I recently found out I have a heart condition which poses no significant threat (increased risk of heart attack and/or death) as long as I keep fit and healthy. No drama there, I like keeping fit and healthy anyway, as I suspect most people here do. I was discussing it with someone the other day who does not find exercise and healthy eating as easy as I do. They wondered what people in their position do when they get similar news. I suggested the vast majority would make life changes in favour of exercise and healthy eating. They suggested that it might be too hard to make those changes.

Would anyone really ignore such a threat given the choice? Maybe not anyone here, being watersport enthusiasts, but do you know or have you heard of anyone taking the high risk option with a similar choice?

My 49 year old six foot 140kg Indian mate takes the unhealthy choice every time.

Never been to the doctor or hospital in his life that I'm aware of. He doesn't trust pills anyway.

Last night he bought a family pizza for himself with a 1.25 Coke.

Since he left school he has been eating at least one takeaway washed down with coke every day,occasionally two a day.

He was 75kg when I first met him and a very good sprinter

He knows full well all the junk food will lead to a shortened life but is addicted.

He mentioned last night his dad has mentioned stomach stapling to him on a few occasions. That was a few years previous when he peaked at 153kg.

He he has lost around 10-15 kg this past 18 months playing 9 holes of golf seven days a week.

His last two golf rounds on the weekend at the Vines and Kwinana cost him 140 dollars including hire cart but not counting the petrol or the ten dollar coke and toasted sandwich that he usually buys from the canteen on each visit. All up easily 200 dollars.
He only hires a cart when he plays the long courses like Vines and Kwinana and walks the rest.

I remember 5 years ago he said to me if he ever were to come down with a serious disease he would only eat organic superfoods - so it's not as if he is not aware of what he is doing to himself.

I have had heart and head problems after a very bad wipeout 4 years ago and while I thought I ate a reasonably good diet the more I studied up on it I realised that I had a long way to go. I've been almost totally vegan for three years, I don't take any medications and try not to eat junk food. Here's a sample of what I eat which is just the start of a vegetable curry I'm making tonight which is how I eat every day.
I'm nearly 71 and walk 4-5 klm or have a surf if it's working for me. I've said this before on this site that open heart surgery is no fun.
I read a book by Dr Michael Gregor called "How not to Die" which really helped to put me on the right path.
Lots of fruit, berries, veg, beans and lentils.
The majority of people from what I have read don't make lifestyle changes but prefer to take Statins and blood thinners which comes with their own set of problems.
The simple answer is that food is your medicine. (or your poison if you continue to eat the crap that the Macas generation eat today.)

My kids have been on the "I Quit Sugar" craze for 2 years now. Even though I thought I watched what I ate, it is amazing how much further you can take things when you take a proper look.

Select to expand quote

petermac33 said..
My 49 year old six foot 140kg Indian mate

Gee i know Ganesh had something like four arms but six feet that's next level indian there Pete.

Select to expand quote

Harrow said..
My kids have been on the "I Quit Sugar" craze for 2 years now. Even though I thought I watched what I ate, it is amazing how much further you can take things when you take a proper look.

That's great for them Harrow I think the sugar and fat in fast food is like the nicotine in durries and should come with the same health warning and pictures but you wouldn't want to body shame these days I suppose.

I transformed my health through diet back in 2012. I've had a few set backs between now and then because discipline has never been my strong point but in 2016 I took on meditation which has made life so much easier and simpler.

For quite a while I have understood intellectually that the mind reacts to sensations. If the sensation is pleasant the mind will react with craving. Conversely if the sensation is unpleasant then the mind will react with aversion. The meditation has given me the control over my mind to deal with that.

The mental craving is why so many people struggle with obesity and subsequently poor health. Eating results in a pleasant sensation. The mind reacts with craving. So most people are not feeding their bodies, they are feeding a mental craving.

For a long time I had the common understanding that eating regularly is vital for health. Three square meals and snacks if hungry. That is utter bollocks and I have proved it to myself. Aside from eating mainly fruit and some vegetables I now fast two days a week. Completely. I have also been undertaking a five day fast every month but last month I stepped it up to eight days.

