BMI Challenge

[Darren Dirt]

also, an excuse to [re-]introduce a really cool "Calculator that makes you smile!"
http://instacalc.com/1735

My BMI is about 24.7* right now ... thanks to "MyFitnessPal" on my Android. mid-June of this year I was 26.3 , and tbh I haven't really increased my aerobic activity since then, just become way more aware of what I was eating (and how much water I drink).

So anyone else care to share / challenge [themselves]?




*yay, that means even by US standards, I am now officially no longer "overweight"! #whatnormalfeelslike (heck, I'm even outta the "obese" range for body fat)

[Thorin]

Mine hovers between 29 and 30.  So sometimes I'm overweight, other times I'm obese (BMI of 30 being obese).  When the kids start skating again and I join them on the ice for all practices, I'll drop a bit.  Also, I'm sure I could get it to drop if I just went for a 30 minute walk around the neighbourhood every day, but that would cut into my Minecraft time.

[Darren Dirt]

Mine hovers between 29 and 30.  So sometimes I'm overweight, other times I'm obese (BMI of 30 being obese).  When the kids start skating again and I join them on the ice for all practices, I'll drop a bit.  Also, I'm sure I could get it to drop if I just went for a 30 minute walk around the neighbourhood every day, but that would cut into my Minecraft time.

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/09/152336802/stand-up-walk-around-even-just-for-20-minutes
"The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer" by Gretchen Reynolds (excerpt here

Reynolds recommends standing for two minutes every 20 minutes while desk-bound ? even if you can't move around your office. "That sounds so simple," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "But that actually has profound consequences. If you can stand up every 20 minutes ? even if you do nothing else ? you change how your body responds physiologically.

If you can also walk around your office, you get even more benefits. You will lose weight, you lessen your chance of heart disease, and you will improve your brain. But if you can do nothing else, stand up!

^ this caught my attention because, even if many common nutrition/health "facts" might be less objectively true than "they" tell us they are, at least STANDING and WALKING AROUND is something SIMPLE and QUICK that anybody/everybody can do, when we remember we should do it more often. No controversy there.

[Tom]

According to a random BMI calculator I found online, I'm somewhere around 33 atm.

I was just over 25 a few months ago really harsh how fast you can gain weight.

[Darren Dirt]

According to a random BMI calculator I found online, I'm somewhere around 33 atm.

This one is incredibly simple (and also demonstrates how cool/easytouse their free web insta-calculator thingie is!)
http://instacalc.com/1735

[Thorin]

According to a random BMI calculator I found online, I'm somewhere around 33 atm.

I was just over 25 a few months ago really harsh how fast you can gain weight.

Wow that's 45+ pounds gained, that is quite a bit.  Have you changed or started new meds recently?  Some medications have a profound impact on how much energy the body burns; if it slows down your metabolism but you don't realize it so don't decrease your caloric intake, then the weight plumps on.  Or it could just be that now that you have more spending money, you're buying higher-calorie food and drink?  Pop is terrible calorie-wise; three cans of pop a day is 480 calories - round that to 500 calories a day, then it's 3,500 calories a week.  3,500 calories is a pound of weight gain.  So removing three cans of pop from one's diet can reduce weight gain by a pound a week, or four pounds a month, or fifty pounds a year.

[Tom]

I was drinking pop regardless. But yeah I could probably cut some out again.

I'm actually 5lbs lighter now than I thought I was. But its probably a combination of some meds I was on, and splurging a bit food wise.

The main reason I think I was losing weight so well before, was that not only did I have to cut my food budget significantly, but In order to not waste as much food, I also went shopping every week, meaning a couple/few km walk each time.

Long story short: at one point I had hit 260lbs. The over a few years I had eventually gotten that down to close to 180lbs (might have been 185-190~). Now I'm back up to 235 in only say 6 months.

Been trying to work on it again the past little while. I suppose its working in that I'm not still gaining.

