I JUST heard that this HBO documentary is airing tonight on… well… HBO, so this post is a bit late to gin up a tsunami of interest, at least from this tiny corner of the cyberworld.

The good news it that it’s a two four-part (whoops) series that will probably air again and/or be accessible online.

The HBO documentary, “The Weight of the Nation” is a clarion call for changing our eating habits and the government’s food and farm policies and subsidies.

Without some quick and dramatic changes, we will all soon have a problem, not just the 2/3rds of us that are overweight or obese, as well as 1/3 of children.

There’s the health problems for those overweight, and financial and social problems for everyone.

Here’s the web site: http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/films

Here are some soundbites from the trailer:

“1/3 of the people in this nation are obese, and 2/3rds are overweight”

“Obesity is the biggest threat to the welfare of this country.”

“This is probably first generation that will have a lower life expectancy than their parents’”

“It’s about the health and wealth of the U.S. as a nation.”

“All of us have to be part of the solution.”

“We will all pay a serious price.”

Yes, it might be an unsavory topic, one better left in the closet from the manufactured food industries point of view. And, the closet is where it’s been for nigh twenty years. Things need to change. The first step is to understand why “the weight of the nation is crushing America”.

Tune in, find out.

Yep.

Related posts:

1. Michelle Obama – Her Righteous Fat Fight
2. Sick Around the World… How Does America Compare? (Watch Frontline Video)
3. The Seriously Serious Problems of Obesity, Sleep Apnea and Obesity

What would you do to find out what percent of your body is fat?  Archimedes came up with a pretty infallible test.  Most of the rest are proxies, pretenders at best.  I here examine, for some, the worthless BMI measure and what the military has to say on the matter. Check out the equations, BMI widget and charts.

OVER THE last two days, I’ve been obsessed with measuring fat.

Not how much fat is in a particular food whispering to me.  Not how much covers my own real estate, nicely spread out, I might add.  But how much – measured as a percent of body mass – is in, and on, every body.

This is a long story, and over time I’ll get it out on this blog in sufficient detail to make you batty, but suffice to say for today:

I want to find a way to quickly, easily and accurately measure body fat!

What’s led me to this quest is part of that aforementioned long story; this part:

As I’ve gotten older, this boomer body that once was the high temple of athleticism has over the years, very slowly, certainly imperceptibly month-to-month, gotten fatter.

About 15 years ago, my perennial 34” waist sized pants inched up to size 36.  Now big deal, because you know what?  My upper body got a bit larger too.  So the whole package looked about the same.  Same proportions.

Yes, the resistance training (aka weight lifting) kept the muscle going and the muscle kept the fat from sagging, but you know what?

It’s been dawning on me that if I take off my shirt and peer bare-chested at the mirror, it seems like some cruel artist took a thick paint brush dripping with fat and layered it on sufficient for me to more resemble the Pillsbury dough boy than ever before.

(Ahh, well, I did have that one pre-teen year when my father was stationed in Ethiopia that I was miserable, and – apparently – ate myself into to a so-called “husky” pant’s size.)

There are reasons for this beyond my own fault.

Really?

Yes, it’s not my fault that as I got older certain aspects of my socialization shifted, like from charging up Mt. Tamalpais on mountain bikes with my buddies to swirling some red wine around a glass to see what kind of “legs” it presented.

And it’s not my fault that as I got older certain aspects of my biology shifted around a bit, producing relatively more estradiol than testosterone than before.

Certainly, it’s not my fault that I actually got older.  Can’t beat that, can you?

(Actually, can surely slow it down, as chronology does not equal biology, but exploring that is for another post.)

“Just how fat are you now, Joe?”, I asked the plump figure in the mirror.

Right behind me against the wall, I have something that should be able to tell me, a Tanita BC534 Glass InnerScan Body Composition Monitor.  This means a scale that can suggest what percent of your body is fat.

It looks like this:

In the sentence above, I carefully selected the word “suggest” when describing what Tanita and every other scale does that attempts to measure body fat by a technique called Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis.

You push a button, step on the scale and an unfelt, harmless electrical current passes through your body with greater impedance in the lower water containing tissue, such as fat, than fat-free mass which contains more water. This difference is measured and out pops a reading of your body fat percentage.

The Interpretation of that electrical resistance is, in part, left to certain formulas, and they cannot account for shifting variables.

These variables include age, gender, ethnicity, body size, fitness level and how much water you’ve been drinking.  (It’s probably not enough water and that will make the scale suggest that you’re fatter than you are.  Or not.)

What it all boils down to is that you can not be certain that the egregiously high percent body fat number that gets displayed on the scale’s LCD panel after the electricity gently pervades your body is the right number.

And that’s a relief because when you see that truly big number pop up and your heart starts racing, you’ll soon remind yourself that it might just be wrong, that you might not be quite that fat.

“These damn scales just ain’t accurate!”, you’ll mutter to yourself, because no way you’re going to let anyone else near you and that scale.

And you’re right, gentle reader, but – unfortunately – they’re pretty close.

Lordy Be, I’ve Got Cognitive Dissonance

So, I know what the Tanita will tell me and I’ve been slow to accept it.  “I simply can’t be that fat”, I sputter.

