You may not care about it, but since when did you think this blog is about what you care about? It's all about me, baby. And I like to amuse myself by thinking about the human body.
A meaningful exercise program will exploit the fact, even if it's not consciously understood, that the body can be divided into three large functional units: the upper, pushing-pulling structure of the arms and shoulders; the middle, bending-twisting structure of the trunk; and the lower, standing-stepping structure of the legs and hips.
So, the lower body steps and it stands. That's it, in terms of major functioning. By stand, I mean vertical movement -- standing, sitting, jumping, and anything else of this sort you can think of. By step, I mean horizontal movement -- walking, running, lunging and so on.
In terms of exercise, the simplest effective movements would be the squat and the lunge. These two functional motions address it all. How very very simple. Do these two things, and you're about 98% done with it -- using the tried and true proof of instant phony statistics. But it's only the stat that's phony. The overwhelming effectiveness is real. So what about toe-raises and calf-raises and heel raises and, uh, leg presses and donkey kicks and ham curls and all those other fancy machines we see in the chrome and glass gyms? Aren't they ever so useful and necessary too?
Yes, if you're undergoing physical rehab for an injury. Yes, if you're a professional bodybuilder looking to isolate that one odd little muscle in your posterior chain that hardly anyone knows the name of but the judges look at. Yes, if you're running a Curves gym and want to make a lot of money by luring people in with your glitz and manifest overhead costs.
But no, in terms of fitness and athleticism and functional movements and feeling and performing better -- no, they are not necessary. What's necessary is doing with purpose and directed intelligence what the human body wants to do because of the way joints move bones. So, squats and lunges. That's what the body does, and that's what should be exercised. Not only these, but these. And these, only safely.
There is a difference, almost never noticed, between kneeling and squatting. Kneeling is knees-forward -- you're going to land on your knees if you go far enough. Nothing wrong with that, per se. But it's not a squat. Squatting is behind-backward -- if you go far enough, you land on your bottom. So what? When they say squat, that's what they should mean. Think of it this way. When you're in the woods and need to eliminate some solid waste, you do not kneel. You squat. Clear? Nuff said.
There is no power in kneeling -- it is, after all, the position we beg from. Whereas all the upward power of your posterior chain is accessed, in the squat. Again, kneeling bends the foot -- squatting grinds the heel. The ball of your foot is for transferring power forward -- the heel is for focusing power upwards.
Thus, a distinction between squatting and lunging, upward and forward, heel and toe, backside and knees. Different emphasis because of different purpose and function. This has practical importance because of safety issues. If you lift things upward (squat) while using a forward movement (lunge) -- well, it's hard on the knees. Injury.
No need to go into how the isolation machines place unnatural constrictions on the joints. We all follow a similar human pattern, but our joints have a lot of variability in them, which the machines don't accommodate. They are pretty much a one-size fits all sort of thing, for all that there is a little bit of adjustability. No need, I say, to go into that. Why would you use a machine? All strapped in and ready to let it do the work. Hm. Seems so scientific, if it were 1963.
So that's a general rundown on the lower body. Very simple, and yet sort of complex. Understand though how important it is. Two-thirds of most people's muscle mass is below the waist. We burn fat by using muscle. That's why they're always trying to get you to do cardio. You don't really care that you might be able to run a 5K. You just want to burn the calories. It's those big weight-bearing muscles that do it. But using them is only part of the picture -- the other part is building them. Strength training. Necessary. Safely.
Does any of it matter? Yes and no. Depends on how rigorous a steward we want to be, how faithful a custodian of the particular temple God has given us. Sometimes temples lapse into ruins in a single generation. Sometimes they endure through the centuries. Why? Because someone has demonstrated resolve, or its lack. I can't speak for you. Nor would I. I've let the temple of my mind go to ruin, in its emotional aspect. And I've always known better. So I'm not pointing fingers. But be not deluded -- your health and its neglect is just as emotional. And it's physical too. So that makes me better than you.
Ah.
J
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Cheats
Any food that has ever been a powder is a processed food. It's not just things that come in boxes. Bread, the staff of life, is a processed food, and depending on the artificiality of the ingredients, it can be more or less toxic. But it is processed, which means a great deal of the digesting has already been done, and all those calories are ready to flood into your bloodstream all at once, rather than trickle in, as chewing the grains would allow for. You see the point -- there can be a big hypoglycemic effect, for anyone who has any sort of a weight issue.
Now Hear This: PROCESSED FOODS ARE PRE-DIGESTED, AND AMOUNT TO INSTANT BLOOD SUGAR, WHICH TURNS INTO FAT.
There is a way to unprocess the food. It is a cheat. It does not add nutrients, which should be the major reason for eating -- I'm so idealistic. But reality is what it is, and sometimes we need to undo some of the folly we've indulged in.
Glucomannan is a vegetable fiber derived from konjac root, native to Asia. It does not dissolve in water, but rather forms a thick gooey gel. Konjac is sold under the product name PGX, which expands to 200 times its original mass -- a gram (about the size of a vitamin pill) grows to the size of a quarter-pounder. Pretty amazing. Of course this creates a sensation of fullness, but much more important in terms of health is that it regulates your insulin.
There are two sorts of dietary fiber, soluble and insoluble. The insoluble kind adds bulk and roughage to the stool, which is necessary for healthy elimination. And there actually is a nutritional element, in providing energy to the cells of the colon -- but that's pretty obscure. Soluble fiber absorbs water inside the digestive tract, and becomes, as it were, sticky. The benefit of this is that the gel mixes with processed foods and slows down the absorption of sugar. See?
Adding soluble fiber somewhat undoes the hypoglycemic effect. You've still eaten all that cake with all those calories, but they don't go racing into your bloodsteam causing a hysterical insulin response. It's as if you ate little pieces of cake, over five hours, rather than a big piece all at once. You won't be burning the fat you already have, but you won't be adding new fat either, the way you would have without the fiber.
It's a cheat. You should have eaten nutritious food. Why didn't you? Shame! For shame! But you already knew that. Once the blame is out of the way, and the guilt, and the self-loathing and defensiveness, we can get practical. Take a PGX fiber pill. It doesn't make a bad diet good, but it makes it less damaging. That's a sort of good. The best price I've found is here, and here for the, ahem, powder.
It's not a good thing to eat poorly and than try to undo the damage. Eat properly. Nutrient dense, calorie poor foods. But we do live in the real world. So if you cheat on your diet, cheat again. Two wrongs don't make it right, but they make it less wrong.
Another soluble fiber, cheaper, is psyllium, the active ingredient of Metamucil. Yes, it makes you go to the toilet, but it has the same healthful benefit as PGX -- it's just less expansive ... growing up to from 15 to 80 times in mass (the larger number from a commercial site, so less likely to be realistic). It's cheaper though, so you can sprinkle it liberally on your Lucky Charms.
And the solid research is pretty interesting. Supplementing with these soluble fibers can have positive effects on constipation, intestinal gas, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, anal fissures (sorry to put that image in your head), Crohn's disease (inflamed bowel), IBS and colon cancer. It's all so very excretory, I know. It has a beneficial effect on hyperglycemia (pre-diabetes), obesity, cholesterol levels, and it inhibits dietary fat from being absorbed. Digestion is more complicated than thinking. Entertain your bowels, the way you do your mind.
The other cheat is Omega-3. I've spoke at length about it already. It undoes some of the poisonous effects of a diet high in inflammatory fats -- which is the standard American diet. No need to repeat the details. Point is, when wrong foods have been indulged in, do what you can to undo the damage.
Adolescents are idealistic. They still believe in perfection, as small children believe in Santa Claus. When we become mature, we put away these childish things, and do what we can to see the world as it is. Not dark, not cynical. Realistic. Pragmatic. Within which worldview, there is ample room for optimism.
Perfection? Please. Perfection is static, and we are always changing. We don't trouble ourselves with perfection, but we strive for excellence. Such a great difference, in such a small shift in outlook. It makes us smile.
We strive then to be beautiful, in our character and our actions and in our health. If you have remained too long, sitting -- if you've remained too long, sitting at the dinner table ... well? Have hope. Take heart. Take heart by taking action. Sensible diet, sensible exercise. What's the big deal?
J
Now Hear This: PROCESSED FOODS ARE PRE-DIGESTED, AND AMOUNT TO INSTANT BLOOD SUGAR, WHICH TURNS INTO FAT.
There is a way to unprocess the food. It is a cheat. It does not add nutrients, which should be the major reason for eating -- I'm so idealistic. But reality is what it is, and sometimes we need to undo some of the folly we've indulged in.
Glucomannan is a vegetable fiber derived from konjac root, native to Asia. It does not dissolve in water, but rather forms a thick gooey gel. Konjac is sold under the product name PGX, which expands to 200 times its original mass -- a gram (about the size of a vitamin pill) grows to the size of a quarter-pounder. Pretty amazing. Of course this creates a sensation of fullness, but much more important in terms of health is that it regulates your insulin.
There are two sorts of dietary fiber, soluble and insoluble. The insoluble kind adds bulk and roughage to the stool, which is necessary for healthy elimination. And there actually is a nutritional element, in providing energy to the cells of the colon -- but that's pretty obscure. Soluble fiber absorbs water inside the digestive tract, and becomes, as it were, sticky. The benefit of this is that the gel mixes with processed foods and slows down the absorption of sugar. See?
Adding soluble fiber somewhat undoes the hypoglycemic effect. You've still eaten all that cake with all those calories, but they don't go racing into your bloodsteam causing a hysterical insulin response. It's as if you ate little pieces of cake, over five hours, rather than a big piece all at once. You won't be burning the fat you already have, but you won't be adding new fat either, the way you would have without the fiber.
It's a cheat. You should have eaten nutritious food. Why didn't you? Shame! For shame! But you already knew that. Once the blame is out of the way, and the guilt, and the self-loathing and defensiveness, we can get practical. Take a PGX fiber pill. It doesn't make a bad diet good, but it makes it less damaging. That's a sort of good. The best price I've found is here, and here for the, ahem, powder.
It's not a good thing to eat poorly and than try to undo the damage. Eat properly. Nutrient dense, calorie poor foods. But we do live in the real world. So if you cheat on your diet, cheat again. Two wrongs don't make it right, but they make it less wrong.
Another soluble fiber, cheaper, is psyllium, the active ingredient of Metamucil. Yes, it makes you go to the toilet, but it has the same healthful benefit as PGX -- it's just less expansive ... growing up to from 15 to 80 times in mass (the larger number from a commercial site, so less likely to be realistic). It's cheaper though, so you can sprinkle it liberally on your Lucky Charms.
And the solid research is pretty interesting. Supplementing with these soluble fibers can have positive effects on constipation, intestinal gas, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, anal fissures (sorry to put that image in your head), Crohn's disease (inflamed bowel), IBS and colon cancer. It's all so very excretory, I know. It has a beneficial effect on hyperglycemia (pre-diabetes), obesity, cholesterol levels, and it inhibits dietary fat from being absorbed. Digestion is more complicated than thinking. Entertain your bowels, the way you do your mind.
The other cheat is Omega-3. I've spoke at length about it already. It undoes some of the poisonous effects of a diet high in inflammatory fats -- which is the standard American diet. No need to repeat the details. Point is, when wrong foods have been indulged in, do what you can to undo the damage.
Adolescents are idealistic. They still believe in perfection, as small children believe in Santa Claus. When we become mature, we put away these childish things, and do what we can to see the world as it is. Not dark, not cynical. Realistic. Pragmatic. Within which worldview, there is ample room for optimism.
Perfection? Please. Perfection is static, and we are always changing. We don't trouble ourselves with perfection, but we strive for excellence. Such a great difference, in such a small shift in outlook. It makes us smile.
We strive then to be beautiful, in our character and our actions and in our health. If you have remained too long, sitting -- if you've remained too long, sitting at the dinner table ... well? Have hope. Take heart. Take heart by taking action. Sensible diet, sensible exercise. What's the big deal?
J
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Power Math
There is no doubt that a powerlifter has a lot of strength. He can lift a very heavy thing, when most other people can’t. Same thing with distance runners and endurance -- they can cover a lot of ground in less time than your average bus-rider, albeit not the bus itself. So, for the time and task allotted to them, they have a lot of power, which is work done over time.
And if life were like that, so predictable, where you just know the emergency that will occur will fit perfectly into the one thing you’ve trained for … well, you’re good to go. Go rescue that puppy trapped under that Buick, or go deliver the insulin to the stranded grandma in the hills 20 miles away after a gigantic electromagnetic pulse has taken out the world’s mechanical transportation devices, including, uh, all the bikes too. You’ll be a hero.
But that’s not how life is. It doesn’t ask one thing of you. It asks almost everything. Nature rewards the specialist by letting it live in undesirable places. Polar bears and alpine goats and camels in the caravansary. We should be good at everything. We should be capable of meeting what life throws at us. Competent over a broad spectrum. Suited to just about any task. Fit in the way that the fittest survive.
So being the strongest guy in the room is good. Being the strongest man in the world is a bit more than seems reasonable. Being able to help a buddy move his refrigerator down the stairs, and all those boxes of disco records he bought at a yardsale and never managed to sell on eBay -- without waking up the next morning feeling like you’ve been trampled by elephants -- this is a good thing, and a sign of robust fitness.
There are lots of good definitions of fitness. They all require being good at more than one thing. Generally, the idea centers around doing a lot of work in a little time. That’s the definition, the formula, for power. Power. P = f x d / t. Force times distance (that is, “work”) over time. Force here is the same as weight. So big power is doing a lot of work quickly, small power is doing some work slowly. The point?
The fitter you are, the more power you have -- you can do more, faster. To a certain extent, we can and do rely on our natural vitality, and can fake our way through a task. This cannot last. If you haven’t trained for actual fitness, you will hit the wall, harder than you thought you could. Happens all the time. High school and college athletes think they’re elite. No doubt they are, in their sport. It doesn’t transfer. Believe it. They want to quit. Sit down, start crying, vomit, and quit. I hit that wall, but I knew it was there.
It’s not that life demands more than is reasonable. It’s that what most folks think is good enough, is good enough only by a surprisingly low standard. The pork rind and soda pop standard that makes reality TV the gold standard of contemporary entertainment. Point is, it is an eye-opener. Real fitness is amazing. And by any reasonable standard, it’s not hard to get. Just work differently. If you’re spending time in the gym now, most likely there’s a tremendous amount of wasted time. See? Intensity is about time, and intensity is required. It’s the faster part of “more, faster”.
Ah well. Wouldn’t it nice to be powerful. If only there were some way such a fantastic dream could come true. And all the benefits that come with such untold power -- the beauty, the health, the desire engendered in the inward parts of the groovy chicks or happenin’ dudes.
It’s not hope, or enthusiasm, or anything relating to fantasy. Results. Emotions, then, are tools that we use to get them. No, certainly not at any price. “Trample the weak -- hurdle the dead! Grr.” Nope. That would be foolish, and most likely unethical. At a reasonable price, in effort and cost, but at a sufficient cost as well. Again, health is earned. You must, must, must do the work. There may be magic, but there’s no magic to getting fit. Exercise won’t whiten your teeth, but it will make you look and feel younger. That’s almost magic.
Does it matter? I’m tempted to get preachy. I know, shocking. You want your kids to study, for their future and for their personal excellence? Well? You’ve got your career. Is it just waiting to die then? You have your own sort of studying to do, by which we mean striving to gain a skill. You don’t stop being physical when you “settle down.” God doesn’t like it when you let the body he gave you get ruined. He entrusted it to you just the same as he entrusted those children into your care, if he did. In a way, you are one of those children that he entrusted into your care.
You don’t have to be me. But take a long brisk walk, eh? Regularly? And cut back on the fatburgers? It will make God smile.
J
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sixes and Eights
Let's make it simple. The upper body -- arms and shoulders -- does two things: pushes and pulls. The middle body -- core, torso, trunk -- does two things: bends and twists. The lower body -- legs and hips -- does two things: stands and steps. That's it. Simple. Six big things the body does.
The muscleman magazines and protein supplement sellers and gizmo hucksters want you to believe it's about exotic movements and magic pills and hightec molded plastics. Hmm. We should have a question then. How does a baby learn to walk? Does it have standing days and stepping days and balancing days? And patented specially formulated megadose diets from the factory? And devices that twist its appendages into froglike contortions for some theoretical benefit?
