Love our cars more than ourselves?

[sho220]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

It wasn't until I saw myself in a photo wearing my racing suit with no neck and a pretty envious set of man titties

This thread is worthless without pics...

[Grishbok]

In all honesty,

The human brain is plagued by two combating factors, ethos, and thanatos. When you associate to something outside yourself like a car, those two driving factors do not come into play, however, when dealing with yourself, they are most prevailant.

Ethos can be summarized as your innate desire to do good, and thanatos, the innate desire to do harm. It is these combating factors which are at play for those who decide to smoke and those that dont. We all know its bad for us, and yet people choose to smoke regardless. That would be thanatos being more dominant in that situation.

When you outwardly look to a car, these subjective factors arent in play. You view the car as an object, as a representation of a component of you that wants to be displayed for others. By taking extravagant care of it, you are essentially polishing a trophy. It is a symbol, to be viewed by others. This is at the core of automotive sales philosophy as well.

Another reason, is nurture. The desire to take care of posessions visible by society/others is a nurtured one. We are taught, trained, and influenced through various marketing techniques and societal influences all steering us toward what the ideal perception of us as individuals should be. Subconsciously, this is in effect in how you feel if you were to judge a person you have never seen, based soley on his car. Lets put two cars in front of you, one is super clean, polished, detailed, dressed, and the other; the same car, but dirty with grungy pale windows and blackened wheels from debris and soot. You would "feel" that the owner of the clean car would be more socially apt, reliable, responsible, and overall have a generally better opinion about him, than you would the owner of the dirty counterpart.

To sum it up, when you wonder why you take better care of your car than you do yourself, its because subconsciously, you care more about how people perceive your possesions than any aspect of yourself. Thank you society.

[White Shadow]

^^^^ Thank you, Dr. Freud ^^^^

In all seriousness, all that psychobabble seems silly to me. I just like to keep my car clean because I like it to be clean for me. If what you are saying is true, then I'd prefer to drive my car around only during daylight hours, just so everyone else can easily see my perfectly clean & shiny car. Driving the car at night would be a letdown because nobody would be able to tell.

[gmookher]

chakras are out of alignment, get that thing up on the rack...

[rice_classic]

What's ironic to me is that the non-automotive world views our body as using energy in the same way engines do. An incorrect view point and part of the reason for the obesity dilemma in our country. We don't "combust" fuel for energy.

I'm talking about is the worlds greatest red herring; the calorie. What a load of BS. A calorie is only a proper measurement if we were burning our food to keep warm. Calories don't make us fat, or thin, or "other". Caloric content of food has very little meaning. What we need today (and don't have) is a similar measurement of "nutritional content", because we don't have a calorie shortage in our food supply, we have a nutritional shortage in our food supply.

Most of the folks who are obese also suffer symptoms of malnutrition. We are literally starving to death as we grow fatter and fatter. That's not just a comment about weight, but about health. We need to stop looking at our overweight selves or other who are so and think "He just eats too much." Wrong, I bet I eat more calories that "he" does, It's just that my calories don't have sugar in them. Fat is just your body's way of protecting itself; from disease, pollutants, chemicals, stress etc. The goal should never be to lose weight, it should be to get healthy. The byproduct of healthy is proper body weight, not the other way around.

So what are we told as we pack on the pounds?
1: "We should eat less fat"
2: "We should just work out more"
3: "We are eating too much food"
4: "We are too lazy"

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

1: Fat cannot make us fat, unless we provide our bodies with the necessary chemical trigger to make it possible. Without the chemical trigger, fat cannot make us fat. That trigger you ask? That's insulin. What causes insulin production? Sugar and any items that are converted to sugar in our gut (like bread, pasta, cereal). The more potent the sugar (like HFCS) the greater the insulin spike (Glycemic Index). The greater the insulin spike, the more lipids and tryglycerides are stored in our body. Remove the trigger and the fat (regardless of caloric density) just exits our body. I am proof of this. I lost 30+ of body fat in 4 months with nothing more than insulin management and the very occasional game of racquet ball (something I did anyway).

