Regardless of the health conclusions - you can't deny the amount of sugar in single cup - absolutely contributes to the obesity we are all facing.
I've never cared about what I eat. If I want something, I eat it. When I'm full, I stop. Over the last two years, my weight has stayed between 210lbs and 220lbs. I'm lucky. But I'm also a datapoint.
Since some people can simply not care about what they eat, and they don't get fat, then I'd bet money other people can watch what they eat and still get fat. And of course, for other people, watching what they eat will make them skinnier.
The point is, everyone is different, and no one can say with a straight face that we understand nutrition well enough to make broad claims like "the amount of sugar in a single cup of orange juice contributes to the obesity we're all facing".
Unless you are a bodybuilder, which I am guessing you are not since they most certainly do care about what they eat, you are likely considered overweight in every other country on earth.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1062684... Top ten reasons the BMI is bogus
http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_05_09.html Do You Believe in Fairies, Unicorns, or the BMI?
http://www.slate.com/id/2223095/ Why doctors won't stop using an outdated measure for obesity
If you want to measure body fat, measure body fat.
While at Uni I was a semi professional MTB DH racer. I am 188cm tall and weighted 88kg when in best shape of my life - I weigh a lot since my build is super robust (I had <10% body fat at that point) and I do have big bones :) (really you should see my wrists). In December, that means off season for me (athletes tend to pick up some weight during that period), we had an physical exam for Uni - I weighted 94kg at that point. So at the end of all the tests I walk into the doctors office, who while peering into my file commands me to take off my shirt and sit down. She proceeds to comment the results along the lines of: "... everything is perfect, but you are overweight (BMI 26.6) - you absolutely have to loose some weight!" At this time she rises her eyes from the file and looks at me sitting in front of her, top naked. Blushes and says: " but only a kilo or two!".
BMI may work for average. But the sad fact is that people are rarely average. And as others have noted, recent findings indicate that some level of body fat - protects from diabetes and other diseases. Meaning that nutrition is not really that simple.
I drink over half gallon of soda a day, and survive mostly on $1 McChickens.
So I'm either a freak of nature, or we don't know as much as we think we do about nature.
That said, you're pretty young, and your awful diet has evidently not caught up with you yet. When it does, I predict a swift re-evaluation of your ideas about nutrition and self-exceptionalism.
Right now you're doing OK because you've got a relatively high metabolic rate. By the time you hit your mid-30s to early 40s, a natural drop in testosterone is going to slow that metabolic rate right down and you'll see a gradual buildup of belly fat. In fact, I can already see the beginnings of it in your photo right now. I can't see your jawline but your cheeks look a little full for a guy your age.
I used to be 140-150# and now I fight to stay at 180#. In all likelihood I'm never going to get back to where I once was. I've redirected my goals to minimizing bodyfat and building muscle. It's not easy but my health has improved markedly.
You don't look healthy either and with continuing your lifestyle like you do, You are a ticking timebomb of diabetes, cholesterol issues, gout and other nasty metabolic diseases.
Take an example of my mother, she is 70 and has developed both gout and diabetes. Now imagine what you are allowed to eat - to not have issues with your body (hint. For diabetes - sugars are verboten and for gout proteins are denied.). Now imagine that there is a very real risk, that you will be in same condition by your mid 40's.
Wake up. Now.
Edit: I understand that a lot of HNers with our geeky lifestyles deem OP completely "normal" and "healthy" - but this is simply not the truth. And thus everybody might be in a deep denial.
I mean, I have no ego, and I'm not doing this out of narcissism or some silliness like that. I genuinely care about "the truth". So if the truth is I don't look healthy, then I'd like to know why.
I was just about run up to the local gas station and buy a $0.72 44oz Cherry Coke, then run up to McDonalds and grab a McChicken for $1.09, then head back and keep programming. Total time: 15min, total cost: $1.81. If you give me convenient alternatives, I guarantee I'll switch. And maybe this thread will help educate other people who are doing similar things as me.
Now I have to work doubly hard to get it back down.
Edit: You could also buy 20 apples at once and keep them stored. This reduces your time overhead significantly.
