How to get abs without having to exercise

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[xydboy]

Not really true though. Meat-based diet compared with plant-based diet have been shown to reduce weight (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0026049598902979). But I am curious what do you prepare for home-cooked meals.

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[xydboy]

I think you need to understand how research works. In research, we put everything else as constant while focusing on the main outcomes. If everything changes, then how do you acknowledge the observation to the main variable of interest. They did control for these confounding variables (i.e., lifestyle factors) which you have talked about. So I don't think it is fair to brush this away with a pinch of salt. Just because it doesn't share the same conclusion, doesn't mean that it is wrong to begin with. 

 

In terms of longevity, there is no conclusive evidence that when compared to meat-based diet, plant-based diet confers lower mortality rate. No doubt it is associated with good health outcomes (i.e plant sterols and other chemicals in the plants have been shown to confer various health benefits), but it doesn't mean that it reflects a lower mortality rate (https://journals.lww.com/co-clinicalnutrition/Abstract/2020/03000/Veganism,_aging_and_longevity__new_insight_into.16.aspx).

 

Do note that association is not causation. I applaud your efforts and its ok to be a plant-based zealot, but don't overclaim when evidence shows it doesn't.

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[xydboy]

44 minutes ago, Blow away said:

for the benefit of discussion, you said it’s not really true. What’s not really true here?

 

you went on to state that meat-based diet have been shown to reduce weight compared with plant-based diet. Then u added a link to a study.

 

that statement is misleading. It seems to suggest that meat based diet reduces weight while plant based diet does not.
 

when you read the summary of the study, it says that both diets are equally effective in reducing weight.

 

I think this is where we go off tangent in our discussion and why we seem to look at different things.

I think you would need to read the entire study to grasp more insights of the conclusion. The devil is in the details.

 

With regards to the statement that I've made, I would like to clarify. What I was saying is that meat-based diet and plant-based diet were equally effective in reducing weight. That was based on the study I mentioned earlier (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0026049598902979)

 

Just to give a brief glimpse of the study: There were 2 groups in the study. The first group (plant-based diet) consumed 5 days of soy-bean products, while the second group (meat-based diet) consumed 5 days of lean-red meat. Before the intervention, both groups were identical in BMI, waist circumference, and waist to hip ratio. After the intervention (16 weeks of diet with equal energy intake), weight loss, BMI, waist circumference, and waist to hip ratio significantly improved regardless of diet plan. The weight reduction further led to improvement in cardiovascular function, blood pressure, and plasma lipids. In all, the improvements were similar in both groups.

 

In your first post, you mentioned,"...I would like to encourage everyone who struggles with weight issue to start adopting a plant based diet." And later on I showed a study which said that both types of diet were equally effective in weight loss

 

You further discussed by saying,"My underlying message of encouraging all to adopt a more plant based diet is cos it’s more humane to the planet and also kinder to our own health. It promotes longevity compared to meat based diet which wasn’t mentioned in the study you cited." And later on I showed a paper which mentioned how it doesn't show to promote longevity.

 

I was just merely correcting your conclusions made. That's about it. I don't think we are looking at different things altogether.

 

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[Steve5380]

13 hours ago, Blow away said:

Ok it is a click bait but what I am going to share here comes from personal experience and is backed by nutritional science.

 

I am 48 this year and I don’t exercise. But my tummy is usually flat and at times I can almost see abs. I enjoy eating and eat as much as I can whenever I can. No, I am not trying to lose weight or gain abs. In fact I want to gain weight and I don’t care about having a tummy as long as it’s not too obese.

 

One reason this is possible because I am vegetarian and I eat whole food while avoiding processed food and limiting sugar intake. I am not trying to be health conscious as I have always been thin.

 

But I would like to encourage everyone who struggles with weight issue to start adopting a plant based diet. Start small by having it once or twice a week. 
 

I prepare my own meals and I do it simple. I usually cook a few meals one shot so I minimise time at the kitchen. Let me know if you need recommendations on meal preparation.

 

I practice listening to the body to know what it needs. Have been vegetarian for 9 years with no health issue.

 

Try and inspire others with your results. Make it your 2021 plan to improve your health while making this world less cruel against animals.

 

 

You should be congratulated for being in good shape at 48, without a tummy but instead a hint of abs, even as you don't exercise.  You have lived successfully the first half of your life.  It should be promising what will follow based on what you do in your second half, and at 77 y.o. I have some personal experience with the beginning of this second half. 

