Healthy Steps

There are only four ways to lose weight. Period. The
first is diet and exercise. The second is illness. The
third is drugs. And the fourth is loss of limb. Let me
explain why number one is the only choice you want
to approach for health and weight loss purposes.
Let's Call this: "How everything you're doing to
improve your health is probably wrong".
Alright, let's begin with the basics. First, I'm going to explain how body weight
actually works, and some things that affect it. A good starting place would be
your RMR (or BMR "basal metabolic rate"), they are actually slightly different
but serve the same idea, So for the sake of simplicity I'll stick with RMR), or
"resting metabolic rate". This is how many calories your body burns in a 24
hour span assuming you do LITERALLY nothing. Your RMR accounts for things
like breathing, sitting up to grab your Cheetos in the middle of your family
guy marathon, sleeping, having a heart beat, and thinking (yes, the firing of
neurons in your brain, AKA thinking, actually consumes energy, which means
calories). Your RMR is not an exact science because everyone's body and
lifestyle is a little different, but you can use it to get pretty damn close. So
what's your RMR? Let's take for example, someone like me. I'm 5'8", and I
weigh 180 pounds.
Let me break it down for you.
1) Wake up and weigh yourself. Before you eat.
2) Convert your weight in pounds to Kilograms
(so your weight in pounds times 0.45359237=0.45359237 your weight
in kilograms) 180 pounds=81.6466266 kilograms
3) Measure your height in Centimeters.
(1 inch = 2.54 centimeters, and I'm 5'8", or 68 inches. In Centimeters,
that's 172.72)
4) If you are male, multiply your weight times 13.75
If you are female, multiply your weight times 9.56
We will call this product "w". For me, w=1122.64
5) Now for height. Multiply your height times 5, we will call this "h". For me,
h=863
6) Add h+w, Mine is 1986.24, and we will call this "x"
7) Subtract your age (26) times 6.76. This result is your RMR. Mine is
1810.48.
So basically, I burn 1800 +/- calories per day if I do nothing more than sit on
my a*s (see where they came up with the 2000 calorie diet? This number
only varies a little from person to person unless you are fall into an extreme
(VERY old, short, tall, skinny, etc.). That 2000 calorie diet implies that you
can do nothing and stay at the same weight if you eat 2000 or less calories
per day. But what is a calorie exactly?
A calorie is a unit of energy measurement. Nothing more, nothing less. It's
not a physical substance like sugar or protein. It's just a value for the amount
of energy the food you eat will provide. A calorie is not the enemy. You need
to consume at LEAST your RMR in calories per day to stay healthy and happy
or everything goes to s**t. (ketosis happens if you don't reach this number,
and you will lose weight, but you will not be healthy, and when you come out
of ketosis if you don't adjust your diet or habits you will gain the weight back
quickly- look this up, KETOSIS IS BAD FOR YOUR LIVER!).
Now we know how many calories a day we burn doing nothing. That's 1800.
But do we exercise? Walk to work? Play sports? Have a physically demanding
job? Engage in " strenuous personal activities"? These things all burn calories
(AKA energy). I'm pretty active. I bike or walk to work, my job is physically
demanding, I exercise and do yoga at home. All of these things burn calories.
My total metabolic rate is roughly 3200 calories per day. I wont gain weight
unless I eat more than that. So my opportune window for calorie consumption
is 1800-3200. Anywhere in this zone and my body will regulate it's own
weight and I don’t have to worry about it. Boom. WTF? I just said If I eat
between 1800-3200 calories, my body will self regulate its' weight? Yep.
So what does 3200 calories look like? Let's Look Below!
800 cups of watercress (4 calories per cup)
533 stalks of celery (6 calories per stick)
188 cups of radish (17 calories per cup)
51 cups of blackberries (62 calories per cup)
25 cups of bran (124 calories per cup)
8.4 Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies (380 calories per brownie)
21 ounces of cheetos (150 calories per ounce)
See the trend here? The healthier you eat, the more you can get away with
eating! I could have 10 heaping plates of veggies and fruits and not gain
weight… or I could have 4 candy bars.
Okay, now lets talk about nutrition, since we got that basic nonsense out of
the way.
Sugars:
I wanted to start here because they are necessary nutrients for brain activity,
but detrimental to health.
The brain uses glucose as a source of energy for the firing of neurons
between synapse. That's pretty much all we need it for. Sugars are converted