On convenience of healthy food. It's very subjective for me since I was raised on organic food (farmerboy here, it is quite interesting that our farm was organic waay before "organic" even existed. Industrial farming just didn't seem "right" to my parents) I have a general distaste for any kind industrial food (except various sweets :D). Thus you will not find any sodas and/or McStyle food on my menu - because I just don't like the taste of it. (Yes I will turn into a BK or MD every now and then - just to find out that I don't like it - over and over :))
But - being a geek I also have (or at least had) this problem of seeing food preparation as too mundane for me. However since I quit my corporate job I actually started liking to take care of our garden (40m2 in backyard) and orchard, and I have always liked cooking (I love nice tasty food). So now I have learned to treat it as a stabilizing factor in my life, to just you know - slow down for a while while doing gardening tasks it also provides a basic exercise. I know understand that producing your own food is not an option for you - I'd just like to point out that eating a meal that you produced from ground up is one of best experiences in life - right there with drugs, sex and programming. Just to let you know that if you ever get a chance at producing your own food - you should take it. It's not too much work either. A couple of weeks in spring and one in autumn - in between its mostly about basic maintenance and pest control - nature takes care of the rest. Like mentioned - this last paragraph may not do much for you and you might even see me as (rightly) bragging - but it's here just so you can understand what angle I am coming from.
Now about how you can make healthy food convenient and cheap. 1. Accept that it will take more time than junk-food (thats half of its point), but it will take less time than you expect - especially once you get used to it. 2. Stop consuming sodas and just divert "soda fund" into "food fund" - you are meant to drink water and should learn to do it ASAP. 3. Beans, Pasta, Potatoes, Full corn Bread, vegetables, nuts and dairy products should be the staple of your diet. 4. A lot of home cooking can be done fast or semi-absent (vegetable soup - cut vegetables, add water, put on an appropriate power setting - return after an hour or two - enjoy delicious vegetable soup). Pasta is fast and simple to prepare (also will keep you well fed for quite awhile). To maximise yield, learn to cook larger amounts - don't just cook a single meal worth of soup or pasta. Example: Cook a pound worth of beans (this is 4 days worth of protein) - meal 1: eat some beans with cracklings; meal 2: use some of the beans in salad; meal 3: cook some bean soup with pasta; You can also use your vegetable soup as basis for your pasta sauce, etc. 5. Salads are super fast to prepare. 6. Fruit meals require no preparation.
But you could also view your food preparation as a ritual that will help you stay balanced in your life - and thus not a waste of time.
Oh and to be honest - its perfectly possible to grow fat on healthy food. It's just not so easy and your organism will not have to endure so much stress.
Do you have any thoughts on using Crystal Light to make water taste less terrible?
Someday, when I have more than $1k of savings, I hope to live in a nice rental house with a garden in the back. What all foods do you grow?
As they say: cheers!
Regarding vegetables: Onions, garlic, potatoes (early variety), cucumber, cabbage, green beans (we buy dry beans in bulk), beet root, tomatoes and pumpkins. I grow various medicinal herbs and spices. Of fruit I have some grapes, apples, plums and raspberries. Its all just standard central European crops really.
With this capacity we are able to satisfy all vegetable requirements for a family of 5 from late April till late autumn. You should plant various strains of lettuce and green-beans so you have a constant supply over whole season.
Hope you will be able to grow your own food someday.
Water tastes fantastic. It's sweet. An all-soda-and-mcsquats' diet has killed your taste buds, so anything that isn't loaded with sugar and salt (never mind the Coke, your McChicken has a crazy amount of added sugar) will taste bland to you. Cut the crap out of your diet, and the good stuff will taste good again.
Now, all of this is modulo your local water supply. Here in Vancouver our water tastes great, but we're lucky. You might not be in the same boat. Try grabbing a brita water filter and keep it full, in the fridge.
As for grown foods: tomatoes are great and easy to grow. If you have sun, blackberries are literally weeds and will take care of themselves. Carrots and potatoes are the same way. You should always have some chives growing somewhere; they add delicious flavour to most things. Lettuces and cabbages are fairly easy, but you have to keep slugs and whatnot away or they'll eat them before you get the chance. Same deal with spinach. Peas and beans are pretty easy to grow, although you'll need a lattice. Cucumbers and zucchini are easy to grow, as well. Note, that is in no way an endorsement of zucchini. I don't advocate it's consumption; I'm just pointing out that it's easy to grow.