 

Your success may be primarily due to staying away from processed foods,  eating mostly complex carbohydrates including a lot of green vegetables and some fruits.  Combining these mostly carbohydrate foods one can also receive sufficient proteins, and complete ones.  And today we know that sugars are the enemy, while fats are not.

 

In following posts I will bore you with descriptions of what I eat, and why I eat it.   Like you, I am also in perfect health, much older but not worn out.  In my last physical exam. all my test results were normal, the same as auscultations and vitals.  I also believe in this "mens sana in corpore sano",  and thus, I am not crazy, demented, paranoid...

 

At 48 you are at a good age to start slowly building up the habit of exercising, especially the weight lifting that later on is so important as one approaches old age.  I will elaborate more on this, here in your thread or in the ones about exercising.  It suffices to state that THERE ARE NO NEGATIVES in exercising, unless it is done in excess. 

[Steve5380]

On 12/19/2020 at 7:58 PM, Blow away said:

 

I prepare my own meals and I do it simple. I usually cook a few meals one shot so I minimise time at the kitchen. Let me know if you need recommendations on meal preparation.

 

 

I can always use recommendations on meal preparation.  While you write yours, I will write mine, as I said I would.

 

My main dish for decades has been lentils and vegetables.  Lentils are perhaps the best of the legumins.  They have much fiber, and folate, potassium. In addition, they have plenty of vegetal protein, only second to soybeans.

 

I buy lentils (very inexpensive) in packets of 1 pound (half a kilo).  I take half a packet and soak the lentils in water for some time so they absorb the water.

I take a medium size pan with some water, add a can of diced tomatoes, and warm on the stove towards boiling.

Meanwhile I cut a medium size onion, a medium size beet, some carrots, and slice them to pieces and throw into the pan  (carefully...)

When this boils I wash, drain the water from the lentils and add them into the pan. 

Then I take a one pound bag of frozen vegetable from the freezer, and add it too.

I let this boil for about another 12 - 15 minutes and...  it is done!   I eat this food at lunch and dinner for about 3 days,  and then I start anew.

 

I find the frozen vegetables the most practical, with similar nutrition value as the fresh ones.  I alternate between collards, kale, mustard greens, brussel sprouts, spinach, broccoli, coliflour,  all which I can buy frozen. I keep a good stock in my freezer, where they are non-perishable.

 

I add other foods to my lunch and dinner,  maybe an "avocado sandwich" with whole wheat bread, or half a microwaved sweet potato, sometimes a puree of potato or sweet potato mixed with apple sauce,  simulating a German dish.   The lentils+ vegs. are the only food I cook on the gas stove.  Everything else I microwave. (some people are reluctant to microwave food because they think that it does "something" to it.  This is false!  Microwaves merely heat the water molecules in the food, they don't ionize or alter any substance, they are perfectly safe).

 

Where I am different from you is in that I am not a vegetarian.  I eat fish and meat,  while I have eliminated most dairy products.  Three times a week I eat one salmon filet, which I buy allegedly "wild caught" in frozen packets of one kilo.  I keep several of these frozen as non-perishable.  About three times a week I eat meat, usually a dense cut like shoulder chuck roast,  which I buy large and then cut in smaller pieces which I then freeze in small plastic bags.  This also becomes a stock of non-perishables.

Either the fish filet or the meat cut in small pieces I cook in the microwave and eat for dinner after the lentils.  

 

I want to reduce the amount of meat and fish I eat, maybe replacing it with the protein in egg whites and eventually with vegetable whole protein.  I want to do this for concerns about animals, not because I think it is harmful in moderation.   Maybe one day when I am older I will become a formal vegetarian. 

 

I don't keep sugar in my house.  For salt I use sea salt or Himalayan salt (bones need other minerals apart from calcium). I don't put any sauces, condiments, nothing on my meat and fish.  I like their original taste. (how plain, so disgusting...)

 

Occasionally I eat other foods:  fresh noodles, ravioli, pizza,  but only rarely when I want to treat myself.

 

Now for BREAKFAST.  Since ancient times I eat for breakfast every day a bowl of microwaved steel cut oats. Lately I started adding to it ground turmeric and some pepper (to absorb better the curcumin) an I like this very much.  The curcumin should have good anti-cancer properties, same as some vitamins I take.  In older healthy people, cancer is what can ruin a life, and therefore I try to avoid it through the nutrition, although this may help only partially, only a little, maybe with a placebo effect?

