Originally posted by: magomago
In other news: eating healthily and getting vitamins and minerals may extend your life!
Doesn't directly apply to this thread, but with the "New Studies show BLA BLA may extend life" coming out all the time, I can't help but feel that if we simply ate healthy in general, avoided all the bad crap out there, then we would all live much longer. You don't need to get 500mL of Pomegranite Juice everday, you don't need some special kind of berry in a certain serving...just get a mix of them all and you'll be fine!
you don't even necessarily need to eat "healthy". You can eat just about whatever you want, as long as you manage the intake.
What needs to happen, is you need to ensure you get enough of the good stuff, and take effort to increase output so that the "bad" stuff coming in isn't grossly excessive.
The body will manage, our body is extremely capable of managing a wide range of nutritional input, as long as you aim to take care of the body.
Increase garbage in? Make sure you increase energy output.
Don't eat a lot or don't drink a lot of water on some days? Don't exert yourself.
A lot of it makes sense. Actually, it's too damn easy. The issue, however, is modern developed society is full of lazy trash, in which simply their nutritional diet is a worthless part of the picture, however everyone takes these examples and all of a sudden diet is to blame. It isn't.
Granted, I have a high metabolism, but even then, you just need to learn your metabolism, and know how to manage your diet accordingly. I eat a shit ton of fatty foods, I love red meat, I love junk food.
Times when I'm not all that active? I actually naturally don't eat a lot.
I also move a lot without being active - I can't sit still.
However, without going into a ton of discussion about health, there's a few more points:
watch protein intake - if your very active, it's a key nutritional component.
carb intake - don't need to count carbs/calories, but just learn the amount of energy use necessary to burn extra carbs. Can't burn all of them through exercise, because the body needs carbs anyhow to just function. So don't go crazy with the exercise, some people don't realize this. Over-exertion just to drop a buildup of calories can lead to more damage on its own. But if you have a lot of fat, that will be burned up too.
A big bonus for this, is work out in the morning if possible. And eat a breakfast of complex carbs - body can't quickly digest unrefined carbs to be used immediately as fuel, so the body will resort to fat stores, and you still keep the carbs to be used for the body naturally in the day too (glucose is critical to body operation - cut the demand for fake sugars because they fuck with the body more than real sugar. just use the extra energy, that's the point here).
salt - watch the sodium intake, but if you are active, you have a lot of wiggle room because the body won't take in a great excess of electrolytes but you will be losing them in sweat.
fat - mind the labels, big time. Saturated fats aren't evil. Laziness is. The body will burn saturated fat, but in the end, that is all saturated fat has to offer - energy. Trans-fatty acids are equally as worthless, and iirc, are even harder for the body to utilize. (trans-fatty acid is a saturated fat, btw, but labeled seperately)
However, like I said, mind the labels. Most peanut butter has 18g of fat per serving, yet only lists around 3g of fat as saturated (and no trans). What is the rest of the fat, you ask? Often a lot of labels don't show it, and it pisses me off, just doesn't make sense. Unlabeled fat is often unsaturated fat, like mono- and poly-unsaturated fatty acids. These are actually GOOD. Really good. They are most often some form of Omega 3 or Omega 6 fatty acids. Not all are referred to as "essential fatty acids", but even if its not essential, it's not bad to take in. They have good uses in the body, and taking in a lot of them can have some good effects. Some Essential Fatty Acids, for example, can help manage LDL and HDL levels. They have caloric content as well, and because your body won't always use the fatty acids that you put into it for natural functioning, it will be stored. Again, mind the energy in - energy out process, and you'll be fine.
On that note, advertising has really screwed the pooch in terms of cholesterol. First, LDL and HDL aren't even cholesterol. Trigs are more complicated, and won't get into that. But LDL and HDL are simply cholesterol transports, think of them like ships or wrappers for the cholesterol that is locked up inside. Cholesterol, like all steroids and sterols, is very important. Having less structures transporting cholesterol to the sites it is needed is important, because simply more will be stuffed in the fewer transports. LDL is not efficient, and can lead to plaque formation because it tends to get bunched up when in high numbers. HDL is very effective at its job, bringing the cholesterol back from the cells it was delivered too and is far less likely to bunch up.
Now, it is much more complex than that. Saturated fats and high intake of refined sugar can increase serum cholesterol levels, and plant sterols can decrease serum cholesterol levels. Fatty acids can help too. Watching only the "cholesterol" intake is rather worthless, because the body won't just throw extra cholesterol into the blood just because you consumed more cholesterol. The body actually makes all the cholesterol it needs, and it won't go about increasing the total cholesterol level in the body because it was given extra. But, total cholesterol content in the body is different from in the blood. Diet can change cholesterol levels in the blood, because the body reacts to certain things. iirc, increased insulin production leads to more cholesterol in the blood. Not exactly sure what evolutionary purpose more cholesterol in the blood has in connection to more insulin... but then again, the body evolved out of nature, and it worked real well with what was readily and not readily available in nature - but we aren't quite "natural" any more, so the body has some aspects that don't appear to be good ideas... but then again, giving the body extreme excesses in anything dietary isn't a good idea anyway. We're just a stupid species like that - at least, we of the species in developed areas.
damn i rambled, and didn't even go all that detailed. ugh