Hey, look at that! 100 posts and we're all still feelin' sassy. At least I feel sassy. Could just be me.
Anyway, the newest news is that I've been running again. I ran 1.5 miles at 6.0 MPH (1.5 miles)) on Monday and did 20 minutes at 5.0 MPH today (with cooldown, about 1.75 miles). This is more running than I've done in a week for probably a year or more. The new mid-foot running is making an enormous difference. I still haven't had any shin pain at all. I'm absolutely certain now that the pain was caused by striking with my heel with my leg fully extended. The joints are locked and the stress has nowhere to go but into the bones. With the mid-foot running, the joints are bent and the impact is cushioned. My heels don't hurt and I haven't had even a twinge of shin pain. Woo-hoo!
I think I burned 300 calories today on the treadmill. I also looked at a can of Sprite yesterday and found out that it contains 140 calories per 12 oz. That's 11.6 calories per ounce. A large soda from a fast food chain (without ice, of course) is 32 oz. That's 373 calories. Which means that one drink, something I'd easily finish with lunch, requires more than 20 minutes of running to burn off. What the crap? That doesn't include the soda I'd drink for dinner or while we were just hanging out watching TV or playing games or whatever. At our Saturday games, I'd often drink 5-6 cans of Dr. Pepper. So I don't think it's unreasonable for me to suggest that I may have been consuming an average of 500-1,000 calories per day just in soda. Some days it was probably closer to 1,500. I'm a big guy and I probably need closer to 3,000 calories per day than the standard 2,000 but still. I eat a lot of food as well. Drinking 1,500 calories on top of whatever I ate is just no recipe for maintaining or losing body fat. I also watched a really interesting video where I learned that fructose is the devil. The guy doesn't say that, but he gets about as close as he can. Here's the link: Sugar: The Bitter Truth
Between learning all that about fructose and also realizing that I should probably reduce my daily caloric intake, dropping soda became obvious. Just doing that should lead to weight loss over time, I'm thinking. Running as well will accelerate it and also help get my cardiovascular system into better shape. I have been mostly sedentary for far too long. I'm having a hard time making it to jiu-jitsu in the evenings with all the other stuff we have going on. I'm trying to make it at least once a week now, down from making it three times a week a few months ago. The holidays made it tough, and getting out of the habit means I'm not trying to keep going, I'm trying to start going and that's always way harder.
So anyway, I'm making a few small changes for better health. I'm not doing everything I should be doing, but I'm taking steps. As I get used to these steps, I'll continue making more changes. The next step, I think, is to cut out candy. That doesn't mean all sweets, just actual candy. I've done it before and it's hard, but I can do it. Once I have that done, then I can move to no sweets at all if I want to. Really, the ideal would be eating lots of whole grains, lean protein and plenty of fresh produce. We'll see how long it takes to get there, but I know I'd be happier that way. I feel better when I exercise. I feel more energetic and more productive. After a run, I'm generally more energized than when I started. When I eat fatty, sugary, gross foods, it tastes good while it's in my mouth, but that's as long as the enjoyment lasts. Then I have to look at myself in the mirror, feel gross the rest of the day, and whatever else goes with it. Not cool. So here's the experiment. I'll be doing this for a good long while and keep you all informed about how I'm doing.
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Lots of layers of emotions going on in this one
4 years ago
Fructose isn't really the devil. The sugar found in fruit is called fructose. What's the devil is high-fructose corn syrup. Which makes up 25% of the average American's daily caloric intake. And it's in hamburger buns, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, EVERYTHING. Very scary.
ReplyDeleteNo, fructose is totally the devil. The reason it's okay in fruit is because there's also a load of fiber in there. The fiber stimulates your satiety signals so you feel full after eating it. Fructose alone doesn't stimulate those signals so you feel like you haven't eaten anything. You should watch the video I linked. You'd probably find it as interesting as I did.
ReplyDeleteHigh fructose corn syrup isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Rather, it isn't any worse than simple sucrose. Sucrose breaks down into fructose and glucose just like HFCS does. So when people say "real sugar" like it's a selling point, all it means is that you're getting the same chemical structure but paying a lot more for it (due to silly government controls over sugar imports, but that's another issue). Fructose is bad because it's processed by the liver instead of in the stomach. That means that extra calories from fructose are turned into fat in a far larger proportion than calories from glucose through a process called de novo lipogenesis. It's all in the video I linked up there. Fascinating stuff.
At least I think that's more or less the reason for it. You should have your husband watch the video too and then he can probably explain it all to both of us.
ReplyDeleteThe increase in obesity in America has followed the increase in consumption of HFCS, but the increase also follows the increase in consumption of sugared drinks. HFCS is bad but drinking the same amount of soda sweetened with sucrose wouldn't change the effects significantly. The main reason HFCS is in everything is that we went to low fat food and the fat got taken out and replaced with sugar. HFCS is just cheaper, easier to mix and easier to transport than refined cane or beet sugar, so it's used more often than sucrose. There are also giant subsidies for corn growers, so they can keep their products cheap.