Although that image in the mirror might have shades of P. Boy… after a good weight lifting session, a roll in some olive oil, dimmed lights and some squinting — why, there’s my former lean mean muscle machine self peering back at me.

The psychologists call this “cognitive dissonance”.

I’ll give you the link, but this is worthy of copying the definition here cause it underscores my point (which assumes I know where all of this is going, but I don’t… not yet…), and that is:

“Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment”

Surprise… check.

Guilt… nay

Anger… nay

Embarrassment… a bit, after all, I’m a health blogger!

Now, truth be told, if I’m willing to believe Tanita, she suggests I’m only about 10 pounds overweight, depending what is the right percent body fat for me.

Which leads me a step closer to the whole point of this post:

What Percent Fat is Too Fat?

There are two answers to this question – yours and scientists.

The scientists give us charts, like this one (click to enlarge):

And you give yourself your own acceptable level, the athlete’s being lower than the couch surfer’s.

A quick scan of the above chart will show that it’s OK from a health perspective to be relatively fatter as you age, but that such healthy fat levels are quite a bit lower than those associated with being overweight and obese.

If my readers’ bodies have the overall fat distribution of the U.S. population, there’s a 6- in-10 chance that you are in the yellow or orange section of the chart, and a 3-in-10 chance you’re orange.

And yet, I bet that you really don’t know what color you are, speaking contextually.

And, I bet that if you could turn around and grab your Tanita sitting against the wall of your bathroom, push the button, stand on it, peer down at that insulting number which races your heart, you too wouldn’t believe it.

And the fact that you might be justified in not believing it is why for over the last two days I’ve been obsessed with measuring fat.

You and I — we just want another opinion.

BMI Nonsense, and The Search for the Perfect Fat Measuring Algorithm

“BMI” stands for “Body Mass Index”, and is a proxy for human body fat based on an individual’s weight and height. Unfortunately, BMI doesn’t actually measure the percentage of body fat; rather, it’s a simple numeric measure of a person’s “thickness” or “thinness” relative to an average distribution of people (adults) in the population.

A BMI of 18.5 to 25 may indicate optimal weight; a BMI lower than 18.5 suggests the person is underweight while a number above 25 may indicate the person is overweight; a person may have a BMI below 18.5 due to disease; a number above 30 suggests the person is obese (over 40, morbidly obese).

Here’s the chart (click to enlarge):

Here’s the formulas:

English BMI Formula BMI = (Weight in Pounds / (Height in inches x Height in inches) ) x 703
Metric BMI Formula BMI = (Weight in Kilograms / (Height in Meters x Height in Meters ) )

For your convenience, here’s a widget to calculate your BMI:

The odds are that your BMI fairly represents where you sit on the chart relative to the rest of the population.  But if you’re particularly short, or tall or muscular, or an athlete (weekend warriors are disqualified), then the BMI results for you are phooey.

BMI simply does not account for non-average muscle size, density or frame size.

I’m large framed, tall and lift weights regularly.  I wonder what BMI would say about me?

I popped my numbers into the BMI widget:

Which brings me back to my “cognitive dissonance”, for as you can see, with a BMI of 25.8, I’m considered overweight.

Overweight on the above Body Fat Ranges chart (OK, they call it “Overfat”) would put me at around 23% body fat.

Even Tanita isn’t that cruel!

I want another approach.  Enter stage right, the Navy and Air force (and others) to the rescue.

The Navy, Air Force and Whatever Algorithms

Let’s cut to the chase – these fine institutions recognize that BMI ain’t where it’s at, that there needs to be some way to factor in density, muscle and frame size.

The Navy, Air Force and others came up with proxies – decent representations – for density, muscle, fat and frame sized based upon thousands of data points that show a strong relationship between certain physical parts and these attributes.

They are, depending on the test: wrist size (proxy for frame size), neck size (proxy for muscle) and belly size (proxy for fat).

Here are some examples of the equations:

males: % body fat = 86.010 x log10(abdomen – neck) – 70.041 x log10(height) + 36.76

females: % body fat = 163.205 x log10(waist + hip – neck) – 97.684 x log10(height) – 78.387

The bad news is that I don’t have a handy widget for this to present you so you can calculate your own body fat via this method.

The good news is that you can use these formulas in Excel, plug in your numbers and get your results.

I did.

My result was 19% body fat… lower than what BMI suggests and Tanita whispers, but leaving me stuck in my cognitive dissonance nonetheless.

So, I’m going to stay obsessed with this… in fact, I’m seeking to come up with my own simple and accurate body percent fat calculation method… till I get what I want to hear… err, I mean, till I get it right.

Have you any thoughts on this matter? 

If so, please submit them in the Comments section below.

All her life, Deborah Szekely, the “Godmother of the Wellness Movement” has been a thriving example of wellness.  Now 90, she still works tirelessly to illuminate the harmful actions of agri-business and Big Pharma, and the government’s support of programs that have fueled the country’s obesity epidemic.

Today’s post is a “shout out” to Deborah Szekely (pronounced SAY-Kay) on her 90^th birthday.

