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We arent fat because we eat too much and exercise too little

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I've never understood why losing weight is so difficult for some people. For me it was all about exercising more and reducing calories. It's just a matter of discipline and patience.
 
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Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
I've never understood why losing weight is so difficult for some people. For me it was all about exercising more and reducing calories.

Because it's extremely complicated and everyone's body and environment are different.
 

cryptic

Member
I... I don't think we're really at a disagreement at all here. It's just that your first statement was horribly simplified and could easily lead to misunderstanding.

I don't pretend to understand everything in that article, but it seems like he's making more or less the same argument as most paleo people, which is to avoid starchy foods, grains, soy products, vegetable and seed oils, etc.

So, yeah, eat more meat, veggies, fruit, and dairy. Sounds like a damn good plan to me.

Okay then, sorry for the misunderstanding and the assumption on my part, sincerely, I just recently came to view things that simply and was shocked. So I just wanted to share that, get it out there just as that, and hoped people would explore from there.
 
Because it's extremely complicated and everyone's body and environment are different.

But let me ask you this because I'm pretty curious myself. Has there been someone who has stuck to a high exercise/low calorie for as long as it takes and still not lost weight? At some point you're starving your body so it has no other choice. Now keeping it off might be a different matter.
 
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Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
But let me ask you this because I'm pretty curious myself. Has there been someone who has stuck to a high exercise/low calorie for as long as it takes and still not lost weight? At some point you're starving your body so it has no other choice. Now keeping it off might be a different matter.

I see what you're getting at, and you're probably right that just about everyone would lose weight if they starved themselves while expending lots of physical energy, but your simplification of the issue and insistence to attribute obesity to the individual's willpower is one of the biggest problems with people's thinking when it comes to obesity, and also why nothing changes.

As long as "calories in/calories out" is the common wisdom, people are just going to get fatter and fatter and sicker and sicker.
 

ch0mp

Member
But let me ask you this because I'm pretty curious myself. Has there been someone who has stuck to a high exercise/low calorie for as long as it takes and still not lost weight? At some point you're starving your body so it has no other choice. Now keeping it off might be a different matter.
Of course starvation diets work in the short term. They normally end in serious rebounds to worse than before.
 
Meh, fuck exercise. I used to do it all of the time but now I'm too busy.

I've started eating decent proportions and I'm trying to eat healthy food. It takes a lot of work to adjust to this quite honestly because when I exercised I was eating anything and everything with no limits. I'm hoping some weekend activity and decent eating keeps me stabilized.
 

CLEEK

Member
But let me ask you this because I'm pretty curious myself. Has there been someone who has stuck to a high exercise/low calorie for as long as it takes and still not lost weight? At some point you're starving your body so it has no other choice. Now keeping it off might be a different matter.

No. Low calories in and high calories out will make *anyone* lose weight.

But if you're over weight, the only way you will move to a life time of healthy weight is to change your relationship with food. If you view a change in diet as just a short term thing to lose weight, you'll just yo-yo and put it back on again later.
 

GatorBait

Member
I've never understood why losing weight is so difficult for some people. For me it was all about exercising more and reducing calories. It's just a matter of discipline and patience.

Discipline and patience are two attributes that modern fitness/diet marketing often stress that you don't need, so it is little surprise that many people get frustrated and "relapse" back to their old lifestyle when they are required to exercise those attributes. Weight loss can be a long, demoralizing process if your expectations aren't in check.

That being said, exercise and calorie restriction without regard for the type of food consumed can be more difficult to sustain and leave you feeling worse (lethargic, etc) when compared to a paleo type of diet. If followed, both types of dieting should yield weight loss though (barring any specific medical issues).
 

CLEEK

Member
Paleo for example has nothing much to say about carbs to my knowledge. They eat plenty of vegetables. If it is low carb that is a function of eliminating refined foods, sugars and the big one: grains.

Yeah, paleo is low carb as a side effect of their views on grains. If you eat whole foods, yet cut out bread, pasta, cereals and rice, you'll remove the main sources of carbs in your diet.

While I don't personally think I have any intolerance to grains, I rarely eat them for weight maintenance reasons.
 

