#but like obviously not a medical professional so pls take all that with a grain of salt. its worked for me in an emergency but like | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jeanjauthor · 3 years

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The ‘dreaded swimsuit season’ is coming up, and that means people are going to be obsessing about food and exercise and losing calories. First of all, I’m not a medical professional nor a nutritionist nor a physical therapist etc, so definitely consult with the appropriate personnel...but I cannot stress strongly enough, you must consult with non-fatphobic medical personnel.

Fatphobia kills people of all bodyweights, and this blog does not support fatphobia, especially medical fatphobia.

Now, with that said...if you want to be healthy, there are plenty of non-fatphobic things you can do about it. And the biggest things you need to know about how to go about it are: understanding your metabolism, understanding how muscles can affect your metabolism, and understanding how diet (foods, not fatphobia industry) can affect your metabolism.

Given all the fat-shaming bullshit thrown about in the so-called “Health Industry,” it sounds counterintuitive, but you actually need to eat more in order to lose weight. You need to teach your body that it’s not in starvation mode anymore, that it has plenty of calories and nutrients...and just start moving more. Not necessarily exercising more, but moving more.

2,000-2,500 calories a day is the range for a “normal” body-weight-and-size person. However, the more exercise you do, the more muscles you have, or simply the bigger a person you are (the more cells you have), the more calories you need. Unless you’re seriously short & skinny, a 1,500 calorie meal is a starvation meal, and that will put your body into “OMFG SAVE ALL THE CALORIES AS FAT!!” mode.

Literally, a toddler’s caloric needs are 1,100, and they range from 20-35 pounds. You’re several times that much. This doesn’t mean that if you weigh 175 pounds that you need to eat at least 5 times as many calories, however! In truth, you only need about double that, because a toddler’s metabolism is geared toward growing, whereas an adult’s metabolism is geared toward maintaining.

The best way to understand this is to realize your metabolism can be divided into 4 categories.

Your Resting Metabolic Rate is simply the amount of calories needed to keep you breathing, your blood pumping, your organs functioning. That’s 60%-75% of your caloric intake. You have your Thermic Effect of Food, which is another 10%, literally the energy it takes to chew and swallow and digest food & drinks, and then to excrete the leftover bathroom waste. The remaining two types of calorie burning are Non-Exercise Activity Thermogensis, and Activity Thermogenesis. Of those lattermost two, your body actually burns more of the Non-Exercise calories than the Active Exercise calories...and it is designed to burn more when simply moving.

Literally, just moving a bit more than you usually do in a typical day will burn calories effectively. Move around the house on every commercial break, stand up and sit down more often, change your position more frequently, raise and lower your arms, gently swing or kick your legs...just move more. When they say 30 minutes of (gentle) exercise a day, this is exactly what they are talking about. You don’t need weights, you don’t need machinery, you don’t need a gym membership. Just move. It’ll be a gradual process, but so long as you’re eating foods with plenty of fiber as well as other food types, you’ll feel full and won’t feel starved.

Now, if you want to burn calories even faster through vigorous exercise, you can do that, too...but again you need to use your metabolism. Make sure you’re not starving, because your body will go into a panic attack thinking you’re not only starving but are being chased by bears and will need plenty of fat to survive while you’re unable to gather food, etc because zomg you’re being chased by bears!!1! (Truly, the metabolism is a primitive/primal minded thing based upon hundreds of thousands of years of hunter-gatherer lifestyles, and does not comprehend modern life at all.)

And then, what do you do to burn more calories? You build muscles. Muscles burn a lot of calories. Not just through using said muscles in excercise, but muscles will burn through calories even while simply resting. The more muscles you have, the more calories your body will burn.

How do you build muscles? Well, there are two types of muscles, which while it sounds cannibalistic, we’ll call white meat and dark meat, because it’s the easiest mnemonic to remember. White meat (think breast meat on a chicken) is designed for strong but brief actions...and men have more white meat muscles than females, though obviously they have both kinds. That brief sprint towards a prey animal, the thrust of a spear into its body, aaaand done.

Dark meat muscles are meant for lower-strength repetitive actions. Walking around reaching up or stooping down or digging while gathering plants, with no need to rush and plenty of opportunities to rest. Chasing after young children. Weaving baskets, scraping and tanning hides into furs and leathers, cooking...these are tasks that require little to moderate amounts of strength, but most important, repeated movements. Women tend to have more dark meat muscles than men, though obviously they have both kinds.