Should we have leg days and arm days and chest days and back days? Yes we should, if we're the Frankenstein Monster, made out of discrete body parts that function in isolation and make no use of opposing muscles or cooperative neuromuscular functioning. So ... that would be a no. We shouldn't work out like that. It all sounds so scientific, but so did phlogiston. You learn to play the piano by playing scales and chords and melodies, not by hitting all the Cs on the keyboard every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And we teach our bodies to be phenomenally fit by doing constantly varied functional movements at high intensity, consistently.
The weightroom has its place. But why in the world are regular people attempting to do exotic bodybuilder movements? It's nuts. Are you a professional bodybuilder? No. Hardly anyone is, yet so many people are doing workouts that only the genetically gifted and the steroid users could possibly benefit from. Futility. People focus on the tiny little refinements before they have even a foothold on actual strength. They're doing things for their posterior deltoids before they can even do a proper squat. It's nuts.
So let's keep it very simple. If you think that weights are all you should be doing ... well, you'd be wrong. But if you insist on thinking that, then at least use effective movements. You only need eight of them. Eight. Only eight, for the six big things the body does -- push, pull, bend, twist, stand and step. Two pushes, either dips or bench press, and an overhead press. Two pulls, either rows or high-pulls, and an overhead pull (chins or pullups). Deadlifts and squats; do not do these without being taught how -- done properly, they are utterly safe; done carelessly, they are a trip to the emergency room. Lunge and twist -- again, these movements must be learned with the utmost care. Do not twist with weight. But "core" training, ab training, is only part of the picture. We'll talk about this some other time, maybe.
So there it is. Simple. If you can do it right, and with the discipline and intensity that it takes, you'd amaze yourself. But then again, if being a great chef were just following recipes, we'd all be fat and famous. Point is, there has to be talent somewhere in the formula. In this instance, it takes the form of consistency. But that's a topic for another time. In the meantime, be excellent.
J
The muscleman magazines and protein supplement sellers and gizmo hucksters want you to believe it's about exotic movements and magic pills and hightec molded plastics. Hmm. We should have a question then. How does a baby learn to walk? Does it have standing days and stepping days and balancing days? And patented specially formulated megadose diets from the factory? And devices that twist its appendages into froglike contortions for some theoretical benefit?
Should we have leg days and arm days and chest days and back days? Yes we should, if we're the Frankenstein Monster, made out of discrete body parts that function in isolation and make no use of opposing muscles or cooperative neuromuscular functioning. So ... that would be a no. We shouldn't work out like that. It all sounds so scientific, but so did phlogiston. You learn to play the piano by playing scales and chords and melodies, not by hitting all the Cs on the keyboard every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And we teach our bodies to be phenomenally fit by doing constantly varied functional movements at high intensity, consistently.
The weightroom has its place. But why in the world are regular people attempting to do exotic bodybuilder movements? It's nuts. Are you a professional bodybuilder? No. Hardly anyone is, yet so many people are doing workouts that only the genetically gifted and the steroid users could possibly benefit from. Futility. People focus on the tiny little refinements before they have even a foothold on actual strength. They're doing things for their posterior deltoids before they can even do a proper squat. It's nuts.
So let's keep it very simple. If you think that weights are all you should be doing ... well, you'd be wrong. But if you insist on thinking that, then at least use effective movements. You only need eight of them. Eight. Only eight, for the six big things the body does -- push, pull, bend, twist, stand and step. Two pushes, either dips or bench press, and an overhead press. Two pulls, either rows or high-pulls, and an overhead pull (chins or pullups). Deadlifts and squats; do not do these without being taught how -- done properly, they are utterly safe; done carelessly, they are a trip to the emergency room. Lunge and twist -- again, these movements must be learned with the utmost care. Do not twist with weight. But "core" training, ab training, is only part of the picture. We'll talk about this some other time, maybe.
So there it is. Simple. If you can do it right, and with the discipline and intensity that it takes, you'd amaze yourself. But then again, if being a great chef were just following recipes, we'd all be fat and famous. Point is, there has to be talent somewhere in the formula. In this instance, it takes the form of consistency. But that's a topic for another time. In the meantime, be excellent.
J
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Biggest Sex Organ
Just a little instant info on male/female brain differences. A subject of interest to me.
Male brains have a smaller hippocampus, which forms initial memories. We don't sweat the small stuff. We hardly notice it. Some piece of jewelry, her eye-color ... um, what? It's not personal. An area in the limbic cortex, involved with emotional responses, is also smaller in men, and the region of the temporal lobe that processes language has a smaller density of neurons. So not only do we feel less, but we can't talk about it. I guess.
The male cortex -- the outer layer of the brain -- is thinner in many places, affecting comprehension and processing of language cues. Specifically, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex has 23% less volume in men, and there's 13% less volume in the superior temporal cortex. Females seem to devote these thicker cortex areas to noticing and calculating the meaning of meaningless behavior in males -- what does it mean, his failure to remember that this is the 15th week anniversary of when we bought the sofa?!
Females prioritize memories according to emotional strength, relying on the left side of the amygdala, which determines affective responses to events. Men organize their memories using the right-brain amygdala, which focuses on the central action and meaning of an event, rather than its finer details. This makes it sound like men might be less emotional. But the ratio between the amygdala and the, ahem, orbitofrontal cortex is much larger in women. The orbitofrontal cortex modulates the emotions the amygdala creates. So women may be more emotional to events, but they control those emotions better, in terms of determinative responses. They are calmer in the face of barroom boorishness.
On the up side, male brains produce 52% more serotonin, a mood-influencing neurotransmitter, enabling men to deal more calmly with stress -- on average. And the preoptic region of the hypothalmus is larger by all measures in men than women. Twice as large. This is the part of the brain, one of them, that deals with mating behaviour. Yeah! It hooks up -- yeah! -- to the pituitary, which releases sex hormones. Yeah! Go, that long preop hypo word! Yeah!
Coincidentally, on the telly I've got TLC on, with a show called Supersize She. Female bodybuilders. Focus, too closely, on a chick named ... well, I didn't notice her name. Joanna something. Pretty big boobs. Manish doesn't quite describe her. Drag queen face and voice, only not so lovely. Skin like desert leather, body brown as a beetle over a creped face pale as disease. Star of a sport identical in spirit to competitive eating. Excess and perversion. It would not exist without Big Pharma.
But I'd do her.
And that bodybuilder chick from Napoleon Dynamite? The sensi's wife or whatever? She really was a chick. I did not know that. So now I'd do her.
It's not at all disgusting. I'm just so glad though that there are gender differences.
J
Male brains have a smaller hippocampus, which forms initial memories. We don't sweat the small stuff. We hardly notice it. Some piece of jewelry, her eye-color ... um, what? It's not personal. An area in the limbic cortex, involved with emotional responses, is also smaller in men, and the region of the temporal lobe that processes language has a smaller density of neurons. So not only do we feel less, but we can't talk about it. I guess.
The male cortex -- the outer layer of the brain -- is thinner in many places, affecting comprehension and processing of language cues. Specifically, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex has 23% less volume in men, and there's 13% less volume in the superior temporal cortex. Females seem to devote these thicker cortex areas to noticing and calculating the meaning of meaningless behavior in males -- what does it mean, his failure to remember that this is the 15th week anniversary of when we bought the sofa?!
Females prioritize memories according to emotional strength, relying on the left side of the amygdala, which determines affective responses to events. Men organize their memories using the right-brain amygdala, which focuses on the central action and meaning of an event, rather than its finer details. This makes it sound like men might be less emotional. But the ratio between the amygdala and the, ahem, orbitofrontal cortex is much larger in women. The orbitofrontal cortex modulates the emotions the amygdala creates. So women may be more emotional to events, but they control those emotions better, in terms of determinative responses. They are calmer in the face of barroom boorishness.
On the up side, male brains produce 52% more serotonin, a mood-influencing neurotransmitter, enabling men to deal more calmly with stress -- on average. And the preoptic region of the hypothalmus is larger by all measures in men than women. Twice as large. This is the part of the brain, one of them, that deals with mating behaviour. Yeah! It hooks up -- yeah! -- to the pituitary, which releases sex hormones. Yeah! Go, that long preop hypo word! Yeah!
Coincidentally, on the telly I've got TLC on, with a show called Supersize She. Female bodybuilders. Focus, too closely, on a chick named ... well, I didn't notice her name. Joanna something. Pretty big boobs. Manish doesn't quite describe her. Drag queen face and voice, only not so lovely. Skin like desert leather, body brown as a beetle over a creped face pale as disease. Star of a sport identical in spirit to competitive eating. Excess and perversion. It would not exist without Big Pharma.
But I'd do her.
And that bodybuilder chick from Napoleon Dynamite? The sensi's wife or whatever? She really was a chick. I did not know that. So now I'd do her.
It's not at all disgusting. I'm just so glad though that there are gender differences.
J
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Omega-3
Once in a very great while I do actual work for this blog. It will be disguised behind all the sarcasm, but it's there. I'm not inclined right now to do any work -- looking things up, providing documentation. Even with some good resources right at my side, it seems like too much of a bother. So if you're looking for scholarship, keep moving. But if you'll be satisfied, or at least intrigued, by conclusions, then I'm your man.
I never had any sustained physical pain until I started my sport. Even as a runner, or doing strength training, it was just the occasional soreness, localized and a sign of progress. But three years of grappling was more unrelieved stress than my system could handle, and pain became a constant presence. I was willing to put up with that, because the payoff seemed greater. Not good in terms of health, but there are actually things more important than health.
The ache. It has been constant.
I finally figured it out. It is a symptom of subclinical systemic inflammation. There are tests for it, C-reactive protein and other such markers. It's a serious thing. In my case, not so very much a function of diet, as frank abuse of my capacity for exercise. And the stress builds up and up, with insufficient recovery time, until it breaks through the consciousness threshold and manifests, in my case, as constant ache, relieved only by the endorphins of grappling.
Given that I am unwilling to slow down, could there be another fix? I simply will not take pain killers, on a regular basis. Anti-inflammatories. NSAIDs. Some other way of turning off the on-switch? It seems that there is.
As I say, I finally put it together. The standard American diet is just poisonous. SAD. Lots of reasons, but in this instance because of the vegetable oils. Starting largely after WWII, animal fats were replaced by vegetable oils in cooking. Crisco. Mazola. Hydrogenated fats, whereby lipids that should be liquid are processed so that they are solid at room temperature. Pretty unnatural, but that's only a philosophical problem. The real problem is the omega-6s. I call them the C's and the S's. Corn, cotton, canola, soy, safflower and sunflower oils. Effectively universal in any food that comes in a box, and almost entirely omega-6s. Big deal, right? We need omega-6s. They are essential for healthful functioning.
Problem is, it's too much. Like gay porn, that goes right to the sodomy. Sodomy should be special. So should omega-6. Get just enough. Cuz it is the precursor to the inflammatory and coagulating hormones. We need them or we'd bleed out, or be unable to fight infections. There has to be an on-switch.
But there must be an off-switch too. Like muscles, hormones work in opposition to each other. And the precursors, the building blocks of the anti-inflammatory hormones, the off-switches, are the omega-3. That's the problem with the SAD. Estimates vary, but the consensus seems to be that the ratio between omega-6s and -3s is about 30 to one. That amounts to a 30 times greater inclination to start inflammation than to stop it. See? After a while, any slight stress results in a virtually hysterical inflammatory response. Wild fire. No balance.
I think the theory is crap, but the results are clear, about the so-called Paleo-Diet. Eat like hunter-gatherers, cuz that's what Evolution made us for. Crap. But do eat like hunter-gatherers. Cuz it's whole foods, lots of fruits and berries and herbs and veggies and nuts, not a lot of grains, and the meat is very high in omega-3. That, my dear lost pagan child, is the Eden Diet -- save for the meat, which makes it the Noah Diet. It's a perfectly anti-inflammatory nutrition system. Game meat is high in omega-3, corn-fed meat is high in omega-6. See?
So a couple of weeks ago I realized that the ratio between these lipids is 30:1 for most Americans, whereas it should be about 1:1. How can that level be reached? Because the level of omega-6s that I get would be less than most, but probably still fairly high. Well the simple answer is simply to match, gram for gram, 3's for 6's.
I call it omega-3, but it's really fish oil. And I've been vegetarian for 30 years. But it's about health. So I have been megadosing on, ahem, fish oil. Ordinarily I simply wouldn't need it. But I'm a middle-aged guy under too much stress. And food just isn't what it used to be. So. Y'know how the supplement bottle says take one capsule daily? One gram? No. And not five, and not ten, and not twenty. In fact, I'm not taking capsules at all. I bought the liquid form, and I swig it. I haven't been measuring. Probably between 50 and 70 grams per day.
So I've given it something over a week, and the results are very, very real. I feel better by orders of magnitude. There is still some slight sensation. But it's nothing. Being me, I'm cautious about grand announcements. Who knows what can go wrong. One can hardly trust anything, as life keeps on teaching us. But the alternative is to give up. One of the things I like about my sport is that, fundamental to its success, is to yield before pressure, and exploit that momentum. Well I'm not very good at that, but I like the idea, and I keep trying to learn it. Point is, this seems to be something that will help. We'll see.
You look at where you put your resources. Omega-3 oil is expensive. But the health benefits are huge. I've never heard of anyone doing what I'm doing. I know there are lots of data regarding actual cures of serious diseases, but I'm taking much more than anything I've ever read about. That's just me. Question is, is it worth it? Figure about 20 bucks a week. You spend that much on ice cream.
This is the best price I've found. If you find better, let me know.
J
I never had any sustained physical pain until I started my sport. Even as a runner, or doing strength training, it was just the occasional soreness, localized and a sign of progress. But three years of grappling was more unrelieved stress than my system could handle, and pain became a constant presence. I was willing to put up with that, because the payoff seemed greater. Not good in terms of health, but there are actually things more important than health.
The ache. It has been constant.
I finally figured it out. It is a symptom of subclinical systemic inflammation. There are tests for it, C-reactive protein and other such markers. It's a serious thing. In my case, not so very much a function of diet, as frank abuse of my capacity for exercise. And the stress builds up and up, with insufficient recovery time, until it breaks through the consciousness threshold and manifests, in my case, as constant ache, relieved only by the endorphins of grappling.
Given that I am unwilling to slow down, could there be another fix? I simply will not take pain killers, on a regular basis. Anti-inflammatories. NSAIDs. Some other way of turning off the on-switch? It seems that there is.
As I say, I finally put it together. The standard American diet is just poisonous. SAD. Lots of reasons, but in this instance because of the vegetable oils. Starting largely after WWII, animal fats were replaced by vegetable oils in cooking. Crisco. Mazola. Hydrogenated fats, whereby lipids that should be liquid are processed so that they are solid at room temperature. Pretty unnatural, but that's only a philosophical problem. The real problem is the omega-6s. I call them the C's and the S's. Corn, cotton, canola, soy, safflower and sunflower oils. Effectively universal in any food that comes in a box, and almost entirely omega-6s. Big deal, right? We need omega-6s. They are essential for healthful functioning.
Problem is, it's too much. Like gay porn, that goes right to the sodomy. Sodomy should be special. So should omega-6. Get just enough. Cuz it is the precursor to the inflammatory and coagulating hormones. We need them or we'd bleed out, or be unable to fight infections. There has to be an on-switch.
But there must be an off-switch too. Like muscles, hormones work in opposition to each other. And the precursors, the building blocks of the anti-inflammatory hormones, the off-switches, are the omega-3. That's the problem with the SAD. Estimates vary, but the consensus seems to be that the ratio between omega-6s and -3s is about 30 to one. That amounts to a 30 times greater inclination to start inflammation than to stop it. See? After a while, any slight stress results in a virtually hysterical inflammatory response. Wild fire. No balance.
I think the theory is crap, but the results are clear, about the so-called Paleo-Diet. Eat like hunter-gatherers, cuz that's what Evolution made us for. Crap. But do eat like hunter-gatherers. Cuz it's whole foods, lots of fruits and berries and herbs and veggies and nuts, not a lot of grains, and the meat is very high in omega-3. That, my dear lost pagan child, is the Eden Diet -- save for the meat, which makes it the Noah Diet. It's a perfectly anti-inflammatory nutrition system. Game meat is high in omega-3, corn-fed meat is high in omega-6. See?
So a couple of weeks ago I realized that the ratio between these lipids is 30:1 for most Americans, whereas it should be about 1:1. How can that level be reached? Because the level of omega-6s that I get would be less than most, but probably still fairly high. Well the simple answer is simply to match, gram for gram, 3's for 6's.
