RIP - Aging Otakus No Longer With Us

[yusaku]

Brother, I am sick of this. Sick of this. I'm serious, I honestly believed that it wouldn't be until I was in my 60s or 70s that I would be talking about friends passing away.

It hurts so much that I wasn't able to share the fun of Yamato 2199 with my best friend Jerry Fellows. That he never saw Discotek release Mazinger Z on DVD. That I was never able to get him to AWA.

F**k.

I just gotta say we really have to do more to protect our health. I have been fighting obesity this year. I have entered two weight loss contests this year and, got a gym membership. I even started riding my bike to and from work; i did this mostly because my ONLY car broke down. i was only able to bike home because I was going to the gym for months to win a weight loss competition. The last time my car had major engine trouble I was forced to take a cab home every night. Unfortunately, I stopped going to the gym and biking when I got another car a month ago.

Weight loss is a real hard task. I even got a Nutri Ninja to make vegetable and fruit smoothies. We may have to start a separate weight loss thread. i want to be around long enough to live a full and interesting life. i would love to live in a foreign country like Japan, Singapore, or Korea. i am a fan of Asian culture.

By the way, I would not mind doing an anime fan documentary in some small way.

[SteveH]

Weight loss is important. Portion control can go a long way towards helping that. I've lost about 40 pounds over the past 8 months, not a giant amount but going from 298 to about 260 does make a difference.

But here's the thing. It just doesn't matter in the end. My friend Jerry, several years younger than me, was eating right, exercising, no smoking or drinking (I think he was doing the one glass of red wine a day thing) or drugs, knew his family health history, doing EVERYTHING right and bam, dropped dead of a heart attack the day he was supposed to go in for tests.

So F**K it all. Do what you can but don't think it makes you safe.

[Akage]

The key to weight loss is to gradually make a change to your lifestyle. When people try to do too much at once, such as radically changing their diet and workout levels, that's when they fail.

Everyone in my extended family is overweight and its been a gene that I inherited. However, unlike the majority of my family members, I head to the gym 5-6 times a week and eat healthy. The key to working out is to do it continually. You can't just pop into the gym once a week, do an hour, and that's it. It's better to do 20 minutes of hard cardio a couple times a week than to just do an hour at the gym once a week.

What you eat is very critical as well. Cut out the soft drinks and replace them with unsweetened green/oolong/white tea or better yet, water. Because I find plain water kinda boring, I throw in mint or basil leaves and lime into my water, and then take that to work or to the gym. When you shop, read the labels; Gluten Free food sounds great if you have diabetes, but when you read the label, the food often has more sugar in it than its non-gluten free counterpart. Make sure to have healthy snacks around you at work, like unsalted almonds, on hand so that you're less likely to head to the vending machine. I also like to make my own low sugar jam which I combine with organic Greek yogurt and bring that to work daily. I would advise anyone who wants to lose weight to start to gradually make changes to their diet. It didn't happen to me overnight, and I'm not sure I would have been so committed to losing weight if everything was just forced upon me at once. I would advise to remove something unhealthy from your diet and replace it with a healthier version perhaps once every two weeks. For me, the hardest one was the soft drink replacement. I love bitter foods, so for the first six months, giving up Diet Coke was hard.

My goal has never been to live to be 100+ or anything like that. Rather, it's just to have a better quality of life. My personal goal is to be like some of these 80 & 90 year olds who are still out and about, traveling to distant lands and seeing that country by some other way than by ship. If I'm still as active as I am now when I'm pushing 80, I'll be happy.

[usamimi]

You are correct, Akage! You can't think of it as a "diet", it's a lifestyle change. There's no quick fix! I started adjusting my lifestyle to try to be healthier about 3-4 years ago, and the small changes do add up. Eating less, giving up soda, and making better choices (along with occasional workouts), and in the past 3 years I've lost over 50lbs.

But it's also important to remember that a "healthy weight" is only part of it. (And that and ideal weight varies from person to person--what's good for you isn't good for someone else.) You can be a perfectly healthy weight and still drop dead of unrelated things. Talking to a doctor and getting regular check-ups helps, esp. once we get older. Gotta take care of yourself!

[SteveH]

Here's my thing. Right now, it's big on 'no sugar no gluten' because that's the fad. Anyone who pays attention has to be aware that 'what's good for you' is never, ever stable.

Remember when Carbs were EVIL? Then it was pile the carbs on? Now carbohydrates are under attack in the guise of EVIL GLUTEN.

Have some more Nutella on your horrid coarse rye bread. Don't break a tooth on the seeds.

Some people say that you MUST cut out all meat of any kind, and some moderate that with only get rid of red meat, fish is wonderful and fowl is mostly OK. Nonsense. The Human Being is designed to be an omnivore. Meat makes us smarter, the fats important for brain and nerve development.

But some argue that. Some say milk and meat only kill you. Veggie substitutes and yogurt do all the same things but they DON'T. They don't supply the correct peptides and amino acids in the correct combinations. Nobody wants to talk about that because Big Yogurt wants you to eat that mushroom poop.

