I think you're lovely

How does that work???? I've never had any structural impracticality

A moderate pot belly - no problem!
A gunt on a guy - huge turn off

Women are not particularly proud of theirs either

Which leg? My right one is distinctly chunkier. My middle one, well...

Looks aside, that belly does not bode well for future health - I'm thinking heart attacks and strokes here.

Having a lot of fat around the middle, in men, is a real indication of the likely hood of heart disease and cancer.

Well my man's developing belly is turning into quite a comfortable pillow

.... small, small, small?

I meant "structurally impossible" I think I picked it up from one of George Carlin's shows, he is American and I don't know if his language is good enough to satisfy pedantic English blokes

Wow, I vote this as the most path-breaking news, a paradigm shift in medical view Only, most of us including you knew it 25 years back.

One extreme are countries like India, lot of people with belly fat and suffering heart disease at a young age.

At the other extreme is the West (I mean Swiss because this is what I am more exposed to). People who are basically fit, but overdo things and 1 out of 2 active athlete I meet has a long term/chronic injury, yet they keep overdoing, perhaps because they lack self esteem. Running marathons regularly is a example.

Personally, my ideal is a sturdy guy who is not obsessed with a 6-pack abs (I seriously doubt many of the 6-packers are healthy as we use the word in normal sense), physically active and who don't mind having a bit of fat.

Yeah you're right, people do know about it. I guess they just believe it will happen to someone else.

I think it gets significantly harder to look all uber trim as one gets older, it takes a lot more time. So, if you see a super trim super fit model looking guy when you are over say 30-35 you can bet your shoes it is his priority. While I think health and fitness should be one of the priorities, the idea of kids going fishing with their chill dad is a lot more palatable than having him chase them in some pro athlete sports, wasting every single weekend on some figure inducing activity...high level mountain biking, pro weight lifting etc. I agree, it has something to do with confidence, too, or wanting to be wanted at all times. I am not saying, all guys, grow a giant gut since it is very appealing, no. Just don't panic if you are a bear since people wrongly assume girls go for the ascetic looking thin boyish men. Activity for the fun and health of it is cool, but doing a loads of body work just to look like a model and not actually have time for other meaningful things for fear of not being liked by your general girl, is as silly as assuming all guys need their wenches to look like Barbies.

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

Recently I came across a study done by Russian scientists on the aging male. They put a large group of middle aged men all suffering from various stages of metabolic syndrome (large bellies) on treadmills and pumped them full of testosterone over a number of weeks. The results were astounding with significantly reduced weight for each subject including lower incidents of the symptoms of metabolic syndrome such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. They showed photos of the before and after and these guys were truly unrecognizable. No doubt also they were all enjoying a much better sex life too. I'm not saying all guys should do this but it does speak to the under treated state of male menopause. Just like many middle age woman who get help with HRT don't you think guys deserve it too?

It's a combination of a calorie watching and daily exercise. I use iPhone programs to log what I eat and how much exercise I do.

For eating, just keeping a record makes me less likely to slip and have an off the cuff choc bar. I try to just have a few hundred calories off my daily weight maintenance total, i.e. 2000 calories instead of 2250.

For exercise, I either run or use my exercise bike every evening. At the moment I'm running about 5.5km which uses about 450 calories or exercise biking around 20-25km which takes off about 330 calories. I've also start using dumbells for upper body work.

I know that there are many complex arguments about nutrition and carbs and proteins and caveman diets and blah and blah. I realise it's not very scientific, but my programme is just a simple way of keeping me motivated.

Also, it's not just weight-loss . . . obviously getting a bit fitter has other benefits, particularly for the heart.

My main goal is to get my BMI down below the overweight category.

Thanks! It's probably not so easy for a foodie to be very slim I can imagine. I do one deadly sin, and that is polish off my kiddo's plate. Not that I have a gut, just want to be more firm for my back's sake and postop reasons. Super fast pace eliptical is so fun, pumps me with endorphines, and if I have coffee before hand and go spin in the morning, it's really efficient. I can't rule out carbs since I am a bread and protein kinda person, and noticed my salads were so....lush, there were more than healthy, they were making me pack weight, roasted pine nuts, chunks of grana padano, olive oil and grilled lardons, sun dried toms, ugh. I want a food log but don't want an Iphone.

Back to friendly podge.

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"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

As has been said thin doesn't equal healthy and fat doesn't equal unhealthy. Within reason- not talking about anorexic or morbidly obese here.

When I was in school in Neuchatel in the late 90's there were a bunch of Italian guys in the school for a semester. They were all very trim and fit looking (and well dressed!). One of the fitter looking ones learned that I was a runner and asked to go with me one evening. I was counting on getting trounced but we had to cut the planned route short and walk the last km- no stamina that guy! I would have come in last for sure in a visual rating of 'fittest in class' though... Curious, I watched those guys after that and saw that they were very conscious of their caloric intake but aside from one or two none did any exercise.

My godfather has always had a pronounced gut yet can and does go out and run literally for hours. He's also a ginger and short- but I'm 100% sure he would out pull some skinny douche as he's funny as sh!t and has about a 150 IQ.

Now, when I met MC, I was in 33" Levis... and it's been quite a while since I wore those, or the 34's, or... And of course I'd like to fit back in them but it's just not a priority right now. Plus she's a great cook and always makes too much!

I think you can use this without an iPhone . . .

http://www.mynetdiary.com

sign me up!

Jeyzum, you just revealed my true intentions of this whole campaigning schtick... Just trying to get rid of some guilt here...I do feel bad for not being very conducive to my other half's model looking body. But it is true that back home we love to feed and we consider guy without a gut (even a tiny) not a real man. But that might have something to do with the amount of beers people drink there too, true true. Plus, people hate sandwiches and processed lunches, you gota have homemade.

i don't really do much exercise. i joined the gym a the start of the year but have only been around 8 times since then

i pretty much eat what i like and eat quite a lot. though since my doctor told me to stop eating red meat every day, i think my diet has become healthier - it helps that swiss salads are better than in the uk.

in the UK, i used to walk 4 miles every day to and from work, so had a minimal amount of exercise. now i hardly do any and am noticing the flab building up around my belly.

will need to think of a way to get rid of it. hopefully the ski season will help as that will provide more exercise...

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