Middle aged life

[Raymond Lin]

Mortgages are simply the best financial product for retirement. You borrow relatively cheaply, and when you pay it off you have an asset you can either live in or sell.

There are certainly ways to plan for retirement without a mortgage…..but none of them are likely to work out as well.

I don’t particularly want to put down roots anywhere (have lived all over the world). But one of my main motivators moving back to the Uk when I was 39 was to just get the house bought. I can move abroad again whenever I want and just have someone else pay the mortgage….and I still have the asset for later in life.

My mate did that when he was in his 20's, not a house but a flat just outside London. He got a company to take care of the rent/maintanence etc. It's almost paid off now and he has married and living in Taiwan.

 

[mid_gen]

Depends on the damage, something like type 2 diabetes cant really be reversed.

As with my older brothers case, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes then he went vegan, cleaned up his diet. Dropped his weight and everything.

He was fine until his 50's and whatever happened he was rushed to hospital. Now hes on tablets for the rest of his life because of the bad diet leading upto his diabetes diagnosis. Yet he cleaned up his diet and went vegan for over 10 years. Thinking he had over come diabetes.

Then there is my cousins wife who now has impacted damage from all the running she did in her 20's and early 30's. Now she only does long walks due to warnings from the doctors.

There are definitely limits true. Why I wince at seeing people posting on here their hauls of Haribo and other sugary junk.

Sugar is the worst. It’s a really *****y way to suffer and die. Getting your legs amputated because you got hooked on fangtastics and red bull. The smoking of our times.

 

[malachi]

There are definitely limits true. Why I wince at seeing people posting on here their hauls of Haribo and other sugary junk.

Sugar is the worst. It’s a really *****y way to suffer and die. Getting your legs amputated because you got hooked on fangtastics and red bull. The smoking of our times.

Yep, White Death as they call it is big killer.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Yep, White Death as they call it is big killer.

Yeah I dont have much sugar in my diet at all.

It rots your teeth on top of everything else.

But it's easy for me to say because I have never had a sweet tooth, the thought of having sugar in a cup of tea for example, yuk.

 

[Decoman]

Btw, I've been reading that white rice is a cause of diabetes in Asia. Because of the carbohydrates I guess.
Reading somewhere, it is claimed "On average, a 100-gram serving of cooked white rice holds roughly 28 grams of carbohydrates."
I guess there is some starch being carbohydrates, but most of carbyhydrates would be sugar I think. Iirc starch is harder to break down in the body iirc.
Typical tomato ketchup where I live, with sugar in it, has a LOT of sugar, like maybe 40% sugar or something iirc.

Speaking of food, I now cook fries at a lower temperature, lower than what it says on the product bag, so 170 deg C.
Found this tip in the oven's user manual, for safer consumtion of fries, something about heat and food will create a carsinogenic substance which I forgot the name of.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Btw, I've been reading that white rice is a cause of diabetes in Asia. Because of the carbohydrates I guess.
Reading somewhere, it is claimed "On average, a 100-gram serving of cooked white rice holds roughly 28 grams of carbohydrates."
Typical tomaoe ketchup where I live, with sugar in it, has a LOT of sugar, like maybe 40% sugar or something iirc.

I find that hard to believe. Asia has been eating white rice longer than the existence of the United Kingdom. Like if you look at Japan, Okinanwa has a higher than national average of overweight people. It's not the rice, it's the influence of the junk food diet brought in by the Americans (the military base). The rest of Japan still eat rice, they are not overweight.

The change isn't the white rice, the trend of eating white rice hasn't gone up, but the trend of eating like western diet has and by western diet, it is the emergence of fast / junk food. I don't mean the kind of traditional fast food you get in Asia. Basically in change in the diet in Asia to a more western diet, the rise of fast food and junk food....I know correlation does not = causation, but blaming it on white rice seems absurd. You might as well blame diabetes in the West on bread and ignore everything else. Sounds like an article sponsored by McDonald's.

