parents

Next option, crawl under the house? Hide in a cave? No, the Yanks are
looking for people hiding in caves.

Theo

 

Yeah, but they're not very good at finding 'em...

 

So caves _are_ a good place to hide from Yanks, and meteor showers.

Theo

 

I was just thinking today that Australians saw Shane Warne as 50% sporting
hero, 50% up-himself wanker.
Now that he's retired he's removed the 50% sporting hero.......

 

Have you ever considered drinking beer that ISN'T shit?

 

**** me; am I missing a joke here? I'd be surprised if Eye-Abusers got more
than 60 miles per TANK "while going flat out"....
I consider 40mpg to be pretty-much the standard when touring on my old K75.

 

No; harsh week ended [consults calendar]... oops; right you are!

 

Yeah my busa display used to show an average around 16l/100km when
punting.

So I guess the 75miles per tank
Care factor zero and plummeting . . .

Cheers
Kev

 

But you'll cack yourself laughing in the process !!


JL

 

Yup.

Something about someone tearing down the road at 195mpg.

Theo

 

Well you probably know far more than I do on the subject, but my
perception is you're incorrect - the rise in obesity (and by that I
mean people who are "seriously overweight" (1) ) being reported,
matches with my general observations. In other words when I went to
school I could have counted on one hand the number of kids out of a
thousand or so at my high school who had that "Michelin man" shape.
Last two times I drove past a high school (circa 12 months - I'm
usually at work) - I observed at least 10 or 12 kids with that shape.
Is that scientific or anything more than anecdote ? No absolutely not,
however I also observe a LOT (ie at least 10%, probably much more) of
adults with a similar shape both in the CBD and in country towns.
Neither of those observation sets matches with my memory / perception
of how many people were very overweight when I was a kid.

If the surveys/scientific studies say something different then fair
enough, but it seems to me there are both a lot more people who quite
overweight as well as proportionately more people who are very
underweight. It's just my observation, not scientifically measured or
calibrated ! Hammo would probably go to town on it, but I do think
there are more people overweight than there used to be.

Lastly on the "eat too much, exercise too little" when simplified to
that extent, yes it is "bull" but the broad intent of the statement
isn't.

If you eat more calories than you burn, you *will* increase in weight.
The converse is only true within certain parameters and time
measurements.

- Your body will burn muscle rather than fat, and rebound to a higher
total weight if you "crash diet" as your body is programmed
genetically to go into "famine" mode if you suddenly cut your intake.

- Somewhat self evident but some foods have very high calories while
not making you feel "full" hence including them in your diet in any
significant proportion makes it nigh on impossible to lose weight.

- The trigger mechanisms for feeling "full" after consuming food are
primarily based on 3 things:
1. time elapsed since starting consumption
2. Quantity of fat in the food.
3. Physical bulk of the food

It's still not clear whether you need to match all 3 or only 2of three
of these parameters (the research is still equivocal unless something
new has come out I've not seen)

- Long term weight loss for most people in western society (ie there's
an implicit assumption about dietary parameters in the following
statement) requires you to move your body out of a sugar processing
mode (that is a large proportion of calories coming from high GI carbs
and fats) into a mode where the bulk of calories are coming into the
blood stream in a slower release (low GI and proteins).High quantities
of pastas(2) and sugars in the diet causes the liver to produce
greater quantities of insulin and etc which has been linked to type 2
diabetes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070905095319.htm
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/137/9/2121
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=79547-sugary-drinks-fruit-juice-diabetes

(Noting linked does not denote unequivocal proof)

- Corn syrup as found in many soft drinks has been linked to higher
levels of insulin resistance than other sweeteners (more commonly used
in the US than here).

http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/highfructose.html

- There's a complex interplay between types of fat ingested, genetics,
types of sugars and carbs ingested, amount and type of exercise. A
quick google throws up some possibly wild theories here's one:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg19225760.900
and a commentary:
http://nielsolson.us/archives/2006/05/ghrelin_leptin.php

- Measuring weight rather than a muscle mass / height index is also
misleading (although it's rather easier to step on a $40 pair of
scales than an expensive bit of fancy medical machinery. The old saw
about "metabolism" has some truth. A person with comparatively high
muscle to fat ratio will burn more calories while resting (ie not
doing work) than someone with a higher fat ratio. The other old saw
about muscle being heavier than fat is also true - hence many people
getting disappointed they're not losing weight when they start dieting
and exercising. Measuring your waist and hips is more useful than your
weight - the increase in muscle tone will translate to a slimmer
appearance and long term lower weight.

For the vast majority of people who want to lose weight, eating "whole
food " rather than processed food. Ditching anything that is pre-
prepared (because there's lots of hidden calories in just about
anything you'll buy) and eating raw or fresh vegetables combined with
a moderate amount of protein and only low GI carbs plus doing moderate
aerobic exercise (anaerobic exercise can be counter productive - this
is long enough already without going into that !) will allow most
people to lose weight.