into fuels that our body can use in the liver, but it is further converted to fat if
your activity levels are insufficient to immediately burn it off… So really,
Sugars are a treat and should remain just that. For the purpose of our
physical functioning, fruits, vegetables, and meats contain more than enough
sugar.
Fats:
Nutrients used to help your body stay energized
Everyone has a prejudice against fats. Why is that? Some fats are indeed bad
for you, but not most of them. And most of them don't actually make you
"fat".
Good Fats:
Monounsaturated fat, Polyunsaturated fat
These help your body maintain cell health, help blood to clot, aid in muscle
function, hearth function, and nerve function.
Bad fats:
Trans Fat, Saturated Fat
Any synthetic fats used as food additives.
Everything else in the fats category will neither harm nor help you, or, there
is insufficient research to say its good or bad for you.
Carbohydrates (WTF is that you say?) another macronutrient found in fruits,
vegetables, and meats.
"Carbohydrates provide fuel for the central nervous system and energy for
working muscles. They also prevent protein from being used as an energy
source and enable fat metabolism, according to Iowa State University."
Proteins:
I won't delve extensively into this one, as I really hope my readers
understand the purpose of proteins. They make your muscles function. Here's
a quick note about proteins:
Proteins are large, complex molecules that play many critical roles in the
body. They do most of the work in cells and are required for the structure,
function, and regulation of the body’s tissues and organs.
Proteins are made up of hundreds or thousands of smaller units called amino
acids, which are attached to one another in long chains. There are 20
different types of amino acids that can be combined to make a protein. The
sequence of amino acids determines each protein’s unique 3-dimensional
structure and its specific function.
______________________________________________________________________________
____
Function Description Example
Antibody Antibodies bind to specific foreign particles, such as viruses and
bacteria, to help protect the body. Immunoglobulin G (IgG)
Enzyme Enzymes carry out almost all of the thousands of chemical
reactions that take place in cells. They also assist with the formation of new
molecules by reading the genetic information stored in DNA. Phenylalanine
hydroxylase
Messenger Messenger proteins, such as some types of hormones, transmit
signals to coordinate biological processes between different cells, tissues, and
organs. Growth hormone
Structural component These proteins provide structure and support for
cells. On a larger scale, they also allow the body to move. Actin
Transport/storage These proteins bind and carry atoms and small molecules
within cells and throughout the body. Ferritin
______________________________________________________________________________
____
So now we've got a pretty good picture of what's going on with carbs,
fats, sugars, calories, proteins, and the roles they ACTUALLY play in our
bodies, right? Good.
Now as promised in my original post, I'll explain why you only want to
use the diet and exercise method for weight loss.
1) With (Proper) diet and exercise, you can literally eat AS MUCH AS
YOU WANT and NEVER get fat.
2) If you lose weight because of illness or inability to eat, you will gain
the weight back as soon as your body recovers from said illness
3) If you lose weight using dietary supplements, drugs, or chemicals, it
will be for one of two reasons: The first is that you have altered your bodies'
RMR, this will correct itself as soon as the chemicals are no longer present,
resulting in your weight returning to normal. The second is that the chemical
you've taken has caused your body to shed water weight, and your body will
return to normal as soon as you hydrate, or cease the use of the chemical.
4) If you feel losing a limb is a good solution to weight loss, you should
speak with a shrink immediately, in fact, you probably should have been
doing that instead of reading this article.
The moral of the story: Eat well, stay active, and don't worry about it.
Everything else is useless, dangerous, temporary, or some combination of the
above. That is the ONLY solution. Everything else is a Band-Aid at best.
Cheers guys, I hope you learned something today.
Sources:
Proteins:
https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/howgeneswork/protein
Carbs:
http://www.livescience.com/51976-carbohydrates.html
Fats:
http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-about-fats-bad-and-good

Author's Note

I'm sorry for the formatting. I'm too stoned to reformat this in its entirety at the moment