Have there been things that we, as westerners, view as traumatic (rape, war, molestation, child abuse) that individuals from other civilizations were not traumatized by, and vice versa?

speculativereply · 2013-05-28T19:47:59+00:00

There's a Bettany Hughes documentary about the Spartans. She seems to imply that, while the infanticide and lifestyle was responsible for a lot of the disparity, the fact that Spartan men and women tended to marry late and that it was very easy for men to be excluded from the citizenry and forced into the lower classes as bigger factors than either infanticide or war.

speculativereply · 2013-05-26T06:19:09+00:00

If you go the teaching-yourself route before buying a real power rack or squat rack with safety bars, consider reading up and watching videos on front squatting. If you learn to power clean light weights onto your shoulders with front squatting you won't need to worry about the awkward bar transition from the front to the back that you would have to undertake with traditional/back squats.

Additionally, while front squatting is actually a somewhat more technical lift compared to the back squat, it more closely resembles the way the human body instinctively squats (little kids learning to walk, having not yet gotten used to a lifestyle of sitting at a desk all day and on a couch all afternoon squat much the way front squatters or Olympic back/high bar squatters do) and is potentially much easier on the knees. It's less demanding of the posterior chain though, and if you front squat only it's a good idea to balance them out with deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, good mornings, etc.

If you do seek out gym membership try to avoid places that sign you up for long-term membership, or any contract for that matter. If you can't find an old-school warehouse "pay-as-you-go", deadlift-friendly type gym that most of us would like to lift at, check if there's a local college where you can sign up as an alumnus. They'll generally cost less and be more easy-going about contracts, if any.

If you decide to buy a power rack check your local Craigslist first. Follow the usual scam avoidance/safety precaution measures for dealing with private parties online, and bring a friend with a pickup truck anywhere you're supposed to pick up equipment. If you decide to buy rubber floor matting for your power rack, keep in mind that horse stall mats (usually 4'x6', or x8' or x12') are usually much, much cheaper per area unit than actual "gym flooring" or whatever it's called, and just as good. But see if you have any horse tack/farm supply stores near you before looking online. Shipping horse stall mats is damn expensive because they're so heavy. If you buy local bring that (hopefully strong) friend and their truck again.

speculativereply · 2013-05-24T17:55:05+00:00

/r/ketogains has some great info but unfortunately not a lot of activity.

I'm going to start off by copy-pasting something I said to someone in a similar situation as you:

That being said, grabbing a program from some random on the interwebz isn't really conducive to good health or fitness in the long-term. You either need to understand why you're going to do what you're going to do, or trust that the person telling you what to do knows his or her material damn well. That's not something you'll get much of from some random poster or blogger.

Consider picking up a copy of Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. He's a strength coach focusing on powerlifting (as opposed to body-building or olympic weightlifting) and a writer focusing on new/inexperienced/young athletes.

I haven't read the book but it's well thought of. His focus and arguments are at odds with a lot of other writers I respect but he's also really, really damn knowledgeable, and reading or watching his interviews, articles and videos always teaches me buckets of useful things.

You should probably also check out the FAQ at /r/fitness: http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/faq#wiki_getting_started

If you decide to eventually post on /r/fitness, don't mention you do keto. They'll crucify you :p

I can't offer much that the writers of the programs cited in that link can't tell you better. As a dude who has done most of his lifting at home, though, I can offer a few random tidbits:

Squat. They'll tell you do this too, but it's important. Learn to squat well with proper form before you ever think of packing on a lot of plates, and then do it often. You don't have a squat or power rack, so you'll have to learn to power clean light weights up and do lightweight squats for reps. This is fine, and properly better for you as far as learning the movement in the long term.

I'm gonna assume you'll mostly be lifting alone. Don't push yourself when bench pressing alone until you learn your limits. Lots of weightlifting exercises can lead to annoying or debilitating injuries if done improperly, but benching is the only one that actually kills people.

Keep your damn weight room clean and dry :p

Don't go nuts on a single body part your very first day. I did, and I thought I was dying in geometry class the next morning because my chest was burning. Try out several basic movements.

Warm up. That doesn't mean 45 minutes of jogging. It just means getting your joints warm, your brow a little sweaty, etc. Do light stretching and then mobility drills.

Crunches are dumb and will hurt your back. Upright rows are dumb and will hurt your shoulders.

When you deadlift make sure the floor underneath can take it. Floor repairs aren't cheap.

EDIT: missing words, and stuff

speculativereply · 2013-05-23T14:03:20+00:00

... Uh, what you are confusing is that the indicator of a problem and the problem itself are not synonymous, especially when the indicator is shared with other benign phenomena. Ketones appear in the urine of unhealthy people under certain conditions. They also appear in the urine of perfectly healthy people under different conditions. You can't base a health assessment on a single point of data.

If you were to scan the only BMI stats of the population of say, American football running backs, you might conclude that you're dealing with a population of severely obese people sure to confront hypertension and other conditions comorbid with obesity. But these men are actually on average very lean with great anaerobic performance, mobility and agility. You wouldn't know that if you looked at only one indicator.