A very small number of people ( 3) have the genetic odds stacked
against them, a lot more people than that however use genetics as an
excuse for poor exercise habits.

JL
(1) deliberately being imprecise, but by this I mean someone who has
that spherical shape that is *more* than "just a bit chubby" or
"carrying an extra couple of kilos".
(2) Noting not all pasta is high GI
(3) < 5% at a broad guess I don't know of a study that gives the
number however

 

In aus.motorcycles on Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:50:23 -0800 (PST)

And mine. But the definitions *have* changed and it also isn't clear
what the cause of it is. The problem is that heights have increased,
and kids are a lot bigger in all directions.

Adults too.

I don't know what the cause is, but the literature is quite clear on
what it *isn't*.

What it might be is that what you have now is a majority of people who
didn't have serious childhood diseases and who had plenty of high
quality food through gestation and childhood.

It may be that what you are seeing is what the human race looks like
sans predators, famine, and disease.

Possibly not. Of course a deal depends on what "burn" is. What the
science shows is that the body adapts quickly. If you restrict
calories, then the body's metabolic rate drops to compensate. If you
exercise more, then ditto.

Some people are naturally lean, some are not. The mechanism isn't
understood yet, but what 30+ years of research including longitudinal
cohort studies show is that there isn't the difference in diet or
exercise levels that the popular theory says there is.

Yup - but it isn't clear jsut what caloric restriction has that
effect. Most commercial diets definitely do, but even moderate
restriction appears to.

Except in calorie controlled and/or monitored studies, people ate
the same but their weights differed.

Some lost, some gained.

And there isn't that much evidence that this "nutrient dense" or
"empty calorie" foods make a lot of difference. The work's still
being done, high fructose corn syrup is one of the current possible
culprits for example. And there's a chunk being done on visual cues
which is also interesting - you eat what's there, so smaller portion
sizes lead to less eating.

Problem is that you get something like the Women's Health Initiative
studying a coohort of 50,000 women and the intervention group who "ate
healthy" and dropped their calorie count didn't lose weight and didn't
have a different disease profile to the control group.

The whole GI thing is still not proven as far as I know.

(linked to means correlative, Danger Will Robinson)

What is quite clear is that so far there has been *no* diet that has
managed long term - more than 5 years - weight loss, and none that has
managed no weight regain in a year.

Not one.

If you have a long term diet study with 5 year followup I'm all ears.
Because the majority are short term (including all the GI ones) and
even within 6 months most have weight regain and in a year are above
baseline.

There's all sorts of test tube stuff, there's nothing in the real
world.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=17469900&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google

Note that every GI thing I've seen is also calorie restricting, that
is just changing the food doesn't make the difference long term.

Zebee

 

In aus.motorcycles on 31 Dec 2007 04:59:24 GMT

And I find
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/12/carbs-humbug-are-carbs-really-fattening.html
which quotes an admittedly small study, but one that is measuring
exactly what GI is supposed to be about - appetite changes and blood
sugar levels. I don't know if a longer term one would have got
different results, but

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=17923862&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google

Objective:To investigate whether a diet with a reduced glycaemic index
(GI) has effects on appetite, energy intake, body weight and
composition in overweight and obese female subjects

Results:Free-living diets differed in GI by 8.4 units (55.5 vs 63.9),
with key foods providing 48% of carbohydrate intake during both
periods. There were no differences in energy intake, body weight or
body composition between treatments. On laboratory investigation days,
there were no differences in subjective ratings of hunger or fullness,
or in energy intake at the snack or lunch meal.Conclusion:This study
provides no evidence to support an effect of a reduced GI diet on
satiety, energy intake or body weight in overweight/obese women.
Claims that the GI of the diet per se may have specific effects on
body weight may therefore be misleading

(Junkfood Science has access to the full paper and says "They had
fasting blood samples drawn before breakfast and every 15 minutes for
the first hour, then at 90 and 120 minutes after breakfast, to measure
their glucose, insulin and fatty acid levels. ")


I'm more and more inclining to the idea that we've been selecting for
people who can survive disease and famine for pretty well all of human
history and prehistory, and this is the first 50 years of abundant
food at all stages of life for all social classes and few diseases.
Guess what, broken as designed

Zebee

 

Only on days with a "y" in them.

Sheesh; a man needs time to DRINK too Johno!!

 

Didn't claim it was, there's good supporting evidence though.

Bloody Norah ! I'm not surprised either !

The known combo that works is to eat primarily whole vegetables, a
small amount of protein, sufficient of certain types of fats (ie Olive
oil etc) and minimal amounts of carbs, those carbs eaten should be as
low GI as possible.