If you haven’t heard of Deborah Szekely, know that she has operated for 72 years the world-renowned Rancho La Puerta Spa in Mexico, and for 42 years the Golden Door Spa in Escondido California.

At those spas, she has been a tireless advocate of treating your body as a temple by conforming to these three dictates:

• Do not pollute yourself with processed food,
• Develop a lifestyle of physical activity, and
• Allow yourself to heal.

Ms. Szekely’s life itself has been a testimony to living the natural, holistic life, and the benefits thereby derived.  Despite entering her 10^th decade, her only “medication” are vitamins, some thyroid therapy and a B12 shot every month.

She does Pilates four times a week, has weighed within the same 118 to 122 pounds for decades, has 104/62 blood pressure, and a cholesterol count of 193 (not fasting).

Couldn’t be better.

Surely, the woman has admirably lived her truth, and has become a superlative example of how a long and strong life can be lived by making smart choices about diet, exercise and attitude.

Surely, at this point in life she would be satisfied with her accomplishments and the multiple thousands of people she has helped to slow down.

But no.

“My schedule is the same as it was when I was 60!”, she says.

Which is about to be busier, because this “Godmother of the Wellness Movement” is giving birth to yet another cause aimed at improving the lives of others: Wellness Spring.
 

The Wellness Spring Initiative

Ann Brenoff writes in this Huffington Post article:

About the only thing that raises [Deborah Szekely’s] blood pressure are the actions of agri-business and Big Pharma and the government’s support of programs that have fueled the country’s obesity epidemic. Her Wellness Spring initiative aims to raise $10 million by collecting $10 each from one million people. The money will be used to fund lobbying efforts to counter those of businesses that she argues are poisoning and killing Americans with fast food and a culture that “considers watching TV an activity.”

“How is pizza possibly a vegetable?” she asked incredulously of the congressional decision that deemed it so. “Americans are getting fatter and sicker by the day and the soft drink and fast-food companies are going merrily on their way while Big Pharma is happy to provide pills for all the diseases and health problems the bad food causes.”

Here is this fine and stately lady telling her story and the need for Wellness Spring:

We humans tend to accept what’s possible for us by examining what’s been done by others. May Deborah Szekely’s life and her work inspire us all.

Related posts:

1. Eat Fiber, Live Longer, Healthier too! Watch
2. Sugar is a Toxin, say Three Celebrity Doctors. Watch the Interviews.
3. Bill Maher’s New Rule on the American Rat Diet

I WRITE about this reluctantly.

Penis Size Matters More to Men than Women

It’s Tuesday morning, the time each week when I chain myself to the desk and pray to the muse that I can write something of interest both to me and the readers of this blog.

If a topic hasn’t already been itching me, I scan articles I’ve bookmarked for the purpose of commenting, expanding or simply inspiring me to write on the subject.

I also will look at my blog stats and see which article topics are being read the most.

Sometimes, I peer out the window and scan Richardson Bay for a mermaid muse.

Some time ago, I had a laugh when I read about a South Korean study that showed that the relative size of a man’s index and ring fingers indicate penis size.

“I’ve got to write about this… it will go viral!” I said to myself.

So I wrote Drats! It’s No Longer a Secret — Penis Size Is Determined by Finger Length. The post did not go viral, but it’s among the top 10 read here on this humble site.

Given the prominence of the subject among my readers, when I bumped into a Time Healthland article by Meredith Melnick called Add Inches!! (No, Really, Men Can Make It Longer), I thought, “I gotta put my spin on this!”

With all that as an explanation for this most importantly trite subject, let’s get to the chase:

Fellas, the gals care a heck of a lot less about your junk than you do!

Now, to you puerile hecklers, let me say that this definitive factoid does not come from my own experiential research trove of three data points, but from those Kinsey Institute sex researcher types.

Armed with clipboards and penis tissue expansion implements resembling Middle Age spine stretching, pain inflicting torture devices, among others, these able scientists romp through the countryside, surveying woman and testing the permanent expansion capabilities of said penises. (Temporary blood flow augmentation will not suffice.)

Here, in two bullet points, their findings:

• Although only 55% of men are satisfied with their third leg, 85% of women are, the best indication yet that they really should rule the world.

(We men still need to adjust their appetite for girth, as they still kinda like that, at least relative to length.)

• Among all the touted miracle grow wand enhancing devices and potions, Tristan and Iseult had it right – only the pull-it-apart-stretch-traction devices worked, averaging an increase of wonderwang size between 0.7 and 0.9 inches while flaccid, and 0.67 inches when at full mast.

(Best done when unemployed, unless you’re willing to take said devices to work cause it requires hours of stretching each day.)

Now, before I continue, a word to those who have contemplated the uncontemplatable – letting a scalpel carve your manhood into some Mt. Rushmore edifice…

Don’t!

The surgical treatments, the researchers found, were dangerous and had “unacceptably high rate of complications.”  Yeah, and unless self-adornment is only for the mirror’s sake, for whom would you be slicing and dicing for anyway?

Remember that first bullet point above.

What About Erectile Dysfunction, You Breathlessly Ask?

