Besides low carb, what is your #1 most long-term beneficial practice

(Susan) #21

Daily breathing exercises with prayer/meditation. Wim Hof is my favorite

Daily 15 minute exercise. This is my current go to

#22

I saw two black caterpillars with light brown tufts and a huge wasp today. That is nice too :slight_smile: I LOVE hairy caterpillars.

Saw millions of flowers too and I mean it literally, it’s spring and I walked 11 kms, mostly in a forest. It’s absolutely full with flowers now. Would show a photo but I used my phone and it’s a lot of work to get the photo from it as the cable doesn’t work for that. But it was pretty.
Fresh air, some exercise AND uplifting scenery. Even river sounds. Perfect.

But it helps not to eat UNTIL some point too :slight_smile: My aim is not eating until 4-5pm. That is WAY easier to do for me than not eating after dinner… But I actually want both. Tricky.
I have this with coffee too but it’s not so hard to stop drinking coffee at 8pm if I want to. But waiting until 2pm or 4pm or 6pm is still easier than drinking it once or twice and stop for the rest of the day… My well-fasted state and the limited tabula rasa-ness helps a lot.

Talking can be very effective, my problem is that I don’t often wait for it, I easily eat without thinking. I can’t eat accidentally (except a tiny bit while cooking or breaking walnuts or picking fruits), sure but I still don’t always stop to think… Eating really well during the day helps. But if I eat really well to be safe, I eat too much… Unless I do OMAD but being perfectly satiated until 4-5pm doesn’t happen all the time.

Oh I keep forgetting about it… We (my SO and I) merely take cold showers :slight_smile: I don’t do anything unpleasant so I don’t go very fat with it but it’s still something.

(Rossi Luo) #23

Do my best to avoid antiseptic chemicals in food!
The chemicals are everywhere, even in the flour, they put some chemicals to make flour white, or in the alive fish, they use chemicals to keep fish more active.

(KM) #24

Reading labels. Even when I think I’m getting a whole food, it’s surprising how often they’ve snuck in some junk. Starch in my cheese, saline in my meat, preservatives in my sauerkraut.

(Jane) #25

Not really “snuck in”. It is all about shelf life when there is such a time delay between producing the food, distributing it to grocery stores and you finally buy it.

The starch is only in grated cheese and keeps it from sticking together. Buy blocks and grate your own. Also if you get mold on pre-grated cheese you have to toss the whole bag. On block cheese you can slice off the mold and keep using the cheese, so much more cost-effective.

Saline is salt so another preservative (at least natural) to prolong shelf life - same with sauerkraut (not natural).

I have tried to make my own sauerkraut but haven’t been happy with it yet. Either my technique isn’t quite right or I haven’t found the right recipe yet.

(Michael) #26

Have another one to add, researching health topics. In fact, that is what led me to keto and carnivore. While I claimed exercise, the reality is I was exercising before, but not researching about health and nutrition. Honestly the research takes a ton of time, but it gives me knowledge and the confidence to apply the learned knowledge which has and will continue to improve my overall health.

(Jane) #27

I meant to add reading labels is a good one. I have been doing that for a long time but for different reasons. It is an eye opener and will push you to cook and eat real food from the “edges of the store”. I still buy some processed foods for convenience, like Rao’s marinara sauce but I have cut waaaaay down since going keto over 5 years ago.

(Robin) #28

And I’m thankful for folks like you who do that researching for me!

(Edith) #29

Making sure I have some sort of physical activity every day since I sit on my rump in the office for eight hours a day. I also do strength training two to three times a week to maintain my lean muscle mass. I believe that is very important as we get older.

#30

Oh that’s nothing to me, my problem is when pickled stuff has sugar AND sweeteners. There was a time when even sauerkraut had them and it’s CRAZY. But it’s easy to buy it without, thankfully…
(Pickled herring is very nearly impossible to buy without some horrid tasting sweeteners. I am miffed about that. Or more than that when I WANT such a stuff but without the sweetener and can’t.)