I call it omega-3, but it's really fish oil. And I've been vegetarian for 30 years. But it's about health. So I have been megadosing on, ahem, fish oil. Ordinarily I simply wouldn't need it. But I'm a middle-aged guy under too much stress. And food just isn't what it used to be. So. Y'know how the supplement bottle says take one capsule daily? One gram? No. And not five, and not ten, and not twenty. In fact, I'm not taking capsules at all. I bought the liquid form, and I swig it. I haven't been measuring. Probably between 50 and 70 grams per day.
So I've given it something over a week, and the results are very, very real. I feel better by orders of magnitude. There is still some slight sensation. But it's nothing. Being me, I'm cautious about grand announcements. Who knows what can go wrong. One can hardly trust anything, as life keeps on teaching us. But the alternative is to give up. One of the things I like about my sport is that, fundamental to its success, is to yield before pressure, and exploit that momentum. Well I'm not very good at that, but I like the idea, and I keep trying to learn it. Point is, this seems to be something that will help. We'll see.
You look at where you put your resources. Omega-3 oil is expensive. But the health benefits are huge. I've never heard of anyone doing what I'm doing. I know there are lots of data regarding actual cures of serious diseases, but I'm taking much more than anything I've ever read about. That's just me. Question is, is it worth it? Figure about 20 bucks a week. You spend that much on ice cream.
This is the best price I've found. If you find better, let me know.
J
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Hunger
What the hell does anyone else matter to me? Like I should care. I only care about myself. I linger at every mirror I see. But I should have an audience, so I suppose people matter at least a little.
Take that fella I know, with all the extra weight. An extra person-worth of weight. Why is that? I caught part of a show on cable, TLC, called Big Medicine. Seems to be a regular series. About very very fat people and their struggle. No sarcasm. It is a struggle. Obviously. Why? What is it about them that force-feeds themselves into obesity? Guilt, shame, self-loathing -- just abstract words and pop psychology. Everyone knows it, because everyone has issues. Most issues don’t show up so obviously. But only a little self-examination makes every insight into this problem a cliché. People get fat because they eat more than they burn. They get very fat because of something emotional.
I don’t know what to do about emotions. I do know what to do about reality. Change the behavior. Change the conditions. Then things will be different.
So this fella is a bright guy. I have no real insights for him. He’s given his circumstances much more thought than I have, even if only fleetingly, mostly. But health is one of my things, and part of health is diet. Probably the biggest part. So let’s look at the matter.
The big excuse to eat is hunger. It’s not really hunger, but it’s called that. A briefly-empty stomach. Real hunger of course is a craving not for calories but for nutrients. Like real thirst isn’t about coffee. But it’s all so emotional, and that means that hunger is job one. So we’ll pretend that identifying emotional hunger with real hunger is a profound revelation that I just received from God. My goodness, I’m wise. And the way God talks to me, I must also be very holy indeed.
So off the top of my head I see three issues. Calories, satiation, and the glycemic index. No matter what the theory is about obesity, a basic perusal of the laws of thermodynamics will convince us that every weight problem comes down to calories. The conservation of mass/energy. It will either be used, or stored. What we know is that it will not simply disappear. If you take in more calories than you use, the remainder will be stored as fat -- ignoring of course destructive instances such as diabetes or tumors. If you take in fewer calories than you use, you’ll burn fat. Are you following me? I know this is really advanced stuff.
Upshot: how do we deal with reducing the intake of excessive calories? Well, from a behavioral -- that is, from an effective -- perspective, we reduce hunger by ignoring it, which is a bootstraps solution, or by feeding it with intelligent alternatives to the idiot choices that have previously ruined our lives. So, filling up with foods that are actually good for us. Bulky, nutrient-dense and calorie-poor foods. You know, like, uh, vegetables. Broccoli and cauliflower and the like. Get it? Stupid?
These things are sort of bland for your oh-so-discerning palate, so use spices. Not sauces, genius -- spices, and garnishes, and flavor enhancers like garlic and ginger and pepper and herbs and suchlike. Lord, do I have to do all your thinking? And yes, go ahead and splash a bit of olive oil onto it. Just remember that you're on a budget. The body is an economy, and you are not a Communist: there are rules and limits that conform to reality, rather than to some insane theory under which you have previously been deluding yourself.
Part of this filling-up process is about satiation. Some foods are more satisfying than others. Raw fruits score very high on the satiation scale. Boiled potatoes. Lean meats. So there may be a place for these, in some meals. Same with oils. Do the math. Do a google search. Do something.
And then there’s the glycemic index. It’s just a way of calculating how fast food gets digested and enters the bloodstream, where it will turn into fat, if it enters at a fast rate, or into energy if at a slow rate. Like an IV drip. Low GI is good. High GI, up to 100, is bad. Buy yourself a little book, and treat anything over 33, or 40, or 50, or whatever your compromise point is, as a special treat. Ask yourself, and answer honestly, if you must have potato chips to be happy, and how often. If you must have them, have them. On a budget. In moderation. Or ice cream or bagels or rice or meat or whatever it is that’s made you so fat. Because it was not nutritious food that did the damage.
How about making some livable rules for yourself? How about planning out your meals -- not whatever BS you’ve already been doing, that hasn’t worked. This time, serious. I don’t know what your heroin is. You do. Identify it, and replace it with something that’s not poisonous to you. Did you know a pound of cherries has about 200 calories? Did you know that cherries have a glycemic value of 22 -- that is VERY GOOD!!! Did you know a pound of strawberries has fewer than 120 calories? Did you know that strawberries have a glycemic value of 32 -- which is also Very Good, but not as good as cherries, which are 22, which is ten less than strawberries, but still is very good. Good things are good.
See how that works? So what that means, junior, is that you could eat, say, big bowls of these delightfully tasty and wholesome foods, which have very few calories and a superb effect on energy, every few hours all day long, and still eat only half of your usual daily calorie intake. Well, when I say “your” usual intake, I mean a normal person.
Look. Just get started. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about getting serious. It’s about having a system, a philosophy, a paradigm that is generally correct, or at least yields some positive-seeming results, even if it’s wrong. Like Mormonism.
Cuz you’re going to die early and in pain if you don’t get a handle on your out-of-control behaviors. Does no one love you, that this would be okay? Having doctors remove a whole lot of extra skin is less bad than most of the alternatives. Maybe you could donate it to a burn victim. But exercise isn’t doing the job. And you just sit around most of the time anyway. Exercising your ass? Try exercising your muscles. Mostly your heart, and hardly at all your jaw.
I, of course, can eat anything I want.
J
Take that fella I know, with all the extra weight. An extra person-worth of weight. Why is that? I caught part of a show on cable, TLC, called Big Medicine. Seems to be a regular series. About very very fat people and their struggle. No sarcasm. It is a struggle. Obviously. Why? What is it about them that force-feeds themselves into obesity? Guilt, shame, self-loathing -- just abstract words and pop psychology. Everyone knows it, because everyone has issues. Most issues don’t show up so obviously. But only a little self-examination makes every insight into this problem a cliché. People get fat because they eat more than they burn. They get very fat because of something emotional.
I don’t know what to do about emotions. I do know what to do about reality. Change the behavior. Change the conditions. Then things will be different.
So this fella is a bright guy. I have no real insights for him. He’s given his circumstances much more thought than I have, even if only fleetingly, mostly. But health is one of my things, and part of health is diet. Probably the biggest part. So let’s look at the matter.
The big excuse to eat is hunger. It’s not really hunger, but it’s called that. A briefly-empty stomach. Real hunger of course is a craving not for calories but for nutrients. Like real thirst isn’t about coffee. But it’s all so emotional, and that means that hunger is job one. So we’ll pretend that identifying emotional hunger with real hunger is a profound revelation that I just received from God. My goodness, I’m wise. And the way God talks to me, I must also be very holy indeed.
So off the top of my head I see three issues. Calories, satiation, and the glycemic index. No matter what the theory is about obesity, a basic perusal of the laws of thermodynamics will convince us that every weight problem comes down to calories. The conservation of mass/energy. It will either be used, or stored. What we know is that it will not simply disappear. If you take in more calories than you use, the remainder will be stored as fat -- ignoring of course destructive instances such as diabetes or tumors. If you take in fewer calories than you use, you’ll burn fat. Are you following me? I know this is really advanced stuff.
Upshot: how do we deal with reducing the intake of excessive calories? Well, from a behavioral -- that is, from an effective -- perspective, we reduce hunger by ignoring it, which is a bootstraps solution, or by feeding it with intelligent alternatives to the idiot choices that have previously ruined our lives. So, filling up with foods that are actually good for us. Bulky, nutrient-dense and calorie-poor foods. You know, like, uh, vegetables. Broccoli and cauliflower and the like. Get it? Stupid?
These things are sort of bland for your oh-so-discerning palate, so use spices. Not sauces, genius -- spices, and garnishes, and flavor enhancers like garlic and ginger and pepper and herbs and suchlike. Lord, do I have to do all your thinking? And yes, go ahead and splash a bit of olive oil onto it. Just remember that you're on a budget. The body is an economy, and you are not a Communist: there are rules and limits that conform to reality, rather than to some insane theory under which you have previously been deluding yourself.
Part of this filling-up process is about satiation. Some foods are more satisfying than others. Raw fruits score very high on the satiation scale. Boiled potatoes. Lean meats. So there may be a place for these, in some meals. Same with oils. Do the math. Do a google search. Do something.
And then there’s the glycemic index. It’s just a way of calculating how fast food gets digested and enters the bloodstream, where it will turn into fat, if it enters at a fast rate, or into energy if at a slow rate. Like an IV drip. Low GI is good. High GI, up to 100, is bad. Buy yourself a little book, and treat anything over 33, or 40, or 50, or whatever your compromise point is, as a special treat. Ask yourself, and answer honestly, if you must have potato chips to be happy, and how often. If you must have them, have them. On a budget. In moderation. Or ice cream or bagels or rice or meat or whatever it is that’s made you so fat. Because it was not nutritious food that did the damage.
How about making some livable rules for yourself? How about planning out your meals -- not whatever BS you’ve already been doing, that hasn’t worked. This time, serious. I don’t know what your heroin is. You do. Identify it, and replace it with something that’s not poisonous to you. Did you know a pound of cherries has about 200 calories? Did you know that cherries have a glycemic value of 22 -- that is VERY GOOD!!! Did you know a pound of strawberries has fewer than 120 calories? Did you know that strawberries have a glycemic value of 32 -- which is also Very Good, but not as good as cherries, which are 22, which is ten less than strawberries, but still is very good. Good things are good.
See how that works? So what that means, junior, is that you could eat, say, big bowls of these delightfully tasty and wholesome foods, which have very few calories and a superb effect on energy, every few hours all day long, and still eat only half of your usual daily calorie intake. Well, when I say “your” usual intake, I mean a normal person.
Look. Just get started. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about getting serious. It’s about having a system, a philosophy, a paradigm that is generally correct, or at least yields some positive-seeming results, even if it’s wrong. Like Mormonism.
Cuz you’re going to die early and in pain if you don’t get a handle on your out-of-control behaviors. Does no one love you, that this would be okay? Having doctors remove a whole lot of extra skin is less bad than most of the alternatives. Maybe you could donate it to a burn victim. But exercise isn’t doing the job. And you just sit around most of the time anyway. Exercising your ass? Try exercising your muscles. Mostly your heart, and hardly at all your jaw.
I, of course, can eat anything I want.
J
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Transfats
You know by now what a wacky healthnut I am. And it hardly even matters that I'm always right about everything. It's just a little freaky, the way I am, and that makes you uneasy. I understand that. Of course I do. I understand everything. But you'll have to put aside your narrow-mindedness once more, and sit at my feet for today's lesson. How else will you come to understand what is good and right? It's what I'm here for. You're so lucky to have me. I'm like a guru or something. I'm just unbelievable. People are always telling me that.
As even you will finally have heard, transfats are a problem. They're not-saturated fats that have been altered to act like saturated fats -- solidish at room temperature. Very stable, long-lasting, high-temperature for cooking, less or no need for refrigeration, inexpensive, kosher -- and so very convenient for manufacturers and retailers. Hmm. Doesn't it seem odd that food should be manufactured? What a strange idea.
What do they do in one's diet? Raise the likelihood of heart disease. Raise bad (LDL) and lower good (HDL) cholesterol. Of course there is no bad cholesterol -- it's the ratio that's important. Transfats are demonstrably worse than animal fats in terms of heart health (understanding that transfats occur in small amounts naturally in animal fats, but do not act in the same toxic way). Risk of CHD (coronary heart disease) doubles for every 2% increase in the diet, contrasted to 15% for saturated fats. That same incremental 2% rise of transfats at the cost of carb calories increases the risk of ovulatory infertility by 73 percent.
Other problems? Evidence suggests an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, liver dysfunction, and prostate cancer. There is no consensus regarding these risks, because of the obvious confounding factor of generally poor dietary choices. Donuts have a lot of transfats, but people who eat a lot of them aren't obese or diabetic because of the transfats. These benighted souls are not likely to be eating a sufficient number of daily servings of fruits and veggies, if you get my meaning.
On the other hand, over a span of six years in two groups of monkeys with the same caloric intake, the transfat group gained 7.2% of their body weight, while the mono-unsaturated fat gained only 1.8 percent. My theory would be that the transfat calories were less available metabolically, so the monkeys responded by lowering their body temperatures, and by getting less exercise.
The NAS reports that there is no safe amount of dietary transfats. There is an opposite of an RDA -- in other words, the recommended daily allowance is zero. There is no tolerable upper limit, because any increase raises the risk of heart disease, and most likely these other problems as well. That's all ugly enough. Uglier still is the fact that transfats show up in mother's milk -- up to 7% of the calories in, of all places, Canada. That's an average. Some poor babies are getting a mouthful.
Our systems cannot readily break down transfats, so they remain in the blood much longer -- plaquing the veins, the way insane people smear feces all over their cell walls. So that's a problem. And there's all that CHD and obesity and stuff. But a more subtle problem is this. A cell is like a water balloon, with the cell membrane holding it all together. Cell membranes are made up of fats, of lipids. Cells take lipids out of the blood to build and repair the membrane. Polyunsaturated fats are ideal, because they're nice and rubbery, flexible. This is important because the cell receptors, the doors that allow nutrients and information to pass through the membranes, have to stretch open and then resume their closed shape. But a transfat, a Frankenfat, looks pretty much like an unsaturated fat, so a cell will use it just as readily. The problem is, transfats are not rubbery. They're plasticky. They take the place but do not do the job of a good lipid.
So your cells don't function in a healthy, in a youthful way. They act like old plastic milk cartons that have been out in the sun for years. Brittle. Not supple and rubbery and sexy. So your cells starve, slowly. See? The ramifications are beyond the grasp of your poor intellect. How I pity you. There is a way to fix it, sort of, your plastic body. Get plenty of omega 3 in your diet. Flax, fish oil. Little by little, the transfats will be replaced.
The FDA is sort of protecting us, by requiring labeling. But half a gram of transfats per serving gets a rating of "transfat FREE". Half a gram doesn't sound like much. But that's about 5 calories. If a serving is a hundred calories, that's 5% of your calories. So it turns out to be very much indeed. What are we, Canadian babies?
I'm writing all this, though, not because I care about you. I only care about myself. Don't you know that yet? No wonder you keep hooking up with all these abusive and emotionally unavailable boyfriends of yours. The reason I'm writing this is that I heard some talk radio guy just now complaining about how government is interfering where it don't belong. NY City has banned transfats in restaurants. More lefties and Nanny Statists poking their long noses in where they don't belong. Same with smoking bans, he says. People who don't smoke can go to another restaurant, where the owner has chosen to keep out the smoking. See? The market place at work.
A few problems with such reasoning, like children in restaurants exposed to second hand smoke, because of ignorant, indifferent or otherwise stupid parents. We don't raise other people's kids, but we look out for them. As for transfats, as long as health care is paid for by the tax payers -- and it is, to a measurable degree, even for you (are you planning on opting out of Medicare?) -- then government has the obligation to promote some sort of preventive health care. Does the government have the right to regulate a legal activity? Sex in public. There are community standards, which can forbid lawful activities.