Before I conclude this memorable post that surely you’ll want to share with all your buds on Facebook, let me report what these able medical people discovered about what works for erectile dysfunction.

They found that the use of Peno-scrotal Rings, which fit around the scrotum and base of the penis, helped beef up size and maintain erection.  That said, the sample size was the mind numbing number of 2, which makes the results rather completely inconclusive.

Turning next to the honed art of Penis Pumping, the data suggested that a six-month regimen of daily penis pumping — using a pump to create a vacuum inside a cylinder to stretch the penis — was both painful and ineffective.

In Conclusion

Fellas, your takeaway from this post is that your edifice for procreation is sufficiently appreciated by women that you should relax about its power to awe, and redirect such energies to developing a six-pack, cause there’s some pretty strong evidence that supports the contention that strong abs are preferred by most women over the Michelin Man.

And about that I do speak from my own trove.

Yep.

P.S.  You can read the article from which these stats were unceremoniously extracted here, and which were partly based upon a review of studies conducted by the British Association of Urological Surgeons.

P.P.S.  If you wish for me to stop blogging about such small and trivial matters, let me know in the Comments section below.

Related posts:

1. Drats! It’s No Longer a Secret — Penis Size Is Determined by Finger Length
2. Guidelines Push Back Age for Cervical Cancer Tests
3. A New Birth Control Method for Brave Men

If you have a sweet tooth, are overweight, have kids, want to have kids, or just simply have genes, read (and watch) how Hank Green and I weave together a tale about sugar, obesity, behavior and epigenetics.

THERE’S A story to tell about sugar, obesity behavior and epigenetic theory.  One touches the other, back and forth.

Epa…what?  Touch what?

This connection is going to unfold, step by step.  And if you’re interested in some reasons why the industrialized world – meaning the people therein – are overweight and prone to chronic disease, you’ll want to take this little journey into the world of sugar-producing obesity and epigenetics.

Sugar is not only a cornerstone of our obesity epidemic, and thereby of the chronic diseases associated with obesity, but serves as a useful foil for behavior.

We do what we like when we can.

We eat sugar because we like it, it’s cheap and it’s everywhere.

Epigenetics is how your behavior, like copious sugar eating, affects your genetics.

Turns out, your genetic expression is not set in stone.  That’s a good thing if there are some genetic expressions you rather not experience, like cancer.  It’s a bad thing if your genes are rocking rock solid, but your behavior overwhelms them; behavior such as breathing smoke into your lungs.

Have you heard of The Science Show on YouTube with Hank Green?

If not, in just a moment you’ll discover how insightful and entertaining it is, because I’ve put Mr. Green front and center in this post to be our learned expert in telling the story that I’ve weaved together.

Our story is about this:

1. How genetics loads the gun, but behavior pulls the trigger;

2. Moreover, how behavior not only pulls the trigger for you, but for your kids, and their kids; and

3. How sugar and its sidekick, High Fructose Corn Syrup, have contributed to an obesity epidemic that underscores and provides an example for #1 and #2.

So, if you eat sugar, are overweight, have kids, want to have kids, or just simply have genes, read (and watch) on.

 
Sugar Runs the Planet

Sugar is a vital thing, as it’s the primary source of energy on earth, from bacteria to plants to us.

It comes in various forms, such as sucrose, glucose and fructose.  Put molecular chains of these various sugars together, and you get various forms of carbohydrates.

Carbs are the macronutrient that we use run our bodies. Complex carbs that are slow to be absorbed by the body run our bodies longer than simple carbs – the fast blood absorption type — do.

Clearly, we need sugar.

Problem is that the average American consumes about 22 teaspoons of sugar per day, about 16 more teaspoons more than is healthy.  That’s almost 4X more sugar consumption than is healthy.  Each day.

Just from soda alone, the average American consumes 50 pounds of sugar per year.

Add to that the rest of the food we eat that contains sugar and the count soars to over 130 pounds per year!

Ready for a video demonstration of this?  It’s fun, so watch Hank Green educate and delight in Why We Love Sugar (you can skip the ad by clicking it):

Read my post: Sugar is a Toxin Says Drs. Hyman, Gupta and Lustig

Next up, High Fructose Corn Syrup, “HFCS”

Sugar is expensive.  Do to $40 billion subsidies paid to corn farmers by you via our dear ole Uncle Sam, HFCS is very cheap.  And cheap is good when, as a food manufacturer, you increase profit by decreasing your cost of goods needed to make your product.

Visualize for a moment your favorite supermarket.

Where are the foods that resemble how they look on the farm that grew them?

Mostly, they’re along the outside perimeter within the store.  Given that one side of the box that represents our envisioned store is lined with cash registers, the three other sides contain the real food.

Now, recall what’s in every other aisle in the store.  Yes, every other aisle has the foodstuff that is made in factories where it is manufactured, not grown.

Note that there are many more aisles of the factory food than those lonely three offering real food.

By “manufactured foods”, I refer to the product we eat that are derived from food grown on the farm, but do not resemble it, nor contain the original macronutrient composition (protein, carbs, fat) of the original farm-grown food.

