As notable for what it’s missing as what it includes. The comments are pretty interesting.
Author Archives: Phil Bowermaster
Friday Videos
An inspirational song to kick off the weekend. This one really takes me back.
Plus here’s a neat video — related to our discussion of open societies on the most recent FFR — on the subject of growing career options for women in (at least some parts of) the Arab world, compliments of Harvey’s friend the Queen of Jordan:
The Phelps Alternative
Based on the comments, it looks like not everyone is convinced that alpha lipoic acid “locking in” the benefits of calorie restriction is a good idea for long-term weight control. Of course, there is an alternative for those who want to eat big and never have to worry about gaining weight. How does this sound for an eating plan:
Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.
Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.
Dinner: One pound of pasta. An entire pizza. More energy drinks.
No magic diet pills required. All you have to do is swim six hours a day! Seems like a pretty good trade off.
Sounds Too Good to Be True
But, hey, it might be worth a shot.
First, let me say that I have nothing but admiration for those who have adopted a restricted calorie diet in the hopes of realizing some of the health and life extension benefits that have been demonstrated repeatedly in the lab with animals (mostly mice) following similar diets. The only reason I haven’t personally tried to adopt the CR lifestyle is fear of failure.
I think I could manage it for six months, maybe a year at most, and then I expect would fall seriously off the wagon. Even following a much more modest program over the course of a couple of years, my weight has been gradually creeping back up — probably through a combination of metabolic changes and not sticking with the program as carefully as I might have.
A few months ago, I wrote about an emerging critique of diet and exercise as a cure for obesity:
In study after study over the course of the past century, the number of clinical trial subjects who have kept more than 40 pounds off for a period of five or more years is vanishingly rare. The number that’s thrown around on Dean’s World is 0.1%, although I haven’t seen where Dean specifically raised this number, only where people arguing with him have. So if we can name people who have met the criteria — Jared comes to mind — we have only found an example of that 0.1% of the population for whom diet and exercise is an effective long-term obesity cure. Likewise, the participants in the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) study were asked to participate if they had already achieved a certain level of long-term weight loss — it’s just another example of this same selection bias.
It’s like “proving” that the lottery is a smart bet because somebody won!
So diet and exercise become a real double-bind for the obese. Typically, it doesn’t work out; but it’s the only “cure” out there, so people try again and again, and you get the dreaded yo-yo effect. People who want to argue that diet and exercise are an ineffective cure only because fat people are lazy or undisciplined or lack self-esteem aren’t really contributing much to the discussion, other than venting. Show me an effective way to combine diet and exercise with acquiring discipline or self-esteem — and by effective, I mean one that has been demonstrated to work with a significant population of obese people, not more anecdotes about Jared or your aunt — or shut up.
And if the normal, moderate diet-and-exercise cure proves too difficult for most people, how much progress can we expect from the much more ambitious calorie restriction lifestyle?
The Desert at Night
So what we have here is an aerial view of desert, obviously taken at night. Can anyone guess the location?
The Grand Canyon?
Try again.
Tunisia?
Nope.
Montana badlands?
Huh-uh.
What you’re looking at is Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn, as recently photographed by the Cassini space probe. Looks like good mountain-biking terrain to me!
More From Last Week
As promised, here’s my take on the customer event my team and I put on at Techwave in Las Vegas. This one (perhaps) provides a little more context.
Or watch it on Youtube and click the Watch in High Quality link to see it in all its glory.
Save the Planet — Eat Kangaroo!
Kangaroos, you see, produce a relatively low amount of methane gas compared with other animals. Research shows that Australia could lower its overall greenhouse gas emissions by 3% if Aussies were to decide to give up all beef and pork in favor of the Other Red Meat, kangaroo.
Countries that aren’t blessed with a native kangaroo population are being encouraged to take other steps:
Fortunately for those of us living outside of Australia, other countries are embarking on similar projects to reduce methane by farming low-emissions animals. Examples include springbok in South Africa, red deer in the UK, and bison in the United States. With CO2 emissions from other industries showing no signs of slowing down, eating a red deer burger doesn’t sound so bad.
Compared to a kanga-burger, it sounds downright appetizing. Actually, eating bison is no hardship. As many of you probably know, it is as good as beef, if a little more robust in flavor.
What’s that? A burger? Um…no thanks.
Still, that kangaroo idea might be a little over the top. If we really want to cut methane emissions from livestock,we need to eliminate farms altogether rather than changing what we raise there. The unappetizing-sounding solution is vat meat. It will provide us nutritionally enhanced meat that doesn’t come at the price of animal suffering and that doesn’t cause massive environmental damage.
And it will only taste like chicken when it really is chicken.
Snail Mail
…and they’re not kidding. The messages are carried in tiny RFD chips attached to actual snails.
What a completely pointless (and yet somehow awesome) thing to do.
Via GeekPress.
FastForward Radio
Sunday night Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon talked about the Olympics opening ceremony, and how openess can bring power to anyone (or anything) that tries it.
Stream our latest shows:
Or:
Or download MP3′s for all the archived shows at:
Click “Continue Reading” for the show notes:
Busy, Busy, Busy
Sorry I haven’t been blogging the last couple of weeks, but I’ve been putting in much longer work hours than normal.
Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do…
(Lots more embarrassing video here.)