Syke,
The problem is the audience for that sort of article. Often obsessive gym rats. Things do not go as planned.
I was joking with a PT earlier this year, “how many guys pumping weights end up seeing him”? He shot back, “75%”, laughing, but then, “I do not know the actual percentage but most of them”.
This is American where nothing is ever enough.
This not really chocolate. Heck, it’s not chocolate at all, it’s basically sugar and flour.
One of my favorites is Green&Blacks 85% but it has been very difficult to find lately (I used to buy it by the 10-pack on amazon). Seems to be the smoothest of the high cocoa chocolates with low sugar. But TJs is also pretty good. I also eat Lily’s, Beyond Good, Chocolove, Valrhona, and others.
Here’s a photo of most of my current stash.
NOTE: Just after posting this I found a great deal for Green&Blacks chocolate and ordered a carton of 10!
My dad is thin. He eats about six pounds of dark chocolate a week. Maybe four to five but in that ball park. He likes the dark chocolate three pound bars from Trader Joes. The Belgian stuff.
Back in “the day” I used to drink the contents of a 12 cup coffee maker each day - usually of some “pretty tasty” coffee (Sumatran, Kenyan, etc.).
Nowadays, I generally limit my intake to a couple of mugs in the morning and, maybe, a Turkish coffee at lunch time. That said, I’ve started noshing on Aldi’s dark chocolate with hazelnuts bars as desert after dinner (not the whole slab, but maybe a “slice or two”). I would say these moderately priced bars (about $2.65) are as good as you can find outside of an artesian shop.
Jeff
I credit a similar concoction for my relative disregard for sugary stuff. When I was growing up “coffee” in our house (and most of my cronies) was something called Camp coffee. I don’t know if anything similar was available in the US but it was a cordial like substance that came in a bottle and was a combo of coffee, chicory and sugar. My mum used to put it in warm milk and that’s what I thought coffee was…and I didn’t care for it. Only drank tea which itself was always made with two heaped teaspoons of sugar. This was the 1950s so might well have been a reaction to the deprivations of WWII and sugar finally being freely available.
I was a very faddy eater as a kid and I think that one day I must’ve picked up a cup of tea before mum had a chance to put the sugar in and decided I preferred it. One food fad that’s lasted, lo, this past half century and a bit. One quite comical reaction among some of my relatives (who I fancy thought my mum indulged me a bit too much for not being more insistent on dietary conformation) was to try to feed me sugar by “stealth”…not realising that the rehab that taste buds undergo made me super sensitive to anything artificially sweetened. On one visit to my auntie’s, she made us all a nice cuppa tea and brought it in and announced she knew I didn’t take sugar … so she only put 1/2 a spoonful in. I’m pretty sure she wanted to give me a smack for being so argumentative when I couldn’t choke it down.
For sure, I fancy the next few weeks, with the New Year Resolutionaries lurching up from the recliner and hitting the gym, provide a very nice stimulus package for PTs…physical therapists and personal trainers alike. A bit like Halloween for dentists and endocrinologists. Then it’ll be back to business as usual.
A better question would’ve been to ask the proportion of folk he sees who are following a rational training strategy vs those whose woes are a consequence of too much sitting.
Your dad has excellent taste in chocolate. I love those, and, in general, Belgian stuff rules the chocolate world in my opinion.
(not picking on Jeff) don’t grocery stores in your neighborhoods have a produce department? My snack last night, while watching “Hogan’s Heroes”, was a couple bananas and some peas. Really scored at the grocery store a couple weeks ago. Normally, Washington State red delicious apples are better than Michigan, bigger, juicer, and sweeter. But the store had a deal I couldn’t pass up: 3lb bag of Michigan red delicious for a buck. Score! Still tiny, but knocked it out of the park for sweet and juicy. Yum!
Steve
Got to know someone locally at SB who was a “diet expert”. I think he worked for a Jenny Craig sort of operation back when. He broke his ankle years ago and gained close to 80 pounds. He wanted to discuss how I lost 50 lbs but he kept saying he was a diet expert. Kind of a doctor heal thyself situation but without the doctor. He is a nice guy but all his expert diet ideas were wrong at least according to Noom which I used.