These manufactured foods need to be made palatable to your taste buds. Typically, this is achieved by artificially giving them the tastes of fat, sugar and salt.

Because the food manufacturers want to reduce the cost of the product, the sugar used is the cheapest sugar available, thanks to our Uncle (and enabled by our own benign neglect), and that’s High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Now, HFCS has a similar molecular structure to sucrose, but tastes sweeter.  So why is it considered worse for you?

The research on this is unclear, although what is clear is that rats get a lot fatter on HFCS than other types of sugar.

What is also clear is that we now eat more manufactured food than ever before, and HCFS is in most of it.

Eat more of something that makes you fat, and guess what happens?

OK, take it away, Hank Green, in his video segment, High Fructose Corn Syrup, The “Dark Lord” of Nutrition:

Read my post: Are You Getting Fat and Sick from Sugar?

 
Four (and more) Reasons We’re (suddenly) Fat

Starting in 1980, about 10% of Americans were obese; now, it’s above 30%.  The overweight number, which includes the obese and merely husky, is over 60%.

Carrying a lot of extra body weight can kill you.  Obesity is linked to heart disease, obesity and even cancer.

[Read my post: Will Your Belly Fat Cause Cancer?]

Conventional wisdom says that the problem can be conveyed in a pretty simple “calories in, calories out” model; meaning, if you consume more calories than you use to produce the energy you expend, you get fat, and visa versa.

But there’s a nuance here that’s so big that it will bonk you on the head if you think about it…

As compared to our forefathers, not only what we eat is different, but also what we do.

Take sleep for example.  It’s the first of four (and more) behavioral reasons that contribute to why we carry too much of the jiggly.

Reason #1: Sleep Deprivation

We don’t sleep enough.  Since the 1960s we’ve lost two hours per day of sleep.

Scientists have determined that lack of sleep can lead to obesity.  When working properly, the hormones Leptin and Ghrelin tell your body when your hungry, but when you’re sleep-deprived, they become somewhat dysfunctional.

When dysfunctional, it would be great if Leptin and Ghrelin told your body that you’re full, but, alas, biology is not so kind in this instance: You’re told you’re hungry, not full.  Thus you eat even when you really don’t need to.  (Sounds familiar.)

Reason #2: Climate Control

The next big change between now and forefather times is climate control.

Being that we humans are warm-blooded mammals, it takes a certain amount of calories to keep our bodies at the right temperature.

In the good ole days, turning the dial on your thermostat wasn’t an available option.  Shivering or sweating was, which uses calories.

Reason #3: Less Smoking

Smoking is the third reason that may be contributing to an overfat society… but I don’t recommend it as a get thin strategy.

Note: smoking is far more deadly than obesity, but if you breathe smoke into your lungs long enough, you may be thinner than 60+% of your neighbors before you die from some hideous cancer.

Reason #4: More Industrial Chemicals (and other things, like gut bacteria!)

No one yet knows the cumulative effect on people from the thousands of commonly used industrial chemicals that we’re exposed to, such as various resins, solvents, perfumes, dyes, plastics, etc. 

We do know from experiments that rats fed certain pervasively used chemicals get much fatter than the control group, even when they’re fed half the food!

We do know that the typical infant born today comes into the world with “with 287 chemicals in her umbilical cord blood, 217 of which are neurotoxic (poisonous to nerves or nerve cells)…”

[Read my post: The Ultimate Heavy Metal Detox]

Which begs the question: Since the industrial age, has the gradually increasing chemical load in our bodies predestined us to getting fatter?

I’ll leave it to Hank Green to delve into the chemical overload thing, as well as why gut bacteria is related to weight, the age of mothers and the size of the fathers they choose in his next video, Obesity:

Read my post: The Seriously Serious Problems of Obesity
 

How Epigenetics Fits Into The Story

And now, alas, we finally grab all this sugar, fat and behavior stuff and dive into the deep end of the epigenetics (gene) pool.

“Epigenetics” means “above genetics”, and as such is the study of:

“… heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence.” (Source)

This is going to rock your world, because, as it turns out, if you are or will be a procreator, yours are not the only genes and/or gene expression that your behavior will affect.

For as nature would have it, genetics is not the only determinant of your inherited, genetically predisposed biology… what you do can affect the genetics of your kids!

To get a conceptual handle on this, let’s use computer hardware (the machine) and software (instructions to the machine) as a familiar example.

The genome (DNA) is the hardware (body), whereas the epigenome is the software that will tell the body what to do.

The genome does the work, but the epigenome tells it what to do.

The hardware DNA will stay the same throughout your life, but the epigenetic “tags” (behavioral inputs) do change, and they decide what genes get expressed.

Which brings me back to an earlier statement I made in this post:

“[G]enetics loads the gun, but behavior pulls the trigger.”

What we do, eat, smoke… the malevolence of stress… it all affects what genes get triggered.

This understanding is relatively new.

It used to be thought that what you did made no difference to your offspring, genetically speaking.  You could, for instance, smoke three packs of cigs a day and would produce kids completely unaffected by this crazy, self-inflicted wound.

