VeeshanVault

noel wrote:Polar also offers what's called a 'Wearlink' chest strap which is a fabric material instead of the traditional plastic chest strap. It's much more comfortable to wear than the plastic (not that the plastic is that bad).

Siji wrote:

noel wrote:Polar also offers what's called a 'Wearlink' chest strap which is a fabric material instead of the traditional plastic chest strap. It's much more comfortable to wear than the plastic (not that the plastic is that bad).

Another vote for the newer Polar's with this, or any Polar's in general. Nice thing about Polar is that most of the equipment at the gyms that I've been to will read the heartrate info from the Polar strap. Not sure they do that for other brands of HRMs also, but I've had good luck with the Polars. I've got the S720i and S725x myself with the cadence/speed sensors. Noel would probably agree these are especially great if you're into cycling, though the S725x also works with the Polar (overpriced imo!) footpod for running/walking.

Do you monitor your heart and if it's going too fast, slow down? I'm genuinely curious as to how useful the data is that you get from these devices.

Aslanna wrote:They are a tool to make your workouts more efficient.

Fash wrote:Have a smoke! Don't listen to me, I'm terrible.

But seriously, Don't quit if you can't do it without replacing it with a worse habit. Over-eating is far worse for you than smoking a pack a day.

Yes, I'm a smoker... I'm also within 10 pounds of my lowest weight for the past decade, and consider myself healthy.

Winnow wrote:I dug out some recent Costco receipts. I like bulk shopping there. Here's some stuff I bought (not counting the massive quantities of toilet paper and other non edible items)

Box of mini Chicken Qusadillas (60 seconds in the microwave and you have a great snack)
24 pack 16oz bottle Lipton Green Tea
Box of Chicken Bake Wraps
Box of 70 Nestle Cocoa Mix Packets
Box of Instant Oatmeal
Box of Breakfast Croissants (similar to Egg McMuffins I guess)
Box of Chicken Pot Pies
Box of Pizza Pockets
3 Pound Bag of Iceberg Salad (with carrots and red cabbage)
Box of Microwavable Baked Potato thingies
Box of Pop Tarts (won't buy them again)
Huge Box of Waffles
MacNCheese packets (lost my mind on that one. They'll be in my closet forever. I'll eat them in 2012 during the "event")
Case of 20oz Propel Invigorating Water (water with vitamins and some caffeine in it)
Case of 20oz Vitamin Water (more flavored water with stuff in it)
Big Bag of Mixed Veggies (Corn, Carrots, Green Beans)
Big Bag of Mixed Berries (Blueberries, Raspberries and Marionberries)
Box of Bean and Cheese Burritos
Case of Chicken Chili
Big box of Frosted Mini Wheats
Case of New England Clam Chowder (another item that may last until the apocalypse)
Case of Canned Mandarin Orange Slices (best snack ever)
Case of Orville Pop Microwave Popcorn

So far so good. I also buy paper bowels/plates in bulk so I don't have to wash many dishes. I haven't degenerated to plastic utensils yet. Everything is microwavable in less than 2-3 minutes for instant gratification.

Aslanna wrote:

Winnow wrote:I dug out some recent Costco receipts. I like bulk shopping there. Here's some stuff I bought (not counting the massive quantities of toilet paper and other non edible items)

Box of mini Chicken Qusadillas (60 seconds in the microwave and you have a great snack)
24 pack 16oz bottle Lipton Green Tea
Box of Chicken Bake Wraps
Box of 70 Nestle Cocoa Mix Packets
Box of Instant Oatmeal
Box of Breakfast Croissants (similar to Egg McMuffins I guess)
Box of Chicken Pot Pies
Box of Pizza Pockets
3 Pound Bag of Iceberg Salad (with carrots and red cabbage)
Box of Microwavable Baked Potato thingies
Box of Pop Tarts (won't buy them again)
Huge Box of Waffles
MacNCheese packets (lost my mind on that one. They'll be in my closet forever. I'll eat them in 2012 during the "event")
Case of 20oz Propel Invigorating Water (water with vitamins and some caffeine in it)
Case of 20oz Vitamin Water (more flavored water with stuff in it)
Big Bag of Mixed Veggies (Corn, Carrots, Green Beans)
Big Bag of Mixed Berries (Blueberries, Raspberries and Marionberries)
Box of Bean and Cheese Burritos
Case of Chicken Chili
Big box of Frosted Mini Wheats
Case of New England Clam Chowder (another item that may last until the apocalypse)
Case of Canned Mandarin Orange Slices (best snack ever)
Case of Orville Pop Microwave Popcorn

So far so good. I also buy paper bowels/plates in bulk so I don't have to wash many dishes. I haven't degenerated to plastic utensils yet. Everything is microwavable in less than 2-3 minutes for instant gratification.

Just an observaation... But there's a whole shitload of processed food on that list. That can't be healthy!

masteen wrote:Pretty simple: eat as many calories as you burn. I maintained my festively plump physique at our previous employer even when I was working out 5 days a week and busting trails every weekend because I ate like a horse.