Thus it should be used as something that adds volume and takes on flavor of other ingredients.
I used to dislike zucchinis too - since people putting them on my plate didn't have a proper idea of how to use them. But once you use it as Lord intended them to be used, they are THE fruit. Zucchinis are in fact my favorite fruit.
Courgette actually has flavour. But just like white mushrooms, they'll be (nearly) flavourless chunks if you just throw them in a sauce and practically boil them instead of frying.
You need to fry them, get them just slightly brown on the edges to get the flavour out.
I had some off the BBQ yesterday and I was amazed how delicious they were. Cut them in long strips, bit of olive oil, and grill them. Season with a tiny bit of pepper and salt.
Then, maybe your courgettes are flavourless, it can very well be. It's like that with tomatoes over here, and then I get to Italy and mmm
"Water tastes fantastic. It's sweet. An all-soda-and-mcsquats' diet has killed your taste buds, so anything that isn't loaded with sugar and salt (never mind the Coke, your McChicken has a crazy amount of added sugar) will taste bland to you. Cut the crap out of your diet, and the good stuff will taste good again."
This is _so_ true.
I'm still fighting a battle with my own brain which I've been fighting (on and off) for 5 or 10 years now.
I don't actually like french fries, but my brain keeps tricking me into eating them. I spent so much of my life eating them that the smell, their appearance on a menu, even sometimes just the idea of fries; triggers incredibly strong desires to buy and eat them.
If I resist those desires for 3 or 4 weeks, then "give in" and eat some, they're incredibly disappointing - they strike me as slimy/oily salty mush with an unappealing flavour and leave me with an unsatisfying heavy feeling in my gut. This (sometimes) makes it really easy for me to only eat a few, then not buy any again for quite a long time.
But for some reason, my brain retains the "OMG! Fries! I want some!" memories _way_ more strongly than the "Oh, actually they're not very nice..." ones. And it's _so_ easy (for me) to drop back into the habit of eating them, and once I've eaten just half a serve or so, the unpleasant oilyness and flavour somehow doesn't affect me any more. Then I need to struggle through the 3 or 4 weeks of denying myself something I'm strongly convinced I really want to eat again.
The same for sodas - though it's easier for me to (more or less healthily) work around the soda-desire by buying diet soda instead of sugar (of hfcs) laden soda... (which just leave me open to the problems with chemical sweeteners, but for now I'm writing that down as less of a concern than the sugar/calories of regular soda).
At a guess, I strongly suspect the "fast food industry"'s manipulation of fat, sugar, and salt levels; is very strongly targeted at manipulating our tastes and desires to make us think we enjoy their version of "food" over what food really tastes like.
On the positive side, over ~10 years I've managed to get from a high of ~130kg (285lb) down to a fairly consistent 92kg (202lb) - I'm still "overweight", but I've settled on a diet/lifestyle that's a lot healthier than I had a decade ago. I need to "get fit" now, if I can incorporate some proper exercise into my lifestyle, I'm pretty sure I will be able to drop the next 10-15kg to get down to the 75-80kg (165-175lb) that the health industry says is "normal" for my height... (This is also something I've had many more or less successful false-starts at, I manage to get into the habit of walking for 40min to an hour 3 or 4 times a week, and keep it up for a few weeks or months, but then something interrupts the habit and I have to struggle with myself to start it up again...)
My brain does want me to eat fries and salty stuff, too.
I managed to go down to about 200 lb which is still overweight (and in my country it IS considered overweight, like palish would be as well), I'd like to go down to 75-80 kg as well but I work 12 hs and study 4 (Master's degree, plus it kills my entire weekend). I managed to go down 10 kg in 2 months with a diet of about 1000 calories, but it was killing me (I've since regained 8 of the 10 kgs).
Food did start to taste better at the end of that diet, but I still love the sugary and salty unhealthy stuff.