What is now scientifically verifiable is that your behavior can, in fact, get passed down to your kid’s genetics, and their kid’s kids.

A Swedish study showed how this works down the genetic line due to dietary factors, but to nibble on that you’re going to have to watch this next-up entertaining and brain-twisting video from our now very familiar friend, Hank Green, called, naturally, Epigenetics:

By now, you feel either delightfully edutained (educated + entertained), or depressed… or completely in denial as you prepare a frontal assault on my frontal cortex in the Comments section below.

Whichever; this is the end of this story, for now.

Yep.

P.S.  Many thanks to the witty and sagacious Hank Green and his capable crew at The Science Show on YouTube.  Go give them a slap on the back here: http://www.facebook.com/scishow

Related posts:

1. Nine Reasons to Drink Green Tea (and limit coffee)
2. A Lesson from Dead Fitness Icons and Overweight Kids
3. Aspartame is Poison, a Neurotoxin, Actually

When life puts you in a hard place, you scramble to find out why.  The mind lurches backward, picking away at clues you may conjure, and then stumbles forward into a future projection of fear or fantasy.  Is there value to simply stay in the present?

OVER THE past weekend I had a visit from an ole college friend now living in Copenhagen.  He married a Danish lass, and after starting the family in Portland, they decided that their two kids would get a better education and learn more of the world in Denmark.

His girl is now in a college in Scotland that’s over 500 years old, and his son at a college in England that’s just a bit younger.

Each year, “Tom” travels to the Bay Area (California) to visit his parents.  Both in their mid-eighties, they’re now at the stage of life where they need his and her sister’s help.  She lives in Mexico.

Unlike me, Tom’s always has been a diligent and consistent worker. After the last ten years with IBM, he was caught in a downsizing downdraft last month and spun out of employment.

We had lots to talk about; our venue was a long walk through the hills of Sausalito.

So, here we are, Tom and I drifting along in a modern stereotype: Two unemployed 50-something year-olds caught between the generation that made us and that which we made (in Tom’s case), like a deer in the headlights.

“How did we get here?”

That was Tom’s voice. I had already answered the question for myself a thousand times, each with it’s own unsatisfying twist, as if one could be bend the light to illuminate.

We had both gone to good universities, graduated with technical degrees of sorts and did well in our careers for a while; he a longer while than me.

Now, we’re aimlessly wandering around hill and dale picking away at whatever shreds of understanding the winds of change have not blown away.

“One foot after another”, I replied to his question.

Tom didn’t even bother to grin at that remark, as his brain’s neurons were hopping synapses in a flurry.

“I was reading Ekhart Tolle”, the other day, he said.

“Which book, The Power of Now or A New Earth?”

“The first one.”

“And?”

“Tolle has helped me stay centered, stay present.”

“Yes, well that’s his thing.”

“I mean, think about it,” Tom continued, “Right now we couldn’t want for anything. Right now.  Here.  The sun warms us, the air is fresh and fragrant, we’re getting exercise and that cappuccino we just drank was delicious!

“Yep”.

“So, what Tolle is saying is that it’s only when we conjure up the past, which no longer exists, or project the future, which has yet to exist, do we get all wound up and off kilter.”

“Yep”.

Four more strides in silence, then I responded:

“I’ve given this a lot of thought, Tom.  I read Tolle after having read several books on Buddhism.  The Buddhists say that to be alive is to suffer due to attachments, and that the solution to suffering is to drop the attachments to things.

“At the time I was reading this Buddhist stuff about 20 years ago, I was at my first inflection point in my career.  I was seeking to understand where I was in life and how to move forward.

“I was stuck at what I perceived to be a dichotomy in this Buddhist philosophy – if the aim is detachment, how do you cultivate the energy, focus and drive to create anything good in your life?

“What is produced without desire?  This was my quandary.

“Which ties into Tolle’s, (and Ram Dass) admonition to, in effect, be here now… not in what happened yesterday or may happen tomorrow.”

Tom looked up and at me thoughtfully, encouraging me to blab on.

“Well, assuming you’re not in pain, the present moment is a relatively suffer free zone.  The suffering the Buddhists refer to happens in the mind and it happens when the mind is sifting through the past or projecting an unhappy future.  Tolle says the same thing.

“This doesn’t mean that you can’t want something to happen in your life, but that you need to be detached from it unfolding exactly like you want it.”

Tom has a way of scrunching his forehead and twisting down his mouth in a wonderfully unique expression of a frown, which is what he did.

“I need an example”, he said.

“I’m better at abstraction.”

“Don’t be lazy… I need an example.”

Four more strides in silence.

“OK, this is inane, but what if you had yourself all twisted in a knot over the blond next door.  You grew up together and you just knew that she was the one you had to marry or your life would be shit.

“She marries someone else, and, as you’ve determined it, you’re life proceeds to be shit.

“Rather than having been so attached to an outcome where only the blond next door could have been your wife, the Buddhist/Tolle slant would suggest that you focus instead on the feeling you want to cultivate in a marriage and seek to attract the person who could help provide that. This way, you would not have completely missed the sultry brunette that lived just a block away who wanted you.”