The effect on ones vitality has been written about quite a lot but it is something else to experience. Initially the hunger sensations were quite hard to handle but now don't have any problem.

You save quite a lot as well!

I guess I've been lucky in life and always had enough money to not have to go without food of 8 days.
If you cant have a meat pie with sauce and a beer for breakfast everyday I don't see the point in living.
If feeling like having a healthy snack of fruit, an apple pie from the golden arches is a good choice.

Select to expand quote

petermac33 said..
My 49 year old six foot 140kg Indian mate takes the unhealthy choice every time.

Never been to the doctor or hospital in his life that I'm aware of. He doesn't trust pills anyway.

Last night he bought a family pizza for himself with a 1.25 Coke.

Since he left school he has been eating at least one takeaway washed down with coke every day,occasionally two a day.

He was 75kg when I first met him and a very good sprinter

He knows full well all the junk food will lead to a shortened life but is addicted.

He mentioned last night his dad has mentioned stomach stapling to him on a few occasions. That was a few years previous when he peaked at 153kg.

He he has lost around 10-15 kg this past 18 months playing 9 holes of golf seven days a week.

His last two golf rounds on the weekend at the Vines and Kwinana cost him 140 dollars including hire cart but not counting the petrol or the ten dollar coke and toasted sandwich that he usually buys from the canteen on each visit. All up easily 200 dollars.
He only hires a cart when he plays the long courses like Vines and Kwinana and walks the rest.

I remember 5 years ago he said to me if he ever were to come down with a serious disease he would only eat organic superfoods - so it's not as if he is not aware of what he is doing to himself.

Wow Pete.

He never went to a doc or hospital or hardly ever took pills? Yup avoiding big pharma - and look what happened, it made him so fat.

Yet golf, the one thing played by all the elite rich Bilderberger lizard people rulers, our conspiring masters- is what is making him lose weight.

That fits with your simplistic analysis of "one person is proof" and lack of any scientific reasoning in pretty much every other thread you ever posted in.

Don't worry, reassure him that if the worst happens, there will be a youtube video to cure him.

OK as well as diet and exercise, some researchers have discovered another factor, that the medical profession hasn't caught up with yet.
It's the germ responsible for gum disease. Apparently it can invade blood cells, and over time damage lots of important stuff.

The simple answer is to floss your teeth regularly to prevent build up of plaque.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg24332420-900-have-we-found-the-true-cause-of-diabetes-stroke-and-alzheimers/
I'm subscribed to this, so in case you can't see all of it, I'll try and post the relevant bits.

Select to expand quote

In disease after disease, we are finding that bacteria are covertly involved, invading organs, co-opting our immune systems to boost their own survival and slowly making bits of us break down. The implication is that we may eventually be able to defeat heart attacks or Alzheimer's just by stopping these microbes.

Select to expand quote

Until now, bacteria's involvement completely eluded us. That's because they tend to work very slowly, stay dormant for long periods or hide inside cells. That makes them difficult to grow in culture, once the gold standard for linking bacteria to disease. But now DNA sequencing has revealed bacteria in places they were never supposed to be, manipulating inflammation in just the ways observed in these diseases. The findings are so contrary to received wisdom and emerging in so many diseases, each with its own separate research community, that awareness of all this is only starting to hit the mainstream (See "Germ theory"). And predictably, as with any paradigm shift, there is resistance.

Select to expand quote

The worst culprits, which seem to play a role in the widest range of ailments, are the bacteria that cause gum disease. This is the most widespread disease of ageing - in fact, "the most prevalent disease of mankind", says Maurizio Tonetti at the University of Hong Kong. In the US, 42 per cent of those aged 30 or above have gum disease, but that rises to 60 per cent in those 65 and older. It has been measured at 88 per cent in Germany.

Select to expand quote

Circumstantial evidence is certainly damning. In the US, states that put federal Medicaid funds towards people's dental costs, including those related to preventing or treating gum disease, ultimately pay between 31 and 67 per cent less than states that don't, to help those people later with heart attacks, diabetes, strokes and cancer. Private insurance companies report similar patterns, says David Ojcius at the University of the Pacific in San Francisco.