Thanks for the post and the entire discussion.
It's basically massively filtered, recycled tap water that tastes better than bottled spring water, and at about $0.25 a gallon, it costs a few dollars a month per person for a much better taste.
I think most of us were invincible at one time, but we come to realize it is an illusion as we get older and your older self has to pay for it. Also, keep in mind that you really are what you eat, or from a programmer point of view, your results are only as good as your data(i.e. "Junk in, junk out"). Cokes and McChickens are just chemicals and preservatives.
There are of course many variables- body builders are not necessarily healthy, and neither are people on speed- but when you are healthy, you feel bright and sharp, and you look bright and sharp, and your skin does not hide your muscles.
Look at the image I linked to. Consider yourself. Every place on your body you cannot see the crease formed by two muscles next to each other, is a deposit of fat. The key to this is, nowadays if your proportions are correct (no huge belly, etc) you are seen as "in good shape"- but in reality, many people "in good shape" are hiding a lot of fat on the surface of their body, and no-one realizes it because we have lost touch with what muscles really look like.
P.S. skin quality is another, lesser factor that falls in with hair quality. Truly healthy skin is smooth, supple and elastic, almost like velvet or thin high-quality well-oiled leather drawn tight over your frame. Skin products will not get you this, only regular exercise and a good diet.
That's the zero calorie flavoured carbonized spring water, right? I'd guess it's definitely a step up from soda :) Artificial sweeteners may (or may not) be questionable, but my intuition (not research, sorry) says their health effects should be rather small in comparison to the huge effects of generally healthy eating and skipping sodas.
Additionally, water tastes terrible depending on where you are. I found that places such as Turkey, Spain or New York are horrible cause the water is heavily chlorinated. Other places may not be chlorinated (rare) or just well below the taste threshold. In addition there can be many other factors that can give tap water an "off" flavour. I'm lucky that my tap water tastes great (can't tell a difference with bottled water--which I consequently only ever buy when I'm on the road and I need water, in a bottle :) ). One time when I was in the US though, somebody brought a decanter (?) with a built-in activated charcoal filter, and I was amazed, the previously slightly-off slightly-chlorinated tap water tasted great!! [additionally you keep the decanter in the fridge so it's chilled]
In case you find just water too boring, squeeze a few drops of lemon or lime in it. Or even better--and this is absolutely great--crush a few fresh mint leaves in your decanter (or bottle), sooo subtle, but definitely no longer "just water".
One thing, the other guy said beans, rice, pasta, potatoes, nuts, vegetables and dairy should be the staple of your food. That's correct, though I'd try to focus on the nuts vegetables and dairy, don't go overboard on the starches. And if possible, get whole-grain rice and whole-grain pasta. It does taste different, but it's a world of difference for your body, the "white" version is just simple starches that get converted to sugar very quickly (which is why athletes eat it), whereas the "whole" version is much slower, and the fibers are good for pooping. It's the difference between healthy food that probably still makes you gain some weight and food that doesn't.
Additionally, I read that dairy isn't particularly healthy or unhealthy and that skimmed versus whole-fat hardly makes any difference whatsoever. So if you like it, go ahead. Oh except yoghurt. It's got those probiotic beasties in them, which is extra plus good for you. I suggest you try and find some nice 10%+ fat Greek yoghurt and try a few spoons just plain. The really fat stuff is actually pretty damn good.
And I think somebody already mentioned it, but in terms of sugar content, 100% fruit juices are nearly just as bad as sodas. Real shame, that, I used to think they were healthy :) I still like a glass of OJ before breakfast though.
I suggest tea. Herbal for when you don't want caffeine.
"Fit" is another matter, and it implies "for a purpose" or toward some goal.
I'd start with a mix of body composition (your body fat percentage, nut just scale weight, and certainly not some crap bogus metric like BMI). You can come up with a pretty good estimate just by eyeballing, or you can take tape or caliper measures and run them through a model. A good online site for same: http://www.linear-software.com/online.html
If you want some fitness basics a good start is here: http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html
For books, "The New Rules of Lifting" is decent. You can do the workouts at home, though a gym helps: http://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Lifting-Maximum-Muscle/dp/15...
