Questions and Answers

[Samsally]

Anybody know a good firefox extension that lets you block individual images?
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Samsally the GrayAce

[Michael]

adblocker works (by looking at the url, no fancy image recognition

[Canopus]

Yup, just right click with adblock and make sure it's not set to a more broadly defined filter.

[Usagi Miyamoto]

+1 Adblock Plus

Lets you right-click any image (or flash, or video) and block it henceforth. I use it regularly on oversized images in signatures, things that make my eyeballs itch, or avatars that are a little too wide for their britches. It can also block ads, if you care about that.
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The reward for a good life is a good life.

[Samsally]

Fantastic, thanks everyone!
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Samsally the GrayAce

[Mr. Meddler]

Pint, Mouse, thanks for the advice. I'll try to do this.

Alright, another question: I signed up for a gym, and I would like to get on a diet to lose some inches from my gut. What do you suggest to do this? I am already cutting down on the additives (HFCS, refined starches) and trying to drink more water, but what else can I do?
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[Dogen]

The diet is just as important as the exercise. I've done each alone and had really disappointing results until fixing my diet and adding exercise... but at the very beginning diet will be huge. It's great that you've decided to do it.

Keep track of what you eat. People who are overweight tend to underestimate in two ways: the number of calories in a serving, and the size of a serving. Combined, some studies have shown overweight participants to underestimate by as much as 30% (meaning if they thought they were eating a 2,000kcal diet they might have actually been eating 3,000). Learn portion sizes (a cup is about the size of a clenched fist, a tablespoon is about the size of the last segment of your thumb, etc), and record what you eat, so you really know if your diet is changing.

Think of proteins as your side dish, and fruits and vegetables as your main. One estimate is that meat should be no more than 25% of your plate. You can eat fruits and vegetables all damn day if you want to stave off hunger, though. They will never make you fat.

Brian Wansink, the author of Mindless Eating (which you should read, it's brilliant, and will explain how to use psychology to reduce your caloric intake without even realizing it), says that you can reduce your daily caloric intake by about 20% without really noticing (that is, being noticeably more hungry). Crash diets - where you just give up things (Atkins, etc) - most often fail because people are starving. Dropping your intake quickly will not only make you less likely to stick with it, but also makes it harder to lose weight. Your body will drop its metabolic rate to keep caloric output even with input, meaning you will lose slower than if you ate more food (that's why the 20% number is important). Another reason to track what you eat.

Use small plates. That's also straight from Wansink. People eat something like 15% less food when they eat off a small plate (what we think of as salad plates), especially if they have to get up and go into the kitchen to refill it.

Stop drinking anything but water... and coffee, because fuck it, you're doing enough right now. Sodas are empty calories that don't make you feel full. Try to make the calories you take in count for something.

Fiber and protein make you feel full longer. Which is convenient because fruits and veggies are full of fiber. Research by the University of Illinois found that combining high-fiber meals with moderate portions of protein made participants feel full longer. Try using fish as your protein. It has fewer calories per ounce than red meat and much of the fat comes as omega-3 fatty acids, which most people are deficient in.

I have a ton of things that I learned when I started losing weight. I eventually did Weight Watchers because they have an iphone app that makes it easy as hell to keep track of what you eat. After losing weight all summer I went off WW during the holidays, and despite not tracking what I was eating, I came out in January about the same weight as I was in November (I didn't gain anything from Thanksgiving/Christmas parties). So the habits have stuck for me, which is kind of the whole idea.
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

[Finnegan]

oh I guess dogen covered most of it.

Highlights from the post I was writing:

-smaller portion sizes
-protein makes you feel fuller, longer
-lots of fiber
-avoid processed or refined foods
-more good fats, less bad fat (bad fat is solid at room temperature)
-try to stick to water and 100% (no added sweetener) fruit juice.
-try to become aware of the glycemic index of your carbs (fruits, veggies, beans, and whole grains are low = good. pasta, refined breads/ grains/ rice/ flour, "white or russet" potatoes, anything instant (instant oatmeal, minute rice are good normally but in being processed to make them cook faster they become void of nutrition) are high on the glycemic index = bad.

basically a plate should consist of 50% fruits and veggies, 25% protein, 25% whole grains, small amount of good fat (nuts, olives, some fish, and various cooking oils).

-no serving of red meat larger than a deck of cards.
-reward yourself with something unhealthy one meal a week. make it a treat rather than something forbidden that will only tempt you.
-trying to fill yourself up with water and salad to ease hunger won't work. your brain doesn't associate a full stomach with being satiated. you need protein for that. serotonin imbalances can also effect this.

you lose weight when you expend more calories than you take in. diet is important to reduce caloric intake but exercise is need to facilitate this loss. keep in mind though, that physical activity and exercise only burn about 20% of calories per day. strengthening lean muscles through exercise will increase your resting metabolic rate, which is responsible for about 70% of daily caloric burn. so don't just focus on aerobic exercise to burn fat, anaerobic exercise to increase muscle mass is more beneficial in the long run. find a balance between the two.
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Formerly Green_Finn

hey! rock bottom's not that bad
we've got glow-in-the-dark fish down here that's rad

[Dogen]

[Finnegan]

you're right, thanks for clarifying.


also, it takes some time (20-30 mins, I'm guessing cause I don't feel like looking it up) after eating for your brain to recognize that you are satiated. wait before eating more to see if you are really still hungry or if the hunger signal just hasn't been deactivated yet. (this sort of goes with serving size)
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Formerly Green_Finn

hey! rock bottom's not that bad
we've got glow-in-the-dark fish down here that's rad

[Dogen]

Anyone remember Idlethought? He posted here for a while, but stopped in 2010 when he got into the astrophysics graduate program at UW. Does anyone know his name, first or last? I was just thinking that I have an old professor at UW that's invited me down to give a talk and I wondered if I could look him up while I was there.
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

[Finnegan]

I remember him but only know about as much as you. did you check for an email address or website linked to his username?
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Formerly Green_Finn

hey! rock bottom's not that bad
we've got glow-in-the-dark fish down here that's rad

[Michael]

he might get email notification when you pm him...

[Dogen]

He has a MySpace link that doesn't work. I will try the PM. Thanks, guys.
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

[ShadowCell]