The talk show guy questioned how the bureaucrats could say what ingredients could go in food. Well, it regulates the level of rat feces you get in your hot dogs. He might object that rat feces is not an ingredient. I would agree that it's not in the recipe, but I'd also say he's quibbling about "ingredients", and tell him to pick a word he's happy with so we can move on. I'd say that regardless of how he'd characterize tranfats, he could not say it was actual food, like nutritious, you know? I'd ask him why he thinks we should be sold things that are not food, to eat. He would resort to his conservative position, that government should stay out of it. I'd reply by pointing to the Constitution, which requires that government "promote the general welfare". I'd suggest that part of promoting health is discouraging what manifestly has an inverse and parabolic relationship between economic benefit to the seller, and health benefit to the buyer. As long as recreational drugs are unlawful, or lead paint on your child's toys, this precept would be hard to refute.
As I've said, I used to be a registered Libertarian. In many ways I still think that way. But government, by its nature, limits freedom. That's why I prefer the word liberty -- which places freedom in the responsible context of society and its many obligations and demands upon us. The savage is free. Civilized men have liberty. And adults understand that however pleasing some theory may be, about human nature, the sad reality is that almost everyone is stupid and self-destructive, and it is only the coercive force behind just laws that allows us to sleep peaceably in our beds. Transfats may seem a far cry from the midnight marauder. But they'll stop your heart just as surely, for all that they'll take decades to do it.
J
As even you will finally have heard, transfats are a problem. They're not-saturated fats that have been altered to act like saturated fats -- solidish at room temperature. Very stable, long-lasting, high-temperature for cooking, less or no need for refrigeration, inexpensive, kosher -- and so very convenient for manufacturers and retailers. Hmm. Doesn't it seem odd that food should be manufactured? What a strange idea.
What do they do in one's diet? Raise the likelihood of heart disease. Raise bad (LDL) and lower good (HDL) cholesterol. Of course there is no bad cholesterol -- it's the ratio that's important. Transfats are demonstrably worse than animal fats in terms of heart health (understanding that transfats occur in small amounts naturally in animal fats, but do not act in the same toxic way). Risk of CHD (coronary heart disease) doubles for every 2% increase in the diet, contrasted to 15% for saturated fats. That same incremental 2% rise of transfats at the cost of carb calories increases the risk of ovulatory infertility by 73 percent.
Other problems? Evidence suggests an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, liver dysfunction, and prostate cancer. There is no consensus regarding these risks, because of the obvious confounding factor of generally poor dietary choices. Donuts have a lot of transfats, but people who eat a lot of them aren't obese or diabetic because of the transfats. These benighted souls are not likely to be eating a sufficient number of daily servings of fruits and veggies, if you get my meaning.
On the other hand, over a span of six years in two groups of monkeys with the same caloric intake, the transfat group gained 7.2% of their body weight, while the mono-unsaturated fat gained only 1.8 percent. My theory would be that the transfat calories were less available metabolically, so the monkeys responded by lowering their body temperatures, and by getting less exercise.
The NAS reports that there is no safe amount of dietary transfats. There is an opposite of an RDA -- in other words, the recommended daily allowance is zero. There is no tolerable upper limit, because any increase raises the risk of heart disease, and most likely these other problems as well. That's all ugly enough. Uglier still is the fact that transfats show up in mother's milk -- up to 7% of the calories in, of all places, Canada. That's an average. Some poor babies are getting a mouthful.
Our systems cannot readily break down transfats, so they remain in the blood much longer -- plaquing the veins, the way insane people smear feces all over their cell walls. So that's a problem. And there's all that CHD and obesity and stuff. But a more subtle problem is this. A cell is like a water balloon, with the cell membrane holding it all together. Cell membranes are made up of fats, of lipids. Cells take lipids out of the blood to build and repair the membrane. Polyunsaturated fats are ideal, because they're nice and rubbery, flexible. This is important because the cell receptors, the doors that allow nutrients and information to pass through the membranes, have to stretch open and then resume their closed shape. But a transfat, a Frankenfat, looks pretty much like an unsaturated fat, so a cell will use it just as readily. The problem is, transfats are not rubbery. They're plasticky. They take the place but do not do the job of a good lipid.
So your cells don't function in a healthy, in a youthful way. They act like old plastic milk cartons that have been out in the sun for years. Brittle. Not supple and rubbery and sexy. So your cells starve, slowly. See? The ramifications are beyond the grasp of your poor intellect. How I pity you. There is a way to fix it, sort of, your plastic body. Get plenty of omega 3 in your diet. Flax, fish oil. Little by little, the transfats will be replaced.
The FDA is sort of protecting us, by requiring labeling. But half a gram of transfats per serving gets a rating of "transfat FREE". Half a gram doesn't sound like much. But that's about 5 calories. If a serving is a hundred calories, that's 5% of your calories. So it turns out to be very much indeed. What are we, Canadian babies?
I'm writing all this, though, not because I care about you. I only care about myself. Don't you know that yet? No wonder you keep hooking up with all these abusive and emotionally unavailable boyfriends of yours. The reason I'm writing this is that I heard some talk radio guy just now complaining about how government is interfering where it don't belong. NY City has banned transfats in restaurants. More lefties and Nanny Statists poking their long noses in where they don't belong. Same with smoking bans, he says. People who don't smoke can go to another restaurant, where the owner has chosen to keep out the smoking. See? The market place at work.
A few problems with such reasoning, like children in restaurants exposed to second hand smoke, because of ignorant, indifferent or otherwise stupid parents. We don't raise other people's kids, but we look out for them. As for transfats, as long as health care is paid for by the tax payers -- and it is, to a measurable degree, even for you (are you planning on opting out of Medicare?) -- then government has the obligation to promote some sort of preventive health care. Does the government have the right to regulate a legal activity? Sex in public. There are community standards, which can forbid lawful activities.
The talk show guy questioned how the bureaucrats could say what ingredients could go in food. Well, it regulates the level of rat feces you get in your hot dogs. He might object that rat feces is not an ingredient. I would agree that it's not in the recipe, but I'd also say he's quibbling about "ingredients", and tell him to pick a word he's happy with so we can move on. I'd say that regardless of how he'd characterize tranfats, he could not say it was actual food, like nutritious, you know? I'd ask him why he thinks we should be sold things that are not food, to eat. He would resort to his conservative position, that government should stay out of it. I'd reply by pointing to the Constitution, which requires that government "promote the general welfare". I'd suggest that part of promoting health is discouraging what manifestly has an inverse and parabolic relationship between economic benefit to the seller, and health benefit to the buyer. As long as recreational drugs are unlawful, or lead paint on your child's toys, this precept would be hard to refute.
As I've said, I used to be a registered Libertarian. In many ways I still think that way. But government, by its nature, limits freedom. That's why I prefer the word liberty -- which places freedom in the responsible context of society and its many obligations and demands upon us. The savage is free. Civilized men have liberty. And adults understand that however pleasing some theory may be, about human nature, the sad reality is that almost everyone is stupid and self-destructive, and it is only the coercive force behind just laws that allows us to sleep peaceably in our beds. Transfats may seem a far cry from the midnight marauder. But they'll stop your heart just as surely, for all that they'll take decades to do it.
J
Friday, December 21, 2007
Cravings
I spent two and a half hours just now talking with my wonderful son, and I'm really tired for some reason, so I don't have much time. I did want to address, briefly, something I was planning on just rambling about. Had a conversation with a couple of my pals about diet and such. There seems to be an interest in moving toward a more plant-based diet. Health and fitness matter to them, you see. But they both mentioned that while they've been cutting down on the dead things, they sometimes feel hungry and tired in a way that a non-meat meal doesn't really address, but that's relieved by meat. In thirty years I've never had that problem, so I had no ready answer. I did mention my odd definition of hunger, which is not the feeling of an empty stomach, but rather the body's craving for nutrients. Big difference there.
As an aside, I have a little theory -- big surprise -- about the role in digestion of our sense of taste and smell. Remember back to seventh grade health class, when we read about how important it was to properly chew food? Not just to grind it up, but because saliva contains the enzyme amylase, which digests carbs. I was pretty dismissive of this datum at the time. I figured I had a stomach that would do all the digesting that was needed. But only, only protein gets digested in the stomach. The fats and carbs have to sit around and wait, seeping out little by little along with the digested proteins. So, in a sense, chewing, mixing in saliva does the job of the stomach, continued farther along. (This is why, incidentally (yes, this is another aside), you shouldn't just chug your juice or smoothie. You should slosh it around, sort of chew it for a while, to get the digestion started.) Oh, all this? -- this paragraph? it was an aside. It ties in, though, if you can see it.
The aside I meant to talk about deals with smell and taste. Your body has to do some phenomenal calculations in order to digest food. It is an astoundingly complex task. As sophisticated a process of analysis as calculating the orbit of Neptune and its moons in your head. While you're bloviating about politics at the table. I suggest that smell is one of the first cues, the first tests that prepares the enteric system (which, as an aside, recall, has more neurons, more "brain cells" than your brain) for the job ahead. It does more than just make your mouth water like a dog's. It's telling your brain to tell your gut what's coming, what enzymes to use and how powerful the acid has to be. Same with taste. It's more than just sweet and sour and salt and bitter. The very combinations, I suggest, act as a code, a sort of spectrum identifying, anticipating, the foods that will be digested -- like the light from a star that tells us what elements it contains. So that's my theory. Good, isn't it. I'm hoping for a Nobel Prize. I'll put it next to my Oscar -- they come as a set, apparently.
So. Backtracking, if we're talking about cravings, the classic example is the pregnant woman. My wife craved fish ... or was it chicken. Omega three, though. Fortunately we were sort of alternative in those days, so we knew a little something about it. I kept my vegetarian dogma to myself. She was pregnant after all, and her body knew a lot better than my ego, about what our growing baby needed. Which is the point. Appetites can be emotional or physiological. Hard to tell the difference sometimes. But knowing the difference will determine whether you're optimally nutriated, or a fat sick weakling slob.
The body needs what it needs, and doesn't care if it has to be a cannibal to get it. What is it in meat, then, that might be craved? First, it might be the emotions. Meat will make you strong, the propaganda goes. We can get over that with a bit of maturity and education. As for physically, there's protein, B12, maybe a few other vitamins, iron, and trace minerals. If I had the time I'd look it up. Oh, and there's also sex hormones and adrenaline and uric acid and other toxins in butchered meat. You know, slaughtering an animal makes it afraid, and that fear response makes the meat more flavorful. Yum. Sorry if you didn't know that. This unfortunate fact, though, accounts for meat's stimulating effects -- all those poisons. Eating a food that has sex hormones and adrenaline in it can make you not so tired. So that's one possibility.
I feel the urge for an aside. If you're going to eat animal products, meat or eggs or milk, at least get the real stuff, instead of this factory crap they pass off as food nowadays. A cow raised in a stall for a year is not meat. A chicken kept in a box its whole life is going to be as good for you as the box was good for the chicken. The pastel eggs they sell will feed your heart disease, only. And we all know that mass-produced milk is nothing but full of pus. You do know that, right? Here, let me do a google search for you, Your Royal Highness. Ah, here. See how much you need me, Princess? What will you do when I'm gone? Listen, bucko, my grandfather had prize-winning cattle. My bias is toward farmers. But it sort of depends on the crop. PETA sucks, but sometimes even the freaks get it right. The point is, buy free-range.
Another possible ahem so-called "advantage" (have I put enough distance between me and any possible approval of meat?) of meat is the B12. I won't go into how important it is. Just vital at the cellular energy level. It seems very unlikely that a B12 deficiency would cause a scheduled mid-week weakness, signaling meat-time. The body is phenomenal at retaining its B12. But the B vitamins in general may be in short supply. Solution? Take a pill. Take two.
Not just vegetarians, but almost everyone gets too little Omega3. Simple solution, in flax seed oil, walnuts, or even fish oil. It's about health, after all, not doctrinal purity. Nutritionists report that taking flax eliminates at least some food-cravings. So there you go then.
Figure it this way. If you're craving meat, or if only it will answer your appetite, well, the obvious thing about meat is the protein. Try a protein shake. See if it works. If so, mystery solved -- you wanted protein. If you're craving veggies, it's likely to be vitamins that you want. Maybe buy a juicer and drink a salad. I throw a handful of lentils or black beans or whatever into my stew. Variety. If you want ice cream, could it be that you're looking for fats? Try flax or olive oil or fish oil. Eat an avocado or some macadamia nuts. See? And drink enough water. Dehydration messes up your internal chemistry, so you don't know what you want. And while we're on the topic, maybe you'll stop drinking all that soda and coffee? Stupid?
I was reminded of something I'd once pontificated. I said that a primitive level of understanding about health thinks in terms of the body in general. I feel good, I feel tired, I'm achy. We get a bit more sophisticated and we start thinking about organs. My heart, my liver, my kidneys. When we get clever, we understand that all health, all energy, derives from how cells function. So we do what we can to cut down on free radicals and make sure we get CoQ10 (co-queue-ten) and the B vitamins and suchlike. That's where I left it, in my pontification. But now I'm thinking there's an even more basic, more important level, which of course would be mental attitude. The mind-body connection is what the body is about. All healing is psychosomatic. The placebo effect cures more problems than medications do. It's just common sense. It's just being responsible. Guard your thoughts and your emotions.
I've become aware that when I'm trying to fall asleep, I will have tensed up my shoulders, or legs or back or whatever. How odd. I'll consciously relax it, and in a few moments I'll be tense again. I've always been aware that I tend to hold my breath. I'll be driving, and I've forgotten to breathe. See? How can I be healthy if I have this unconscious stress reaction going on? Stress both causes and is caused by hormonal imbalances. Adrenaline. Cortisol. Those switches need to be off, most of the time. Why aren't they? No matter how good the diet, it's not going to be optimal until the whole system is under control. Point being, thinking matters.
And here I said I was going to keep it brief. I'm a dirty stinking liar. I've meandered about quite a bit, but I don't think I've answered the question. I don't know the answer. There's a lot of pop literature on diet nowadays that claims there are different body types that need different nutrients. It does make sense. If your ethnic heritage included for many generations a large amount of animal products -- say, if you're Masai, or Eskimo -- then you may need meat. But in the hundred years or so that your people and mine have been exposed to higher amounts of dietary meat, I hardly think we've developed a need for it. Meat has always been a luxury -- even in hunter-gatherer cultures. The Buddha died from eating pork. He was visiting some poor folk, who slaughtered their pig in honor of him, and he was too polite to refuse the meal. Point being, it's a luxury -- an expensive one.
Dogs eat grass and cats eat clay. They need something in it. If you need something in meat, that's not the same as thinking you need to eat meat. But moderation is almost the same as forgiveness. A little meat is no big deal. I think of it as not a food at all, but that's just me. If you refine your sensibilities, perhaps you'll come along side my way of thinking. Or not. No big deal. Be happy. I suggest that you'll be happier if you feel well. I suggest diet is a major component of feeling well. Then all you have to do is get your thinking in line, and you'll be a freakin' buddha.
J
As an aside, I have a little theory -- big surprise -- about the role in digestion of our sense of taste and smell. Remember back to seventh grade health class, when we read about how important it was to properly chew food? Not just to grind it up, but because saliva contains the enzyme amylase, which digests carbs. I was pretty dismissive of this datum at the time. I figured I had a stomach that would do all the digesting that was needed. But only, only protein gets digested in the stomach. The fats and carbs have to sit around and wait, seeping out little by little along with the digested proteins. So, in a sense, chewing, mixing in saliva does the job of the stomach, continued farther along. (This is why, incidentally (yes, this is another aside), you shouldn't just chug your juice or smoothie. You should slosh it around, sort of chew it for a while, to get the digestion started.) Oh, all this? -- this paragraph? it was an aside. It ties in, though, if you can see it.
The aside I meant to talk about deals with smell and taste. Your body has to do some phenomenal calculations in order to digest food. It is an astoundingly complex task. As sophisticated a process of analysis as calculating the orbit of Neptune and its moons in your head. While you're bloviating about politics at the table. I suggest that smell is one of the first cues, the first tests that prepares the enteric system (which, as an aside, recall, has more neurons, more "brain cells" than your brain) for the job ahead. It does more than just make your mouth water like a dog's. It's telling your brain to tell your gut what's coming, what enzymes to use and how powerful the acid has to be. Same with taste. It's more than just sweet and sour and salt and bitter. The very combinations, I suggest, act as a code, a sort of spectrum identifying, anticipating, the foods that will be digested -- like the light from a star that tells us what elements it contains. So that's my theory. Good, isn't it. I'm hoping for a Nobel Prize. I'll put it next to my Oscar -- they come as a set, apparently.