I actually prefer a good 5x5 program for beginners (simpler, brutally effective). Check out http://stronglifts.com or look up Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength .
Fitness metrics: body fat, strength, speed, flexibility, endurance, heart rate, lipids, etc.
I've worked in tech for 20 years. I've contributed to some major open source projects and worked at some significant organizations. I've also taken fitness pretty seriously after letting it slide. I do lift weights, hike, bike, swim and row. What you do with it is up to you, but I've found that the investment pays off very high dividends.
I've eaten at a McDonalds once in the last 20 years. That's not food. Neither is Coke refreshment.
It usually uses flat rice noodles (which just need to be soaked... not even cooked) and thousands of stirfries made possible with ready pastes and a few veggies/meat. I would bet that you can whip some up under 5 minutes.
And diet coke will not cause your body to have the same insulin response as sugar based drinks.
Also, go read fittit (/r/fitness)
This has recently been shown to be untrue.
Recent research on rats and humans shows that drinking diet drinks gives the body an expectation of calories that it then does not receive. Perhaps due to a Pavlovian response but physically real nonetheless, the digestive system switches on and gears up to digest. When no calories are received the body reacts by demanding the calories it missed out on: an effect very similar to to the 'insulin' response.
In lab tests: rats fed water + food kept a steady weight; sweeteners + food put on weight; sugar-water + food lost weight.
The "sugar-water + food = lost weight" bit is especially striking...
Fowler SP, Williams K, Resendez RG, Hunt KJ, Hazuda HP,
Stern MP. Fueling the obesity epidemic? Artificially
sweetened beverage use and long-term weight gain Obesity
(Silver Spring) 2008 Aug;16(8):1894-1900.
here's some pop-sci versions:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1764156/diet-coke-is-why-youre-fa...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2009055/Why-guzzli...
I'm still looking for the study on rats. I'll keep looking. I'm sure I bookmarked it somewhere…
He found a source of said nutrients that works for him. Everybody else returned to a balanced diet.
I do understand that some people can function on purely vegan diet. However most do not.
P.S. I'm genuinely asking, most of my knowledge is borrowed from Leangains
This shows that what is going on here may be more complex than first thought. (Maybe it is just a Pavlovian response.) It doesn't change the evidence that people and rats put on weight when drinking diet drinks – it shows that the reason why is still unclear.
<side note> I do worry how many medical papers are based on tiny samples. 5 seems very small to me (when I was doing drug research 100 was a small sample). </side note>
This is interesting but on a different topic: calories:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC506782/
This is about salt:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=its-time-to...
This on dairy products:
http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v64/n6/abs/ejcn201045a.ht...
This is an interesting account of veganism:
http://voraciouseats.com/2010/11/19/a-vegan-no-more/
And another interesting article on corn-syrup:
Put water in a pan, bring to a boil. Meanwhile cut one onion into small pieces. Put oil in a frying pan and heat, then add minced meat. Add pasta and a bit of salt to now boiling water. When it starts to be a bit brown, add the onion, stir. Add any spices, e.g. thyme and laurel leaf. Add 500ml pureed tomatoes (you can but this you don't have to do it yourself). Add a crushed broth cube, and a teaspoon of sugar. Add crushed, diced garlic. Let it stay on the heat for 4 minutes. Now your pasta should be ready. Eat with Parmesan cheese and some vegetables.
Total time: 10 minutes. Number of meals cooked: 2, so 5 minutes per meal. Total cost per meal less than $1.81.
You are not doing it the convenient way.
When I was 30 my weight ballooned into the overweight area, and this was even when I was doing plenty of exercise. I started experimenting with different diets, wanting to find something that I could actually enjoy, didn't leave me hungry and didn't require preparation. Some diets worked health-wise but was too complicated and too boring, I've finally managed to find a diet that suits me, it might not be the one that suits you but I thought I mention it anyway.