The second food I take for breakfast is one scoop of "isolate whey protein".   This gives me 25 g, about half my daily need, of one of the best proteins.  

 

Finally, before bed time I eat a serving of blueberries, which I keep frozen in bags of 1.5 kilos, of which I keep several.  I like to eat these blueberries half frozen and crunchy.

 

I am perfectly happy with my diet. I love every part of it.  It is easy to cook, which I can do with my eyes closed.  I am sure that some may find it too simplistic,... but... I am a simple man.  And I like convenience.  I have stocked at home a large amount of non-perishables, and these include all the frozen stuff.  In this way, I don't need to run to the grocery store if I am hungry, in these times of pandemic.

[Guest]

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[Steve5380]

10 minutes ago, Blow away said:

Thanks for sharing. This is an example of how I prepare my meals. I alternate between kicheri and poha. Will share about poha here (see image). It’s my way of preparing fried rice short cut. I would first use olive oil and add spices like curry leaves, green chilli, cumin seeds, ginger. Then i add vegetables. Here I put mushroom, cauliflower and capsicum. Then i add tumeric powder and salt. I finally add poha which is flattened rice.  

 

 

YUMM!  Kichari and poha are healthy foods.   Is the whole poha fried or only the rice?   Is this mostly your breakfast?

 

You also use lentils in the kichari?  Maybe the combination of lentils and rice leads to a full protein, the same as black beans and rice? 

Black beans and rice is a very good food, liked by all the Cubans, great protein and very inexpensive. This is perhaps the equivalent to kichari in this land.  In many places in S. America, Mexico, rich people get sick eating expensive food like daily barbeque, while modest people remain healthy eating the beans and rice.   

[amicablyalan]

Haha the title really attracts me here. But I think definitely must exercise regularly.

 

Got a question though. Is it better to have both meat and vegetables in diet, rather than either meat-based or plant-based? Sorry if I have asked the wrong question 😳

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[Guest Misleading Title]

On 12/20/2020 at 3:45 PM, Blow away said:

This will be my last time responding to your post as I feel that we do not really understand each other’s perspective.

 

I do appreciate your contribution as it will help generate attention and probably get more people to notice the thread and probably start to look at alternatives such as plant based diet.

 

Not really true though. Meat-based diet compared with plant-based diet have been shown to reduce weight

1. When you wrote this statement, it is taken to mean semantically that meat based diet is superior to plant based diet. This is why I said it’s misleading in terms of English comprehension. The correct way to put it is either

meat based and plant based diet are shown to be equally effective in so and so

or 

Plant based diet is not shown to be more effective than meat based diet in so and so.

 

Just to give a brief glimpse of the study: There were 2 groups in the study. The first group (plant-based diet) consumed 5 days of soy-bean products, while the second group (meat-based diet) consumed 5 days of lean-red meat. 
 

2. There are various types of scientific studies. What you have cited so far are control studies. As much as they have advantages in terms of replicability and being verifiable, they are very limited in allowing us to draw many meaningful conclusions. That’s why they are usually augmented by longitudinal and correlational studies and possibly others. (It’s been a long time since I graduated so things are rusty.) My point is how do the studies you cited help you make informed choices? If you totally disregard plant based diet cos of those two studies then it is very foolhardy.

 

3. The east and west view food very differently. Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Indians and many other Asian cultures recognize the nutritional and medicinal value of various plants, herbs and even meat. They believe that if correctly prepared and mixed, every food has the ability to enhance the well being of the consumer if taken appropriately. While they do not use control studies, subsequent studies have backed up the wisdom accumulated over thousands of years. 

While there are more things to be said, suffice it to say that you have refused to look beyond the studies you cited and the control method you so ‘zealously’ guarded Modern science unfortunately has yet to catch up with the Asian cultures in the area of informing us on the nutritional and medicinal values of various diets. Do we have to wait for all diets to be comprehensively and exhaustively studied before we can make an informed choice? Does not proving something means disproving it as you so believe in the studies you cited?

 

You commonly hear people saying that the senior generation is resistant to changes and opinions, and I think this is a really classic example.

 

And please, change the title to something more appropriate. All I can tell when reading your post is that you're trying to STRONGLY advocate a plant-based diet to people, and not trying to tell people that they can get abs even without exercising as what your title claims.

 

And I think it's more apt to move this whole thread to the Imperial Kitchen instead. Next!