Raonak

Banned
Man school fucked me over in this respect.

thoes food pyramids, showing grains and carbs as the biggest, meaning you should eat them most.

For the longest time I had the idea that bread was healthy.
 

Dash27

Member
I've never understood why losing weight is so difficult for some people. For me it was all about exercising more and reducing calories. It's just a matter of discipline and patience.

A lot of different factors can make it harder. What they eat, hormones levels of testosterone, estrogen and insulin, and yeah some people have no discipline or patience and are just plain lazy.

But let me ask you this because I'm pretty curious myself. Has there been someone who has stuck to a high exercise/low calorie for as long as it takes and still not lost weight? At some point you're starving your body so it has no other choice. Now keeping it off might be a different matter.

Yeah definitely works but a few things: the weight you lose might include a lot of muscle. The weight tends not to stay off. There are other methods that might be more effective and long term solutions. Depends on the person.
 

Zutroy

Member
So I tried this for a week just as an experiment and lost 4 pounds. I wasn't in it to try and lose weight, as I'm currently a healthy weight, I wanted to see what it did for my energy levels, which I did feel an improvement with.

I didn't have zero carbs (I found that pretty much impossible) but I only had around 50g a day at the most. Breakfast and dinner were pretty easy, but I really struggled with what to eat for lunch.

Bread and pasta were easy to cut, but I really missed my sweet things and things like chips and crisps. I also cut out all fizzy juice and just stuck to water for the week.

I'm going to try it for another few days before I see if I'll stick with it. Alternatively I might try that just cutting out the grains thing and see how I feel on that, as I think it would be a lot easier.
 

Guiberu

Member
So I watched Fat Head.

And, despite having once gone completely health crazy and getting really fit and healthly, I had recently slipped back into bad habbits and felt myself lose energy and that feeling of being in shape.

The reduction in carbs (which I had used previously to an extent, but would eat a large amount of pasta) and increase in meat / dairy / caveman foods has genuinely made me feel better and more energetic than ever before.

I used to do an hour of high intensity cardio a day followed by a good session of weights and would end up feeling thoroughly energised. But not like this.

Got a bit of a cold at the moment, but despite the runny nose I still feel incredibly energetic and I've lost a couple of pounds in the past two weeks from dropping bread, pasta and fizzy drinks alone.

If anyone is on the fence with this - try it. Eat lots of chicken / meat in general. Eat lots of cheese and eggs. Cook more. Put some vegetables in a pot and cook them up rather than eating a big lump of stogey bread or a plate full of fries. If you "don't have time" - make some time at the beginning / end of the week and do all the prep or cooking beforehand. I have a 9 - 5 office job with additional travel time AND my daughter at the weekends. Time is not my friend - but I manage it.

Don't have time/money for the Gym? Go buy some cheap weights. Walk. Run.

tl;dr

Be a caveman. Eat meat and be active. You'll feel incredible.
 

red731

Member
Just two hours and eighteen minutes more and I will finish my first day from two for this week of Intermediate Fasting.

24hours... I could hold for more, but man, I am already thinking about stuff I will eat soon
KuGsj.gif
 

rezuth

Member
But let me ask you this because I'm pretty curious myself. Has there been someone who has stuck to a high exercise/low calorie for as long as it takes and still not lost weight? At some point you're starving your body so it has no other choice. Now keeping it off might be a different matter.
Wouldn't putting your body in starvation mode just make it harder to lose weight?

All these things are also individual, I know people who have been on a diet and not lost weight but I could most likely attribute that to other factors like how most people think that just cuz you are on LCHF you can eat all you want and not exercise.
 

Lanbeast

Member
I watched that Taubes video posted earlier and then caught Fat Head this weekend. I've switched to a mainly meat/veggie diet the past week and within the first three days I could already feel a significant increase in energy and decrease in hunger. I'm going to stick with it and see how it goes over the long run. No substantial weight loss yet.

I also run ~2.5 miles every other day with a short workout to follow including push-ups, dips, crunches, and squats.
 

