I've never really been overweight, just at the higher end of normal on the BMI scale. Nevertheless, I used to eat nothing but pizza, chocolate, McDonalds, and whatever else tasted good. :eat: I'd drink as many as three 20oz bottles of Mountain Dew to start off my morning. I never ate fruit and only rarely ate veggies -- hated salad.

I drank the John Stone Fitness kool-aid in March, and the blood test results I just received speak for themselves:

Cholesterol: 153 (< 200 is "desirable", meaning heart attack risk is low)
Chol/HDL Risk Ratio: 2.7 (< 3.3 is "low risk")
LDL: 82 (< 100 is "optimal")
HDL: 57 (40-50 is average, more is better)
Tri: 70 (< 150 is "normal")
Sources: American Heart Assoc. on cholesterol (http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=183), Study about risk ratio (http://www.ihc.com/xp/ihc/documents/clinical/103/7/3/riskofcardiovascularevent.pdf)

All the other blood stats looked good.

Bottom line: The effect of eating a lifetime of eating junk food can be reversed! However, what can't be reversed is the massive job loss John Stone is causing among heart surgeons. :d_eek:

March 2004: 205 lbs
August 2004: 180 lbs
6'4

Same story here, pretty much ate 100% junkfood up until february this year. Candy bars, potato chips, pizza EVERY day. Hit the diet and exercise went from 205 to 155lbs. Had bloodwork done recently for somethin else and these are my numbers

cholesterol: 128
HDL: 52
LDL: 66
ratio: 1.3
triglycerides: 51

Even when I ate junk all day the highest my cholesterol was ever measured at was 160, but damn 128 is sweeet.

As a heart surgeon-in-training, this isn't good news. Not because some people will avoid the knife in the future, but because it's the motivated, self-educated, self-aware people who will avoid surgery. From a selfish professional point of veiw, the 'best' person to operate on is a young healthy individual, so the job is easier. The 'usual' person we operate on is old, infirm, overweight, and has never really looked after themselves.
Smoking, diabetes, cholesterol, hypertension, family history and age are the major risk-factors, obesity will affect 3 of those. The rate of heart disease in the population is decreasing in the US, and has plateaued in the UK, so something is getting through thick heads, however, the other big killer with smoking, lung cancer, is still on the rise, and especially amongst women.
I can only applaud those who have taken a look at themselves in the mirror, found themselves wanting, and have undergone a change for the better.

Just remember that it's not the way you look that's important. Overall fitness is more important than a specific BF%, although I accept that they do tend to go together.

Andrew.

The effect of eating a lifetime of eating junk food can be reversed!Certainly true to an extent, but like an engine that's gone too long without an oil change, the body is a final product of all it's been exposed to, and abuses generally can't be totally made up for. If you smoked for a decade and quit, you may find that you're in great health afterwards, but not as good as you could have been. It does ireperable damage on some level, and the same can be said for back to back years of poor eating and nutrition. What I'm saying is, think where those numbers would be if you'd eaten well all your life? :)

As Andrew M would surely agree though, it's much better to affect positive change on your body through adjustments to life style instead of a knife, where cases allow!

Good thing I nipped my bad habits in the bud. I'm never going to be in bad shape unless I'm so paralyzed I can't exercise.

what is John Stone Fitness kool-aid?

Certainly true to an extent, but like an engine that's gone too long without an oil change, the body is a final product of all it's been exposed to, and abuses generally can't be totally made up for. If you smoked for a decade and quit, you may find that you're in great health afterwards, but not as good as you could have been. It does ireperable damage on some level, and the same can be said for back to back years of poor eating and nutrition. What I'm saying is, think where those numbers would be if you'd eaten well all your life? :)

As Andrew M would surely agree though, it's much better to affect positive change on your body through adjustments to life style instead of a knife, where cases allow!
Actually, there have been studies that suggest that light smokers can totally reverse tissue damage done by smoking. This was done for those who smoke less than a pack a day over a ten year period. I don't smoke and think it is nasty, but there is no evidence that health numbers would be better. In fact, their bodies may be stronger for it. I am not advocating smoking since I think it is a pointless disgusting habit. Here's an example of logic vs. truth.

Many doctors will tell you that children who live sheltered lives in doors, in prestine clean environments, and do not partake in outdoor activities like eating dirt, tend to have allergy problems and weaker immune systems than their peers. Logic would tell you that being in that clean environment with bacterial soap and floors you can eat off of would be best. Not that case in truth. My point is, things aren't always as they seem, but smoking is still nasty.

what is John Stone Fitness kool-aid?