Select to expand quote

When the plaque the bacteria on your teeth live in builds up enough to harden and spread under the gum, it triggers inflammation: immune cells flood in and destroy both microbes and our own infected cells (see Diagram). If this goes on too long, an oxygen-poor pocket develops between gum and tooth. A handful of bacteria take advantage of this and multiply. One of them, Porphyromonas gingivalis, is especially insidious, disrupting the stable bacterial community and prolonging inflammation.

Select to expand quote

P. gingivalis may have a hand in it. It actually perpetuates inflammation by producing molecules that block some inflammatory processes, but not all of them, says Caroline Genco of Tufts University in Massachusetts. The resulting weakened inflammation never quite destroys the bacteria, but keeps trying, killing your own cells in the process. The debris is a feast for P. gingivalis, which, unlike most bacteria, needs to eat protein. The destruction also liberates the iron that bacteria need and which the body therefore normally keeps locked up. "These bacteria manipulate their interaction with the host immune response to enhance their own survival," says George Hajishengallis at the University of Pennsylvania.

Select to expand quote

But P. gingivalis antibodies seem to be more a mark of its passing than protection. People with these antibodies are actually more likely to die in the next decade than those with none, and more likely to get rheumatoid arthritis or have a heart attack or stroke.

Select to expand quote

One explanation for why gum disease makes you more likely to get conditions like diabetes and Alzheimer's disease is that it adds to your general "inflammatory load". But P. gingivalis may act more directly too: the bacteria have been detected in inflamed tissue in the brain, aorta, heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, joints and pancreas in mice and, in many cases, humans.

Select to expand quote

The bacteria trigger the molecular changes in artery linings that are typical of atherosclerosis, says Genco. We have also found that P. gingivalis creates the lipoproteins thought to trigger atherosclerosis, causes it in pigs and affects arteries much like high fat diets. Lakshmyya Kesavalu at the University of Florida, who has cultured viable P. gingivalis from the atherosclerotic aortas of mice, calls the bacteria "causal".

Select to expand quote

lotofwind said..
I guess I've been lucky in life and always had enough money to not have to go without food of 8 days.
If you cant have a meat pie with sauce and a beer for breakfast everyday I don't see the point in living.
If feeling like having a healthy snack of fruit, an apple pie from the golden arches is a good choice.

Lets see how you get on with that

Select to expand quote

rockmagnet said..

lotofwind said..
I guess I've been lucky in life and always had enough money to not have to go without food of 8 days.
If you cant have a meat pie with sauce and a beer for breakfast everyday I don't see the point in living.
If feeling like having a healthy snack of fruit, an apple pie from the golden arches is a good choice.

Lets see how you get on with that

I had 2 serves of fruit at lunch so I'll be ok, had a couple of cherry ripes

I have a work friend that was obese when I met him. He also has type 2 diabetes. My understanding is that type 2 diabetes is a symptom of being obese more than an actual cause of the obesity.
For ages my work friend blamed his job for the size he was, yet there was no one around that was the same size, and everyone did pretty much the same work.
He got made redundant from work, and a year later was no healthier, leaner, or exercising. Despite my suggestions of bike rides, he wasn't interested in doing exercise and always found excuses, but not when it came to eating out.
I suspect its a mindset and people get stuck in it. Its a shame, as exercise seems to have enough of a boost that it becomes addictive in its own right.
I don't get it myself. You only have one life, and you should try and prolong it a bit, even if it means going without some things. But it is easier to take the tasty, good food route, and not so easy to change your diet and do more exercise.

I think we are lucky that we have found a sport that we enjoy and keeps us outside and doing a little exercise, and not sitting around eating.

^^^^True, but, how many on here are in the obese range ? 85kg ++++++?? Depending on height etc.

edit.....WOW, I can hear crickets....lol.....realizing you are obese is the first step

Well, heres me at 97kgs. Lost 10 since Christmas (well I was a bit fat then). Give blood every 3 months and the blood pressure is an eyebrow lifting normal/good. Well that's the look on the face of the blood taker. Get a a health check every 12 months, get the thumbs up from the doctor and the pricks won't ring with the blood results as there is nothing to report. Every Sunday I go for a hike of between 30 to 40ks and feel great on Monday, I enjoy **** loads of salt on my food and always have 2 heaped spoons of sugar in my black, double strength coffee. Love meat and eat it every day. Anyone who thinks over 85kgs is obese has got no f#nken idea unless they see me. Big boned I hear. Bloody big feet bones (13+) so I suppose there might be some other big bones in my body. But I hardly ever eat takeaway food, no breakfast except for Coffee, only eat lunch at 12 and no f#cken snacks in between. Dinner (called tea in QLD) is an amount that fills me up and lunch is usually just one sandwich.