Dash27

Member
I'll try and post something from "Why we get fat" tonight but generally speaking make sure you eat enough good fats. Olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds, eggs, animal fat etc. You dont want to be too high on protein.
 
everytime I eat any wheat related foods my iq drops by 50 points. Two days ago I ate chow mein noodles and pizza (I shouldn't have but I couldn't resist after coming home from a night shift) and the next day I got brain fog and felt sluggish. I even jumped a red light and parents were saying WTF!!?? I should really avoid wheat but it is so hard :(
 

Jado

Banned
I had burgers from a local restaurant last night. Nearly got bread but noticed they had a new option: lettuce wrap. The patty and toppings are basically sitting on leafs of lettuce and you can close them up and eat it like a normal burger.

It was quite good and really an improvement over "no bun," which feels too sparse and odd to eat with a fork and knife.
 

Jackben

bitch I'm taking calls.
Someone at my office was talking about it the other day with one of my coworkers and I had no idea what she was talking about.
 

Yoritomo

Member
That's another oversimplification.

You really take this seriously don't you.

Your thread title is bullshit.

People are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. If their motivations and desire to eat are augmented because of their diet and chemical interactions that cause them to feel hungry and eat all while their body is storing more energy as fat, then they are still fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. Changing their diet can alter their desire to eat the same amount.

Let's take a man who dies. He dies because he was shot. He didn't die because he slept with another mans wife. The act of sleeping with another man's wife didn't kill him. The angry husband pulling the trigger, releasing the firing pin, striking the primer, igniting the gunpowder, propelling the projectile down the barrel, exiting the gun, and entering the man's heart with a shockwave of traumatic damage to the organ that pumps blood through his body, led to oxygen deprivation in his brain and therefore he died.

Once the sights are set and the trigger is pulled there is no longer a choice, only physics involved in the man dying of a gunshot.

Chewing and swallowing the food is pulling the trigger. Eating too much makes you fat. While this thread is actually about sleeping with another man's wife. Anyone who eats a caloric deficit will lose weight. Simple chemistry and physics.

I understand that you want to talk about motivation and chemical precursors that make us want to eat like a pig but eating too much makes you gain weight.

No magic.
 

JB1981

Member
You really take this seriously don't you.

Your thread title is bullshit.

People are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. If their motivations and desire to eat are augmented because of their diet and chemical interactions that cause them to feel hungry and eat all while their body is storing more energy as fat, then they are still fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. Changing their diet can alter their desire to eat the same amount.

Let's take a man who dies. He dies because he was shot. He didn't die because he slept with another mans wife. The act of sleeping with another man's wife didn't kill him. The angry husband pulling the trigger, releasing the firing pin, striking the primer, igniting the gunpowder, propelling the projectile down the barrel, exiting the gun, and entering the man's heart with a shockwave of traumatic damage to the organ that pumps blood through his body, led to oxygen deprivation in his brain and therefore he died.

Once the sights are set and the trigger is pulled there is no longer a choice, only physics involved in the man dying of a gunshot.

Chewing and swallowing the food is pulling the trigger. Eating too much makes you fat. While this thread is actually about sleeping with another man's wife. Anyone who eats a caloric deficit will lose weight. Simple chemistry and physics.

I understand that you want to talk about motivation and chemical precursors that make us want to eat like a pig but eating too much makes you gain weight.

No magic.

You have no idea what you're talking about
 
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Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
You really take this seriously don't you.

Your thread title is bullshit.

People are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. If their motivations and desire to eat are augmented because of their diet and chemical interactions that cause them to feel hungry and eat all while their body is storing more energy as fat, then they are still fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. Changing their diet can alter their desire to eat the same amount.

Let's take a man who dies. He dies because he was shot. He didn't die because he slept with another mans wife. The act of sleeping with another man's wife didn't kill him. The angry husband pulling the trigger, releasing the firing pin, striking the primer, igniting the gunpowder, propelling the projectile down the barrel, exiting the gun, and entering the man's heart with a shockwave of traumatic damage to the organ that pumps blood through his body, led to oxygen deprivation in his brain and therefore he died.

Once the sights are set and the trigger is pulled there is no longer a choice, only physics involved in the man dying of a gunshot.

