Do you ever lose your resolve? page 3

[CaveWeirdo]

I lose my resolve to the urge of chocolate sometimes of course... but I don't question the veracity of Primal. I guess I'm lucky, in that I was not entirely brainwashed by the CW before anyway. Junk food addiction and recent weight gain for me wasn't due to lack of knowledge, it was all about feeding the symptoms instead of addressing the causes of depression.

My sister did a low-fat diet when we were teenagers and it made her lose weight but her hair started to fall out. Being vegan also helped her allergies but she's now Primal and recommended it to me originally. I also did the Atkins diet the last time I needed to lose a bit of weight and the science behind it seemed kind of obvious to me. Of course we need fat, of course we need to eat animal proteins! Everything I've learned at college about biochemistry and evolution confirms that this is the best way to eat for optimum health.

Arm yourself with as much science as you can find and you'll be less likely to have doubts.

[tfarny]

This whole idea that there are a bunch of super-healthy vegetarians running around - I just don't see it. Most people my age (40) or so are gradually falling apart whether veggo or not. Your typical 24 year old can often be / look super healthy on a diet of macdonald's, mac and cheese, and beer as long as they get a run in once in a while. Means nothing in terms of evidence for what diets work. That's why the 20-something crowd on here always lecturing folks about how to do what they do and be healthy is so uniquely annoying.

[GeorgiaPeach]

Most people my age (40) or so are gradually falling apart whether veggo or not.

Does PB help keep you from falling apart? I'd like to do a lot of preventative maintenance and still be in one piece at 80 and 90.

[magnolia1973]

No because I spent YEARS struggling with weight "obeying" CW and being obsessed over food. I just spent two months slacking on exercise and eating AS I WANTED and I lost 2lbs. If I had done that on CW there would be 15 extra lbs on me after two months of "eating as I wanted".

Do I slack? yes. But i will NEVER eat low fat and whole grains again and I will never get back to "having to run" at least an hour a day.

[fiercehunter]

Nope.

[BestBetter]

I think the reason there is so much confusion is because we keep thinking there is one right way to eat. Some people can and do thrive eating a vegetarian diet. I've had many veg friends, and what I've noticed is that if they were looking good and healthy before they became veg, there was more of a chance they continued to look good, at least for a few years.

I only know 2 vegans who have been strict vegans for 10+ years. One was my friend's aunt, who is in her late fifties, and has been vegan for about 20 years (pescatarian for the 10 years previous to that). She's a collection of weird, unexplainable and mysterious health problems that compounded over the years until she got to the point where she started eating dairy and some fish after every alternative health care person she sought out pleaded with her to go back to meat for her health. Now that she's adding more animal protein and fat to her diet, miraculously she is starting to slowly improve.

The other long-time vegan is in his forties, is a hunched over skeleton. It's kind of painful to look at him, I think I could knock him over with a good sneeze. He's a great guy, and I don't like to trash talk him, but I feel really sad to think that I, a petite woman with MS, look significantly healthier and more muscular than he does. That's kind of pathetic.

I just recently read something (maybe it was in the 4-Hour Body? i don't remember where.) This analogy that I find helpful to keep in mind when I'm tempted to eat some crap:

Imagine you had a really hot amazingly expensive car that required premium gas to perform well. Are you going to try to save a couple bucks by giving it unleaded, knowing this will cause the engine to crap out? No, of course not, you're going to give it premium. So why value an expensive car more than your own body, since your body is the most valuable machine you will ever own in your life, knowing that it can't be replaced?

[tfarny]

Does PB help keep you from falling apart? I'd like to do a lot of preventative maintenance and still be in one piece at 80 and 90.

Well thus far it's put me back together to a remarkable degree. Mark certainly hasn't fallen apart. Being healthy over 80 though is as much dumb luck as it is healthy living, I'm convinced. Anyone could keel over from a stroke at any time.

[Forever Young]

Does PB help keep you from falling apart? I'd like to do a lot of preventative maintenance and still be in one piece at 80 and 90.

I would have to say yes to that. Call it what you will. Eat real food almost all the time. Get some maximum effort exercise on a regular basis. Be active in general. Drink plenty of clean water. Have a great attitude and stop believing what is widely accepted about aging.

Genetics play a HUGE role in just how long one will live. How well you are till you get there is largely in our own hands.

[Luce]

This whole idea that there are a bunch of super-healthy vegetarians running around - I just don't see it. Most people my age (40) or so are gradually falling apart whether veggo or not. Your typical 24 year old can often be / look super healthy on a diet of macdonald's, mac and cheese, and beer as long as they get a run in once in a while. Means nothing in terms of evidence for what diets work. That's why the 20-something crowd on here always lecturing folks about how to do what they do and be healthy is so uniquely annoying.

Typical 24/28 old not holding at all vegetarian/vegan diets -they manage to do those wrong anyway, eating sugary cornflakes and going vegan muffins with soy oil and things I really don't wanna know who manufactured- but gaining weight and loosing hair -and health. Even a McDonalds diet would be better than what some of my younger friends call food.

...and they criticize my diet and fitness ideas, astounding uh?

[Sandra in BC]

Not about resolve for me at all so you are wrong. I do what I do and its not at all a struggle. Zero struggle. Its how I eat, nothing more nothing less. What is there to lose my resolve about?

Everything I eat is my choice. Primal or not, I accept the consequences. If anything, straying once in a while *strengthens* my resolve to eat more primal than before.