[Steve5380]

4 hours ago, Blow away said:

I am personally not interested in getting abs  so i am not an expert in this. But if I understand correctly, exercise builds abs muscles but you need to lower body fat for them to show up. That is you have to remove the layer of fats covering the abs. That can only be done through proper dieting which is why bodybuilders eat food that is void of fats and carbo.

 

 

Abs are only a small fraction of the body muscles.  Trying to get abs that show is pure vanity.  The importance of the abs (seen or hidden) is in keeping the guts inside, in the right place.  They are part of the CORE muscles which should be strong.  On the opposite side of the abs is the the lower back, and muscles there should be strong too.

 

You may be lucky to have an Asian type of body that stays slim no matter what.  Beside looks, exercise is needed to develop strong muscles, and this becomes important when we age.  The difference between a 77 y.o. who cannot climb a stair case,  walks with a cane, likes to ride in a wheel chair,  and a guy like me who practices a martial art and can run stairs up and down,  is...  exercise.  And 77 is young, ha ha!  Wait till the 80s.  There is a finding that in the 7 years after 80,  sedentary people lose about 70% of their strength.  Imagine!  There are ever more 90 year old's.  And usually they cannot get up from their seat by themselves.  What good is it to reach advanced age if one is weak and crippled?  

 

It does not take much effort to start exercising.  And here I will talk about strength exercises, not aerobics, which is also important.

 

The most important part of the body to have strong is the mid and lower body:  core (lower back and abs), all muscles that have to do with the hip joint, and strong knees. This importance comes from the fact that we walk on our legs, not with our arms.  This strength also contributes to good posture.

 

A simple leg exercise to do at home is  stationary or walking lunges, with body weight and later added weight held in our hands.

For the calves we can do standing calf raises, toe rises, walking on our toes.

 

....  to be continued

[Steve5380]

...  continuing with post to @Blow away...

 

It is also convenient to have a strong lower back.  Part of the core,  it helps with good posture and in defining a nice curvature above the butt.  The best exercise for this is to do stiffed leg deadlifts, with a weighted bar sufficiently low that one bends deep at the hip joint but not the back. To avoid bending the back the trick is to keep looking forwards as much as possible as one goes down.

 

The upper body can also be worked out, mostly for vanity.  There are other more important things to consider at the upper body:  to keep the shoulders relaxed so that they are the lowest possible and to avoid lifting them when lifting the arm.   Also practical is to keep the elbows as close to the sides of the body as possible, this helps keeping the shoulders down.  Interestingly, we seem to be able to have more force in the arm when they are close to the body instead of spread outwards to the side.

 

Good posture calls for keeping the head back, aligned with the spine, and not projected forwards. This allows to look forwards while keeping the chin down, instead of having to lift the head up.  A head hunched forwards makes one look old, while a head kept straight with a neck as long as possible gives a look of youth.

 

Another practice not to miss as the years pass is STRETCHING.  One obvious stretch is the one for the hamstrings,  that allows us to go down without bending the knees to pick up something from the floor.  But there are many more stretches that are desirable.  Lying on a yoga mat allows for stretching many skeletal muscles, and it seems that as we stretch some muscles it becomes easier to stretch others,  like the body 'welcomes' general stretching of its muscles.

 

Last but not least is the practice of breathing.  Yoga has exercises for this, but simply we want to avoid shallow breathing (only with the upper rib cage) and practice deep breathing involving the diaphragm.  Not only this, but also to learn to expand the ribcage sidewise, like towards the arms at the side.  Then we start inhaling at the belly letting the diaphragm down, then expanding the ribcage sidewise and forwards.  For exhaling we let the ribcage collapse and push in the belly to lift the diaphragm.

 

You see, @Blow away, there is a good variety of exercises that a smart man should start doing when the years pass, nothing done to extreme.  This will make a big difference when you reach the 70s, the 80s and beyond if you plan to have a long life OF QUALITY.  It is said that one important factor to live into old age is ...  to have strong quadriceps.  Again there are no negatives in exercising, and it gets easy with practice.  

 

 

On 12/20/2020 at 1:45 AM, Blow away said:

This will be my last time responding to your post as I feel that we do not really understand each other’s perspective.

 

 

If you decide to give exercise a chance, in addition to vegetarianism,  don't disregard the advice of @xydboy, who is probably the most expert in exercising at BW, not only from personal experience but also from his research of the topic.