So. Backtracking, if we're talking about cravings, the classic example is the pregnant woman. My wife craved fish ... or was it chicken. Omega three, though. Fortunately we were sort of alternative in those days, so we knew a little something about it. I kept my vegetarian dogma to myself. She was pregnant after all, and her body knew a lot better than my ego, about what our growing baby needed. Which is the point. Appetites can be emotional or physiological. Hard to tell the difference sometimes. But knowing the difference will determine whether you're optimally nutriated, or a fat sick weakling slob.
The body needs what it needs, and doesn't care if it has to be a cannibal to get it. What is it in meat, then, that might be craved? First, it might be the emotions. Meat will make you strong, the propaganda goes. We can get over that with a bit of maturity and education. As for physically, there's protein, B12, maybe a few other vitamins, iron, and trace minerals. If I had the time I'd look it up. Oh, and there's also sex hormones and adrenaline and uric acid and other toxins in butchered meat. You know, slaughtering an animal makes it afraid, and that fear response makes the meat more flavorful. Yum. Sorry if you didn't know that. This unfortunate fact, though, accounts for meat's stimulating effects -- all those poisons. Eating a food that has sex hormones and adrenaline in it can make you not so tired. So that's one possibility.
I feel the urge for an aside. If you're going to eat animal products, meat or eggs or milk, at least get the real stuff, instead of this factory crap they pass off as food nowadays. A cow raised in a stall for a year is not meat. A chicken kept in a box its whole life is going to be as good for you as the box was good for the chicken. The pastel eggs they sell will feed your heart disease, only. And we all know that mass-produced milk is nothing but full of pus. You do know that, right? Here, let me do a google search for you, Your Royal Highness. Ah, here. See how much you need me, Princess? What will you do when I'm gone? Listen, bucko, my grandfather had prize-winning cattle. My bias is toward farmers. But it sort of depends on the crop. PETA sucks, but sometimes even the freaks get it right. The point is, buy free-range.
Another possible ahem so-called "advantage" (have I put enough distance between me and any possible approval of meat?) of meat is the B12. I won't go into how important it is. Just vital at the cellular energy level. It seems very unlikely that a B12 deficiency would cause a scheduled mid-week weakness, signaling meat-time. The body is phenomenal at retaining its B12. But the B vitamins in general may be in short supply. Solution? Take a pill. Take two.
Not just vegetarians, but almost everyone gets too little Omega3. Simple solution, in flax seed oil, walnuts, or even fish oil. It's about health, after all, not doctrinal purity. Nutritionists report that taking flax eliminates at least some food-cravings. So there you go then.
Figure it this way. If you're craving meat, or if only it will answer your appetite, well, the obvious thing about meat is the protein. Try a protein shake. See if it works. If so, mystery solved -- you wanted protein. If you're craving veggies, it's likely to be vitamins that you want. Maybe buy a juicer and drink a salad. I throw a handful of lentils or black beans or whatever into my stew. Variety. If you want ice cream, could it be that you're looking for fats? Try flax or olive oil or fish oil. Eat an avocado or some macadamia nuts. See? And drink enough water. Dehydration messes up your internal chemistry, so you don't know what you want. And while we're on the topic, maybe you'll stop drinking all that soda and coffee? Stupid?
I was reminded of something I'd once pontificated. I said that a primitive level of understanding about health thinks in terms of the body in general. I feel good, I feel tired, I'm achy. We get a bit more sophisticated and we start thinking about organs. My heart, my liver, my kidneys. When we get clever, we understand that all health, all energy, derives from how cells function. So we do what we can to cut down on free radicals and make sure we get CoQ10 (co-queue-ten) and the B vitamins and suchlike. That's where I left it, in my pontification. But now I'm thinking there's an even more basic, more important level, which of course would be mental attitude. The mind-body connection is what the body is about. All healing is psychosomatic. The placebo effect cures more problems than medications do. It's just common sense. It's just being responsible. Guard your thoughts and your emotions.
I've become aware that when I'm trying to fall asleep, I will have tensed up my shoulders, or legs or back or whatever. How odd. I'll consciously relax it, and in a few moments I'll be tense again. I've always been aware that I tend to hold my breath. I'll be driving, and I've forgotten to breathe. See? How can I be healthy if I have this unconscious stress reaction going on? Stress both causes and is caused by hormonal imbalances. Adrenaline. Cortisol. Those switches need to be off, most of the time. Why aren't they? No matter how good the diet, it's not going to be optimal until the whole system is under control. Point being, thinking matters.
And here I said I was going to keep it brief. I'm a dirty stinking liar. I've meandered about quite a bit, but I don't think I've answered the question. I don't know the answer. There's a lot of pop literature on diet nowadays that claims there are different body types that need different nutrients. It does make sense. If your ethnic heritage included for many generations a large amount of animal products -- say, if you're Masai, or Eskimo -- then you may need meat. But in the hundred years or so that your people and mine have been exposed to higher amounts of dietary meat, I hardly think we've developed a need for it. Meat has always been a luxury -- even in hunter-gatherer cultures. The Buddha died from eating pork. He was visiting some poor folk, who slaughtered their pig in honor of him, and he was too polite to refuse the meal. Point being, it's a luxury -- an expensive one.
Dogs eat grass and cats eat clay. They need something in it. If you need something in meat, that's not the same as thinking you need to eat meat. But moderation is almost the same as forgiveness. A little meat is no big deal. I think of it as not a food at all, but that's just me. If you refine your sensibilities, perhaps you'll come along side my way of thinking. Or not. No big deal. Be happy. I suggest that you'll be happier if you feel well. I suggest diet is a major component of feeling well. Then all you have to do is get your thinking in line, and you'll be a freakin' buddha.
J
Friday, December 7, 2007
Obesity
I have a friend who is extremely obese. I say friend, even though we spend no unstructured time in each other's company. I use the term loosely, then. It will have to do -- it is not after all a technical term. We allow ourselves such informalities of speech. How else can we communicate? This friend, then -- a dear man, who has cracked through even the barriers of social indifference that I have erected -- has a simply out-of-control weight problem, that to my objective eyes seems not to be changing. So it seems to me.
Let's look at the issue. A fair bit of this will be me covering ground I've been over before. But you, foolishly -- inexcusably, really -- don't study these pages with the diligence you should. Your loss, but I hate to see it. I'm very compassionate. So.
Hardly anyone eats to satisfy hunger. Hunger is the craving for nutrients, including but certainly not limited to calories. We do, almost all of us, have weeks and weeks worth of extra nutrients stored in our tissues -- minerals and vitamins, essential fats and amino acids -- and of course plain old calories. Calories are the least of our worries. I can say this from personal experience. My longest water fast was 10 days. No adverse affects at all. I lost some weight, not much -- five six pounds -- and was active, and felt fine. Stopped being hungry after a few days. But eating is such a habit, you know -- we miss our habits. Which is the point. We don't eat from hunger. Hardly at all.
Fat is about stored energy. This energy is represented by calories, a unit of heat measurement. So it's about heat. We maintain our temperature by balancing heat production with heat loss. Much of our heat comes from deep tissue organs -- brain, liver, heart -- and skeletal muscle. Some thermogenesis takes place in fat cells -- one of the reasons we call ourselves warm blooded. We preserve our heat with skin, and fat, and subcutaneous-tissue. Insulation. We lose that heat through the metabolic reduction of heat generation, through perspiration (evaporation cools), and through vasodilation (widening of blood vessels). We increase our temperature via the hypothalamus, which causes vasoconstriction (tighter blood veins means more friction), shivering and piloerection (goosebumps).
Why am I talking about body heat? The majority of our daily calories go, generally, to generate body heat. Body heat body heat body heat. So what we eat turns either into work energy, heat or fat. Speaking simplistically. The food choices we make, then, would be important. Some will tend to make us fat. Some will tend to make us healthy. It's not always about nutrition. Sometimes it's about energy efficiency.
For comparison, cars are about 21% fuel efficient -- the amount of actual BTUs that are used to turn the wheels. Electric power plants and the grid distribution system has about 13% overall thermal efficiency. Plant photosynthesis is 1% to 2% efficient at using sunlight as energy. Humans have an average of up to about a 25% maximal work efficiency usage for their total energy intake. But of even that small percentage, only a few percent are devoted to the actual work -- most goes to body temperature and other metabolic functions. Just keeping us alive.
Obviously there's a lot of waste. In terms of food, we digest different foods differently, and some are just more calorically available. Sugar should have about a 100% thermal efficiency rate. It just pours into the bloodstream. Genetics plays its role of course, but the foods themselves are determinative. Some of us might recall the ghastly kindergarten discovery that corn needs to be thoroughly chewed or it shows up whole in the toilet. Brrr.
There is little, perhaps no systematic scientific data on the actual usage-efficiencies of various foods. We know the number of calories in foods because those foods are burned in a crucible and the released heat is measured. It seems reasonable to suppose that the crucible of digestion burns with a more variable efficiency. No? A hundred calories of sucrose and a hundred calories of broccoli won't show up in the body as the same hundred calories. So it seems to me. But we can see the results. Simple carbohydrates are called simple because they turn into sugar quickly and easily. Complex carbs are harder, slower to digest, and much of their actual caloric value is lost as cellulose and fiber. This is actually a good thing. Bulky. It fills you up, supplies essential nutrients, and provides a steady supply of energy rather than an overwhelming surge. A good thing.
As for heat, some black body radiation calculations tell us that an average of 20 square feet of skin (200 pound male) under normal (cool, sedentary) conditions will radiate about 25 calories per hour. All those precious calories, wasted. Such a pity. Under windless and otherwise normal conditions, convection will remove, say, 60 calories per hour from a clothed body. Ball park. Heat loss purely through exhalation is negligible, but the vapor in breath loses about 10 calories per hour. Call it 100 calories per hour of lost body heat; sleeping, say 75 calories per hour. There are oddments, of course. For an hour or so after eating, you generate about 10% more heat than with an empty stomach. Shivering burns up to 400 calories per hour. But no one should shiver for an hour. That would be torture, like water boarding.
Ah well. That was a lot of boring information. So dry. People are so much more interesting. Yes. People. I've said it before. Some vices show. You can't hide an eating disorder that has led to obesity. It is an addiction. It is an out-of-control behavior. It's not a function of will. It's emotional. Emotions are not rational. And up to a point it's so innocent. Just 100 too many calories a day, and in a year you're 12 pounds fatter. No biggie. We see the dysfunction, the addiction, when it continues, year after year, for 15 years.
How much easier it is for us, whose vices remain entirely hidden from public scrutiny. Our secret drinking. Our sexual excess, or perversions. The bitterness of our spirit. We can hide these things. We can pretend to be virtuous. The fat guy is the clown we can laugh at. He has a pleasant smile. He takes up a lot of space, where ever he is. Sometimes he sucks the air out of the room. But we only have to look at him, to make our judgments. It's so easy.
My buddy, though, could severely restrict his caloric intake and not lose one single ounce. He's got 200 pounds of insulation wrapped around him, complete with a prodigious panniculum. Figure it out, all that talk about body temperature. His hypothalamus reads the insulation as not having to send out any signals to generate extra heat, burn extra calories. Plenty of heat there already, and it's not radiating, not convecting -- hardly at all. It's very calorie efficient that way, no? He gets to keep his fat even when he eats less. Hurrah for him.
And then there's that psycho-physical gauge located somewhere no doubt in the limbic system -- everything we don't understand is located there -- that has this image, this mental template about what he should look like. A very conservative process, so that if anything threatens that unconscious self-image, why, the brain knows simply to lower the temperature. Turn down the thermostat. Save on energy. Save those calories. Keep the weight up. This is how we have to look, after all. See? Your body knows its outline, its waistline, and thinks that's how it should be.
That's why I generally keep my mouth shut. Even encouragement isn't enough. As for constructive criticism, what good would a vocal observation of those extra globs of sour cream do? He'll leave them on the plate now, but when he gets home he'll eat twice as much. Because what he's feeding is not about hunger. It's not hopeless, because there are remediating behaviors. But it is profound.
The problem isn't really calories. The problem is fat. How to get rid of it. The easiest way, of course, is to eat fewer calories. But that's the hardest easy thing there is in the world. We all have our compulsions after all, so we understand. The harder way is to increase activity. Exercise. A little isn't enough. Breathing hard for a while isn't enough. It's not about lung capacity or fitness level. It's about burning those calories that the body wants to save -- there might be a famine, after all. What kind of exercise?
Walking. Two hours a day. Three 45-minute sessions. Too much? Fine. Do less. But do something that approximates it. It's not like there aren't iPods and radios and books on tape and just plain old books. Two thousand calories is enough to generate three horse power for an hour. Do you do the work of three horses? Cuz you eat that much.
And strength training. Every pound of muscle you add burns an average of 100 calories sedentary per day. It's only a pound a month, or 12 pounds a year. But the walking will make that extra pound burn hotter for those couple of hours. Not to mention the hormonal benefits. Muscle is good.
And meditation, or visualization, or self-talk or whatever technique you choose to use, that will reset the brain-gauge. Rework the template. Reshape it. Recreate yourself. Wanting it won't do it. Dreams only reinforce existing conditions. Apply the technology of the mind. Use it, instead of being used. There are victims, but most of them volunteer for the job.
And a few supplements. CoQ 10 actualizes our mitochondria, the little cellular power plants that do the actual calorie burning in our bodies. The energy that becomes available is then used either to generate heat or to synthesize ATP (which lets us think, exercise, repair, etc). Sounds like it would be really good to have high-functioning mitochondria, right? Omega 3. Alpha lipoic acid. Because even an excellent diet can use some help -- and you don't have an excellent diet.
And keeping a written record. Otherwise you're trusting emotion, and remembering what you feel like remembering. Write it down. Maybe it will help and maybe not. But it will remove doubt, and if you're doing lots of right things and still not getting where you want to be, you can figure out what other things you need to start doing. Cuz what you're doing isn't enough, if you're serious about making a change. If you're not serious, well, you must understand that for all the talk, there are very real benefits and advantages to being the biggest man around. You can always embrace that fact, and live with it, for a while. Life is after all a banquette.
And food selection. Sour cream? Good lord. I've never tasted sour cream. Why would I put sour cream in my mouth. I'm sure there's a difference between sour cream and rancid fat. A chemical difference, I mean. There's not a difference in terms of calories. I've never in my life used salad dressing. First of all because it looks like something that's already been inside someone's body. And it seems sort of redundant. I'm already eating good food. I need to add something more, out of a bottle from a factory?
But tastes are what they are. You can't use less? I'm sure it's possible. The compulsion isn't about salad dressing, is it? But go ahead and fill up. Eat absolutely as much as you want. But make most of it the sort of nutrient-rich, calorie-poor foods that will not only make you slimmer, but really, really healthy. Maybe you'll click on that little "health" label at the bottom of this post? -- and skim through all my pathetic self-important scribblings and cries for attention until you get to some of the specifics about vegetables? It's called an education, mate. Look into it.
The point is, food is either for nutrition or for emotion. If it's for nutrition, we call it health. If it's for emotion, we call it slow poison.
Here endeth the lesson.
J
Let's look at the issue. A fair bit of this will be me covering ground I've been over before. But you, foolishly -- inexcusably, really -- don't study these pages with the diligence you should. Your loss, but I hate to see it. I'm very compassionate. So.
Hardly anyone eats to satisfy hunger. Hunger is the craving for nutrients, including but certainly not limited to calories. We do, almost all of us, have weeks and weeks worth of extra nutrients stored in our tissues -- minerals and vitamins, essential fats and amino acids -- and of course plain old calories. Calories are the least of our worries. I can say this from personal experience. My longest water fast was 10 days. No adverse affects at all. I lost some weight, not much -- five six pounds -- and was active, and felt fine. Stopped being hungry after a few days. But eating is such a habit, you know -- we miss our habits. Which is the point. We don't eat from hunger. Hardly at all.
Fat is about stored energy. This energy is represented by calories, a unit of heat measurement. So it's about heat. We maintain our temperature by balancing heat production with heat loss. Much of our heat comes from deep tissue organs -- brain, liver, heart -- and skeletal muscle. Some thermogenesis takes place in fat cells -- one of the reasons we call ourselves warm blooded. We preserve our heat with skin, and fat, and subcutaneous-tissue. Insulation. We lose that heat through the metabolic reduction of heat generation, through perspiration (evaporation cools), and through vasodilation (widening of blood vessels). We increase our temperature via the hypothalamus, which causes vasoconstriction (tighter blood veins means more friction), shivering and piloerection (goosebumps).
Why am I talking about body heat? The majority of our daily calories go, generally, to generate body heat. Body heat body heat body heat. So what we eat turns either into work energy, heat or fat. Speaking simplistically. The food choices we make, then, would be important. Some will tend to make us fat. Some will tend to make us healthy. It's not always about nutrition. Sometimes it's about energy efficiency.
