148 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
148 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
Some family and friends have been asking me to write up my thoughts on
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the topic of nutrition and exercise. To give proper warning, I want to
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say right from the beginning of this that I am _not_ in any way a
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qualified expert. I'm a computer programmer who was overweight and
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unhealthy for most of my life until my mid-twenties, when I decided to
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take control, did a bunch of reading, and have been (mostly) in shape
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and far healthier since.
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I don't want you to take anything I say as gospel; it's not. Hopefully
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this will give you ideas of where to start, topics worth researching,
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and short-circuit some of the very self-defeating confusion that I
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think most of us have suffered through. I'm not providing sources for
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what I'm writing, partly because I want you to read up on topics
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yourself, and mostly because I'm too lazy :).
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This is something of a continuation on my post on
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[why I lift](/blog/2017/06/why-i-lift), though in reality I started on
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this post first. Also, I had originally intended to make one massive
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post covering nutrition and exercise. Instead, I'm breaking this up
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into three parts. This post will set the tone and give some background
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information, and the following two posts will dive into each of
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nutrition and exercise in more detail (though still as a "naive
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overview").
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This post series is very off the beaten track for me, and I'm still
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unsure if I'll be writing more like it. If you _do_ like it and want
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to see more, or have some specific questions, please mention so in the
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comments and I'll be more likely to make future posts on these topics.
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* [Read part 2 now](/blog/2017/06/naive-overview-nutrition)
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* [Read part 3 now](/blog/2017/06/naive-overview-exercise)
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## Philosophy
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I've come up with the following philosophical points about health and
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fitness, which guide my own decisions a lot:
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* Overcomplication is a major enemy. Should you follow a vegan diet, a
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paleo diet, go ketogenic, or respect GI values? Should you run, jog,
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sprint, lift weights, do bodyweights? This abundance of seemingly
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contradictory advice is the most demotivating thing out there, and
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prevents so many of us from getting healthy.
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* While these complications are real, you can get the vast majority of
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benefits by following many simpler guidelines (I'll talk about those
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later) that almost everyone agrees on. Do the simple stuff first,
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worry about the rocket science later.
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* If you read any nutrition study, odds are pretty high there's
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another study that shows the opposite result. Nutrition science is
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greatly lacking in replication studies, so take everything you read
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with a grain of salt (and yes, studies on salt are contradictory
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too).
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* You'll be best served by following basic guidelines, getting
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comfortable with those, and then experimenting with different
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approaches from that baseline. If you're motivated to, go ahead and
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spend a week or three on a vegan diet, on a keto diet, and anything
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else you believe has a chance of working. Pay attention to how you
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respond to it.
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## Who am I?
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I mentioned this a bit in the why I lift post, but I want to give a
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little more background here. Odds are pretty good that my baseline
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level of health and fitness is lower than you, the reader. As a child
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and young adult, I was overweight. I ate junk food constantly. I
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hardly exercised. I had a few brief bouts where I lost some weight,
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but it always came back within a year, and with a vengeance.
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I've been programming since I was 10 years old. I spent hours on end
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almost every day since then on a computer or playing video games. I
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wasn't quite at the stereotype of sitting in a darkened room eating
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Cheetos and Mountain Dew, but I was pretty close.
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Around the age of 25 (give or take a few years), I decided I had
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enough. I was tired of being overweight. I was scared of developing
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diabetes. I could barely sit at my desk for 10 minutes without back
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pain. I woke up in the morning and had trouble getting out of bed. I
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finally decided that bad health—at least in my case—wasn't
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a curse of genetics, but something I'd brought on myself, and only I
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would be able to fix it.
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So as you read these posts, I don't want you to become discouraged and
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think "well, this guy can do this, but _I_ never could, I'm just your
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average office worker." It's quite the opposite. If I've been able to
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overcome a lifetime of bad habits and genetic predispositions to
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negative health conditions, you can too.
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## Goals
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It's useless to talk about "getting healthy" or "getting fit" without
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some definition of what that means. Some people are going to have very
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specific goals; for example, a power lifter may want to deadlift as
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much weight as possible, even if the process shortens his/her lifespan
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by 10 years. If you have such specific goals, odds are this post isn't
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for you.
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I'm going to guess that most people reading this will probably have
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the same three goals, though their priorities among the goals will
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differ:
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* Lose fat
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* Gain muscle
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* Improve general health/increase longevity/feel better. This would
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include improvements in things like:
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* Cardiovascular function
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* Cholesterol levels
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I was specific in my wording on those first two bullets. You may
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_think_ you want to lose weight, but you won't be happy if you lose
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weight in the form of muscle mass or (worse) organs. Similarly, you
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may not think you want to gain muscle, but I'd argue that you do:
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* More muscle = more calories burned, making fat loss easier
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* More muscle makes moving around in day to day life easier
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* You'll look better (both men and women) with more muscle
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Caveat: I'm not talking about bodybuilder levels here.
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## Nutrition and Exercise
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Nutrition is what food you put into your body. Exercise is what
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activities you do with your body. Based on the goals above, we need to
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acknowledge that you need to address both nutrition and exercise to
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address your goals. This is the first big mistake I'll address in this
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post.
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* If you eat a bunch of junk food, almost no level of exercise you
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perform will burn off the extra fat you're gaining.
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* If you don't do any exercise, your body will get weaker, regardless
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of what you're eating.
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So this is important: you need to do both. Period. If you're going to
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pick one of them to start off with... I guess I'd say start with
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nutrition, but it's really a personal call. I'd recommend starting
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with whatever you believe you're more likely to stick with.
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## Up next
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My next post will dive into details on the nutrition half of the
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equation, and the following post will dive into exercise. If there are
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enough questions raised in the comments in these three posts, I'll
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likely add a fourth Q&A post to this series.
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And if you're just desperate to read more now, don't forget about my
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[why I lift](/blog/2017/06/why-i-lift) post.
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* [Read part 2 now](/blog/2017/06/naive-overview-nutrition)
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* [Read part 3 now](/blog/2017/06/naive-overview-exercise)
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