don't feel you need the diet anymore. There's also a physical basis because your basal metabolic rate will change depending on what you eat and how much you exercise.

[storeynicholas]

I have always found that finding things to worry about keeps the fat at bay...

[couch]

There are many tactics, fashions, and styles for keeping in trim; different ones work for and suit different people. But a few general principles that can be adapted to a variety of elegant ways of life include:

- Move around enough to burn what you eat. (A daily half-hour walk after lunch can go a long way).

- Get enough sleep (7 or 8 hours for most people). This helps the endocrine system keep hormone balance favorable for not catabolizing muscle and for not depositing fat prematurely. Sleep deprivation increases hunger cues, and being awake for extra hours means one is more likely to overeat.

- Do enough resistance exercise (anything from dance to climbing to cycling to weight training) to maintain a reasonable lean-to-fat ratio. The high-intensity, low-rep formula for weight lifting is an extreme version. It works for bodybuilders, but risks muscle, tendon, ligament, and joint injury (especially for mature men) and isn't essential. Remember that commandos train with body-weight exercises, because they have to stay in peak condition in the field where weight stacks and barbells may be in short supply. The grand British tradition of rambling, or cross-country walking, has kept many people fit for centuries in much more aesthetically satisfying surroundings than a high-tech gym. The point for most people is not to maximize absolute muscle mass, but to keep the muscle-to-fat ratio under control. That just takes regular movement against gravity.

- Include some activities to maintain and increase flexibility. Especially as one gets older, suppleness is crucial both to maintenance of muscular strength and to retaining range of motion in joints. It also helps reduce the unpleasant effects of osteoarthritis and related conditions. Yoga and various other regimens, including ballet or capoeira or Asian martial arts exercises, include significant stretching components.

I find that keeping these in mind, and indulging in a reasonably balanced diet (not eating past real satiety and observing moderate portions when eating carbs), allows one to enjoy food and drink to the fullest without having to sacrifice any particular food, while staying trim, fit, and feeling good.

[Merc]

There are many tactics, fashions, and styles for keeping in trim; different ones work for and suit different people. But a few general principles that can be adapted to a variety of elegant ways of life include:
- Get enough sleep (7 or 8 hours for most people). This helps the endocrine system keep hormone balance favorable for not catabolizing muscle and for not depositing fat prematurely. Sleep deprivation increases hunger cues, and being awake for extra hours means one is more likely to overeat.
.

i agree with this in that sleep deprivation makes me too tired to exercise.

But one point: i try to get 3-5 miles per day of incidental walking as a minimum activity baseline.

everything beyond that counts as real exercise. but that incidental walking, which i don't consider true exercise, keeps me limber and keeps me from feeling sluggish and certainly helps the cause. it's also very low impact.

[storeynicholas]

I wonder how far most of us actually walk each day - not counting the steps - but from bed to bed? It's probably much more than we realize.
NJS

[couch]

One hopes so, NJS, but for some of us the transformation of so much of gainful employment into computer-tending means that incidental walking (which once was enough in itself to keep morbid obesity a relative rarity) is no longer unconscious and automatic throughout the day. It's hardly onerous, but I now find I have to consciously make opportunities to build it into my day. I'm lucky in that regard to work on a university campus where I can usually find a pretext to sally forth if I remember to do so. My office is on the third floor of a building, which also makes it convenient never to take the elevator in either direction, and I can usually find at least half a dozen reasons to go up and down in the course of a day. My office is also directly across the street from the gym, so a week in which I don't get in one or two "official" workouts is one in which my discipline is defective.

In my former career as an art conservator, I was responsible for the stability of the interior environment in one of the country's largest art museums. In that position I averaged five miles of incidental walking daily without having to think about it. I went through a lot of shoes.

[Sackcloth]

Some say that the only way to truly consume one's fat is to build muscle mass (which increases one's metabolism). They would add that the best or only way to do that is with a small number of high intensity weight lifting exercises. I'm trying to do that these days, and I see some improvements in body appearance. It takes me 30mn, once a week at the gym, so a very small time commitment.

Not begrudging those who, like you, manage to a path through the confusing jungle of methods for maintaining one's appearance, this rather well-sourced article in TIME magazine takes issue with the assertion that it is the only road.

[A.Hacking]

I wonder how far most of us actually walk each day - not counting the steps - but from bed to bed? It's probably much more than we realize.
NJS

I would have thought hopping from bed to bed would burn more calories than walking

[storeynicholas]

You mean: the ultimate exercise: certainly beats swimming (although Leander combined them). It beats dieting by a Hellespont.

[Costi]

The secret behind the French paradox (good living and a thin waist) can be found in Michel Montignac's diets.

http://www.montignac.com/en/michel_montignac.php

It is very easy to live well and stay thin.

Cheers

Michael

I look no further when my personal experience teaches me so well: I lost 7 kg in 3 months and I have absolutely no idea how I did that or where they went, because I have been eating perfectly well, even better than before I would say, without any special effort.
Montignac is not even a weight loss food regimen, it is a "diet" in the etymological sense of the word: a manner of living; a healthy, balanced and pleasurable way of eating. And an elegant one, too - just read a couple of recipes and you can't disagree.

[shredder]

The programme that I have been following -- I must add, virtually without effort -- is another French programme which permits one to live well and stay trim. It was compiled by a medical doctor who explains exactly why and how one loses weight and keep it off.
French version: http://www.regimedukan.com/.
English version: http://www.dukandiet.co.uk/.

After having lost 26 lbs, it appears that even my hat size has decreased by a notch...

s