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Yeah fine, I get it. But why is it always “drinking alcohol” as if it’s a matter of consuming the substance pure, straight into the vein.

There’s plenty of different beverages of varying tastes, intoxication — if any — curves, complementary sugars and carbs.

Just observing how this language is strongly biased.

Why would someone take issue with another person's decision, as if it's a personal attack? I often see discussions around alcohol painted in this light.
Well, of course I don't take issue with the parent's choice. I just note this reductionism about "alcohol" as if quality ciders, lambics, barley wines, ales, wines, reds, whites, bubbles, distilled grappas... I can't even come up with all the different variations... are all the same substance.

I find a hint of patronizing zeal in this; I might be just defensive though, I did -- and still do -- get moralized for my sinful behaviors.

Has some overlap with the article, but for me it really boils down to 1. Count calories + measure weight 2. Move a lot 3. Be consistent with (1), (2)

This generally forces me into a good/clean diet (lets me maximize my fullness). It's not restrictive though, so I can eat cake/have a beer at a ballgame/pizza on Friday, I just have to be aware that might mean a smaller lunch or needing to be more locked in that day. Consistency helps too- if I eat like garbage, it's better to still track that and recover pretty easily. I also find if I am ordering pizza anyways, I'm pretty happy to just order 2 slices instead of 3 if it keeps me under my threshold/goal

When counting calories, I focus more on doing the counting than getting it exactly. I can estimate what 4oz of meat looks like and what the general caloric count is which makes it easy to track pretty seamlessly. That means when I eat out, I can still stay on track. Because I measure weight daily, I can see if I need to eat more or less, which means I can be less accurate with my calorie counting.

I've managed to keep off a lot of weight I lost, I used to be morbidly obese.

I also ate 3 boxes of mac n cheese today, and I went out a couple days ago and got pretty drunk.

Its not about living by rules or anything. If you're too hard on yourself, you'll break eventually and eat like shit, so you have to eat poorly, get drunk, and have fun when you can, but never to excess, never too much. Also, exercise! Weightlifting and cardio don't actually help you lose weight, they only make you hungrier, but you feel good and any weight you do gain is going to building muscle so you don't feel so bad about it.

Anyway, at the end of the day some people are just luckier than others. I wouldn't stress about it, not a whole lot you can do if you're predisposed to diabetes and heart disease, one should just try to stay relatively healthy regardless. And the healthiest thing to be is happy, and one should always prioritize living a full, joyful life over everything else.

The main reason that exercise works is that it's better to be in shape in order to exercise.

Excepting something like strongman athletes, you won't let yourself get fat if you're training regularly because it would just cock everything up.

Just like with mental aptitude. You don't remain sharp by just sitting watching TV all day.

People spend 8 hours a day at work - if you're on here, probably 8 (okay, more like 4 :P) of mental work. If you do even 1 hour of physical exercise, not even particularly hard exercise, forever, you'll be doing great.

> You don't remain sharp by just sitting watching TV all day because you have no impetus to grow.

What if they watch Jeopardy all day? :-)

This. So many people tell me they don't have the time. And then they go on discussing the next Netflix series they wanna binge cause it's hard to find new ones cause they have already seen all the good ones.
No judgement man, people should do whatever they want to do.

It's just like, yeah. I probably spend 12 hours a week in the gym, that's outlier levels. People might think that's a lot and then turn around and spend 50 hours at work. If you take 4 of those hours and exercise instead you're golden.

I'd rather be strong and healthy than chase cash forever. But that's a personal choice.

Of course it's choice. I'm not criticizing the choice. I'm criticizing that they complain that they don't have the time to do anything different. Refusing to own up to your choices is worthy of criticism IMO.
> I move my body everyday.

I consider this the most important item on his list.

1 hour of moderate intensity workout a day and you can mostly forget any diet optimizing that is flodding the magazines, forums and ads. Adjust exact activity to your preference and interest, but that's the baseline. I'm also mid-50, was overweight in my 20s and now I'm as lean as he is (170 lbs, 6 ft tall) and have more energy than ever.

The calories must come from somewhere, and the body has an amazing ability to adapt to whatever we put into it. There will be adaptations no matter what, so why not guide that process a little?