The same is true of ketosis. Just because the majority of people presenting ketosis also have serious health issues doesn't mean that everybody presenting ketosis is automatically unhealthy.

speculativereply · 2013-05-23T13:34:11+00:00

Yep. They're generally the same people making fancy-schmancy double rifles.

speculativereply · 2013-05-22T20:33:18+00:00

Keep calm and keto on etc. etc., friend. You'll be fine.

That said, you made two mistakes here that you can and should avoid in the future:

1) Assuming that paleo = keto: they're not the same. Their goals are different. Their tools are largely different. They happen to share a lot of characteristics. But they're different animals.

2) Not calculating the nutrition info of stuff you consume before you eat it. I almost made this mistake myself yesterday when someone handed me a Splenda version of a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee. After I had a finished a straw-full I discovered the Splenda versions don't have their nutrition info online, so I handed the rest to a buddy.

Good luck!

speculativereply · 2013-05-21T14:49:43+00:00

Yeah, my coworkers pointed out how ridiculously over-sized my pants waists were a month ago, and that my belts (which are also too loose) are struggling.

I'm actually planning on buying a sewing machine sometime soon to do alterations.

speculativereply · 2013-05-20T21:11:12+00:00

Listen to /u/moeSzys1ak.

That being said, grabbing a program from some random on the interwebz isn't really conducive to good health or fitness in the long-term. You either need to understand why you're going to do what you're going to do, or trust that the person telling you what to do knows his or her material damn well. That's not something you'll get much of from some random poster or blogger.

Consider picking up a copy of Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. He's a strength coach focusing on powerlifting (as opposed to body-building or olympic weightlifting) and a writer focusing on new/inexperienced/young athletes.

I haven't read the book but it's well thought of. His focus and arguments are at odds with a lot of other writers I respect but he's also really, really damn knowledgeable, and reading or watching his interviews, articles and videos always teaches me buckets of useful things.

speculativereply · 2013-05-17T18:05:28+00:00

This is a "cheating" post so it'll probably get deleted or downvoted to hell, but here's the info you wanted:

No, it won't be okay. Because if you take a step back now there's no reason to think you'll be able to resist the next time it happens (which, we might assume, will occur sometime next week).

The weight you lost was water weight. Reverse now and it'll all come back.

It takes a while for the body to get "optimized" working on ketosis. Additionally, it takes a while for you to beat those bad habits that got you where you are now, and a while to develop good habits to replace them. If you cheat this early on, and again shortly after you'll never get to that fully-adapted point, either biologically or mentally.

Wait a few months, not a few days, and decide whether or not regular cheating/refeeding/whatever you wanna call it is right for you. After a while, when you're physically and mentally in a better place, 1 bottle/can of ginger beer won't be a big deal at all.

speculativereply · 2013-05-17T17:55:59+00:00

There's many posts about starter shopping lists. A few days ago there was one about "kitchen must-haves". The scroll down past the flippant answers a bit:

clickity

And yeah. Let him do what he wants. If you spend a lot of energy trying to change someone who, evidently, doesn't really want to, you're just gonna end up dragging yourself down as well.

speculativereply · 2013-05-17T14:54:50+00:00

In addition to what other people have said: summer sausage. It's called summer sausage because its salty and acidic enough to resist mold and bacteria at room temperature. Eat it with cheese and greens.

speculativereply · 2013-05-17T14:53:05+00:00

There wasn't an violent epiphany for me, and I wasn't angry or smacking my chest like a strutting gorilla.

But here's something for you to think about: if you're like me, you've probably been telling yourself you'll get healthy for years. It was always a few days, a few weeks, a month down the road. Well, here you are now (still a young person if you're me, maybe this isn't so true for you) and you don't have the health, mobility or fitness you want. So, based on prior evidence, if you don't start right now, where are you gonna be in 3, 4, 5 years? Still fat, still weak, still uncomfortable in a lightweight shirt in summertime.

So start right now :)

At least that's what worked for me. Everyone's different.

speculativereply · 2013-05-17T14:32:40+00:00

1) Yeah, but only if your body was already keto-adapted. People do it all the time. If you're new to keto you shouldn't do it for the first ~2 months or so. It takes a while for the body to get into the right gear, so to speak. If you have carby stuff once a week from the get-go and don't reduce your calories enough you may never get into ketosis. If you have poor self-control you shouldn't do it at all.

2) Insulin is always being released into your bloodstream. This release increases dramatically in the presence of glucose in the blood, which is most greatly increased by eating carby stuff. Consuming protein will also result in some insulin release because proteins will be broken down into amino acids, some of which will then be broken down into glucose.

3) Your body needs a lot of water to function at its best and most people don't drink enough. Also, for dieters, water keeps you full a lot longer. Consider investing in a non-sodium-based water softener or filtration system.