For comparison, cars are about 21% fuel efficient -- the amount of actual BTUs that are used to turn the wheels. Electric power plants and the grid distribution system has about 13% overall thermal efficiency. Plant photosynthesis is 1% to 2% efficient at using sunlight as energy. Humans have an average of up to about a 25% maximal work efficiency usage for their total energy intake. But of even that small percentage, only a few percent are devoted to the actual work -- most goes to body temperature and other metabolic functions. Just keeping us alive.
Obviously there's a lot of waste. In terms of food, we digest different foods differently, and some are just more calorically available. Sugar should have about a 100% thermal efficiency rate. It just pours into the bloodstream. Genetics plays its role of course, but the foods themselves are determinative. Some of us might recall the ghastly kindergarten discovery that corn needs to be thoroughly chewed or it shows up whole in the toilet. Brrr.
There is little, perhaps no systematic scientific data on the actual usage-efficiencies of various foods. We know the number of calories in foods because those foods are burned in a crucible and the released heat is measured. It seems reasonable to suppose that the crucible of digestion burns with a more variable efficiency. No? A hundred calories of sucrose and a hundred calories of broccoli won't show up in the body as the same hundred calories. So it seems to me. But we can see the results. Simple carbohydrates are called simple because they turn into sugar quickly and easily. Complex carbs are harder, slower to digest, and much of their actual caloric value is lost as cellulose and fiber. This is actually a good thing. Bulky. It fills you up, supplies essential nutrients, and provides a steady supply of energy rather than an overwhelming surge. A good thing.
As for heat, some black body radiation calculations tell us that an average of 20 square feet of skin (200 pound male) under normal (cool, sedentary) conditions will radiate about 25 calories per hour. All those precious calories, wasted. Such a pity. Under windless and otherwise normal conditions, convection will remove, say, 60 calories per hour from a clothed body. Ball park. Heat loss purely through exhalation is negligible, but the vapor in breath loses about 10 calories per hour. Call it 100 calories per hour of lost body heat; sleeping, say 75 calories per hour. There are oddments, of course. For an hour or so after eating, you generate about 10% more heat than with an empty stomach. Shivering burns up to 400 calories per hour. But no one should shiver for an hour. That would be torture, like water boarding.
Ah well. That was a lot of boring information. So dry. People are so much more interesting. Yes. People. I've said it before. Some vices show. You can't hide an eating disorder that has led to obesity. It is an addiction. It is an out-of-control behavior. It's not a function of will. It's emotional. Emotions are not rational. And up to a point it's so innocent. Just 100 too many calories a day, and in a year you're 12 pounds fatter. No biggie. We see the dysfunction, the addiction, when it continues, year after year, for 15 years.
How much easier it is for us, whose vices remain entirely hidden from public scrutiny. Our secret drinking. Our sexual excess, or perversions. The bitterness of our spirit. We can hide these things. We can pretend to be virtuous. The fat guy is the clown we can laugh at. He has a pleasant smile. He takes up a lot of space, where ever he is. Sometimes he sucks the air out of the room. But we only have to look at him, to make our judgments. It's so easy.
My buddy, though, could severely restrict his caloric intake and not lose one single ounce. He's got 200 pounds of insulation wrapped around him, complete with a prodigious panniculum. Figure it out, all that talk about body temperature. His hypothalamus reads the insulation as not having to send out any signals to generate extra heat, burn extra calories. Plenty of heat there already, and it's not radiating, not convecting -- hardly at all. It's very calorie efficient that way, no? He gets to keep his fat even when he eats less. Hurrah for him.
And then there's that psycho-physical gauge located somewhere no doubt in the limbic system -- everything we don't understand is located there -- that has this image, this mental template about what he should look like. A very conservative process, so that if anything threatens that unconscious self-image, why, the brain knows simply to lower the temperature. Turn down the thermostat. Save on energy. Save those calories. Keep the weight up. This is how we have to look, after all. See? Your body knows its outline, its waistline, and thinks that's how it should be.
That's why I generally keep my mouth shut. Even encouragement isn't enough. As for constructive criticism, what good would a vocal observation of those extra globs of sour cream do? He'll leave them on the plate now, but when he gets home he'll eat twice as much. Because what he's feeding is not about hunger. It's not hopeless, because there are remediating behaviors. But it is profound.
The problem isn't really calories. The problem is fat. How to get rid of it. The easiest way, of course, is to eat fewer calories. But that's the hardest easy thing there is in the world. We all have our compulsions after all, so we understand. The harder way is to increase activity. Exercise. A little isn't enough. Breathing hard for a while isn't enough. It's not about lung capacity or fitness level. It's about burning those calories that the body wants to save -- there might be a famine, after all. What kind of exercise?
Walking. Two hours a day. Three 45-minute sessions. Too much? Fine. Do less. But do something that approximates it. It's not like there aren't iPods and radios and books on tape and just plain old books. Two thousand calories is enough to generate three horse power for an hour. Do you do the work of three horses? Cuz you eat that much.
And strength training. Every pound of muscle you add burns an average of 100 calories sedentary per day. It's only a pound a month, or 12 pounds a year. But the walking will make that extra pound burn hotter for those couple of hours. Not to mention the hormonal benefits. Muscle is good.
And meditation, or visualization, or self-talk or whatever technique you choose to use, that will reset the brain-gauge. Rework the template. Reshape it. Recreate yourself. Wanting it won't do it. Dreams only reinforce existing conditions. Apply the technology of the mind. Use it, instead of being used. There are victims, but most of them volunteer for the job.
And a few supplements. CoQ 10 actualizes our mitochondria, the little cellular power plants that do the actual calorie burning in our bodies. The energy that becomes available is then used either to generate heat or to synthesize ATP (which lets us think, exercise, repair, etc). Sounds like it would be really good to have high-functioning mitochondria, right? Omega 3. Alpha lipoic acid. Because even an excellent diet can use some help -- and you don't have an excellent diet.
And keeping a written record. Otherwise you're trusting emotion, and remembering what you feel like remembering. Write it down. Maybe it will help and maybe not. But it will remove doubt, and if you're doing lots of right things and still not getting where you want to be, you can figure out what other things you need to start doing. Cuz what you're doing isn't enough, if you're serious about making a change. If you're not serious, well, you must understand that for all the talk, there are very real benefits and advantages to being the biggest man around. You can always embrace that fact, and live with it, for a while. Life is after all a banquette.
And food selection. Sour cream? Good lord. I've never tasted sour cream. Why would I put sour cream in my mouth. I'm sure there's a difference between sour cream and rancid fat. A chemical difference, I mean. There's not a difference in terms of calories. I've never in my life used salad dressing. First of all because it looks like something that's already been inside someone's body. And it seems sort of redundant. I'm already eating good food. I need to add something more, out of a bottle from a factory?
But tastes are what they are. You can't use less? I'm sure it's possible. The compulsion isn't about salad dressing, is it? But go ahead and fill up. Eat absolutely as much as you want. But make most of it the sort of nutrient-rich, calorie-poor foods that will not only make you slimmer, but really, really healthy. Maybe you'll click on that little "health" label at the bottom of this post? -- and skim through all my pathetic self-important scribblings and cries for attention until you get to some of the specifics about vegetables? It's called an education, mate. Look into it.
The point is, food is either for nutrition or for emotion. If it's for nutrition, we call it health. If it's for emotion, we call it slow poison.
Here endeth the lesson.
J
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Protein
All right. This is a big one. I don't mean long. I mean it's gonna be a lot of work for me. I can't just lie here in bed having my feet rubbed by my house boy as I peck out a few desultory paragraphs. I've actually had to step over Rolando and go to a bookcase. Such a chore. But he can't read, the darling. His skills shine in other arenas.
Involved as I am in some pretty intense physical exertions -- and I don't mean with Rolando -- I've had to pay attention to aspects of diet that would normally tend to themselves. Specifically, about the appropriate amount of protein that various activity levels require. It is common to read something like this: "For those who are physically active, research has shown that between 1-1.5g of protein per pound of body weight is optimal."
In itself this is a virtually meaningless statement, given that no account is taken of gender or lean body mass, let alone body composition. A 105 pound cheerleader and a 240 pound bodybuilder, and a morbidly obese layabed are barely members of the same species -- Homo athleticus ... gracile, robust and otiose. The Weider site -- which is a commercial webpage that sells nutritional supplements ... such as protein powders -- attempts to refine its figure with the following chart.
Fair enough. I've read estimates as high as 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. That's 300 grams of protein for someone 150 pounds, and 1200 calories -- which is precisely half the calories of what most men need on a daily basis.
I will burn up to an estimated 3000 calories per workout. I derive that figure by the rough and ready formula of: every pint/pound (of sweat) you lose represents about 350 to 400 calories burned. As I say, a rule of thumb -- ambient temperature, humidity, hydration levels, ventilation all factor in, confoundingly. I will exchange up to 12 pounds in a few hours though -- for all that I drink 6 or 8 pounds (3 or 4 quarts) I'll still walk out four to six pounds lighter -- I'll drink enough water in the next few hours to replace the loss. That puts me at something around 5000 calories that I need, on a hard day. Which is why I feel no guilt at all about my carob-coated almonds or -raisins, or my vegan cookies. I need the calories and I just don't see myself eating 30 pounds of broccoli. What's the difference between 400 calories of bread and 400 calories of natural-ingredient whole grain cookies? The cookies are more nutritious and taste better. But that's a different discussion.
How much protein should a normally active person get, then? Protein is 4 calories per gram -- same as carbs (most fats are just over twice that -- 9 cals; medium chain lipids are 7 cals, same as alcohol). If we go by the Weider numbers, an active 150-pounder with a 2000 calorie diet (I'm rounding of course) would require up to 900 calories of protein daily. That's like 45%, right? Seems really high. Just about half your calories coming from protein. What, are we cavemen?
Well that's the crux of the matter. How much protein. I'll be adding details to this later, and I'll bump it up -- either you're interested and you'll re-read it, or you'll skip it. I've read about how much extra daily protein you need to add muscle, maximally. I do have the info in my head, but I don't like to represent as facts things that I'm only remembering. It has to do with urea nitrogen urine tests, which reveal how much protein the body takes in but cannot use. I have to look it up again. Old training. Before I was an internet blowhard, I used to be a scholar. But the number is much smaller than what the bodybuilders assert.
In any event, standard bodybuilding literature and protein supplement sellers put the number pretty high. Hm. I wonder why. But maybe it's not greed. Maybe they're both profit-minded and sincere. Maybe they're not ignoring contrary evidence in favor of a bias. Maybe they're ignoring it for some other reason.
But the contrary testimony puts the daily protein requirement, at the high end, at something between 10 and 20 percent of total calories. Ten percent of a 2000 calorie diet is 200 calories. Fifty grams of protein. Note the difference please. I'm too stupid and lazy to calculate the difference between 45% and 10%, but it seems like a lot. Maybe 100 times difference? A million? I don't know. Of course I'm comparing low-end needs of low estimates with high-end needs of high estimates -- but I'm pointing that fact out, too. Illustrative of the wide divergence of opinion in the matter.
Protein isn't really supposed to be a fuel. It's about amino acids, which are building blocks and act as peptides and neurotransmitters -- hormone-like. Really important. But not optimal as fuel. When blood glucose isn't available, and when fat isn't up to the job, your body will convert proteins into sugar in an expensive and inefficient process. Your brain needs sugar, you see, more than your body needs muscle. How inefficient? Glad you asked.
I've been meaning to give this info to a young fella I had a brief conversation with, sort of, some months ago. Finally went and looked it up. This is from "The Second Brain" by Michael Gershon, the seminal figure in modern enteric system research. A few preliminaries, though. You don't need a stomach. "The small intestine and its associated glands can make do without them." [pp. 93-4] Vitamin B12 is the essential issue, since it cannot be absorbed without the "intrinsic factor" that is made in the stomach. Well, we have pills and shots nowadays.
The stomach's parietal cells which make intrinsic factor also make the hydrochloric acid that handles the digestion of protein in the stomach. Only protein is digested in the stomach. Carbs and fats are broken down further along the tube. An interesting question is, why doesn't hydrochloric acid digest the cell that makes it? It's a wonderful mystery, that the Infinitely Typing Monkeys of Evolution have posed and solved. All hail, Randomness!
"To produce the hydrochloric acid of gastric juice, the parietal cells pump hydrogen ions from the blood into the lumen [lining] of the stomach. Chloride ions follow the movement of hydrogen, resulting in the formation of hydrochloric acid outside the cell where the two ions meet.
"The trick is to be able to pump the hydrogen ions. This is not easy. Hydrogen ions carry a positive charge. Moving charged particles is difficult because they affect one another. Particles with the same charge repel.... A cell thus cannot just gather up a bunch of positively charged hydrogen ions and move them from one place to another. To successfully transfer a large number of positively charged hydrogen ions from one side of a cell to the other, some other particles with the same charge have to be moved back the other way to replace the hydrogen.
“Pareital cells manage to avoid charge separation by making the pumping of hydrogen ions a simple transfer operation. The cells exchange hydrogen ions for potassium ions. Which are similarly charged. ...This hydrogen-potassium exchange is the process that is blocked by omeprazole (Prilosec). Once it stops, acid production comes to a screeching halt.
“Since the concentration of hydrogen ions in blood is far less than the concentration required in the gastric lumen, the pariental cell pumps against staggeringly unfavorable electrical and chemical gradients. In terms of the amount of work involved, the pumping of hydrogen ions is not unlike going *up* Niagara Falls in a barrel. The effort is vast and requires the consumption of immense quantities of oxygen, the utilization of magecalories, and the production of an amazing amount of the high-energy molecule ATP. ATP is the currency that the cells spend to get the work done.” [p. 95; Gershon's *italics*, my emphases.]
All this work, in order to produce hydrochloric acid, for the sole purpose of digesting proteins. Do you see why I went to all the bother, all hunched over and squinting, of typing out these paragraphs? Protein is astronomically expensive as an energy source. It's not like burning coal. It's like burning diamonds. That would be an amazing, vastly immense megawaste of staggering effort. Every effort should be made to spare this expense. Get it?
Per Colin Campbell, grand old man of protein research and author of The China Study, the RDA for protein is "about 10%.... This is considerably more than the actual amount required." [p. 58] "Relative to total calorie intake, only 5-6% dietary protein is required to replace the protein regularly excreted by the body (as amino acids)." [p. 308] He's speaking of course about mere metabolic requirements, not fantastical bodybuilder conceits of beef-packing. I won't elaborate on Campbell's frankly compelling argument. His conclusion is that high levels of protein are carcinogenic. If you object, I refer you to the source; if you don't review it, given the prestige of his research, you are intellectually disreputable.
However much protein the body actually requires, any more than that amount is simply stupid. Am I unfair? I quoted at length to establish the context. Digestion produces energy, but it uses energy too. The body is an economy. Profitable economies run as efficiently as is reasonable. When all conditions are optimal, we can afford to be profligate. When there are wide-open frontiers, we might pollute. When we are looking for elite results, we need to apply intelligence and diligence to the process. It should be self-evident.
So how much protein do we actually need? For sedentary adults, the RDA for protein is 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. "Health experts say that at maximum, athletes may require 0.55 to 0.73 grams per pound." That's quite a range, isn't it. The caveman estimate of 1 to 1.5 grams is twice the, uh, smart man estimate. Heh heh. How ever shall we determine which is the more likely?
I am totally vegetarian. No animal protein whatsoever. It's been that way since 1979. At age 48, my body fat is about 8% -- I expect actually lower. My BMI is 21.9, which is the exact center of "healthy". I have visible intercostals and abdominal obliques, with no interest in bodybuilding or bulk. So I'm lean and fit. I have the reputation for being strong beyond reasonable expectation. My daily protein intake consists of a quarter pound of extra firm tofu -- 20g protein (meat is roughly a quarter protein by weight, so a "quarter pounder" has about an ounce {28 grams} of protein, the rest being fat, blood, fear and sex hormones, parasites and E. coli) -- about 20 grams of protein powder that I add to a recovery drink I make, and whatever comes from broccoli and the like. Maybe 70 grams total -- .39 grams per pound -- 280 protein calories, out of something over 3000 calories daily. It really would be less than 9% calories from protein. On which I exercise vigorously for 2 and 3 hours a day.
For once the point is not about my beauty and power. It's to demonstrate something. Do you see what?