 

[AndyCr15]

When I go to my gym, I see women 50+ with bodies looking like Power Rangers 50 years ago, that wasn't the case.

Well, no. I mean, they would have been very young girls then.

 

[Rroff]

There are definitely limits true. Why I wince at seeing people posting on here their hauls of Haribo and other sugary junk.

Sugar is the worst. It’s a really *****y way to suffer and die. Getting your legs amputated because you got hooked on fangtastics and red bull. The smoking of our times.

White bread, especially cheap stuff, is actually one of the worst things which is rarely talked about - even 50/50 stuff is vastly better for you unless you have an issue with fibre digestion, etc. - I might be completely wrong but from everything I've seen over my life I often think it has vastly more of an impact when it comes to people developing diabetes than high sugar from things like sweets, etc. even - obviously impossible to be sure but I see a lot less people going on to develop diabetes who have a high sugar diet (but don't often eat bread) vs those with a high white bread consumption - like notably so.

 

[mid_gen]

White bread, especially cheap stuff, is actually one of the worst things which is rarely talked about - even 50/50 stuff is vastly better for you unless you have an issue with fibre digestion, etc. - I might be completely wrong but from everything I've seen over my life I often think it has vastly more of an impact when it comes to people developing diabetes than high sugar from things like sweets, etc. even - obviously impossible to be sure but I see a lot less people going on to develop diabetes who have a high sugar diet (but don't often eat bread) vs those with a high white bread consumption - like notably so.

Any kind of carbohydrate dense food that is highly processed and stuff rapidly broken down during digestion is prone to spike your blood sugar, which is what leads to T2 diabetes.

So yeah, white bread is bad. Sugary drinks are terrible (including fruit juice). White rice isn't great, but I think it depends a little how you cook it.

I haven't eaten white bread or pasta for years, always wholewheat....although the missus has gone on a no-bread diet the last few months so I've not had any bread at all for a while. Probably not a coincidence I'm at my lightest weight in years.

 

[AndyCr15]

Around hitting 40 I bought an imported Mustang. I don't think it was a midlife crisis, it's just that it was the first time I could really afford to.

7 years ago (so, at 44) I realised how overweight I was and decided to get fit. Made my diet better, ate less, started cycling and dropped from 21st 3 (138kg) to 15 st (95kg) in the space of 7 months.

I basically then fell in love with cycling, so my weight has generally remained between 15 and 16st. (15st 7 this morning).

I have had a couple of health scares that turned out to basically be nothing, although they did discover some mild arthritis in my left hip, which does make some movement slightly painful. That's a bit of an eye opener, for someone thinking they are still young and fit... no, you have arthritis!

 

[malachi]

Yeah I dont have much sugar in my diet at all.

It rots your teeth on top of everything else.

But it's easy for me to say because I have never had a sweet tooth, the thought of having sugar in a cup of tea for example, yuk.

I dont have sugar in my tea, managed to cut that years ago. Now I have abit of Mānuka honey. But I also like drinking hot chocolate, hard to avoid sugar in that by default so I don't drink it much.

Btw, I've been reading that white rice is a cause of diabetes in Asia. Because of the carbohydrates I guess.
Reading somewhere, it is claimed "On average, a 100-gram serving of cooked white rice holds roughly 28 grams of carbohydrates."
I guess there is some starch being carbohydrates, but most of carbyhydrates would be sugar I think. Iirc starch is harder to break down in the body iirc.
Typical tomato ketchup where I live, with sugar in it, has a LOT of sugar, like maybe 40% sugar or something iirc.

I never liked tomato ketchup but a few years back I ordered an plain burger and they got the order wrong by added tomato ketchup. When bit into it, it felt like I was biting into tomato flavored sugar crystals. I dont understand how people can have that on a regular basis, nasty stuff!

 

[OspreyO]

I wish all things in life were as simple to solve as hitting the gym and not eating white bread or tomato ketchup.