Chewing and swallowing the food is pulling the trigger. Eating too much makes you fat. While this thread is actually about sleeping with another man's wife. Anyone who eats a caloric deficit will lose weight. Simple chemistry and physics.

I understand that you want to talk about motivation and chemical precursors that make us want to eat like a pig but eating too much makes you gain weight.

No magic.

1. It's not my thread.

2. Don't sarcastically say, "you take this seriously" and proceed to go on a nonsensical and obviously angry rant.

3. I do take this stuff very seriously. I think everyone should. That's why I dislike oversimplifications that help no one.

4. No one is arguing that you need to eat more to get fat.

5. No one is talking about magic. It's just that it's a very complicated issue with a huge amount of factors at play. I don't know why people like you want to simplify it so much.
 

Yoritomo

Member
5. No one is talking about magic. It's just that it's a very complicated issue with a huge amount of factors at play. I don't know why people like you want to simplify it so much.

Satiety is how full we feel. Different foods affect how sated we feel. Lower carb and higher fat diets cause you to feel more sated with fewer calories consumed.

It is that simple.
 

Srsly

Banned
Satiety is how full we feel. Different foods affect how sated we feel. Lower carb and higher fat diets cause you to feel more sated with fewer calories consumed.

It is that simple.

Low carb diets also cause people with insulin resistance to burn more energy because they actually feel good. If only certain foods were available, virtually nobody would become overweight, yet 2/3 of the American population is overweight or obese. That right there kills the argument that people are overweight because they eat too much and move too little. No, they are overwight because of the ubiquity of certain foods that take advantage of our genetics and drive overconsumption through numrous mechanisms. Remove these foods and the problem goes away, which makes logical sense. Fixing the cause of a problem fixes the problem.
 
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Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Satiety is how full we feel. Different foods affect how sated we feel. Lower carb and higher fat diets cause you to feel more sated with fewer calories consumed.

It is that simple.

Satiety is certainly a large part of why low carb diets tend to work well, but there's a lot more going on to say that it's just that simple. I'm confused as to why you seem to want it to be so simple.
 
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Deleted member 12837

Unconfirmed Member
No, they are overwight because of the ubiquity of certain foods that take advantage of our genetics and drive overconsumption through numrous mechanisms. Remove these foods and the problem goes away, which makes logical sense. Fixing the cause of a problem fixes the problem.

Regardless of what's driving it, overconsumption is still the core of the problem, right? It's the finger pulling the trigger of the gun. The types of foods you're referring to that "take advantage of our genetics" are the "adultery" in his analogy that causes the man to fire the gun in the first place.

It's not helpful in solving the problem to think of it as something as simple as overconsumption and lack of exercise (just like it wouldn't be helpful to solve the gun/adultery issue by finding ways to directly/physically stop the trigger from being pulled), but it's also wrong to say that changing those things wouldn't fix the issue.
 

Yoritomo

Member
Satiety is certainly a large part of why low carb diets tend to work well, but there's a lot more going on to say that it's just that simple. I'm confused as to why you seem to want it to be so simple.

Because we're dealing with human motivation first and foremost. It is simple to stop smoking, it is not easy.

It is simple to lose weight, it is not easy and it is harder for some people than it is for others.

This thread is about human motivation, both psychological and physical, to over-consume and what to do about it.
 

kaizoku

I'm not as deluded as I make myself out to be
I've gone on periods where I will eat low fat, salads etc for weeks and see no weight loss. I go on low carb and I lost like a stone in a week.

I've adopted a low carb lifestyle, I have the occasional carb filled day, at the moment I might go a week or two and then splurge on burgers or pizzas and I've maintained the loss ok, some weeks even lose some.

For the first time in my life I've actually gone a month or two and come out thinner and lighter than before.

I'm gonna have a wild December then get back on it in force in January and for the first time in my life I actually feel confident I can hit my ideal weight and build and it doesn't feel like an insurmountable challenge where I have to sweat my ass off everyday for 5 years and eat tiny portions.

Target is to get out of obesity in 6 months and then live a lifestyle where I gradually lose weight and build muscle.
 