(The reasons why wild ducks, partridges, grouse, etc, all have dark meat breast muscles is because they use those muscles to fly long distances. Chickens evolved from jungle-floor hunt-and-peck birds that mostly flew only short distances to get away from predators by flying up to the nearest tree branches, so they literally just needed a burst of strong energy over a short period of time, hence white meat muscles.)

Which type is better? Both, ideally, because they are useful in a variety of different ways. Which is better for burning calories? Ideally both, but it doesn’t really matter. All you need to do is build muscles.

As for how to do that...you know how you feel when you exercise until you are sore? That’s what you need to do. This is where weights and machines and treadmills do come in handy, but still aren’t necessary, since you can lift and lower objects around your home, and get exercise bands or surgical tubing for resistance training, and go for longer walks, etc.

The object is to (gently!) push your body to the point where your muscles are sore. You can do this by lifting weights for a few repetitions near your limit (use a spotter & practice safe lifting skills!!), which is a white meat muscle activity, or you can use lesser weights or resistance machinery (surgical tubing counts), but just do it more, which is dark meat muscle activity.

You can also do the “step down” method of weight training or resistance training, by starting near your limit, going until your muscles burn, then resting a few minutes while gently shaking out, massaging, or relaxing the muscles in question to help move the lactic acid out of your muscle tissues, along with hydrating. Then you “step down” the amount of weight (say by 20%-30%) and doing another set of reps (repetition movements) until again it’s a struggle, then another few minutes of rest, hydration, etc, before stepping down again, doing some reps...and then again when it’s at the lightest you can for as long as you can, then rest that muscle group.

Regardless of which way you weight/resistance train, take a full 48 hours off. Or as close to 48 as you manage--weight train 3 times a week, and then take up to 72 hours (three days) off so your body can fully recover. You can still exercise, but do not use weights or resistance machinery/rubber bands, etc.

Let your muscles use that 48 hours to heal, and eat more protein sources to help your body build more muscle strength, along with a variety of nutrients to get the right kinds of micronutrients. Again, I must emphasize: Do not starve your body. It will go into fat-storage mode and will only barely repair your muscles, nevermind build them bigger.

The goal is to build more muscle tissue. if you are hungrier than usual, eat more. Your body will tell you what it needs if you listen, and there are plenty of charts out there with “if you are craving X,Y, or Z, then try eating healthier foods A,B,C, D, E, or F!” and they’re actually not inaccurate...but it is okay to have the “less healthy” foods in moderation, same as in everything you eat.

But seriously, up your protein intake, which is what your body needs to build bigger muscles. The average (again, your needs may be more) person needs about 4 ounces (115 grams) of protein per meal, so you can shoot for more than that. And get your proteins from a variety of sources. Humans can manufacture a good number of amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), but we cannot synthesize 9 of them, the “9 essential amino acids.”

These 9 essential amino acids are: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Foods that contain all nine essential acids are called complete proteins. These include eggs, fish, beef, pork, poultry, and whole sources of soy (tofu, edamame, tempeh, and miso).

While plant proteins have lower essential amino acid contents when compared to animal proteins, they will also have different ratios of the various amio acids compared to most animal-based proteins. This is something that vegetarians and vegans need to keep in mind.

Some plant-based foods can be combined together to complement and/or supplement. “Rice & beans” is one such combination. Basically, you combine a grain (in this case rice) with a pulse (legumes, like beans, or peas, etc). Here in America, in Mexican restaurants, a serving of refried beans and Spanish rice (seasoned with tomatoes & spices) is often automatically included as a side for most dishes. This provides a great deal of carbohydrates, but it also provides a more or less “complete protein” set of those essential amino acids.

Corn, beans, and squash plants do the same thing, providing a complete protein when combined together, as well as plenty of carbs. These three plant types are the “Three Sisters” of indigenous North Americans. They are best when planted together, the corn providing a trellis for the beans to grow upon, the squashes spreading out across the field to smother competing weeds, and together they feed people reasonably well.

However, they are still more carb-heavy than protein-heavy, which means vegetarians need to rely upon other sources such as nuts, plus eggs, dairy, and/or fish (if pisco-lacto-ovarian vegetarians). Vegans in particular need to be extra careful. Yes, peanuts have a lot of proteins compared to their carbs, same with almonds, etc, so definitely add nuts to your diets! But just be aware that you’re going to need to be a lot more conscious of your protein types & sources--and make sure to get a variety of sources--if you’re trying to build muscles while on a vegetarian or especially on a vegan diet. A purely plant-based diet will not have nearly as balanced a set of amino acids as what animal-inclusive diets can contain.