You can stick all that healthy food crap up up you @rse. I'm here for a good time, not a long time. I do not want to end the last ten years on my life in a dementia ward. ****, the government can't afford that, I can't afford that and neither can the planet. I'd rather die having fun than live a life of misery worrying about dying. I'd rather be a shark biscuit than a vegetable.

^^^^^lol, relax. How do you know you only have 10 years left ???
You must be really tall ?? If you are only 5 foot and weigh a whooooping 95kg, only then its an issue of diabetes and an early death from too much junk food , sugar and lack of exercise.

No loto, you just have blinkers on, I don't consider being over 6ft, tall

over 6ft is above average, not my blinkers, just facts, sorry if you think that's my fault??
Well done on dropping down from 107kgs......wow

Select to expand quote

GreenPat said..
I recently found out I have a heart condition which poses no significant threat (increased risk of heart attack and/or death) as long as I keep fit and healthy. No drama there, I like keeping fit and healthy anyway, as I suspect most people here do. I was discussing it with someone the other day who does not find exercise and healthy eating as easy as I do. They wondered what people in their position do when they get similar news. I suggested the vast majority would make life changes in favour of exercise and healthy eating. They suggested that it might be too hard to make those changes.

Would anyone really ignore such a threat given the choice? Maybe not anyone here, being watersport enthusiasts, but do you know or have you heard of anyone taking the high risk option with a similar choice?

Lots of huge old obese dudes hearts are running at like 50% so its actually doubly as hard for them to excercise then add on fact theyre huge and old. Slippery slope

Select to expand quote

Mark _australia said..

petermac33 said..
My 49 year old six foot 140kg Indian mate takes the unhealthy choice every time.

Never been to the doctor or hospital in his life that I'm aware of. He doesn't trust pills anyway.

Last night he bought a family pizza for himself with a 1.25 Coke.

Since he left school he has been eating at least one takeaway washed down with coke every day,occasionally two a day.

He was 75kg when I first met him and a very good sprinter

He knows full well all the junk food will lead to a shortened life but is addicted.

He mentioned last night his dad has mentioned stomach stapling to him on a few occasions. That was a few years previous when he peaked at 153kg.

He he has lost around 10-15 kg this past 18 months playing 9 holes of golf seven days a week.

His last two golf rounds on the weekend at the Vines and Kwinana cost him 140 dollars including hire cart but not counting the petrol or the ten dollar coke and toasted sandwich that he usually buys from the canteen on each visit. All up easily 200 dollars.
He only hires a cart when he plays the long courses like Vines and Kwinana and walks the rest.

I remember 5 years ago he said to me if he ever were to come down with a serious disease he would only eat organic superfoods - so it's not as if he is not aware of what he is doing to himself.

Wow Pete.

He never went to a doc or hospital or hardly ever took pills? Yup avoiding big pharma - and look what happened, it made him so fat.

Yet golf, the one thing played by all the elite rich Bilderberger lizard people rulers, our conspiring masters- is what is making him lose weight.

That fits with your simplistic analysis of "one person is proof" and lack of any scientific reasoning in pretty much every other thread you ever posted in.

Don't worry, reassure him that if the worst happens, there will be a youtube video to cure him.

I like the fact that hes indian. And his friend...... You know how indians say " yes my friend how can i help you" to EVERYONE i feel like petermac has taken that greeting a little bit far and now follows this poor india guy around on weekends and watches him eat in the evenings because theyre friends now.