(you watch. 5 years from now or less, they'll find something really bad about too much yogurt, it'll be the next High Fructose Corn Syrup panic but HFCS really is bad)

Moderation. This is a consistent thing. It's the most natural way of eating as it replicates the catch as catch can life of our hunter-gather origins. That and exercise. It's OK to have a Coke. It's OK to have a Twinkie. Really it is. Just don't eat a box of them at one sitting.

[usamimi]

It's OK to have a Coke. It's OK to have a Twinkie. Really it is. Just don't eat a box of them at one sitting.

Oh, for sure! I never deny myself a treat now and then. It's like I said, making better choices. I could have A Twinkie, as apposed to when I was a dumb teenager and would have FOUR Twinkies.

People who know I'm trying to be healthier will often say stuff like "HEY, you're eating PIZZA?? I thought you were on a diet!" and I have to explain to them I'm not on a "diet" because diets never work...that I have a slice or two of pizza and I'm fine. Friends have asked me how I've lost 50 lbs and roll their eyes when I say "I try to eat better when I can, cut back on the junk, and try to be more active" like I'm hiding some big secret. I guess no one wants to believe it's that simple?

[SteveH]

It's OK to have a Coke. It's OK to have a Twinkie. Really it is. Just don't eat a box of them at one sitting.

Oh, for sure! I never deny myself a treat now and then. It's like I said, making better choices. I could have A Twinkie, as apposed to when I was a dumb teenager and would have FOUR Twinkies.

People who know I'm trying to be healthier will often say stuff like "HEY, you're eating PIZZA?? I thought you were on a diet!" and I have to explain to them I'm not on a "diet" because diets never work...that I have a slice or two of pizza and I'm fine. Friends have asked me how I've lost 50 lbs and roll their eyes when I say "I try to eat better when I can, cut back on the junk, and try to be more active" like I'm hiding some big secret. I guess no one wants to believe it's that simple?

*ding ding ding* Exactly correct.

Mind, if you do have an allergy then of course you should adjust to that truth, but there's something funny going on about allergies.

Swear to God, when I was growing up, there was no such thing as Peanut Allergy, or it was so rare it wasn't something to worry about. Now it's nothing but panic. Take some peanuts on an airplane and SOMEONE will freak out like you've got ebola. They likely won't even have an allergy, they're just SO CONCERNED about someone MIGHT.

And now the same thing about Gluten. Cheerios had to recall thousands of boxes because their new advertised 'look no gluten oats!' product may have been 'contaminated' with a dusting of those terrible 'bad' oats.

Look, I have variable lactose intolerance. There's no predicting it. One day I can drink a strawberry milkshake and nothing happens, a week later I can drink a glass of milk and be on the toilet all day with cramps. My solution? Drink milk when I want to and understand what might happen. That's no different from someone eating at Taco Bell knowing that afterwards they will indeed be making a 'run' for the 'border'.

Know yourself. Learn your limitations.

[davemerrill]

While at AWA I mentioned to a friend that he was looking slimmer and he said he'd lost 50 lbs in the past year. "What's your secret?" No secret, he said; eat less, exercise more. That's what people don't want to hear, they want the special secret diet or the amazing superfood or the workout regimen. Nope, just eat less & get some exercise.

I've lost some weight myself in the past few years and aside from the health benefits, the truth is I just feel better. I have more stamina, I sleep better, clothes fit. I have more money in my pocket that I didn't spend on Pop-Tarts or beer. It's a win-win situation.

[usamimi]

While at AWA I mentioned to a friend that he was looking slimmer and he said he'd lost 50 lbs in the past year. "What's your secret?" No secret, he said; eat less, exercise more. That's what people don't want to hear, they want the special secret diet or the amazing superfood or the workout regimen. Nope, just eat less & get some exercise.

I've lost some weight myself in the past few years and aside from the health benefits, the truth is I just feel better. I have more stamina, I sleep better, clothes fit. I have more money in my pocket that I didn't spend on Pop-Tarts or beer. It's a win-win situation.

YES! People will often complain to me "but healthy food is more expensive!"...really, it's not that much different once you stop buying all the crap you used to buy.

[davemerrill]

yeah, actual fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy products, fresh cuts of meat, etc., are fairly reasonably priced. It's the Whole Foods lifestyle-focused, buzzword-festooned packaged "healthy" products that are expensive. But, you know, people don't want to prepare meals. They want to buy a pre-packaged nutrition module that fits into their preconceived notions of 'trendy' and 'healthy'. They don't want to walk around the block or do push-ups, they want some kind of 'system' that has a celebrity-endorsed workout video and an app for their phone. They can buy all this stuff and stack it on top of their treadmill, if their treadmill isn't covered in laundry, and then they feel good about themselves for "getting healthy".

And it's even worse for women... this Thrillist article is from June, but it's still pretty funny: https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/he ... -for-women