There is much more to say. I won't. As for the Zone diet, Barry Sears has a high protein requirement, but it's for lean body mass. Oh god. I'm done. I'll do this some other time. Rolando has my bubble bath ready. And don't even get me started on Atkins.
That was a lot of work. Send me a dollar.
J
Involved as I am in some pretty intense physical exertions -- and I don't mean with Rolando -- I've had to pay attention to aspects of diet that would normally tend to themselves. Specifically, about the appropriate amount of protein that various activity levels require. It is common to read something like this: "For those who are physically active, research has shown that between 1-1.5g of protein per pound of body weight is optimal."
In itself this is a virtually meaningless statement, given that no account is taken of gender or lean body mass, let alone body composition. A 105 pound cheerleader and a 240 pound bodybuilder, and a morbidly obese layabed are barely members of the same species -- Homo athleticus ... gracile, robust and otiose. The Weider site -- which is a commercial webpage that sells nutritional supplements ... such as protein powders -- attempts to refine its figure with the following chart.
Fair enough. I've read estimates as high as 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. That's 300 grams of protein for someone 150 pounds, and 1200 calories -- which is precisely half the calories of what most men need on a daily basis.I will burn up to an estimated 3000 calories per workout. I derive that figure by the rough and ready formula of: every pint/pound (of sweat) you lose represents about 350 to 400 calories burned. As I say, a rule of thumb -- ambient temperature, humidity, hydration levels, ventilation all factor in, confoundingly. I will exchange up to 12 pounds in a few hours though -- for all that I drink 6 or 8 pounds (3 or 4 quarts) I'll still walk out four to six pounds lighter -- I'll drink enough water in the next few hours to replace the loss. That puts me at something around 5000 calories that I need, on a hard day. Which is why I feel no guilt at all about my carob-coated almonds or -raisins, or my vegan cookies. I need the calories and I just don't see myself eating 30 pounds of broccoli. What's the difference between 400 calories of bread and 400 calories of natural-ingredient whole grain cookies? The cookies are more nutritious and taste better. But that's a different discussion.
How much protein should a normally active person get, then? Protein is 4 calories per gram -- same as carbs (most fats are just over twice that -- 9 cals; medium chain lipids are 7 cals, same as alcohol). If we go by the Weider numbers, an active 150-pounder with a 2000 calorie diet (I'm rounding of course) would require up to 900 calories of protein daily. That's like 45%, right? Seems really high. Just about half your calories coming from protein. What, are we cavemen?
Well that's the crux of the matter. How much protein. I'll be adding details to this later, and I'll bump it up -- either you're interested and you'll re-read it, or you'll skip it. I've read about how much extra daily protein you need to add muscle, maximally. I do have the info in my head, but I don't like to represent as facts things that I'm only remembering. It has to do with urea nitrogen urine tests, which reveal how much protein the body takes in but cannot use. I have to look it up again. Old training. Before I was an internet blowhard, I used to be a scholar. But the number is much smaller than what the bodybuilders assert.
In any event, standard bodybuilding literature and protein supplement sellers put the number pretty high. Hm. I wonder why. But maybe it's not greed. Maybe they're both profit-minded and sincere. Maybe they're not ignoring contrary evidence in favor of a bias. Maybe they're ignoring it for some other reason.
But the contrary testimony puts the daily protein requirement, at the high end, at something between 10 and 20 percent of total calories. Ten percent of a 2000 calorie diet is 200 calories. Fifty grams of protein. Note the difference please. I'm too stupid and lazy to calculate the difference between 45% and 10%, but it seems like a lot. Maybe 100 times difference? A million? I don't know. Of course I'm comparing low-end needs of low estimates with high-end needs of high estimates -- but I'm pointing that fact out, too. Illustrative of the wide divergence of opinion in the matter.
Protein isn't really supposed to be a fuel. It's about amino acids, which are building blocks and act as peptides and neurotransmitters -- hormone-like. Really important. But not optimal as fuel. When blood glucose isn't available, and when fat isn't up to the job, your body will convert proteins into sugar in an expensive and inefficient process. Your brain needs sugar, you see, more than your body needs muscle. How inefficient? Glad you asked.
I've been meaning to give this info to a young fella I had a brief conversation with, sort of, some months ago. Finally went and looked it up. This is from "The Second Brain" by Michael Gershon, the seminal figure in modern enteric system research. A few preliminaries, though. You don't need a stomach. "The small intestine and its associated glands can make do without them." [pp. 93-4] Vitamin B12 is the essential issue, since it cannot be absorbed without the "intrinsic factor" that is made in the stomach. Well, we have pills and shots nowadays.
The stomach's parietal cells which make intrinsic factor also make the hydrochloric acid that handles the digestion of protein in the stomach. Only protein is digested in the stomach. Carbs and fats are broken down further along the tube. An interesting question is, why doesn't hydrochloric acid digest the cell that makes it? It's a wonderful mystery, that the Infinitely Typing Monkeys of Evolution have posed and solved. All hail, Randomness!
"To produce the hydrochloric acid of gastric juice, the parietal cells pump hydrogen ions from the blood into the lumen [lining] of the stomach. Chloride ions follow the movement of hydrogen, resulting in the formation of hydrochloric acid outside the cell where the two ions meet.
"The trick is to be able to pump the hydrogen ions. This is not easy. Hydrogen ions carry a positive charge. Moving charged particles is difficult because they affect one another. Particles with the same charge repel.... A cell thus cannot just gather up a bunch of positively charged hydrogen ions and move them from one place to another. To successfully transfer a large number of positively charged hydrogen ions from one side of a cell to the other, some other particles with the same charge have to be moved back the other way to replace the hydrogen.
“Pareital cells manage to avoid charge separation by making the pumping of hydrogen ions a simple transfer operation. The cells exchange hydrogen ions for potassium ions. Which are similarly charged. ...This hydrogen-potassium exchange is the process that is blocked by omeprazole (Prilosec). Once it stops, acid production comes to a screeching halt.
“Since the concentration of hydrogen ions in blood is far less than the concentration required in the gastric lumen, the pariental cell pumps against staggeringly unfavorable electrical and chemical gradients. In terms of the amount of work involved, the pumping of hydrogen ions is not unlike going *up* Niagara Falls in a barrel. The effort is vast and requires the consumption of immense quantities of oxygen, the utilization of magecalories, and the production of an amazing amount of the high-energy molecule ATP. ATP is the currency that the cells spend to get the work done.” [p. 95; Gershon's *italics*, my emphases.]
All this work, in order to produce hydrochloric acid, for the sole purpose of digesting proteins. Do you see why I went to all the bother, all hunched over and squinting, of typing out these paragraphs? Protein is astronomically expensive as an energy source. It's not like burning coal. It's like burning diamonds. That would be an amazing, vastly immense megawaste of staggering effort. Every effort should be made to spare this expense. Get it?
Per Colin Campbell, grand old man of protein research and author of The China Study, the RDA for protein is "about 10%.... This is considerably more than the actual amount required." [p. 58] "Relative to total calorie intake, only 5-6% dietary protein is required to replace the protein regularly excreted by the body (as amino acids)." [p. 308] He's speaking of course about mere metabolic requirements, not fantastical bodybuilder conceits of beef-packing. I won't elaborate on Campbell's frankly compelling argument. His conclusion is that high levels of protein are carcinogenic. If you object, I refer you to the source; if you don't review it, given the prestige of his research, you are intellectually disreputable.
However much protein the body actually requires, any more than that amount is simply stupid. Am I unfair? I quoted at length to establish the context. Digestion produces energy, but it uses energy too. The body is an economy. Profitable economies run as efficiently as is reasonable. When all conditions are optimal, we can afford to be profligate. When there are wide-open frontiers, we might pollute. When we are looking for elite results, we need to apply intelligence and diligence to the process. It should be self-evident.
So how much protein do we actually need? For sedentary adults, the RDA for protein is 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. "Health experts say that at maximum, athletes may require 0.55 to 0.73 grams per pound." That's quite a range, isn't it. The caveman estimate of 1 to 1.5 grams is twice the, uh, smart man estimate. Heh heh. How ever shall we determine which is the more likely?
I am totally vegetarian. No animal protein whatsoever. It's been that way since 1979. At age 48, my body fat is about 8% -- I expect actually lower. My BMI is 21.9, which is the exact center of "healthy". I have visible intercostals and abdominal obliques, with no interest in bodybuilding or bulk. So I'm lean and fit. I have the reputation for being strong beyond reasonable expectation. My daily protein intake consists of a quarter pound of extra firm tofu -- 20g protein (meat is roughly a quarter protein by weight, so a "quarter pounder" has about an ounce {28 grams} of protein, the rest being fat, blood, fear and sex hormones, parasites and E. coli) -- about 20 grams of protein powder that I add to a recovery drink I make, and whatever comes from broccoli and the like. Maybe 70 grams total -- .39 grams per pound -- 280 protein calories, out of something over 3000 calories daily. It really would be less than 9% calories from protein. On which I exercise vigorously for 2 and 3 hours a day.
For once the point is not about my beauty and power. It's to demonstrate something. Do you see what?
There is much more to say. I won't. As for the Zone diet, Barry Sears has a high protein requirement, but it's for lean body mass. Oh god. I'm done. I'll do this some other time. Rolando has my bubble bath ready. And don't even get me started on Atkins.
That was a lot of work. Send me a dollar.
J
Monday, October 29, 2007
Jack L
I don't do much websurfing at all. Far too narcissistic for that. Hardly any of the web is about me, you see. Such a bore. But I got to thinking about Jack LaLanne. He invented the leg extension machine, and the smith machine, and the weight stack, and cable pulls, and jumping jacks. He invented the idea of the fitness health club. He has a right to be self-assured. He doesn't tow submarines across the Straits of Hormuz for his birthday anymore, but at 93 he's still looking pretty good. A bit shaky, advertising his juicers, but looking good.
I grew up with Jack LaLanne. Not in the house -- in the air. My father worked with him, and that's how good old dad started to work out, in the late fifties. I might have been named after him. The family dog was the scion of Jack L's dog, Happy. White german shepherd. Tor the Wonderdog. So now that I've cruised through a few web articles on LaLanne, meeting his philosophy again, his bon mots -- well, that's what I grew up with. Simple unto simplistic, and not entirely up-to-date -- but still right.
Old Jack doesn't eat meat. No dairy. No white bread. No sugar. Lots of fruits and vegetables. Works out for two hours daily. Sound familiar? Maybe yours truly? The diet stuff I came to on my own. All that's left from when I was a kid is that I've never eaten white bread -- not "never", but never bought it, and never used it when there was a choice. Now I don't eat bread at all, hardly. And I've never used coffee, and even as a kid, very little soda. We were a meat and potatoes family though. I did the vegetarian thing starting as a teen. Not rebellion. Education. Try it.
I was thinking about this because the other day a young fella suggested that I might be even more breathtakingly phenomenal than I already am, if I ate some hamburger. Something like that. I imagine he'd like to test his hypothesis, using me as his nearly-superhuman subject. I detect some design flaws in the methodology, but we must smile at such incidentals -- his enthusiasm blinds him. Maybe he's a little in love with me. Who could blame him. Not that there's anything wrong with it. In any case, he admires me no end, and must be wondering if it could be possible for me to be even more powerful and beautiful. I don't think it's possible, frankly. I'm awfully powerful and beautiful. Then he said that when he gets to be my age, he wishes he could beat me. I'm sure that's how I remember it. I condescendingly agreed. We must encourage our young people.
But when he's my age, I'll be closing in on 80. So I did a search to see what Jack LaLanne could do when he was 80. Y'see?
There's talk in certain circles about the genetic lifespan of humanity being 120 years. I think the evidence for this conclusion is exceedingly poor. I don't think there's any honest record of such a thing, from the past few millennia. All those ancient Russians and Turks and Nepalese are just lying about their age to gullible anthropologists. Hey, it happened to Margaret Mead, so why not? Theoretical expectations don't seem to meet real world demands.
Old age is unavoidable, if you live that long. Jack L looks really good for mid-90s, but he doesn't look 60. He looks like a pretty good mid-70s. That's two decades he's shaved off his apparent age. Pretty good. But when I accost strangers and demand that they tell me how old they think I look, the answers cluster around early 30s. I'd put it at mid-30s, but even so, that's about 15 years that my lifestyle credits to my account. Alas, these past few years have been hard on me, and time's ragged hand has marred the lotus ever so slightly. I cannot expect 80 to find me entirely unbowed.
Another young fella fights MMA once in a while. Last weekend he had a match with what he consistently describes as "an old guy." Estimates vary, but they range from 40s to 60s -- I think the "40s" was a jab at me ... old guy indeed. There's something just wrong in that picture, 20s fighting 50s. I would not pay to see it. It's like those commercials with the talking baby. Worse than talking animals. Unnatural doesn't quite hit it. Perverse. And in such a fight, there must be some part of our soul that wants the old guy to win. It's not about teams, or the underdog. It just seems like that's what should happen.
It doesn't. We get wiser, some of us, but we will never be the men we were, or might have been had we tended after ourselves properly. How can we regret sunsets, though? As much as to mourn our disbelief in Santa Claus. We pass through stages, and regret for this fact must itself be a stage through which we pass. My beauty will crumble, even such great beauty as mine, and my power will fail, unshaken though it now is. There never has been an empire that has lasted. All that remains is the land, and even land succumbs to tide. The other day I realized that all my school teachers who were in their 40s or over are dead now, or very very old.
The care we take of ourselves -- diet, exercise, morals, morale -- that's part of our character. Stewardship. Integrity isn't just about business transactions. Eat a burger? Sure. The once-in-a-while things aren't likely to do much harm, just like the passing of a moment doesn't make you that much older. But they do add up, these burgers, these moments. And you find yourself old, if not sick. Jack L says, "There are two things that people have in their lives that will never fail: pride and discipline." Well, he's a man who constructed himself out of pride. And I'm sure he doesn't mean "never". But he's a motivational speaker, and short declarative sentences motivate.
Almost everything fails. Our bodies will fail. Our intellect will fail. But we don't fail until our character fails.
J
I grew up with Jack LaLanne. Not in the house -- in the air. My father worked with him, and that's how good old dad started to work out, in the late fifties. I might have been named after him. The family dog was the scion of Jack L's dog, Happy. White german shepherd. Tor the Wonderdog. So now that I've cruised through a few web articles on LaLanne, meeting his philosophy again, his bon mots -- well, that's what I grew up with. Simple unto simplistic, and not entirely up-to-date -- but still right.
Old Jack doesn't eat meat. No dairy. No white bread. No sugar. Lots of fruits and vegetables. Works out for two hours daily. Sound familiar? Maybe yours truly? The diet stuff I came to on my own. All that's left from when I was a kid is that I've never eaten white bread -- not "never", but never bought it, and never used it when there was a choice. Now I don't eat bread at all, hardly. And I've never used coffee, and even as a kid, very little soda. We were a meat and potatoes family though. I did the vegetarian thing starting as a teen. Not rebellion. Education. Try it.
I was thinking about this because the other day a young fella suggested that I might be even more breathtakingly phenomenal than I already am, if I ate some hamburger. Something like that. I imagine he'd like to test his hypothesis, using me as his nearly-superhuman subject. I detect some design flaws in the methodology, but we must smile at such incidentals -- his enthusiasm blinds him. Maybe he's a little in love with me. Who could blame him. Not that there's anything wrong with it. In any case, he admires me no end, and must be wondering if it could be possible for me to be even more powerful and beautiful. I don't think it's possible, frankly. I'm awfully powerful and beautiful. Then he said that when he gets to be my age, he wishes he could beat me. I'm sure that's how I remember it. I condescendingly agreed. We must encourage our young people.
But when he's my age, I'll be closing in on 80. So I did a search to see what Jack LaLanne could do when he was 80. Y'see?
There's talk in certain circles about the genetic lifespan of humanity being 120 years. I think the evidence for this conclusion is exceedingly poor. I don't think there's any honest record of such a thing, from the past few millennia. All those ancient Russians and Turks and Nepalese are just lying about their age to gullible anthropologists. Hey, it happened to Margaret Mead, so why not? Theoretical expectations don't seem to meet real world demands.
Old age is unavoidable, if you live that long. Jack L looks really good for mid-90s, but he doesn't look 60. He looks like a pretty good mid-70s. That's two decades he's shaved off his apparent age. Pretty good. But when I accost strangers and demand that they tell me how old they think I look, the answers cluster around early 30s. I'd put it at mid-30s, but even so, that's about 15 years that my lifestyle credits to my account. Alas, these past few years have been hard on me, and time's ragged hand has marred the lotus ever so slightly. I cannot expect 80 to find me entirely unbowed.