“That’s inane”, Tom said.

“It’s the best I’ve got right now”, I said.

The next four strides extended into another mile in silence as two unemployed boomers were left to their respective thoughts about a future, with or without suffering.

I know which I’ll endeavor to have.

Yep.

Related posts:

1. Be here now: “Gerry’s” Dharma Lesson
2. Did Steve Jobs’ Life Exemplify Zen Buddhism?
3. Addicted to the Past?

Extreme Makeover’s trainer Chris Powell inspires people to lose hundreds of pounds through his “FITT” exercise program. Here, I present a woman who shed 130 pounds (and counting) by following Powell and FITT.

IT SEEMS to me that there’s a perfectly good reason why people get so confused about which diet or exercise routine is best for them.

You read or watch some presentation of a certain group of foods you could eat (and not eat), or a particular exercise regime you could huff and puff over, and you wonder if it will work for you.

Yes, of course, you’ve noted that such and such has worked for Jane and John Doe, and perhaps thousands of others; nonetheless, you wonder…

“Will it work for me?”

“Is it worth trying?”

It could be that this doubt and hesitation is an excuse to stay mired in whatever you’re doing (or not doing) that’s not working for you.  Or it could be a legitimate question that you need to answer in the affirmative in order to compel yourself to change.

Cause change is hard.  Entropy makes it so.

Unless you have a shrink or a really good companion you can’t bluff, only you can determine if you’re excuse making or legitimately confused when presented with a seemingly perfectly good scheme to change behavior.

It makes sense if you’re confused.

We’re all different.  You know that.  And so you know that because, basically, few people are just like you… the same age, gender, fitness level, lean body mass, health conditions, psychology, access to certain foods and equipment, etc… that this diet and/or exercise routine you’re considering may be great for Ms. Doe, but not for you.

I guess it would be really helpful if some definitive study was done that could conclusively typecast, say, 20 different sets of people, each set comprised of the same attributes.  Then the ideal diet and exercise routine could be prescribed for each of the 20 sets.

Well, to my knowledge, this has yet to be created.  Which means, you’re left to taking a deep breath and plowing into the information swamp, hoping to get clear about what’s best for you.

Which (somehow) brings me to “choose to lose” Chris Powell’s “FITT” concept.

Chris Powell is a fitness trainer on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition.  In a recent post on Yahoo/ABC News, a woman named Dana Atkins, who was inspired by Mr. Powell to exercise and diet, was profiled.

The title of the post shouts: “Inspired by Chris Powell, Woman Loses 130 Lbs”.

I have a couple of family members who have struggled with weight, which has made me sympathetic to the plight of those who carry large amounts of excess poundage on their frames every second of every day.

Over the years, I’ve watched how my relatives compensate for this extra load: moving slowly, seldom; sweating over small exertions; needing to concentrate and commit their will to stand up off the couch.

So, when I read about how someone well over 100 pounds overweight was inspired to finally do something about it, I’m curious.

Dana Atkins lost 130 pounds by learning what she could do from watching Chris Powell and then doing it.

Inspired by Chris Powell, Dana Atkins Loses 130 Lbs

A lot of overweight people watch Extreme Makeover.  But few lose weight by taking what they learn by watching it, and then applying it.  As I know from some recalcitrant, perennial issues in my own life, identifying a problem and knowing the solution is very different than actually executing the solution.

The “Just Do It” Thing

As you’re probably aware from dealing with your own stuff, the bottom-line issue is often not what you don’t know that keeps you from achieving what you want.  Instead, it’s what you know that you don’t do that hold you back.

Dana Atkins was probably obese her whole adult life.  Now 36 years old, something clicked that enabled her to finally do something about it, to execute what she already knew.

A friend of mine likes to paraphrase William Blake, who said something like:

“Execution is the chariot of genius.”

For Ms. Atkins, that chariot finally arrived one day as she was watching Extreme Makeover. She said this to Chris Powell:

“I was watching your show one day, and I thought, ‘if these people can do it, so can I.’ And so I thank you. You have no idea how much you inspired me.”

Dana Atkins went to the gym five days a week, cut and counted calories using an app called Lose It, began eating breakfast every day, and not eating carbs after 5:00 PM.

We all need inspiration, something to help us push through the tough times.  For Dana Atkins that was Chris Powell’s voice and image.  When her energy would begin to crash, she’d imagine Mr. Powell beside her, urging her on.

She began her road to fitness at 380 pounds, a weight that would keep most people firmly affixed to the couch instead of struggling on a stationary bike.  But as one day follows the next, Atkins persevered and went from 380 pounds to 253 and a size 30 to 18.

By her own measure, she has a long way to go, but is confidant that by consistently applying Chris Powell’s tips, she’ll reach her destination.

Dana Atkins Uses Chris Powell’s Workout Tips – The FITT Concept

Mr. Powell promotes the FITT concept, one that recognizes that in order to become fit, your body needs to be challenged with workouts that get progressively harder to do.

Initially on the weight loss journey, fat commonly comes off quickly in response to diet and exercise.  This is because our physical systems (cardiovascular, muscular, respiratory, etc) are extremely inefficient.  Being inefficient, our bodies require more calories in the beginning of a new health regime than later on when it adjusts to the new tasks performed.