Bad wording from me Loto. The blinkers are not your fault. The blinkers are what we are all being fed from the media. We are all individuals and can't be generalised. I see lots of people who've calf muscles smaller than my forearm muscles. I don't think I'm big, I think I'm normal. Why should I have to drop to 80kgs to fit someone else's ideal. My old man is 88 and still sharp as a tack. Had polio (f#ck you anti-vaxes) when he was a kid, so can't skip around too much. So I tend to think health may have a bit to do with genetics. I realise you can go out of your way to kill yourself with an unhealthy lifestyle, but some of us get it for free (from out parents). Yes, my mother is still alive listening to my old man's bull****. Where do you think I get it from. Go the genes

no fat people in bangladesh
except the shopkeepers

Select to expand quote

Harrow said..
My kids have been on the "I Quit Sugar" craze for 2 years now. Even though I thought I watched what I ate, it is amazing how much further you can take things when you take a proper look.

What does "I Quit Sugar" actually mean? From what I can see the recipes simply replace sugar with rice malt syrup (which is highly refined sugar), or stevia.

There's nothing wrong with eating sugar, or salt or fat or meat or carbs or anything else. There is a problem with eating too much of it, or eating it in excess without the normal fibre and bulk that should go with it.

There's a massive problem with eating mass produced food products because they massively increase the amount of sugar/fat/salt, and massively decrease the naturally occurring fibre in the product.

We eat pretty much whatever we want, but avoid processed foods. I guess we're lucky in that we have the time and the inclination to make things ourselves. We make cakes and use wholemeal flour, only half the sugar on the recipe, and lots of whole fruit or carrot or whatever. My dark chocolate coated biscuits are far better than any biscuit you could buy from a shop.

My junk food diet today,well perhaps by Japies standard.

Large tub of taboulleh. Small tub of mixed olives with dried tomatoes both from Coles.

80g of chocolate almonds - my weakness.

One organic free range egg boiled. Yellow not orange colour yolk,

One passionfruit,a pear and and a kiwi fruit. Around 10 pitted prunes.

Four small potatoes and carrots boiled.

Cup of organic herbal tea with honey before bedtime.

Have cut my calories by close to half over the years and still heading in an upward direction.

An oldish ABC science vid on longevity:

Select to expand quote

lotofwind said..
^^^^True, but, how many on here are in the obese range ? 85kg ++++++?? Depending on height etc.

edit.....WOW, I can hear crickets....lol.....realizing you are obese is the first step

I was just telling someone today that according to BMI i am obese. She was surprised. I was using obese when describing my friend in the way you would when seeing a huge person on the street.
Maybe the lack uf distinction is also a problem? 'sure I am obese, but technically so are you'?

BMI was devised as a rule of thumb to assess army recruits. So, average height young men at the time (1830s) in Belgium. They were shorter than current populations.
BMI is mass/ square of height. BUT volume, hence weight of a body increases as a cube. To allow for that relationship, BMI range should go up or down by about 10% for each 10% variation.
If you are tall, you will be over BMI. Conversely a small woman can come in well below and get labelled anorexic. Not true. Little Miss Fit is not a misfit.
Then there's the "obesity paradox" where moderately overweight people (based on BMI) do better post surgery. I think it is entirely explained by the increase in BMIs due to being taller.
Of course, this all relies on the original healthy range for BMI being the correct range. It was just an estimate, guessed at when there was almost no medical or dietary knowledge

Select to expand quote

japie said..
I transformed my health through diet back in 2012. I've had a few set backs between now and then because discipline has never been my strong point but in 2016 I took on meditation which has made life so much easier and simpler.

For quite a while I have understood intellectually that the mind reacts to sensations. If the sensation is pleasant the mind will react with craving. Conversely if the sensation is unpleasant then the mind will react with aversion. The meditation has given me the control over my mind to deal with that.

The mental craving is why so many people struggle with obesity and subsequently poor health. Eating results in a pleasant sensation. The mind reacts with craving. So most people are not feeding their bodies, they are feeding a mental craving.

For a long time I had the common understanding that eating regularly is vital for health. Three square meals and snacks if hungry. That is utter bollocks and I have proved it to myself. Aside from eating mainly fruit and some vegetables I now fast two days a week. Completely. I have also been undertaking a five day fast every month but last month I stepped it up to eight days.