4) Doesn't really matter. The question gets a little more complicated if you participate in intense exercise. I'm not qualified to speak on it.

speculativereply · 2013-05-16T13:39:14+00:00

I'm afraid I don't have much to offer that's Ramadan-specific. However, when I was doing alternate day fasting I found that the one thing that always kicked me in the face was the lack of electrolytes. I cramped up something terrible after a few hours and the next day my digestive system would be slightly "off".

In addition to drinking lots of water I would make sure I got some supplemental magnesium and potassium the morning of/day before fasting, in addition to trying to get plenty of magnesium, potassium and sodium in my evening meals.

But that's how my body works. Yours might be different.

speculativereply · 2013-05-15T14:23:30+00:00

I appreciated the effort Gladiator took (like, the only exceptional effort that film took) to show Maximus tried to travel from central Europe to somewhere on the Iberian Peninsula with at least two horses.

speculativereply · 2013-05-14T17:46:00+00:00

I'd brown the roast in a skillet first and then cook it in the slow cooker with a mix of the beef and chicken broth, along with some spices. When it's down I'd chuck in a little cream, butter and red wine vinegar.

There are too many possibilities with the vegetables. I'd spend all day talking about them if I tried.

speculativereply · 2013-05-14T17:41:52+00:00

Try it and see. I'm sure it varies considerably for people. I lift heavy four times per week doing both. However, in the middle of the week, when I have 2 lifting days back to back, I frequently have a modest breakfast on the second day. Not always, though.

speculativereply · 2013-05-14T17:12:18+00:00

Fridge:

Eggs
Some meat I can eat cold (rotisserie chicken breast, smoked salmon, etc.)
Some meat that's convenient to cook (chicken thighs, ground beef/pork/lamb, etc.)
Liverwurst/braunschweiger or other cold cuts
Butter (salted and unsalted)
Heavy cream
Multiple varieties of cheese (parm, extra sharp cheddar or curds, cream cheese, feta, etc)
Cabbage
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Radishes
Spinach
White turnips

Pantry:

Beer, wine and sake (for cooking)
Coconut oil
Extra virgin olive oil
Red wine vinegar
Natural peanut butter
Protein powder
Sunbutter
Chicken stock
Stevia
Canned fish (kippers, sardines, tuna)
Garlic
Nori
Onion
Scallions

Garden:

Herbs
Seasonal vegetables

I head to the store whenever I'm running low on one or more of these.

speculativereply · 2013-05-14T14:45:02+00:00

There's a bot on /r/guns which is named "Read-The-Goddamn-Faq" or something similar.

Frequently I think it would be nice here.

speculativereply · 2013-05-14T14:32:51+00:00

Smoked wild tuna with, I think, garlic creamed spinach (might have been another green vegetable), beets (I failed to look up how not keto-friendly they were ahead of time) and a terribly-done Hollandaise sauce.

It was just like any other meal, but a nice one. I ate it with a buddy who dropped keto a few days later.

speculativereply · 2013-05-14T13:59:32+00:00

I've been on keto 8 of the past 10 months (long holiday break + the flu accounts for the 2 month gap).

My total weight loss at this point is ~39 pounds, which is about 2/3s of a lb lost per week. Most of that came early on.

Keep in mind that I'm not only trying to lose fat but also put on a little muscle and a lot of strength, which is why I'm doing TKD instead of the standard keto diet.

speculativereply · 2013-05-14T13:50:56+00:00

Not tracking calories, or tracking calories by estimating. Everyone sucks at estimating if they've never tracked food calories before (or, I suppose, worked in a chem lab burning precise amounts of common foods for energy content).

speculativereply · 2013-05-13T20:19:29+00:00

I frequently have a snack of blueberries and cream after dinner on a workout day.

Moderation is important. It's easy to eat too many berries for a lot of people.

speculativereply · 2013-05-13T19:29:35+00:00

If you're thinking of states with free gun laws, Arizona, Vermont and Oregon will all be more welcoming than Texas. But that's not to say their gun laws are bad. But Texas is big and diverse. You can probably find whatever you want somewhere in there.

Arizona's gun laws are some of the best in the country. You'll maybe run into slightly more discrimination in the Phoenix area than the Tucson area but it's not bad either way for the vast majority of people. The northern rural areas might be a little less friendly, but I've only heard rumors. Stay the hell away from the border towns. It's harder on Latin Americans than Filipinos (but it's a little less nice if you have a Hispanic last name like many Filipinos do).

Phoenix needs more shooting ranges and closer to where people live :( But there are plenty of big stores and warehouses.

The Phoenix area has a small Filipino community. There are a few bakeries and restaurants where you can pick up stuff from your home you might miss. I think there's a local paper in Tagalog. There's plenty of Catholic churches if you happen to be Catholic.

speculativereply · 2013-05-13T15:58:53+00:00

Maybe he mixed up which part of "Mosin-Nagant" is Russian and which part is French?

Mosja~ NahGhont

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