The fundamental pieces are:
1. A change in diet - no processed food. Vast majority of food bulk
from vegetables.
2. Little or no sugar or high GI foods. Your liver and metabolism then
stops being in "process sugar mode" and goes into "process fat mode" -
until you stop ingesting sugar it won't change gear.
3. Appetite is different to feeling full- (see earlier post), the
above study has insufficient controls to manage hunger reactions. Low
GI helps prevent the "sugar bounce" (low blood sugar) hunger, but
there are a huge number of other factors from the Pavlovian, to thirst
(often mistaken from hunger and many in western society are
dehydrated), to low zinc levels etc etc

Lastly the above study is a joke. You take a bunch of obese Americans
(and hence the odds of them having poor eating habits is high), and
you substitute lower GI versions of the same processed foods ? Colour
me unsurprised that it made no difference.

The dead give away was in the first couple of lines -
"differed in GI by 8.4 units (55.5 vs 63.9), with key foods providing
48% of carbohydrate intake during both periods"

Firstly 55.5 (I'm assuming an average by calorie not weight not that
it probably makes much difference) is NOT low GI !!
And a difference of 8 points... I would question whether it is even
statistically significant. You have two groups eating almost exactly
the same and there's not much difference ? Wow what a revelation !

The second is these med GI foods - (it's a scale of 1-100, for the
study to be valid the "low GI group" should have had an average in the
20's) make up half of their carb intake, with no information as to
what that is as a percent of their total diet (but if these are
typical Americans I'd say it'd be the bulk of it. That's hardly a
healthy diet in any sense.

While there's some truth to that, we have evolved to process
vegetables and meat as our primary food sources. Farming of grains
(and hence having significant quantities of carbs in our diets) is a
very new innovation - somewhere around a 100,000 years or so vs many
millions. Over the last 100 years we have effectively reduced the
quantities of vegetables eaten by most westerners, while making high
calorie, low satiety foods(1) readily and easily available (and
cheap).

JL
(1) McDonalds hamburgers, vanilla slice, ice cream etc anything high
sugar and high fat in a small volume

 

OK but I thought your thesis was there was no change in obesity
levels? If what you really meant was "the bloody government(s)
has(have) fiddled with the measuring stick and muddied the waters"
Then yeah no argument.

No, it's not as simple as that. If you exercise more *AND* your blood
sugars bounce (because you're eating poorly), your body will demand
more food and in its absence it will then go into starvation mode.
Managing your metabolic rate is the key to weight loss, the primary
effectors of metabolic rate are quantity of high GI carbs (ie sugars
and simple carbs) in diet, muscle mass and exercise levels (obviously
the latter 2 are somewhat correlated)

I'll dig out some articles on insulin, metabolism and exercise and
email them to you (I'm not actually terribly interested in the weight
loss side, I'm more interested in the optimisation of performance -
the weightloss stuff is just the flip side of the coin).

That's because it's not just about calorie restriction, in fact
focussing on calories rather than where you get the calories from is a
recipe for failure.

Of course, see above. Metabolism changes according to a large set of
factors, there are quite well known though. Maybe nobody has ever done
a study from the holistic picture - research scientists tend to focus
on the micro components rather than the macro.

That's because the conventional wisdom of "eating healthy" (the food
pyramid) is fundamentally flawed as has become apparent in the last
decade (through research).

I'll google up the above - I'd love to see what their definition of
"eating healthy" was (and how they managed to record that across 50K
people). I'm sceptical - my bet is the above 50K ate what has
generally been accepted as OK for the last few decades - which is far
too high GI and high in prcessed foods to be likely to allow long term
weight loss.

Atkins has, but it has some nasty side effects. The smart move is to
take the good bit out of Atkins (no carbs) and do something useful
with it. (make it low GI and minimal carbs and flip flop the meat vege
ratio)

I'll get you a copy. The anti - Atkins brigade have had more goes at
shooting him down than you can poke a stick at, and none have actually
succeeded.

GI is only one piece of the puzzle, it does one thing and one thing
only.

It gets the body out of the sugar bounce treadmill - while ever your
body is on that, it is NOT pulling fat out of stores and metabolising
it, it is soaking up the blood sugar for energy and demanding more
when it runs out. Once you've stopped doing that, then you can start
managing your metabolism to not go into starvation mode while it's
consuming the body fat.

JL

 

While it doesn't detract from your point in the slightest, in the
interests of accuracy: farming is probably only 10,000 years old, not
100,000, starting in present-day Turkey.

The depressing thing about your last point is that in most Western
societies a good diet is way cheaper than a processed food diet, but it
is only the affluent who pursue it, while the poor continue to eat rubbish.

 

Hey cool, thanks for that, didn't know that one !

JL