The effect on ones vitality has been written about quite a lot but it is something else to experience. Initially the hunger sensations were quite hard to handle but now don't have any problem.

You save quite a lot as well!

Meditation sounds like a useful thing, I've come across mentions of it a couple of times recently. I used to think of it as some hippy crap (no offense to any hippies reading this), but I've actually used some of the principles of it without knowing and it's really quite handy.

Select to expand quote

GreenPat said..

japie said..
I transformed my health through diet back in 2012. I've had a few set backs between now and then because discipline has never been my strong point but in 2016 I took on meditation which has made life so much easier and simpler.

For quite a while I have understood intellectually that the mind reacts to sensations. If the sensation is pleasant the mind will react with craving. Conversely if the sensation is unpleasant then the mind will react with aversion. The meditation has given me the control over my mind to deal with that.

The mental craving is why so many people struggle with obesity and subsequently poor health. Eating results in a pleasant sensation. The mind reacts with craving. So most people are not feeding their bodies, they are feeding a mental craving.

For a long time I had the common understanding that eating regularly is vital for health. Three square meals and snacks if hungry. That is utter bollocks and I have proved it to myself. Aside from eating mainly fruit and some vegetables I now fast two days a week. Completely. I have also been undertaking a five day fast every month but last month I stepped it up to eight days.

The effect on ones vitality has been written about quite a lot but it is something else to experience. Initially the hunger sensations were quite hard to handle but now don't have any problem.

You save quite a lot as well!

Meditation sounds like a useful thing, I've come across mentions of it a couple of times recently. I used to think of it as some hippy crap (no offense to any hippies reading this), but I've actually used some of the principles of it without knowing and it's really quite handy.

It has been immensely useful to me.

I initially got onto it through Eckhart Tolle in his book The Power of Now where he explains so lucidly that addictive mind activity is the root cause of human misery. Think anxiety and depression. The constant running of algorithms about what can or might go wrong. Basically trying to project oneself into the future.

Which is futile.

I understood all of it but having practiced the constant mind activity for 60 odd years I found it exceedingly difficult to still my mind. Stinking thinking was my term for it and it brought me closer to topping myself than I like to contemplate on.

Anyhow after a massive setback in 2015 I bit the bullet and dragged myself up to Blackheath for a ten day course.

Ive attended five now and know that there is nothing which can take me back to those dark days!

The mainstream medical fraternity are increasingly coming to terms with the fact that mental stress is a major contributor to ill health.

Select to expand quote

petermac33 said..
My junk food diet today,well perhaps by Japies standard.

Large tub of taboulleh. Small tub of mixed olives with dried tomatoes both from Coles.

80g of chocolate almonds - my weakness.

One organic free range egg boiled. Yellow not orange colour yolk,

One passionfruit,a pear and and a kiwi fruit. Around 10 pitted prunes.

Four small potatoes and carrots boiled.

Cup of organic herbal tea with honey before bedtime.

Have cut my calories by close to half over the years and still heading in an upward direction.

The bodys evolved needing salt suger fat and acid so having any of those in a "food" makes it taste good. Your covering all those things with your diet so your able to stick to it. Good job.

To get rid of the choclate cravings (suger) just eat some dates instead wait a little while and see if your still craveing choclate :)

Select to expand quote

causehecan said..

petermac33 said..
My junk food diet today,well perhaps by Japies standard.

Large tub of taboulleh. Small tub of mixed olives with dried tomatoes both from Coles.

80g of chocolate almonds - my weakness.

One organic free range egg boiled. Yellow not orange colour yolk,

One passionfruit,a pear and and a kiwi fruit. Around 10 pitted prunes.

Four small potatoes and carrots boiled.

Cup of organic herbal tea with honey before bedtime.

Have cut my calories by close to half over the years and still heading in an upward direction.

The bodys evolved needing salt suger fat and acid so having any of those in a "food" makes it taste good. Your covering all those things with your diet so your able to stick to it. Good job.

To get rid of the choclate cravings (suger) just eat some dates instead wait a little while and see if your still craveing choclate :)

Dates are awesome! Just discovered Medjool, so much nicer than regular pitted. You're right, chocolate isn't so tempting in comparison (though still nice ).