The first thing you need to do is to stop eating sugar and that includes any High fructose Cornsyrup. I stopped having sugars in my coffee and eventually got used to it. Soda's was harder, I've eventually learned to enjoy carbonated water with meals and drink coffee and tea for programming fuel (A habit I plan to experiment with dropping)
The next thing is to cut out any fried food. It's a no-brainer since it's easily one of the most unhealthy things you can eat. Not so much for the fat content (which weirdly isn't as unhealthy as you think) but because fried food is loaded with carbohydrates.
Next you need to find a plan for what you actually should eat. I tried to find fast food alternatives that I could enjoy but that was more healthy, things like wook, thai food and sushi. It'll be a bit more expensive but you'll save lots of money from not drinking soda/candy and other crappy snacks
Eating out all the time is boring and expensive however, and the food isn't always that good so you need something healthy you can cook at home. My rule is to build meals around a quality protein (fish/beef/chicken) and have that with a vegetable that provides carbohydrates. Lenses, spinach and beans are especially good. Mix that with some other vegetables, spices and a non-carb sauce (ie bernaise) and you have a very nice healthy meal for the same price as eating out that you can prepare in 3 minutes. Hamburger patties isn't as healthy but since they're easy and probably more healthy than the alternative feel free to endulge.
Yeah, and no bread, rice, pasta, grain, potates, candy, fruit juice, cereals either if you can manage.
Eat eggs for breakfast, like 3 eggs in an omelett with some sallad and an avocado
The really good thing about this diet in contrast to other I've tried is that I'm not hungry, the cravings for sweets and snacks has essentially dissappeared and I need less portions of stuff.
This might sound extreme and I don't recommend you do everything at once. Start shifting parts of your diet and se what works, try having some of these meals and see if you like it.
Finding a diet that fits one taste and lifestyle is a continous process so take it one step at a time.
I think my diet pretty closely follows the Paleo Diet (though I don't really subscribe to all of it). A really good book to read is Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It by Steve Taub
Please note that we are not talking extreme measures here - there are plenty of carbohydrates in food. We're talking getting rid of the crap variety. Avoiding or completely skipping starchy foods (white bread, rice, potatoes) is the key to controlling blood sugar levels. It's not about avoiding sugar drops - its more about avoiding blood sugar spikes these foods cause.
Please note - that potatoes are not necessarily bad - if you eat them whole (much easier with young potatoes) and add extra fiber.
But sugar, white flour and rice are horrible, horrible foods.
Add chips if you need something extra. Dump them onto a plate to keep yourself from eating the entire bag, though.
While you're at the store, grab a romaine lettuce. rinse it off and just start munching. No need to chop it into a salad, that's a pain in the ass.
Shop the perimeter of the store and avoid the frozen and boxed stuff.
BMI is weight in kg / height in m squared, 18.5 – 25 is normal. So for >200cm, even 100kg is in normal.
That doesn't mean he's bodybuilder lean, but that DOES mean his weight is in a reasonable range.
Now at the same time, he's eating total crap foods. I'm sure in a few years, he could be facing some weight gain, but the idea he's even a little overweight is off.
Given your weight of 220#, that means you're carrying about 55-66# of fat on you. Drop that to 10-15% (a pretty good athletic range) without losing muscle, and you'd be somewhere in the 170 - 190# range.
Be careful there - next thing you know he's going to post a photo in his underwear. All for science, of course ;)
Newbies always forget wheel shots.
http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/24114_337315700...
They usually have terrible habits, are are in complete denial about how many calories those habits constitute.
Most people are arrogant and think they know more than they do. The truth is, we know very little about nutrition (in an absolute sense, like "I absolutely know that if I hit that ball with X force, it will move Y meters").
I'm merely saying science is harmed when people blatantly decide to overlook reality.
It seems very interesting to me that I can drink 88oz of soda every day for the past 6 months and still be at the same weight. Why is that?
And it raises other interesting questions, too. Like the meaning of "health". For example, I know my muscles haven't been impacted, because I just armwrestled my wife's father and won, and the dude builds pole barns for a living. Like, goes out and actually builds them himself.
So if soda is so terrible, why haven't I been affected? Or is the truth that I'm overlooking some aspect of my health? I'm interested in the answers, but I won't ever find out if arrogant scientists continue with the "soda is terrible!" mantra.