It makes the cheese tasting flour though but people eating flour all the time probably doesn’t feel it as much as I do… I only buy grated hard cheese, that is one ingredient food :slight_smile:
But they put sunflower oil into raisins too (my SO eats it galore, I obviously don’t). Probably keep them from sticking, clumping? Big fail as they come out in huge clumps :frowning:
Cheese is easy as after you know about starch, you can just buy the blocks but certain items are spoiled. I would like to use certain dried fruits sometimes but only a few kinds are possible to buy without added sugar in it :(.

And reading labels is nice but I mostly need it for my off times - and for my processed meat items since I tried carnivore… Half of my food doesn’t even have a label :slight_smile:

(Doug) #31

Fasting. If keto brings metabolic healing, then fasting is what really takes the fat off for me. And if we want an ultimately low-carb, ketogenic diet, then our own fat is pretty darn pure in that respect.

And a lot is unknown - all of what autophagy does, potentially warding off cognitive disease, cancer, immune system problems, etc. How much is it actually doing for me? It’s been studied to a woefully tiny extent. Less inflammation, more growth hormone, extended lifespan?

#32

Oh yes, fasting is important too. Carnivore-ish OMAD (or at least a tiny eating window) with high activity? That possibly could give a chance for fat-loss even for me… As long as I choose my items well.
And I lift so there is the potential of muscle gain there too, let’s not forget it! It gives me some real motivation to lose fat. I am not vain and I was pretty healthy as a fat high-carber (though I am not sure I could have kept at it for several more decades). But if I get muscles, I want them to be visible.

And fasting is chill, I need that peace. I just don’t do it long. But I get annoyed even if the idea of me eating in the morning emerges hipothetically. Almost anything but that. That’s HORRIBLE. I did it as a kid and hated it with a passion.

And increased autophagy, yes, I don’t know much about it as apparently no one knows a whole lot but it sounds promising.

I never thought about it in this way but I like it :wink:

#33

If I could do it would be eating to satiety but as I enjoy eating and don’t yet have the willpower it’s adopting one meal a day way of eating.

I’m thinking 36/12 could be even better though.

The benefits of fasting are huge

(Rossi Luo) #34

Labels not working sometimes, for example, if you read a label on a bread, it may read “flour, sugar, milk…”, but it doesn’t list the chemicals in the flour.

(Jane) #35

What chemicals do you mean in flour?

I checked the labels on 3 flour bags. The whole wheat listed “whole wheat flour”, the 00 listed “white 00 flour”, my bread flour is not my usual brand (King Arthur) so it was an “enriched” version with vitamins added back that get stripped during processing.

(Rossi Luo) #36

As I know, there is something called “Benzoyl peroxide” which can be added to flour to bleach it. It’s legal to add that here in China, but I have no idea if it’s legal in USA. Refer: https://bakerpedia.com/ingredients/benzoyl-peroxide/#:~:text=Benzoyl%20peroxide%20is%20an%20ingredient%20added%20to%20flour,usual%20treatment%20performed%20on%20flour%20at%20the%20mill.

So if the flour looks very good and white, then you may need to pay attention.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #37

Eating to satiety is the opposite of willpower.

When I started keto, I continued eating the vast quantities of food that I used to eat before, but after about three weeks, I was in the middle of lunch and suddenly could eat no more. I had to put the remaining half a plate of food in the fridge for later. And it was much later before I was hungry again. I remember thinking to myself, “So this is what satiety feels like.” Very weird, for a guy who’d fill his stomach to the bursting point with pasta and still be hungry for more. I had plenty of room for more food, but I simply didn’t want it. I eventually even stopped wanting three meals a day, being quite satisfied by two. But occasionally my body wants that extra meal, or else it wants only one meal. I try to give it what it wants.

If you give your body a chance, the same thing might happen to you.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #38

In the U.S., the term “flour” means very specifically ground refined wheat kernels. If there’s anything other than wheat in the flour, they need to call it something different, such as “enriched flour,” “rye flour,” and so forth.

#39

Thanks Paul

(Rossi Luo) #40

That’s great, that’s why foods from USA and Europe are very welcome here.