Which is worse, poor diet or lack of exercise?

[Flagg]

Okay, well how about this:
You do a 9-5 desk job, Monday to Friday, come home and pretty much slouch in front of the TV for the rest of the evening, but you maintain a relatively good diet that consisted of lean cuts of meats, salad, water, free range products and you drank/ate alcohol and fast food rarely.

Or as you say, someone who works in a labour instensive job, but they play a sport or go to the gym say, 3 times a week, but they like to get hammered every weekend and generally pig out on whatever food they want (fried breakfasts, maybe a Maccas for lunch twice a week, etc...)

Im probably of the belief that a poor diet is worse than a lack of exercise, but I suppose the question beggars...is eating from fast food chains poor eating.

[MACHINE5150]

Okay, well how about this:
You do a 9-5 desk job, Monday to Friday, come home and pretty much slouch in front of the TV for the rest of the evening, but you maintain a relatively good diet that consisted of lean cuts of meats, salad, water, free range products and you drank/ate alcohol and fast food rarely.

Or as you say, someone who works in a labour instensive job, but they play a sport or go to the gym say, 3 times a week, but they like to get hammered every weekend and generally pig out on whatever food they want (fried breakfasts, maybe a Maccas for lunch twice a week, etc...)

Im probably of the belief that a poor diet is worse than a lack of exercise, but I suppose the question beggars...is eating from fast food chains poor eating.

In this case the guy not working out will probably have less health problems, but will be skinny.. Pigging out and doing gym work will still get you muscle.. even though there will be a lot of fat along with it but if he is doing a physical job and a sport and working out he is burning through those calories.. as shitty as they may be. His cholesterol and Triglycorides might be higher than the healthy desk guy, but he will be more muscular.

I work out 4 times a week and play rugby 3 times a week.. but have a desk job.. I drink 5-7 liters of beer pretty much every weekend. Have fast food once or twice a week, but otherwise eat pretty healthy.. Since i do a lot of cardio in rugby and some when i work out my BF is 17-18%.. i weigh 245lbs squat 500 and bench 375... I have gotten my blood work done and my cholesterol is slightly above average but nothing to worry about, my liver values are in the normal to healthy range.

I know that if i didn't drink and completley staid away from fast food or pizz or whatever that i would have a much lower BF, but it is not worth the social sacrifice to me just to be that lean.

here is my pic.

[Flagg]

In this case the guy not working out will probably have less health problems, but will be skinny.. Pigging out and doing gym work will still get you muscle.. even though there will be a lot of fat along with it but if he is doing a physical job and a sport and working out he is burning through those calories.. as shitty as they may be. His cholesterol and Triglycorides might be higher than the healthy desk guy, but he will be more muscular.

I work out 4 times a week and play rugby 3 times a week.. but have a desk job.. I drink 5-7 liters of beer pretty much every weekend. Have fast food once or twice a week, but otherwise eat pretty healthy.. Since i do a lot of cardio in rugby and some when i work out my BF is 17-18%.. i weigh 245lbs squat 500 and bench 375... I have gotten my blood work done and my cholesterol is slightly above average but nothing to worry about, my liver values are in the normal to healthy range.

I know that if i didn't drink and completley staid away from fast food or pizz or whatever that i would have a much lower BF, but it is not worth the social sacrifice to me just to be that lean.

here is my pic.

7 litres is about...14 pints i'd say? It sounds like you're super active, but do you never worry about high blood pressure, or your heart? Yeah I know anyone of us could get hit by a car tomorrow, but doesnt it give, excuse the pun, food for thought?

@Muscle, yes i've read before about that caloric/lifespan claim. Would you say that we eat far too much meat in the developed world? As you probably know, energy conversion in food changes as it goes through the trophic levels, like 90% is lost each time. And because of food conversion losses, converting plant calories into animal calories, for example, grain, is sub optimal. In other words, feeding a chicken grain, and then eating the chicken, you will get a lower amount of energy compared to having eaten the grain directly.

Protein, vitamins, minerals, fats, carbs can all be gotten from grain..its just that when its refined and the bran and germ is removed, we only have the carb left. I sometimes wonder if we'd have better diets if we decreased our meat consumption and increased our grain consumption. Especially in light of potential problems in feeding the population, 40 years from now.

[MuscleScience]

7 litres is about...14 pints i'd say? It sounds like you're super active, but do you never worry about high blood pressure, or your heart? Yeah I know anyone of us could get hit by a car tomorrow, but doesnt it give, excuse the pun, food for thought?

@Muscle, yes i've read before about that caloric/lifespan claim. Would you say that we eat far too much meat in the developed world? As you probably know, energy conversion in food changes as it goes through the trophic levels, like 90% is lost each time. And because of food conversion losses, converting plant calories into animal calories, for example, grain, is sub optimal. In other words, feeding a chicken grain, and then eating the chicken, you will get a lower amount of energy compared to having eaten the grain directly.

Protein, vitamins, minerals, fats, carbs can all be gotten from grain..its just that when its refined and the bran and germ is removed, we only have the carb left. I sometimes wonder if we'd have better diets if we decreased our meat consumption and increased our grain consumption. Especially in light of potential problems in feeding the population, 40 years from now.

We eat a very large percentage of our protein intake as red meats. What would be ideal is a omega3/6 ratio of 1:1 or as close as possible. Right now the typical Western diet is at a ratio of 1:20 which puts the body in a pro-inflammatory state all the time.

As far as food conversion goes. The food chain operates on the rule of 10's. This is an environmental ecology concept/term that means that at every level of the food chain energy conversion is only about 10% total of "net primary production."

This means that plants only absorb and use about 10% of the sunlight energy available to them at optimal efficiency. When a consumer comes along and eats the plant such as a cow. The cow only gets 10% of the energy stored in the plant matter as usable energy. When we come and eat the cow. We only get about 10% of the energy stored in the cow.

The 10% rule is assuming many things. In the tropics the percentage can be higher, but for ease of conversion I was always taught the 10% rule.

"Three hundred trout are needed to support one man for a year. The trout, in turn, must consume 90,000 frogs, that must consume 27 million grasshoppers that live off of 1,000 tons of grass."
-- G. Tyler Miller, Jr., American Chemist (1971)