Aslanna wrote:

masteen wrote:Pretty simple: eat as many calories as you burn. I maintained my festively plump physique at our previous employer even when I was working out 5 days a week and busting trails every weekend because I ate like a horse.

Horses are vegetarians so... not just like a horse!

masteen wrote:Pretty simple: eat as many calories as you burn. I maintained my festively plump physique at our previous employer even when I was working out 5 days a week and busting trails every weekend because I ate like a horse.

miir wrote:I know a few formerly fat people who used Weight Watchers.
It's an awesome program that promotes healthy eating habits.

Spang wrote:

miir wrote:I know a few formerly fat people who used Weight Watchers.
It's an awesome program that promotes healthy eating habits.

Unless it's promoting a vegan diet, it's full of shit. You may lose weight with Weight Watchers and all those other diets, and you may be healthier than before you lost that weight. But you won't have optimum health until you've removed meat, eggs and dairy from your diet.

Aabidano wrote:Looking at them you'd think they'd get winded walking up stairs. One dude out at Flatwoods was eating what looked like a pound cake as he trundled along on his $4500 carbon bike.

Spang wrote:Unless it's promoting a vegan diet, it's full of shit. You may lose weight with Weight Watchers and all those other diets, and you may be healthier than before you lost that weight. But you won't have optimum health until you've removed meat, eggs and dairy from your diet.

Spang wrote:Unless it's promoting a vegan diet, it's full of shit. You may lose weight with Weight Watchers and all those other diets, and you may be healthier than before you lost that weight. But you won't have optimum health until you've removed meat, eggs and dairy from your diet.

Aslanna wrote:So someone who is within their proper weight group and has a normal blood pressure and cholesterol, yet who happens to eat meat, etc, you wouldn't consider (optimum) healthy?

miir wrote:I know a number of unhealthy vegetarians/vegans. They are anemic and seem to be constantly getting sick.

Spang wrote:

Aslanna wrote:So someone who is within their proper weight group and has a normal blood pressure and cholesterol, yet who happens to eat meat, etc, you wouldn't consider (optimum) healthy?

No, because the human body isn't designed to eat meat. The consumption of meat can lead to breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and a handful of other cancers that don't care that you're within your proper weight group or have normal blood pressure and cholesterol.

Spang wrote:No, because the human body isn't designed to eat meat.

Spang wrote:That's because there's unhealthy vegan foods, such as potato chips, french fries, cookies and soda. But if
you're consuming healthy vegan foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole-grain pastas, brown rice and legumes, you're consuming the healthiest diet on the planet.

Spang wrote:No, because the human body isn't designed to eat meat. The consumption of meat can lead to breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and a handful of other cancers that don't care that you're within your proper weight group or have normal blood pressure and cholesterol.

As intriguing as these arguments may be, the idea that humans are natural vegetarians has "no scientific basis in fact," argues anatomist and primatologist John McArdle. Alarmed by this growing belief, McArdle, a vegetarian, says the human anatomy proves that people are omnivores.

"We obviously are not carnivores, but we are equally obviously not strict vegetarians, if you carefully examine the anatomical, physiological and fossil evidence," says McArdle, executive director of the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

According to a 1999 article in the journal The Ecologist, several of our physiological features "clearly indicate a design" for eating meat, including "our stomach's production of hydrochloric acid, something not found in herbivores. Furthermore, the human pancreas manufactures a full range of digestive enzymes to handle a wide variety of foods, both animal and vegetable.

"While humans may have longer intestines than animal carnivores, they are not as long as herbivores'; nor do we possess multiple stomachs like many herbivores, nor do we chew cud," the magazine adds. "Our physiology definitely indicates a mixed feeder."

If people were designed to be strict vegetarians, McArdle expects we would have a specialized colon, specialized teeth and a stomach that doesn't have a generalized pH-all the better to handle roughage. Tom Billings, a vegetarian for three decades and site editor of BeyondVeg.com, believes humans are natural omnivores. Helping prove it, he says, is the fact that people have a low synthesis rate of the fatty acid DHA and of taurine, suggesting our early ancestors relied on animal foods to get these nutrients. Vitamin B-12, also, isn't reliably found in plants. That, Billings says, left "animal foods as the reliable source during evolution."

History argues in favor of the omnivore argument, considering that humans have eaten meat for 2.5 million years or more, according to fossil evidence. Indeed, when researchers examined the chemical makeup of the teeth of an early African hominid that lived in woodlands three million years ago, they expected to learn that our ancestor lived on fruits and leaves. "But the isotopic clues show that it ate a varied diet, including either grassland plants or animals that themselves fed on grasses," reported the journal Science in 1999.

So, the question remains: Are humans natural vegetarians? In the end, whether a person lives a vegetarian lifestyle has less to do with esoteric matters of anatomy and more to do with ethics and personal values. The architecture of the human body offers no simple answers.

miir wrote:So you admit that good health and veganism are not mutually exclusive.

Aslanna wrote:We weren't designed to fly, deep sea dive, or go into space either.

Spang wrote:Which is why we can't fly, go into space or deep sea dive without some mechanical assistance.

Aslanna wrote:Good job on ignoring the large article of quoted text.