It's what happens when you buy into the idea of free-weight exercise and clean eating. see definition #2 (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=drink+the+kool-aid&r=s&pos=1) (used ironically, of course).

To the question of, "think where those numbers would be if you'd eaten well all your life?" I respond: how could they be better? They're all in the optimum range. Cholesterol can be too low. I remember hearing about a study of convicted felons that showed an unsual number of them had low cholesterol. I don't want to get so low I start killing people. ;)

Actually, there have been studies that suggest that light smokers can totally reverse tissue damage done by smoking. This was done for those who smoke less than a pack a day over a ten year period. I don't smoke and think it is nasty, but there is no evidence that health numbers would be better. In fact, their bodies may be stronger for it. I am not advocating smoking since I think it is a pointless disgusting habit. Here's an example of logic vs. truth.

Many doctors will tell you that children who live sheltered lives in doors, in prestine clean environments, and do not partake in outdoor activities like eating dirt, tend to have allergy problems and weaker immune systems than their peers. Logic would tell you that being in that clean environment with bacterial soap and floors you can eat off of would be best. Not that case in truth. My point is, things aren't always as they seem, but smoking is still nasty.I would expect that those studies about the smokers probably didn't study the right things, or didn't have a large enough pool to draw from. Children's immune systems can be helped by being in certain dirty environments, because limited exposure can temper an individual, in the same way that breaking one's muscles with a workout will result in their being better later on. The thing with smoking though is that it causes irreparable definite damage. From what I recall, those lung cells are permanently toast, and are gone. Now it's possible that remaining lung tissue could strengthen up as a result, but I'd still be surprised that between a million non smokers and a million who smoked lightly for a decade and then quit, you'd not seen the latter group suffering more health consequences.

In regards to long-term smokers it was shown in that huge recent study released recently about smoking that it does do permanent, which one cannot recover from, even if they quit. It went something along the lines of a life long smoker will lose 7-10 years, and then if you smoked for only 30 and quit you'd lose 4 years, and numbers like this. It was CNN, but their search engine is worse than useless.

In regards to long-term smokers it was shown in that huge recent study released recently about smoking that it does do permanent, which one cannot recover from, even if they quit. It went something along the lines of a life long smoker will lose 7-10 years, and then if you smoked for only 30 and quit you'd lose 4 years, and numbers like this. It was CNN, but their search engine is worse than useless.

I saw this too on the local news. What they said at least over here was that the years that he would probably lose could be regained if quitting smoking at certain ages. If you stop smoking before 30 it can totally (according to them) remove those years from your premature death. But I do remember listening an independent doctor stating that this can very be true, but that those years that they gain don't have the same quality as of those of someone that never smoked.

So it's basically, same death age but less quality of life.

I live in a house of smokers and I hate it. I hate going to a bar and having to put up with all the smoke. I wouldn't give a damn if the smokers only harmed themselves but they harm others and that is why I'm completly against smoking.

Bruno

I've never really been overweight, just at the higher end of normal on the BMI scale. Nevertheless, I used to eat nothing but pizza, chocolate, McDonalds, and whatever else tasted good. :eat: I'd drink as many as three 20oz bottles of Mountain Dew to start off my morning. I never ate fruit and only rarely ate veggies -- hated salad.

I drank the John Stone Fitness kool-aid in March, and the blood test results I just received speak for themselves:

Cholesterol: 153 (< 200 is "desirable", meaning heart attack risk is low)
Chol/HDL Risk Ratio: 2.7 (< 3.3 is "low risk")
LDL: 82 (< 100 is "optimal")
HDL: 57 (40-50 is average, more is better)
Tri: 70 (< 150 is "normal")
Sources: American Heart Assoc. on cholesterol (http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=183), Study about risk ratio (http://www.ihc.com/xp/ihc/documents/clinical/103/7/3/riskofcardiovascularevent.pdf)

All the other blood stats looked good.

Bottom line: The effect of eating a lifetime of eating junk food can be reversed! However, what can't be reversed is the massive job loss John Stone is causing among heart surgeons. :d_eek:

March 2004: 205 lbs
August 2004: 180 lbs
6'4

This is meaningless without your 'before you changed your diet' stats. Many people who eat well have high colesterol and many people can eat crap and have low colesterol. In fact contolling colesterol levels is a hot topic of research. I have eaten a low-fat diet for years, high fat before that and it never changed my levels which are still above yours.
There is all sorts of research saying one thing and another, but I'm not convinced that you reversed anything.