[OT] Atkin's Diet

[EricNoah]

It's pretty clear there are some diet-related things we can do during gaming to improve health -- changing the kind and amount of game snacking that is done, for example.

How can we get exercise into the picture (besides dressing up and going into the steam tunnels under the university to "play D&D for real")? Maybe a 4-hour game session needs to include a 15-minute walk around the block halfway through?

 

[Videssian]

Having said that, the only good way to lose weight is to decrease caloric intake by 25-30% per day, in addition to exercise. Also, as a plus, increasing exercise usually decreases appetite so you won't feel as hungry the rest of the day- it inhibits pathways in the hypothalamus that control appetite.

I probably won't practice CRON myself.. from what I read, there are some other tradeoffs like decreased libido and increased sensitivity to cold, though one does get some benefits like decreased need for sleep as well as the health benefits.. I'm 150 now, that seems to be a stable point for me... but when I was in my early 20s ten or so years ago, my stable point was about 130.. so I'll probably aim for that.. then again, at that time, I was also getting a lot more exercise, so I should probably do that too.. *laughs*

How can we get exercise into the picture (besides dressing up and going into the steam tunnels under the university to "play D&D for real")? Maybe a 4-hour game session needs to include a 15-minute walk around the block halfway through?

Im my teens, when I lived in North Vancouver, the buses took forever to arrive, so I usually walked from my house to the gaming club, which was about an hour walk.. THAT was good exercise..

Gregg

 

[Fenes 2]

I still walk to my gaming room, but that may change when our lease runs out and we start gaming in my own flat.

The easiest way to improve (or at least not harm further) our health during gaming sessions is, imho, just to bring fewer and healthier snacks and sodas. Ideal would be vegetable and fruit snacks (carrot and apples, for example), and mineral water. I am still struggling with cake and Ice Tea, but fortunately I do not really like most snacks and junk food, and I got off my coke fixation. (Still undecided whether diet coke is better/healthier than ice tea.)

 

[EricNoah]

Maybe DMs could require players to "drop and give him 20" every time his creatuers score a critical hit, and vice versa when the players crit.

 

[Rel]

I don't really have a lot of diet specific advice but I just wanted to lend my moral support to those of you struggling with it.

About 10 years ago, I was diagnosed with Type I diabetes when I was 21 years of age. In other words, I was on the Atkins diet without knowing it because my body was heavy into ketosis. I'm about 6 feet tall and I weighed less than 125 lbs.

There is nothing quite like waking up in the morning thinking that you have a high metabolism and coming home from the doctor that afternoon knowing that you were probably less than 2 weeks from being in a diabetic coma. I can still remember my doctor looking me in the face and saying, "Yep. You are a diabetic. You are going to have to virtually cease all intake of candy, cake and other sweets and you need to limit your intake of other carbs like pasta, bread and especially alcohol (that last bit was a real kick in the pants to someone who had just achieved legal drinking age)."

Wanting to know all sides of the issue, I asked what would happen to me if I didn't change my diet. He bluntly responded, "Well, pretty soon, you'll go blind and impotent and eventually you will have kidney failure and die."

That's a pretty good motivator right there.

I've kept pretty good control of my blood sugar over the years and I'm now a healthy weight (around 175). I never had much of a sweet tooth and when I do want sweets, the sugar-free cookies are getting more tasty every year. I take my insulin before every meal and technology is getting better there too. But I should probably work out more. It is hard these days because my wife and I have a 15 month old daughter and by the time we get her in bed at night, we are utterly exhausted and exercising is just about the last thing on my mind.

But I know from experience that if I would do it and stick with it for a couple of weeks, I will feel better and have more energy in addition to the other health benefits. So, thanks to this thread, I'm going to resolve to get on my treadmill and start working out, at least 4 nights a week. Thanks for the inspiration.

But not tonight, of course. Tonight, we play D&D.

 

[Utrecht]

Here is another vote for the "Body for Life" type excercise.

As said above, fundamentally it revolves around 3 things:

Eating healthy
Buring Calories through Cardio
Increasing Metabolism through resistance training

While not overweight, I had a problem with my colesteral(sp) When I started on the Body for life program, my colesteral was 227 (not terribly, but enought that my doctor was going to start medicating me). After the first 12 weeks my colesteral droped to 172 - a full 55 point decrease without ANY type of medication. Needless to say, my doctor was happy - he estimates that only 5% of people actually drop thier cholesteral this way.

Further, I dropped my Body fat down from about 18% to 10% - So as you might imagine, I was quite happy

Sure it is tough to get started, but in reality, all that you are devoting is about 40 minutes a day - basically give up one of the silly sit-coms and you are good to go!!!

 

[Umbran]

Seriously though, this diet does appear to work, and I've yet to see any credible proof that it's bad for you, but I personally can't see anything really healthy about cutting all the vegetables and legumes out of your diet and eating only protien and fat.

Well, this isn't exactly "credible proof", but it is an indication of something...

Look at your teeth. They are generalized - not the teeth of a carnivore. While you've got some meat-handling capacity there, you aren't a dog. You've got too much in the way of molars for that. Your metabolism will be geared to deal with what your teeth are designed to eat. Your metabolism, then, is designed to handle some meat, but not as your primary source of energy.

I find it rather hard to believe that going strongly against the body's design specs long term is good for it....

(edit: poor typing skills)

 

[mirzabah]

How can we get exercise into the picture?

10lb dice.