Originally Posted by
pgjackson
I don't recommend anyone eat a bodybuilder's diet. I was just saying that it is sometimes helpful to think of food as fuel and not entertainment or luxury. Eat clean. When trying to lose weight, two plain scrambled eggs is better than two eggs with cheese and grits. A grilled chicken breast with some spices is better than fried chicken. A glass of water is better than a Coke. Some people feel obligated to eat fancy, especially when eating out. I struggle with that also. It's even harder after a good workout. You feel you earned that big meal, but in reality you are probably just setting yourself back to where you were before.
Careful, you're getting close to "you're doing it wrong" territory with the "you" stuff at the end. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, just saying I don't find eating "for entertainment" occasionally at all destructive with the really high level of activity I maintain. And I actually haven't set myself back with big meals after my giant workouts, if anything I just put on a bit more muscle.
I'm a pretty extreme case in respect to how much time per week I'm working out, so a lot of the stuff you're saying just really doesn't apply to me very much. I don't think much of what I say works for me would apply to many people, so I just describe it and people have the choice of trying it or not trying it.
I do think where these conversations go off the rails is when people start assuming they're the normal one. Everything I've read and seen about this is there really is no uniformity in how people make these things work successfully for them. That's why virtually all published diets and regimens are such failures, they're cookie cutter solutions for a very unruly species. Actually, this thread has been remarkably free of the condescending "it's simple" assertions, which is really refreshing.
I don't that you and I are really disagreeing here, just finding that we do very different things. Crossfit is something I wouldn't touch with a 20 foot pole, but I wouldn't have any reason to try to talk you out of it. I'm happy if it works for you.