Another young fella fights MMA once in a while. Last weekend he had a match with what he consistently describes as "an old guy." Estimates vary, but they range from 40s to 60s -- I think the "40s" was a jab at me ... old guy indeed. There's something just wrong in that picture, 20s fighting 50s. I would not pay to see it. It's like those commercials with the talking baby. Worse than talking animals. Unnatural doesn't quite hit it. Perverse. And in such a fight, there must be some part of our soul that wants the old guy to win. It's not about teams, or the underdog. It just seems like that's what should happen.
It doesn't. We get wiser, some of us, but we will never be the men we were, or might have been had we tended after ourselves properly. How can we regret sunsets, though? As much as to mourn our disbelief in Santa Claus. We pass through stages, and regret for this fact must itself be a stage through which we pass. My beauty will crumble, even such great beauty as mine, and my power will fail, unshaken though it now is. There never has been an empire that has lasted. All that remains is the land, and even land succumbs to tide. The other day I realized that all my school teachers who were in their 40s or over are dead now, or very very old.
The care we take of ourselves -- diet, exercise, morals, morale -- that's part of our character. Stewardship. Integrity isn't just about business transactions. Eat a burger? Sure. The once-in-a-while things aren't likely to do much harm, just like the passing of a moment doesn't make you that much older. But they do add up, these burgers, these moments. And you find yourself old, if not sick. Jack L says, "There are two things that people have in their lives that will never fail: pride and discipline." Well, he's a man who constructed himself out of pride. And I'm sure he doesn't mean "never". But he's a motivational speaker, and short declarative sentences motivate.
Almost everything fails. Our bodies will fail. Our intellect will fail. But we don't fail until our character fails.
J
Friday, July 20, 2007
What Not to Feed the Monkey On Your Back
I don't know why drugs should be illegal. I just know they should be. Others disagree, because prohibition doesn't work. I don't know whether or not Prohibition worked. You don't know about it, but there is conflict over the whole issue. Received wisdom is that it taught Americans to be scofflaws, and provided the impetus for organized crime. Some historians, however, write convincingly about how it did work. Discussion for another time. What we can be sure of is that people who were not inclined to drink, did not start to because of the Volstead act. And that the drunkards will aways find a way -- cough syrup and wood alcohol and paint thinner ... let's get this party started!
It does seem to be a fact that primates will always find means to alter their perceptions. Monkeys get a buzz by eating rotten fruit. Some jungle tribes turn milk alcoholic by communally spitting into it. Some steppe tribes drink fermented blood. Some nullarbor tribes lick toads. There's nothing that burns, that hasn't been put into a pipe and smoked. The Pythoness of Delphi squatted over a volcanic vent and went mad for a time from the sulfurous vapors -- her convulsive gurglings were interpreted by the priests as prophecies. It's all of a piece to me. I've never tasted beer.
I don't like standing against innate behaviors. Instincts must have their release. So the sexual urge must be expressed. Not with little children though. The urge to aggression must have its outlet. Not through murder and rape. And if there is an inborn tendency to use chemical means to change mood and behavior, I suppose there must be some salubrious way to do it. It has been alcohol, universally. Religions that don't use some ritual measure of wine in their ceremonials, or mushrooms or locoweed, use hyperventilating or dancing or jumping or spinning in circles or lampshades on the head to get closer to God. That God -- what a party guy.
The body is equipped to process and neutralize the alcohol molecule. We eat any number of fermented foods, and the byproduct of the microbes that do the fermenting release alcohol as their waste product. I've eaten alcohol, then. The same way that I've eaten rat feces and insect bodies in my factory-processed foods. You have too. Furthermore, food can ferment as it moves through the gut. Naturally occurring alcohol is absorbed in I-don't-know-how-large quantities, I don't know how often. But any complex meal is likely to cause it. No big deal. The body can handle it. No negative effect is likely to arise.
Even naturally occurring beverages like wine and beer are fairly innocuous. One or two "servings" a day would be no strain on the system, when spaced out over a meal, or over an hour or so. The beneficial effects said to accrue to one's health is a bit of a complicated issue, which I'll pass over. But it's not likely to be poisonous, for all that alcohol is toxic. Yes, it is toxic -- hence the term "intoxication."
My point is that if you must intoxicate yourself, alcohol is the least strange way to do it. That vaguely analogous things are not treated equally under the law should cause us no distress. Pot may or may not be more or less or equally harmful or beneficial than booze. But to object to the inconsistency of favoring one while condemning the other is puerile. Tastes are not rational. Sodomy comes to mind. More and more nowadays. Is that wrong of me? Ah, sweet, sweet sodomy, how I crave the dark secret pleasure of your forbidden fruit!
Ahem.
Drugs? The rationale behind laws of public policy revolve around the greatest good for society. Thus, sexual intercourse is good -- families promote social stability. Prostitution, however, undermines the fundamental unit of society -- the marriage union. Young men who have access to loose women are less likely to seek a bride. So we have laws about even such a private and personal biological function as intercourse between consenting adults. Duh. The policy that regulates alcohol and drugs partakes of the same principle.
Drunkards and dope fiends are generally unproductive, and create an overall burden on society. A net negative. Something to be discouraged. Even though the physiological effects are confined entirely to one's own bloodstream and static tissues. Private conduct that adversely affects even the principles of public conduct have always been regulated by societies. Ours will not be the first to neglect this imperative, and survive.
Drugs? However we define the term, we do know what it means. We recognize it through its effects. A diminishing of capacities. A slipping toward non compos mentis. That they might provide the private benefit of relaxation or disinhibition or artistic inspiration must be counterbalanced with the potential for public harm. We have the right to self-regulate; the right to self-medicate is less clear. There's a vast pharmacopoeia of designer and recreational drugs nowadays. I'm out of that loop.
The legalization argument focuses on marijuana. Advocates scoff at the idea that it's a "gateway drug". Their laughter is understandable. Marijuana makes people giggle. Perhaps the worst that marijuana might do would be to make its users boring, lazy and hungry. Or maybe that's the best it would do. Or is this insidious pest ever so much more diabolical in its vicious evil? Or is it just a groovy way to chill? On one level, all that is irrelevant. The active psychoactive molecule in cannabis, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, does not occur naturally in the human body. Thus, it is categorically different, and not to be compared with alcohol. It is not "natural".
The primary method of introducing THC into the bloodstream is through smoking. Smoking. Smoking. Deliberately drawing smoke into your lungs. That is, on the face of it, insane. Yes, lungs can eventually purge the, uh, crud that accumulates internally. And while the alveoli of the lungs don't regenerate, well, we've got lots of alveoli. Three hundred million. It would take almost a million years to kill them all, if you killed one a day. I think my math is right. And if you killed one every ten years, it would take billions and billions of years -- nobody knows how many. Golly, who could live that long? Something else is bound to kill you before then. See? We're almost safe. And another good thing about smoking is, uh, that, um ... well, there are just so many that I can't think of them.
Eating marijuana? It's a thought. But understand that the cultivated plant that goes by that name nowadays is not the one once found only in nature -- selectively bred to produce up to 600% more THC. That's not your father's maryjane. It's not recreation, when it's a job.
LSD sounds cool. It's an excitotoxin, which at best provokes a dysfunction of inhibitory cortical interneurons resulting in visual disturbances. Does cortical (that's brain) dysfunction sound like a good thing? At not-best, excitotoxins cause brain cells to keep firing until they die. Not so cool. Cocaine? Please. Any of the others? All those designer drugs? You see how it's done -- make your own list of reasons they're bad.
Medical marijuana? Why not. There's too much suffering in the world. But shouldn't it be a pill? And I know a certain someone who has a prescription for it because of "insomnia". Odd how he used it even before he had "insomnia". Nothing fishy there, though. Hemp products? Sure, sounds like a good idea -- hardy, useful and versatile.
But selling weed like tobacco and alcohol, so we can enjoy mega tax bucks? Great idea -- and let's bring back slavery too. There are lots of extra people just begging to be sold. It'd solve the illegal alien problem! We could invade Mexico! That'd be a switch -- haven't done that since forever ago. And entrepreneurs could set up thriving slave markets, hold public auctions, like a fair grounds -- bring the whole family -- free elephant rides! -- spend the day! -- ample parking is available! Just think of all the new sales tax revenue rolling it -- it'd be a fiscal windfall! Earmarked for Social Security! Old folks like me will be set for life! -- even if we live for millions of years I bet! Far out!
Legalizing a damaging substance, a vice, so that it can be taxed is an immoral argument. No, tobacco doesn't count as a counter example -- it is taxed, but it wasn't legalized so it could be taxed. And if enforcement costs are high, confiscating the assets of drug dealers will offset that. If they make it to prison, cutting off their cable TV would save a few bucks. In fact, chain gangs make a profit. Or we could harvest their organs. Think about it.
Someone argues that "legalizing marijuana would not increase use because decriminalization hasn't increased use. But ... legalization would reduce crime by neutralizing dealers and eliminating the violent black market." The first idea sound pretty good. Alas, the fallacy lies in supposing that no punishment will have the same result as a smaller punishment. Does your life experience bear out this supposition? The second idea is pure sophistry. We could legalize murder too, and the crime rate would fall. I expect, however, that more people would die.
Well then. I'm glad I wrote this. I seem to have figured out, to my own satisfaction, why drugs should be illegal. I just can't get over how smart I am.
J
It does seem to be a fact that primates will always find means to alter their perceptions. Monkeys get a buzz by eating rotten fruit. Some jungle tribes turn milk alcoholic by communally spitting into it. Some steppe tribes drink fermented blood. Some nullarbor tribes lick toads. There's nothing that burns, that hasn't been put into a pipe and smoked. The Pythoness of Delphi squatted over a volcanic vent and went mad for a time from the sulfurous vapors -- her convulsive gurglings were interpreted by the priests as prophecies. It's all of a piece to me. I've never tasted beer.
I don't like standing against innate behaviors. Instincts must have their release. So the sexual urge must be expressed. Not with little children though. The urge to aggression must have its outlet. Not through murder and rape. And if there is an inborn tendency to use chemical means to change mood and behavior, I suppose there must be some salubrious way to do it. It has been alcohol, universally. Religions that don't use some ritual measure of wine in their ceremonials, or mushrooms or locoweed, use hyperventilating or dancing or jumping or spinning in circles or lampshades on the head to get closer to God. That God -- what a party guy.
The body is equipped to process and neutralize the alcohol molecule. We eat any number of fermented foods, and the byproduct of the microbes that do the fermenting release alcohol as their waste product. I've eaten alcohol, then. The same way that I've eaten rat feces and insect bodies in my factory-processed foods. You have too. Furthermore, food can ferment as it moves through the gut. Naturally occurring alcohol is absorbed in I-don't-know-how-large quantities, I don't know how often. But any complex meal is likely to cause it. No big deal. The body can handle it. No negative effect is likely to arise.
Even naturally occurring beverages like wine and beer are fairly innocuous. One or two "servings" a day would be no strain on the system, when spaced out over a meal, or over an hour or so. The beneficial effects said to accrue to one's health is a bit of a complicated issue, which I'll pass over. But it's not likely to be poisonous, for all that alcohol is toxic. Yes, it is toxic -- hence the term "intoxication."
My point is that if you must intoxicate yourself, alcohol is the least strange way to do it. That vaguely analogous things are not treated equally under the law should cause us no distress. Pot may or may not be more or less or equally harmful or beneficial than booze. But to object to the inconsistency of favoring one while condemning the other is puerile. Tastes are not rational. Sodomy comes to mind. More and more nowadays. Is that wrong of me? Ah, sweet, sweet sodomy, how I crave the dark secret pleasure of your forbidden fruit!
Ahem.
Drugs? The rationale behind laws of public policy revolve around the greatest good for society. Thus, sexual intercourse is good -- families promote social stability. Prostitution, however, undermines the fundamental unit of society -- the marriage union. Young men who have access to loose women are less likely to seek a bride. So we have laws about even such a private and personal biological function as intercourse between consenting adults. Duh. The policy that regulates alcohol and drugs partakes of the same principle.
Drunkards and dope fiends are generally unproductive, and create an overall burden on society. A net negative. Something to be discouraged. Even though the physiological effects are confined entirely to one's own bloodstream and static tissues. Private conduct that adversely affects even the principles of public conduct have always been regulated by societies. Ours will not be the first to neglect this imperative, and survive.
Drugs? However we define the term, we do know what it means. We recognize it through its effects. A diminishing of capacities. A slipping toward non compos mentis. That they might provide the private benefit of relaxation or disinhibition or artistic inspiration must be counterbalanced with the potential for public harm. We have the right to self-regulate; the right to self-medicate is less clear. There's a vast pharmacopoeia of designer and recreational drugs nowadays. I'm out of that loop.
The legalization argument focuses on marijuana. Advocates scoff at the idea that it's a "gateway drug". Their laughter is understandable. Marijuana makes people giggle. Perhaps the worst that marijuana might do would be to make its users boring, lazy and hungry. Or maybe that's the best it would do. Or is this insidious pest ever so much more diabolical in its vicious evil? Or is it just a groovy way to chill? On one level, all that is irrelevant. The active psychoactive molecule in cannabis, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, does not occur naturally in the human body. Thus, it is categorically different, and not to be compared with alcohol. It is not "natural".
The primary method of introducing THC into the bloodstream is through smoking. Smoking. Smoking. Deliberately drawing smoke into your lungs. That is, on the face of it, insane. Yes, lungs can eventually purge the, uh, crud that accumulates internally. And while the alveoli of the lungs don't regenerate, well, we've got lots of alveoli. Three hundred million. It would take almost a million years to kill them all, if you killed one a day. I think my math is right. And if you killed one every ten years, it would take billions and billions of years -- nobody knows how many. Golly, who could live that long? Something else is bound to kill you before then. See? We're almost safe. And another good thing about smoking is, uh, that, um ... well, there are just so many that I can't think of them.
Eating marijuana? It's a thought. But understand that the cultivated plant that goes by that name nowadays is not the one once found only in nature -- selectively bred to produce up to 600% more THC. That's not your father's maryjane. It's not recreation, when it's a job.
LSD sounds cool. It's an excitotoxin, which at best provokes a dysfunction of inhibitory cortical interneurons resulting in visual disturbances. Does cortical (that's brain) dysfunction sound like a good thing? At not-best, excitotoxins cause brain cells to keep firing until they die. Not so cool. Cocaine? Please. Any of the others? All those designer drugs? You see how it's done -- make your own list of reasons they're bad.
Medical marijuana? Why not. There's too much suffering in the world. But shouldn't it be a pill? And I know a certain someone who has a prescription for it because of "insomnia". Odd how he used it even before he had "insomnia". Nothing fishy there, though. Hemp products? Sure, sounds like a good idea -- hardy, useful and versatile.
But selling weed like tobacco and alcohol, so we can enjoy mega tax bucks? Great idea -- and let's bring back slavery too. There are lots of extra people just begging to be sold. It'd solve the illegal alien problem! We could invade Mexico! That'd be a switch -- haven't done that since forever ago. And entrepreneurs could set up thriving slave markets, hold public auctions, like a fair grounds -- bring the whole family -- free elephant rides! -- spend the day! -- ample parking is available! Just think of all the new sales tax revenue rolling it -- it'd be a fiscal windfall! Earmarked for Social Security! Old folks like me will be set for life! -- even if we live for millions of years I bet! Far out!
Legalizing a damaging substance, a vice, so that it can be taxed is an immoral argument. No, tobacco doesn't count as a counter example -- it is taxed, but it wasn't legalized so it could be taxed. And if enforcement costs are high, confiscating the assets of drug dealers will offset that. If they make it to prison, cutting off their cable TV would save a few bucks. In fact, chain gangs make a profit. Or we could harvest their organs. Think about it.
Someone argues that "legalizing marijuana would not increase use because decriminalization hasn't increased use. But ... legalization would reduce crime by neutralizing dealers and eliminating the violent black market." The first idea sound pretty good. Alas, the fallacy lies in supposing that no punishment will have the same result as a smaller punishment. Does your life experience bear out this supposition? The second idea is pure sophistry. We could legalize murder too, and the crime rate would fall. I expect, however, that more people would die.
Well then. I'm glad I wrote this. I seem to have figured out, to my own satisfaction, why drugs should be illegal. I just can't get over how smart I am.
J
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