Fit Milwaukee
I just signed up for Fit Milwaukee.
It reminds me of a time several years ago when I was ending my first marriage. I needed something to do, a reason to get out of the house. Something positive and social. That’s when I joined up with two other local liberals to start the Milwaukee chapter of Drinking Liberally.
I reached out. It paid off.
Tags: fitmke
January 3rd, 2010
I think it’s funny that you found a way to equate exercising with drinking.
Just kidding — good for you on all counts! Get in shape, stay busy, meet people.
January 3rd, 2010
Hey, I think exercise and drinking have a lot in common. Great to have you in the group, Scott.
January 3rd, 2010
Hey Scott! Glad to have you join our group! Looking forward to seeing you at an event sometime soon.
January 4th, 2010
Wednesday probably
January 5th, 2010
Good in theory, but eating carbs and running long distance is no way to really get fit.
January 5th, 2010
I think it’s really just a matter of how many calories you take in–and making that number less. Exercise helps, too, as it burns a few extra. But I really think the key to weight loss for most people–certainly for me–is simply to eat less. No need to fuss a lot over what it is I do or don’t eat, just as long as it’s fewer calories.
And this is where every South Beach and Atkins person tells me how wrong I am. Heh.
January 6th, 2010
Well, portion control is of course one step. But no, that’s not all there is too it. What you eat certainly matters. Not all calories are created equal. For one thing, it’s easier to make that number of calories less if you’re eating the right things. Carbs,especially the shitty, simple ones, don’t fill you up like fat and protein do. But more importantly, it’s all about insulin my friend.
South Beach and Atkins get a few things right. Carbs in the amounts that conventional wisdom advocates are really really bad for you. But those diets are more concerned with weight loss than health. To be healthy, you want to keep carbs under like 200 grams per day and almost all from veggies, but you also have to keep your insulin in check.
Basically it works like this: Carbs are eventually converted to glucose. Glucose is a fuel, but it’s also pretty toxic. Therefore, the body will store excess glucose as glycogen in the muscles and liver. When there is excess glucose in your body, your body produces insulin. Insulin allows glucose to gain access to muscle and liver cells. But there’s a big catch. Once those cells are full, which they almost ALWAYS are with typical Americans, the glucose is converted to fat. (Fat doesn’t make you fat, sugar makes you fat). Then there’s this crazy chain reaction where you produce more insulin, but your cells become resistant to the message they’re getting from the insulin because they’re already full, and yadda yadda yadda, you get really fat and get type 2 diabetes. There’s more too this, but I’m bored now. I
January 6th, 2010
I don’t dispute a single thing you’ve said. I just think that for every person who finds it useful and practical knowledge in their effort to lose weight, there are five people who either find it overly complicated or who are using it to justify calories that they really shouldn’t have, thus actually hindering their efforts. I think there’s value in understanding this kind of stuff. I just think that for many there’s more value in keeping it dead simple.
January 6th, 2010
Ally is doing that too with a friend of her’s. Seems like its really gaining a lot of momentum!
January 6th, 2010
I’m not saying that every fat-ass needs to understand what insulin and glucose are. But it’s no more difficult to understand “eat fewer carbs” than it is to understand “eat fewer calories.” Our fricken government actually recommends we get 60 percent of calories from carbohydrates! (seriously, can they do anything right?). It’s at the BASE of their stupid pyramid for Chrisake. The average American eats 350-600 grams of carbs PER DAY. THat’s like 3 to 6 times too many. The simple truth people need to know is that fat doesn’t make you fat, sugar/carbs make you fat.
January 6th, 2010
Also, this is important as a societal thing, especially with tax-payer-funded health care a strong posibility. It’s all that sugar/carbs that causes all that diabetes that we’ll all be paying for. Should our government really be reccommending a prescription for a disease we’ll all have to pay for?