Kelthink

Member
I've never understood why losing weight is so difficult for some people. For me it was all about exercising more and reducing calories. It's just a matter of discipline and patience.

The obesity epidemic is more a socio-economical problem than an educational one; one with little money and time has fewer options from which to derive pleasure so fast food is a convenient fix. Add to that the quality of food being annihilated for the sake of keeping food prices low and there's a recipe (arf!) for disaster.
 

jred2k

Member
It would be nice to see this thread backed up with some recipes/substitution suggestions for people who live on a primarily low-carb diet. As in, what do people eat now instead of having things like cereal, pasta or rice?
 

Jado

Banned
You really take this seriously don't you.

Your thread title is bullshit.

People are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. If their motivations and desire to eat are augmented because of their diet and chemical interactions that cause them to feel hungry and eat all while their body is storing more energy as fat, then they are still fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. Changing their diet can alter their desire to eat the same amount.

...

Chewing and swallowing the food is pulling the trigger. Eating too much makes you fat. While this thread is actually about sleeping with another man's wife. Anyone who eats a caloric deficit will lose weight. Simple chemistry and physics.

I understand that you want to talk about motivation and chemical precursors that make us want to eat like a pig but eating too much makes you gain weight.

No magic.

Wrong. Other people already explained why. Your wishful oversimplification doesn't change that. Let me ask you something; where did everyone's willpower go in the last 20-30 years since obesity exploded?

Anecdote but good example: my cousin lived in the Caribbean until about the age of 20; slender build, well-fed, good skin. After 1-2 years in the States, he put on a noticeable amount of weight. He did not suddenly start eating greater quantities of food nor lose his will power to control himself in the short time since he got here. Human motivation is the excuse that corporate food giants and the gov't (which backs them) use to explain the epidemic. They blame us for the poison they're telling us is okay to consume for every meal.
 

Krowley

Member
It would be nice to see this thread backed up with some recipes/substitution suggestions for people who live on a primarily low-carb diet. As in, what do people eat now instead of having things like cereal, pasta or rice?


For me it I found that substitutes just didn't cut it, so I totally changed the way I eat to something that suits this way of eating more.

A typical meal for me now looks very different than it did before. I have a bunch of meat on my plate, a serving of some vegetable or fruit or whatever carbs I'm having (sometimes there is more than one), maybe some nuts and maybe some kind of sauce on the meat or both to add additional fat to the meal..

I focused a lot on learning different ways of cooking various meats and getting a lot of nuance into that, using marinades, low and slow cooking to get tenderness, how to properly season steaks, different ways to cook chicken and season it etc... I cook some stuff in the crock pot, bake pork roasts, etc..

A plate of food for me might be something like eggs, sausage, bacon and a salad on the side, maybe half-an apple sliced up, too. Or, pork tenderloin slices stir-fried in butter with onions and peppers and with italian dressing sprinkled on top, and a side of cheddar cheese slices and a salad..

I eat low carb soups, stir-fries with low-carb vegetables and meats. Recipes that can easily be prepared in a low carb fashion like chili or meat loaf. Sometimes I use low-carb tortillas or ultra low carb bread (both of which can be purchased at any grocery store) and indulge in things like tacos or cassadillas or sandwiches. I eat salads, usually with a lot of meat and salad dressing and cheese.

For snacks i eat slices of cheese, nuts, open-faced sandwiches

When I want things like rice or potatoes, and I want them bad enough so that it becomes a problem for me, I go ahead and take a free day and enjoy them. When i reach my goal weight, those free days will be a lot more frequent than they are now, and I will probably slack off quite a bit in terms of how strict I am about my daily intake. Right now I usually try to stay sub-50 or sub-80 grams per day of carbs. When I reach maintenance that will probably jump to a range from 100 to 150 or so.
 

CLEEK

Member
This thread is about human motivation, both psychological and physical, to over-consume and what to do about it.

It's far more than just about motivation and self discipline. The major reason why obesity rates have exponentially rises over the past couple of generations is the type of foods people eat. Foods that are high in calories and don't trigger the evolutionary responses to tell you you are full, leading to over consumption.