2: We should just work out more? Errr.. wrong again, well sort of. We should work out.. yes, exercise is good but if we're stressing our bodies with pollutants and constant insulin spikes then we don't much by stressing the body even more with exercise. Fix diet, then exercise. Remember, the diet is for health while exercise is for fitness. You can cure more ailments and prevent more diseases with diet then you can with a treadmill.

3: Too much food.. Well yes, but no. Plenty of people do the "eat less then I burn" approach only to gain even more weight because they never cut out insulin-spiking foods. On many days I probably eat 500+ calories than I would need and was still losing weight while sitting on the couch (and during the holidays!). Over all, we are eating too much food but mostly because we're eating highly addictive, sugary foods with almost zero nutritional content. If we focused on nutritionally dense food only, you'd be surprised how little food you actually need. The energy content in FAT (healthy fat of course) is high. An Avocado goes a long way.

4: On average we work LOTS of hours, and that's for both parents. Take in to account kids, school, work, extra activities etc etc etc and one could argue we're not lazy enough. Which leads me to my next point. Sleep. Be lazy be VERY lazy but do it with your eyes shut. Get 8-9 hours of sleep at night and you'd be surprised how easy it is to lose weight and feel much better over all. Lots is repaired and replenished when we're sleeping. Add to that proper insulin management from avoiding high glycemic foods and you'll be back to your high school form in no time, or in my case better.

Speaking of which, it's past my bedtime.


We'll I think that's sufficient fodder to keep this thread going for another couple pages.

[Giccin]

Originally Posted by wallace03

When people come to me for advice my first question is usually "what is your goal?" To be generally fit the gym is not necessary. It is for people who want to build muscle, gain strength, or improve performance. There are other ways to be fit including daily physical activities and healthy nutrition. I guess my point is no one should feel bad for not making time for the gym.

I want a refined butt.

Does that count as a goal? lol

[zenki_levin]

Mfw i first started reading this thread.



I'm a skinny stick figure and i hate it. Been eating like an animal and going to the gym in the hopes of gaining some muscle.

[rice_classic]

Originally Posted by Hachivic

Mfw i first started reading this thread.



I'm a skinny stick figure and i hate it. Been eating like an animal and going to the gym in the hopes of gaining some muscle.

Good gif.

That brings up a good point about how not all bodies are created equally. Some bodies are naturally "insulin sensitive" while others are more "insulin resistant". Just because an unhealthy lifestyle doesn't manifest itself as weight gain, doesn't mean it doesn't manifest itself. It's almost preferrable for an unhealthy lifestyle to manifest itself with weight gain (depending on your perspective) because then you know what you're doing isn't working.

However, if you have a naturally insulin sensitive body (aka: eat carbs all day and never gain a pound) this is what can be referred to as "thin-fat", where an unhealthy lifestyle, both nutritionally and in relation to insulin management can lead to ailments (sometimes in youth but usually later in life) not associated with obesity like neurological problems (Alzheimers etc). In fact in a recent study about Alzheimers and what causes its onset they discovered that regardless of body type of the individual (how much fat on their body) that Azlheimers was caused by extended periods of improper insulin management and that it could be considered as "Type 3 Diabetes".

[tech4pdx]

Originally Posted by gmookher

chakras are out of alignment, get that thing up on the rack...

Lol.. I can relate to chakras through my gf. Lots to learn there! (;

[tech4pdx]

You guys seriously crack me up. Just eat your brussel sprouts and your broccoli, don't drink soda and wash in all the places the sun don't shine and you will be fine. Don't forget walks in the park and calm meditation music.

[wallace03]

Originally Posted by Giccin

I want a refined butt.

Does that count as a goal? lol

hehe this is actually a common one.

[Giccin]

Originally Posted by wallace03

hehe this is actually a common one.

Dammit... Lol