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Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by FidesFacitFidem on Saturday March 21, 2015 @12:09PM (#9243112)
Not a nootropic per say but I've noticed a huge difference since focusing on my general health;

1) 7-8 hours sleep per night.

2) 1 hour of exercise per day (some days cardio, other days weights(focus on compounds; squat, deadlift, bench press, shoulder press, pullups, rows))

(for people thinking "I'm too busy to spend an hour of my day exercising". I think the productivity increase of clearing your head doing this exercise more than makes up for the hour it takes.)

3) balanced diet consisting of fresh natural foods. (fruit, veg, meat, fish etc. not frozen meals, microwave food where your not quite sure what's in it)

Found I've lost weight, cardiovascular endurance has increased, I'm stronger and just feel a lot better.

So my advice would be try and do all the above before taking any drugs that aren't very well researched and could cause long term issues.

Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by fpgaminer on Saturday March 21, 2015 @01:10PM (#9243359)
> for people thinking "I'm too busy to spend an hour of my day exercising"

Arnold Schwarzenegger has a great quote here (paraphrased): "If the President of the United States has time to workout, _you_ have time to workout."

Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by dpeck on Sunday March 22, 2015 @09:27PM (#9249010)
the President has a monumental staff to deal with every part of life that doesn't directly involve his job, most people do not.
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by dev-ious on Monday March 23, 2015 @03:57PM (#9253014)
the NSA is now following you.
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by brador on Saturday March 21, 2015 @12:36PM (#9243223)
Why no frozen meals?
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by sgt101 on Saturday March 21, 2015 @12:55PM (#9243301)
Most commercially packaged frozen meals have lots and lots of sugar, salt and oils added to low quality (cheap) ingredients to make them palatable.

Some people think freezing food destroys its quality, but I think that the evidence for that is weak and fails to regard the loss of quality that comes from keeping things in the fridge for another day.

When I stopped eating ready meals I lost a kilo in a week, I believe (believe) that happened largely because I dropped so much salt out of my diet and therefore I was retaining much less water.

Buy things fresh, make meals and freeze them. This will allow you to cook good things quickly in the evening. Spend an afternoon and make a chicken casserole, a beef stew, a lasagne, a cottage pie and a fish pie. Freeze in portions (aim for five from each) and you have weeks of quick, nutritious and delicious food that means that you will not be stuffing yourself with rubbish.

But also buy a steamer and make sure that you have a large portion of steamed green veg every day. You're five a day can have one orange juice and a couple of bits of fruit, but a decent wodge of green is really important. Tender stem broccoli, greens, cabbage, peas, beans... all take about 30 seconds to prepare and 3-4 minutes to stem (tip: only put a mugful of water in the steamer, it will boil fast and then cook the greens just as well as 4 inches would).

Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by brador on Saturday March 21, 2015 @01:28PM (#9243429)
Sugar and salt I understand. Do you have more info on the oils? Have not heard that before.
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by abecedarius on Saturday March 21, 2015 @02:11PM (#9243620)
Nutrition is poorly understood, but we do know that seed oils have a different profile than what people used to eat, and their high omega-6 fraction promotes inflammation. On the bright side there seems to be a reduction in heart disease (with some of them like olive oil) from their polyunsaturated fatty acids, which however doesn't improve all-cause mortality.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/seed-oils-and-... gets into a little of the picture.

Personally I take a flaxseed oil supplement (for high omega-3), often fry in olive oil, and try to minimize seed oils otherwise. (I don't try that hard, but my intake has changed since learning about this.)

Salt intake I wouldn't worry about unless you have a specific issue making it a problem.

Disclaimer: layperson.

Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by nostrebored on Saturday March 21, 2015 @09:36PM (#9245123)
A ton of cheap food uses hydrogenated oils, which have been shown to have negative impact on your circulatory system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenation#Health_implicatio...

Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by abecedarius on Saturday March 21, 2015 @10:56PM (#9245363)
Oh yes, I forgot to even mention them because they're an automatic 'no' to me.
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by shostack on Saturday March 21, 2015 @12:57PM (#9243306)
For me, a lot of frozen meals and processed foods in general have insane quantities of sodium. Seriously, check the labels and make sure to do the math on what you would consider a reasonable portions (they like to play games with portion size to bring daily percentages down).
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by brador on Saturday March 21, 2015 @01:29PM (#9243433)
Other than water retention, are there any other reasons sodium is bad?
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by jpmattia on Saturday March 21, 2015 @02:03PM (#9243585)
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by strathmeyer on Sunday March 22, 2015 @12:58PM (#9247438)
Frozen foods are cheaper but less tastier, less nutritious, and harder to eat. They don't give you positive-reinforcement.
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by markhahn on Saturday March 21, 2015 @03:12PM (#9243846)
the point is to avoid highly processed/prepared foods.
Re:Ask HN: Do you take nootropics? by totallymike on Saturday March 21, 2015 @12:46PM (#9243262)
Seems like the main point is to only eat foods that are foods, not chemicals.