It's not so much about eating too much (although, obviously, obese people do over consume calories). If people are eating shit food, telling them to just eat less will not see the results you think. Telling people to have self control will not work for the majority, when all the signals in their body is telling them to eat more.

Yes, the human mind can over-rule any hormonal signals and consciously choose not to over eat. But it's not that simple, and will power alone will rarely work if you don't change other aspects of your lifestyle/diet.
 

Dash27

Member
Your thread title is bullshit.

...

I understand that you want to talk about motivation and chemical precursors that make us want to eat like a pig but eating too much makes you gain weight.

No magic.

Again the thread title is meant to be provocative for precisely the reason you go on to explain. Everyone "knows" it's a simple equation; eat too much and dont exercise and you get fat. By making it that simplistic the solutions are inefficient and ineffective.

Instead of simply saying "you eat too much, fatty" which while technically true, is not particularly helpful. It would be a better solution to show people what they should eat. Even more so because of all the bad information, junk science, vague and contradictory advice and deceitful marketing out there. And I should add this is not for people who are on the cheesecake and ice cream diet and never get off the couch. This is for people who want to make an effort and maybe have failed because they made it too hard on themselves unnecessarily.

The true root cause of getting fat, I am suggesting, is what we eat not how much of it. Which of course you're free to argue against.
 

GatorBait

Member
Let me ask you something; where did everyone's willpower go in the last 20-30 years since obesity exploded?

Are there any studies that show how much less Americans exercise, how much larger portion sizes are, and how much more often fast food is eaten compared to 20-30 years ago? I imagine it's a combination of factors.

I'd also be interested to see any studies that quantify how much more simple carbs Americans consume now compared to 20-30 years ago.
 

Kuro Madoushi

Unconfirmed Member
I wouldnt worry about eating carbs from veggies, fruit, and dairy. Those are fine, though you might have to limit the fruit or dairy if you can't handle it.

Course, if youre doing keto, then you'll probably have to cut out all fruit and dairy to reach your carb target
God...damn...D:

I'll see how I feel this week. Scale claims I've lost about 3-4 pounds.

I can say I feel fuller longer BUT when I am hungry I really feel it. Figure that will go away soon enough.

Roughest was going to restaurant and wife had a coke and bread with butter. Bread wasn't tempting but man did I want to take a sip of that coke...
 

TheContact

Member
God...damn...D:

I'll see how I feel this week. Scale claims I've lost about 3-4 pounds.

I can say I feel fuller longer BUT when I am hungry I really feel it. Figure that will go away soon enough.

Roughest was going to restaurant and wife had a coke and bread with butter. Bread wasn't tempting but man did I want to take a sip of that coke...

Have a water with a lemon or two. It's actually better tasting than coke.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
So I tried this for a week just as an experiment and lost 4 pounds. I wasn't in it to try and lose weight, as I'm currently a healthy weight, I wanted to see what it did for my energy levels, which I did feel an improvement with.

I didn't have zero carbs (I found that pretty much impossible) but I only had around 50g a day at the most. Breakfast and dinner were pretty easy, but I really struggled with what to eat for lunch.

Bread and pasta were easy to cut, but I really missed my sweet things and things like chips and crisps. I also cut out all fizzy juice and just stuck to water for the week.

I'm going to try it for another few days before I see if I'll stick with it. Alternatively I might try that just cutting out the grains thing and see how I feel on that, as I think it would be a lot easier.

At the very least, stick to only drinking water, and avoiding sugary candy, potato chips, etc.
 

blackflag

Member
I wouldnt worry about eating carbs from veggies, fruit, and dairy. Those are fine, though you might have to limit the fruit or dairy if you can't handle it.

Course, if youre doing keto, then you'll probably have to cut out all fruit and dairy to reach your carb target


Yes, Fruit is actually one of the worst carbs because fructose doesn't even convert to glycogen. I'm specifically referring to while on the Keto diet.
 

jred2k

Member

Thanks for the tips. I am always hesitant in these threads because a lot of people seem to use nuts to round out their diet and I'm not able to eat those. I think I've just got to work on incorporating more seafood/fish in to my diet and getting up earlier so I'm not relying on toast/cereal for breakfast all the time.
 
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