[Darren Dirt]

BIGGEST change in my diet since June: cutting out virtually ALL "liquid calories", including fruit juice. Fruit juice, and fruit itself = fructose = apparently the kind of carbo/sugar that most efficiently/quickly gets converted to / stored as body fat. I replaced that and pop with just simple tap water, as long as it is cold it seems to be just as quenching (if not more so).

[Mr. Analog]

Fruit juice is really no good, it's basically sugar with some water, better to eat the actual fruit (you get some fibre and vitamins that way too).

I've really cut down on what I drink again, basically unless its a special occasion I only drink coffee or water (occasionally tea).

No pop, no beer, no more than 2 units of alcohol. I'm already noticing a difference, it's easy to forget how many calories come from drinking stuff like pop/beer/whatever. Also I don't know if it's because of the diuretic I'm on or what but I find that pop actually makes me thirstier.

[Tom]

Fruit juice is really no good, it's basically sugar with some water, better to eat the actual fruit (you get some fibre and vitamins that way too).

I've really cut down on what I drink again, basically unless its a special occasion I only drink coffee or water (occasionally tea).

No pop, no beer, no more than 2 units of alcohol. I'm already noticing a difference, it's easy to forget how many calories come from drinking stuff like pop/beer/whatever. Also I don't know if it's because of the diuretic I'm on or what but I find that pop actually makes me thirstier.

Pop is like drinking salt water. Your system uses more water than you get from the pop to flush it out. You can imagine the dehydration headaches I used to have when all I drank was cola. No water at all.

[Thorin]

Salt water (like from the ocean) dehydrates you because it gives you dairrhea, where your body expels more fluids than normal.  In my earlier life, I've had times where all I drank was pop for an entire week or more.  If the pop truly made me expel more water than I was taking in, I would've been dying instead of flourishing.  The headaches you were suffering were more likely from a glucose imbalance caused by the speedy rate of absorption of fructose from the corn syrup, or possibly from all the caffeine you were ingesting if you were drinking caffeinated pop.

Pop does not dehydrate you!  It does, however, seriously @%&# with your blood sugar levels, and if caffeinated, keep you on a high-low cycle of attentiveness.  That said, some ingredients found in some secret formulas for some soda pops do act as a diuretic, making you pee more if you drink a lot of that pop.  Coke is known for this (amazingly, no one's made this claim about Pepsi nor any other cola).

[Tom]

Salt water (like from the ocean) dehydrates you because it gives you dairrhea, where your body expels more fluids than normal.  In my earlier life, I've had times where all I drank was pop for an entire week or more.  If the pop truly made me expel more water than I was taking in, I would've been dying instead of flourishing.  The headaches you were suffering were more likely from a glucose imbalance caused by the speedy rate of absorption of fructose from the corn syrup, or possibly from all the caffeine you were ingesting if you were drinking caffeinated pop.

Pop does not dehydrate you!  It does, however, seriously @%&# with your blood sugar levels, and if caffeinated, keep you on a high-low cycle of attentiveness.  That said, some ingredients found in some secret formulas for some soda pops do act as a diuretic, making you pee more if you drink a lot of that pop.  Coke is known for this (amazingly, no one's made this claim about Pepsi nor any other cola).

And all I drank back then was coke All I know is that I was dehydrated.

But then I get dehydrated a lot. Always thirsty. I can easily go through more than a couple liters of water a day. And thats on top of other drinks. Some times I find I'm going every hour.

[Mr. Analog]

Don't forget your body gets water from a variety of sources, not just what you are drinking.

[Thorin]

A couple of interesting reads about pop and dehydration:

http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/health/nutrition/04real.html?_r=1

The Snopes article mentions the same as what Mr. Analog pointed out - you can get a lot of water from food.

[Tom]

Yeah, I'm sure I get some from my regular breakfast and lunches, when I remember to eat them

Just sayin I'm almost always thirsty