Edit: as pyre points out, if someone reads this and thinks "Gee, maybe I'll try suddenly drinking 88oz of soda every day too!"... don't. I was just pointing out what I do, not saying that it's safe.
* It couple possibly have something to do with the discovery that all of our digestive tracts can (possibly) be categorized into three different sets of bacterial fauna.
* I certainly hope that you aren't recommending that everyone should just drink nothing but soda because, "it works for me, so it should work for everyone."
The truth is your habits will catch up to you. Eventually.
be patient bro you're on the right track
Besides everything else, you are good to get periodontal disease and have false teeth early on. Nutrition is clear on several aspects. Eating horrible food is not some perceptual mystery. Eventually it will catch up to you. And it often makes you feel bad instantly.
Try changing your diet for 30-days, eat more fruits, vegetables, cut your sugar intake etc and see if you feel different.
And have you seen Tom Naughton's film Fat Head (the anti-Super Size Me doc)? Some bad logic in it but you sound like you could appreciate it. Good luck.
We know what you're consuming doesn't qualify as nutrition.
Dude, you eat garbage. This isn't a hippy-crunchy-vegan thing; the "food" you eat is trash.
If you want to sooth your sweet tooth, go to your grocery store and buy a metric fuckton of berries. They're in season. Leave your strawberries and blackberries in the fridge, and throw your raspberries (they don't keep) and blueberries (they're fantastic frozen) in the freezer. Grab some bananas and milk while you're there.
Make a smoothy like so: 1 banana, 4-5 strawberries, a bunch of blue-, black-, and raspberries, put 'em in the blender. Fill the cracks with milk. Blend. Drink. You'll have to balance the berries for taste, as raspberries and commercial blackberries are sour; strawberries, blueberries, wild (ripe) blackberries, and bananas are sweet.
Do that, and you can satisfy your sweet tooth and get loads of good vitamins and whatnot in you. It's also easier than walking to the store, and not terribly expensive.
Remember those blueberries you put in the freezer? Next time you want candy or chocolate or something, munch on them. They're delicious (big ones are better).
One last note: stop pretending that your diet is okay. It really, really isn't. Your body is operating in spite of what you're putting into it, not because of it.
If you think Chicken McNuggets have a lot to do with chicken, think again.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_McNuggets
"As of October 9, 2010, the ingredients are as follows: Chicken, water, salt, sodium phosphates. Battered and breaded with: bleached wheat flour, water, wheat flour, food starch-modified, salt, spices, wheat gluten, paprika, dextrose, yeast, garlic powder, rosemary, partially hydrogenated soybean oil and cottonseed oil with mono -and diglycerides, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, ammonium bicarbonate, monocalcium phosphate), natural flavor (plant source) with extractives of paprika. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane made of silicone[4] is added as an antifoaming agent.[5] The list may be slightly different outside of the United States."
Chicken McNuggets are pure crap with much too much fat and very low nutritional value.
It's your problem in the end, but as some fellow HNers already pointed out you're in for a very bad surprise not too far from now.
Another tip would be to replace the soda with water. So much better for you and you get the hang of it pretty quickly.
An 8 oz can of coke has 142 calories, all from sugar. That means you're consuming 1562, or 75% of your daily recommended caloric intake from sugar alone. That's fucking terrible, man. Stop doing that.
From http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/195157/exposing_mcd...
Here's a fun fact: their "chicken" is actually, at most, 44 percent chicken. The rest is mostly corn, salt, preservatives, and a few other interesting nasties.
When I went to Shaolin to train, I was 174lbs, eating about 2,500-3,200 calories a day (estimate). During my 3 months there, I ate about 5,000-6,000 calories a day (estimate), and ended up 167 lbs. I'm 182 cm. The funny thing is, visually, there wasn't much of a difference other than my abs showing more, and more muscle.
I concluded even those of us who are "lucky" in metabolics, still have fat to lose.
Calories in OJ: http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-orange-juice-i14425 Calories in soda: http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-carbonated-beverage-i...
Adjusted for the same volume, the soda has 109, while the orange juice has 122.
Not me. I'm actually trying to put on weight. And it's slow going.