If you’re lacto-ovarian, this is made easier because milk, cheese, and eggs are wonderful foods with a lot of nutritional value. If you eat fish as well, even better, full proteins in fish as well as in egg whites, etc...but that brings me to another caveat, because you should probably eat the egg yolks as well as the egg whites.

Do not skip out on fats. Unless you have a genuine doctor-ordered medical reason, do not cut all fats out of your diet. Your brain needs fats in order to function. And just as with amino acids in various protein sources, there are different types of fats as well that our bodies need in different amounts for different reasons. This isn’t to say you should chow down on the equivalent of a full stick of butter (1/2 cup, 65 grams) with each meal (unless you’re camping outdoors in winter in the far north or a mountain, because then you need fat in your diet for your body to literally burn to help keep you warm).

It’s just that you don’t want to go completely fat free...because if you do, your metabolism will go into panic mode in its primitive/primal-minded way, “ZOMG IT’S LATE WINTER/EARLY SPRING AND NOTHING HAS ANY FATS IN IT WE’RE ALL GONNA STAAAAAARRRVEEE!!” Your metabolism will start turning carbs and even proteins into fats in an effort to ensure your brain (along with other vital organs) will have enough fats to keep functioning. So go ahead and put some butter on your toast. Even better, put some nutbutter on your toast, since sunflower butter, peanut butter, almond butter, all those things have proteins and fats as well as carbs.

Also, your body actually does need cholesterol to function, but only in smaller amounts than you’d think. HOWEVER, if it doesn’t get enough of the right types of cholesterol through diet, your body will make its own cholesterol, and will make more than you need, out of carbohydrates. (Yeah, this one was a shocker to me when I learned about it, and the answer blew my mind. Seriously, our body will make up to 10x as much cholesterol as we need if we don’t eat it, so it’s best if we do eat it.)

So how much does an average person need to consume of these critical cholesterols that it absolutely needs? ...About 1-2 egg yolks a day (or comparable alternative sources; vegans, do some research on alternatives, or just accept that your body may try to overproduce certain cholesterols if it’s feeling nutrition-starved). Seriously. Just that much is enough. (Again, your needs may vary based on your body size, metabolic rate, and/or environment.)

So. Put it all together, and you have: 1. Eat a variety of foods in sufficient quantities and qualities (fats and proteins included) to ensure your body stays healthy; 2. exercise just enough to push your muscles into feeling sore; 3. Rest 48 hours while eating a bit more protein to help your body repair and build bigger muscles; 4. Lather-rinse-repeat... and you’ll eventually get bigger muscles that burn more calories simply by existing, as well as whenever you use them to move just a bit more than you normally would.

Dark meat muscles burn more calories when at rest because they’re designed that way, because they’re small effort but frequent use with multiple short rests, lots of blood flowing through them, and thus are more metabolically “charged” than white meat muscles. However, white meat muscles tend to be the largest muscles, and thus while not designed to burn calories as efficiently while at rest compared to dark meat muscles...they actually end up burning about the same through sheer volume.

Work on improving your muscles, move a bit more every day, eat more conscientously but not through the heavily warped fearmongering lens of the Diet Industry’s blather and/or tactics, and you will be healthy enough to go to the beach and enjoy it. Not because you’ll have lost weight, but because you will be healthier. (Fun fact: muscles are denser and heavier than fat, so you could literally lose inches while gaining pounds from your body burning the fat with its now increased muscle mass.)

And yes, you can weigh 260 pounds and still be healthier than someone who weighs 160.

In other words, if you have a body, and you go to the beach with it, you now have a beach body.

You’ll just be less likely to get out of breath while swimming or building sand castles or playing volleyball or whatever if you’ve upped your exercise levels between now and then.

Also: CONTINUE TO WEAR A MASK IN PUBLIC.

Get one that matches your swimwear, or makes you feel silly & fun. Even if everyone started wearing their masks (not going to happen, but one can dream), it will to take us all of 2021 to quell the pandemic...and because people won’t be wearing their masks, keep wearing that mask. Yes, even if you have had all your shots. Because people aren’t wearing masks, the virus is able to spread, and when it spreads, there’s always a chance it will mutate, and cause new strains of infections...which it already has. So wear your damn mask.

#discussion of diet & exercise #death to the bullshit diet industry #nutrition is important to understand but doesn't have to be synonymous with the pejorative word diet #again I'm not a pro at this but I have studied nutrition exercise and metabolism on and off for decades

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