The bad news: I'm running out of ideas for things to blog about.
The good news: I've been maintaining at BMI ≈ 23.9 since September 2018 eating a diet based on minimally refined/processed animal & vegetable produce + occasional treats.
Switching randomly between Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) & High Carb Low Fat (HCLF) for a few days at a time, I found that I felt better & was mentally sharper on HCLF, so HCLF for the win!
Here are some videos of me murder.... I mean singing some songs at a jam session in Reading on Sunday 24th Feb 2019.
Enjoy!
I couldn't have done this without the help of the following musicians:-
Clive on keyboard, Bob on lead guitar, Charlie on percussion, Simon on bass guitar and Amanda on backing vocals.
Derren Brown shows how easy it is to manipulate your thoughts, by the use of subliminal images.
I may have mentioned it somewhere on this blog, but everyone is different. The reactions of the kids in the "I ate all your Halloween candy" video in the previous blog post varied from total melt-downs, through feigned deaths, through tears, to "That's all right!". Candy/sweets have different importance to different people and people's suggestibility varies from "Very easy to manipulate" to "Very hard to manipulate".
There's engineering of foods to be as moreish as possible. "The trouble is, they taste too good!" (Crunchy Nut Cornflakes), "Bet you can't eat just one!" (some savoury snack made from refined starch, salt & flavourings) and "Once you pop, you can't stop!" (Pringles). As Harry Hill once said "The problem with heroin is, it's rather moreish!" Although addiction to pure table sugar isn't a thing, addiction to hyperpalatable foods is a thing (which can be reduced by Naltrexone). See Food cravings engineered by industry and Sugar addiction: pushing the drug-sugar analogy to the limit.
Then there's the bribery lobbying of government to:-
1. Water-down Dietary Guidelines so that crap-in-a-bag/box/bottle (CIAB) meets them. As people get fatter and sicker, the Guidelines and the government get the blame.
2. Subsidise the ingredients of CIAB so that it's cheaper than produce.
Then there's corruption of science e.g. getting doctors to advertise cigarettes years ago. Organisations with vested interests are created, to promulgate conflicting dietary information. Is it any wonder that the public distrust science and scientists?
Edward Bernays' manipulation techniques have worked exceedingly well. If you're too fat and someone says to you "Nobody made you over-consume that crap", point out the above.
What can you do? You can't sue Food Product manufacturers, as their products don't immediately harm you. See How Ultra-Processed Foods Are Killing Us. Hit them where it hurts i.e. in their bank accounts, by eschewing CIAB and basing your diet on whole, minimally-refined animal and vegetable produce. CIAB should be treat foods, not staple foods.
Finally, here's a video on how to form good habits for life.
Start of clarification.
I've noticed some confusion over the term "Crap-in-a-bag/box/bottle" (CIAB). My previous post received the following comment, which I'll annotate.
"Is highly processed the problem? Yes.
Tinned tomatoes are processed,
what's wrong with including those in your diet. Nothing, other than the fact that they're too salty for me if they're tinned in brine.
What about low sugar
baked beans? Nothing, other than the fact that they're too salty for me.
What's wrong with a burger if all it is, is minced beef? Nothing.
Other processed food:
Smoked mackerel Fine.
Frozen peas Fine.
Milled porridge oats Fine.
Parma ham Fine.
Cheese Fine.
Nitrate free bacon Fine.
Prunes Fine.
Almond butter Too calorie-dense & moreish for me.
Filtered milk Fine.
Low sugar jam Fine.
Roasted chestnuts Fine.
Haggis Fine. I think."
CIAB is stuff like French fries/chips, chips/crisps, "fast food", take-aways, pizzas, biscuits/cookies, chocolate, sweets/candy, sugar-sweetened beverages, sugary cereals etc. End of clarification.
Between the ages of 5 & 8, I spent my 12d/week (that's 5p/week, for those of you who are too young to remember £,s,d.) on sweets. Aniseed balls were 4 for 1d. I also ate French Fancies (small sponge cakes covered in fondant icing) and drank Corona Lemonade (~15% sugar content) at home.
How did I get such a ferocious sweet tooth? Here's the probable answer:- Farley's Rusks.
Look at the health-washing.
"Farley’s Rusks have been loved by mums and babies for generations. Each rusk is lovingly baked using baby grade ingredients."
Let's take a look at the baby grade ingredients:-
"Wheat Flour, Sugar, Palm Oil, Raising Agents (Ammonium Carbonates), Calcium Carbonate, Emulsifier (Monoglycerides), Niacin,
Iron, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin A, Vitamin D."
The first three ingredients are refined starch, refined sugar and refined fat. The refined sugar content is 29% by weight. Perfect food for a baby! The previous sentence may contain traces of sarcasm.
People are getting fatter and sicker in increasing numbers around the world, due to increasing numbers of people over-consuming over-refined, over-marketed & over-moreish Food Products. Getting people to change their diet back to one based on minimally-refined produce would be an improvement.
Why don't you agree to say the same thing, e.g.:-
Base your diet on whole, minimally-refined produce, rather than products. Tweak it to suit.
While you're wasting time shouting each other down, the Food Product Industry is laughing all the way to the bank.
On a blog comments section somewhere, a argument discussion took place about what caused America's rising obesity rate. Some people have a hypothesis that there's one main cause. Reductionism of an extremely complex problem down to one main factor is utter stupidity. Here's a rough list, in no particular order:- Excessive Carbohydrates (Gary Taubes) Excessive Refined Sugar (John Yudkin, Robert Lustig, Gary Taubes) Excessive Refined Fructose (Robert Lustig) Excessive Wheat/Gluten Grains (William Davis) Excessive Fat (Dean Ornish, Cardwell Esseltyn etc) Excessive Saturated Fat (Dean Ornish, Cardwell Esseltyn etc) Excessive Animal Protein (Garth Davis) Mineral Imbalances (Jane Karlsson, "Duck Dodgers") The Government (Richard Nikoley) Dietary Guidelines (Nina Teicholz, Aseem Malhotra, Tim Noakes etc) Insufficient protein (Ignatius Brady)
It's not Refined Sugar. Sorry John Yudkin, Robert Lustig, Gary Taubes. See below...
Refined Sugar intake (kcal/capita/day) is higher in France than in the USA, but in France there's a lower obesity rate. ∴ Hypothesis disproved*.
I asked Duck Dodgers what he wanted to happen. He said:-
"My feeling is that if people recognize that enriched foods are the antithesis of whole foods, then the demand for enriched/refined foods may diminish, forcing the industry to change."
I want people to eschew over-refined food products for produce, too. So all of the arguing about what caused America's rising obesity rate was a complete waste of time. This gave me an idea. I decided to run my idea past someone who deals with obese people with T2DM and who just happened to be in the U.K, attending the Health Unplugged Conference, I PM'ed Dr. Jeffrey Gerber on Facebook, inviting him to meet me at Cafe Class in Woking (a location roughly half-way between my home and London).
Hmmm! In mice, a high protein diet significantly decreased the amount of muscle mitochondria, the mitochondrial activity and the running distance at 50 weeks, although it increased muscle mass and grip power.
A mouse's natural diet is fruit or grain from plants, though mice will eat virtually anything, including Kevlar insulation on wiring. Fruit & grains aren't particularly high in protein, so it's quite possible that eating a sub-optimal diet results in sub-optimal health.
If the results do translate to humans, we have a choice between endurance, and muscle mass & strength in our old-age. I know which I would choose. You'll have to prise the proteins from my cold, dead fingers!