Sure it helps and as you get older maintenance is a lot harder than in your youth. But some of the healthiest people I know have been blind sided with things out left field.

 

[~>Dg<~]

I wish all things in life were as simple to solve as hitting the gym and not eating white bread or tomato ketchup.

Sure it helps and as you get older maintenance is a lot harder than in your youth. But some of the healthiest people I know have been blind sided with things out left field.

its not just about being healthy its also passion for life which sounds daft. i know loads of people who lived to a ripe old age smoked drank and did no exercise but where happy and just enjoyed life. thats the mystery of life.

 

[OspreyO]

Btw, I've been reading that white rice is a cause of diabetes in Asia. Because of the carbohydrates I guess.
Reading somewhere, it is claimed "On average, a 100-gram serving of cooked white rice holds roughly 28 grams of carbohydrates."
I guess there is some starch being carbohydrates, but most of carbyhydrates would be sugar I think. Iirc starch is harder to break down in the body iirc.
Typical tomato ketchup where I live, with sugar in it, has a LOT of sugar, like maybe 40% sugar or something iirc.

Speaking of food, I now cook fries at a lower temperature, lower than what it says on the product bag, so 170 deg C.
Found this tip in the oven's user manual, for safer consumtion of fries, something about heat and food will create a carsinogenic substance which I forgot the name of.

There are genetic differences in Asia that cause different issues than in the west.

One interesting think it's they don't have the same back issues because they don't use chairs as much. They also aren't as car centric for transport as the west.

 

[OspreyO]

its not just about being healthy its also passion for life which sounds daft. i know loads of people who lived to a ripe old age smoked drank and did no exercise but where happy and just enjoyed life. thats the mystery of life.

The mental health aspect is important.

Some of the mid life crisis comes down to a realisation of how much time you spend doing things that make you happy. (or not happy).

 

[Raymond Lin]

There are genetic differences in Asia that cause different issues than in the west.

One interesting think it's they don't have the same back issues because they don't use chairs as much. They also aren't as car centric for transport as the west.

Try doing the Asian squat, hold it for like half hour. Then get up without having to pull or hold onto something.

 

[DJMK4]

Eating peanut butter salad cream toast,

Thats another one for me - Midlife crisis

 

[OspreyO]

oh I don't mean financially, that is all reletative and everyone is different, my view is always if you're doing better than you did last year then it's good enough. I try not to compare my self against others for example. I was talking more health wise.

I think many people had an injury and illness free youth. So they don't have any legacy injuries in middle age. Or they don't have family members who required a lot of their time. So they have more free time than others.

I don't really preach to others what they should do. Never really know what issues people are dealing with.

Getting away from a desk and out of the car gets more important as you get older. I noticed a big difference with WFH. I lost my cycling commute. I ended up getting a smart watch to track general activity levels.

I started back cycling to work. Then switched to folding bike for the train. I intend getting an electric bike so I can get away from the train.

 

[OspreyO]

Try doing the Asian squat, hold it for like half hour. Then get up without having to pull or hold onto something.

I find Pilates with an instructor that really focuses on core really helps with bad back. I must get back to it. I find even on a bad back day movement helps with recovery.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Good going there, on the flipside I'm on a mission of gaining weight, but it is only possible as muscle mass rather than fat as my fast metabolism means I am unable to gain much weight as body fat regardless of what I eat, just always been that way! During Covid I worked my macros out, my maintenance calories was 2700, obviously more to then have enough nutrition to feed muscle growth, but it's a slow process because of the fast metabolic rate.

So for me whilst I got a lot stronger, my physical weight was only slowly increasing. At the start of Covid I was around 55KG, now at 62KG, all of that increase is lean muscle mass, my waist size has been the same for 20 years!

It's both great and annoying, I have an aesthetic goal I want to achieve but because of biology I have to stretch it out over an extended period of time, even though physically I am much stronger each month, just don't look it to the same level lol.

eat more. Not sure what your metabolism has to do with that if you're only eating 2700 cals