As far as rational exercise…it is not adding fifty pounds of muscle.
@MarkR you’re killing me!
Wendy (promising to swear off chocolate forever – is there a 12 step program?)
Same here. One of my enduring memories is visiting the Valrhona factory store during a visit to France. Samples are unlimited and free. Very dangerous!
My other addiction was capsaicin. I was a serious chile-head. But nearing 60 I suddenly, apropos of nothing, developed a total intolerance to capsaicin. Now I can’t consume any without reacting like a first-timer: pain, sweating, etc. It’s like an allergy. Nobody seems to have any idea what might be the cause, nor has seen such a thing before.
Truly annoying! But at least I can drown my sorrows in chocolate.
-IGU-
I think going with high quality chocolate, high cocoa chocolate, and low sugar chocolate, along with limiting quantity each day would work well. It takes me about a week to finish one 3 oz bar. For example, I had none at all yet today and it’s 10pm already.
By the way, came across this tidbit recently. Besides the fact that the survey that proclaimed the benefits of dark chocolate was sponsored by the National Confectioners Association, seems dark chocolate gives you an extra helping of heavy metals.
Me? I munched on some sweet corn while watching “Hogan’s Heroes” tonight.
Actually, a rational training strategy might just do that…in a young, male, novice trainee, genetically gifted, eating a high protein diet with a caloric excess and sticking with the sufferfest for 2-3 years. And willing to carry a bit (a BIG bit) of excess fat.
Veenee,
Not claiming any expertise…just claiming to have been around the block a few times…common sense tells us two things. One we get older so having an extra 50 lb is not a great idea. Two in the locker room guys are going to compare notes on steroids. It is a bit like going into a den of iniquity to listen to the piano player.
Before Christmas I was in the gym for several afternoons. The high school kids were very average and thin coming in and lifting for power. Two kids one day were hitting a leg press hard for power. It was like the upper side or quads they were hitting were going to be so powerful they could not walk. No clue between them. That is when the PT is going to make some money. Most people who try to add 50 lb are clueless what the effort takes. I am not talking just the work involved.
Jeff, can those Aldi bars be bought online?
I think Instacart can shop at Aldi in most places, so yes.
Mark, we don’t have Aldi here in the Keys and when I punched that bar in on Amazon this is what I got:
This is the brand I see most often at local Aldi stores - https://www.amazon.com/Moser-Roth-German-Dark-Chocolate/dp/B00K09EHVE/ref=sr_1_6?crid=2AQ0ZZN3OQDAL&keywords=aldi+chocolate+bars&qid=1672852190&sprefix=aldi+chocolate+bars%2Caps%2C98&sr=8-6
But, this chocolate is far better in my opinion, I purchased a box of 10 bars yesterday - https://www.amazon.com/Green-Blacks-Organic-Chocolate-10Count/dp/B07R2Y1P1C/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2R6PB8N2DRD4D&keywords=green%2Band%2Bblack%2Bchocolate&qid=1672852277&sprefix=green%2Band%2Bbl%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-5&th=1
One thing about the gym folk like the kids you mentioned is that their lack of patience keeps them reasonably trouble free. Always freak injuries out there but oftentimes the training strategies they’re following aren’t rational and are the result of something they’ve misread online, in Men’s Health or Muscle and Fiction etc. (my son in law’s bibles) and, lacking a fundamental foundation in the nuts and bolts of exercise science try the equivalent of a “lose AT LEAST 10lb/week” diet come-ons or similar promises for getting out of debt.
I’m thinking that far more lose interest when the first “stall” hits …usually by mid February for the NewYear Resolutionaries (pretty much anything works for 6 weeks with a novice trainee)…and disappear because of boredom rather than injury.
It’s been my good fortune to stumble across decent trainers even back when I was a n00b…as well as being quick to learn from my mistakes and willing to follow advice when my experiments didn’t work as planned.
Whether it’s Future Proofing the body or ones finances the real difficulty comes from digging in and staying consistent over the l9ng haul.
Here’s one strength training programme I can recommend (provided all the caveats about technique and whatnot)…and actually doing it, of course.