If you do not increase the exercise workload, your body will get too efficient and comfortable doing it. Over time, that 15-pound dumbbell you once struggled to heave over your head 10 times can now be done easily.

So, now the trick is to not let your body adapt to the exercise.  It needs to be consistently challenged. You do this in various ways that Chris Powell refers to as “FITT”.

In the following examples, he recommends that you increase one of the following FITT components every six to 10 workouts:

Frequency.  If you typically exercise three days a week, increase to four days.

Intensity.  If you typically walk at a 3.0 rate on the treadmill, increase to a 3.5.  Or if you run a mile in nine minutes, aim for 8:30.

Time. If you typically exercise for 30 minutes, increase to 35 minutes.

Type.  If you typically jog for exercise, try a different type of exercise like rowing, cycling, or boxing.

Some FITT Considerations

As I wrote at the start of this post, we’re all a bit different and respond to the same thing differently.  With this in mind, I’d like to add some considerations to how you may apply FITT to your exercise routine.

All of FITT’s four components – Frequency, Intensity, Time and Type are interrelated, often inversely.  For instance, the greater the Frequency of the same set of exercises, the less the Intensity can be.  This is because most of us need more time to recover from an exercise done intensely than casually.

If, then, you decide to increase all four components of an exercise routine simultaneously, you’re likely to find that can’t maintain the regimen.  After all, in this example you’ve increased Frequency and Intensity and Time, and have also introduced a new exercise Type for which you’re not yet conditioned.

You’re in trouble.

Again, without knowing your unique attributes, and specifically what your exercise routine is, it’s hard to suggest exactly how to progress as your body gets conditioned to your current exercise regime.

That leaves you.  You need to experiment.  If you increase Intensity, at first you may have to maintain your current Time and/or Frequency, or even reduce it a bit until your body is ready.  Or if you increase Frequency or Time, you may need to continue on with your current Intensity level for awhile.

The bottom line: Don’t let the uncertainty of a new system of doing something – diet, exercise or something else – keep you from trying it.  A mentor of mine likes to say:

“A human being’s purpose is to make known the unknown.”

So, if some new diet or exercise routine makes sense, is touted by someone you trust, and others are achieving their dreams… try it, and make the adjustments you need along the way. Beats sitting on the couch.

Related posts:

1. Weighing the Evidence on Exercise and Diet to Lose Weight
2. Lose Weight Without Dieting
3. Artifical Sweeteners Make You Fat, Neotame Makes You Sick

Feed yourself through the nose on the new fad K-E Diet and lose weight fast!  It works… you can lose 10, 15, 20 pounds in 10 days, but only temporarily. You will rebound, perhaps gaining it all back and more! Read (watch) about this new diet fad taken up by soon-to-be brides desperate to fit into their wedding gowns.

HOW CAN I possibly understand the monstrous stress that soon-to-be brides are under to fit into an impossibly small wedding gown?  Stress so poignant that some are willing to feed themselves a slurry of protein and fat through their noses.

Yes, you’re reading this right.

As reported in Good Morning America yesterday (April 16, 2012):

“Brides-to-be looking to shed that final 10, 15 or 20 pounds in order to fit into their dream wedding gown have taken a controversial approach to crash dieting that involves inserting a feeding tube into their noses for up to 10 days for a quick fix to rapid weight loss.”

This quickie solution to a long-term problem is called the “K-E Diet”.

Dr. Oliver Di Pietro, who promotes the K-E Diet, says that its a perfectly safe, “…hunger-free, effective way of dieting,” under a doctor’s supervision.  Further, he remarks:

“Within a few hours and your hunger and appetite go away completely, so patients are actually not hungry at all for the whole 10 days. That’s what is so amazing about this diet.”

So, I just pulled a needle out of my bachelor’s sized sewing kit, and am about to jab this inflated quick fix diet.

First, how is it that the bride-to-be comes to Jesus about her weight – that she’s too heavy to fit into her custom-fit gown – just 10 days before her wedding?

Next, what’s the point of pretending to yourself and your spouse and the 100+ guests in attendance that you’re really 10, 15 or 20 pounds lighter than you really are, and will soon be again after the wedding, particularly after the heavy feeding and drinking bouts during the honeymoon?

(No, sex doesn’t burn it all away.)

If this was not an exercise in self-deception, the bride would have known long before the wedding was imminent that she wanted/needed to lose weight for whatever reason, fitting into the wedding gown being a pretty good one.

The Good Morning America show showcases 41-year-old Jessica Schnaider of Surfside, Fla., who said she felt that she couldn’t lose the needed 10 pounds in time for a fast approaching June wedding approaching.

She was desperate for a quick fix.

“I don’t have all of the time on the planet just to focus an hour and a half a day to exercise so I came to the doctor, I saw the diet, and I said, ‘You know what? Why not? Let me try it. So I decided to go ahead and give it a shot,” Ms Schanider said, and further explained that she had a lot of explaining to do to those thinking that an already fairly svelte woman running around 24/7 with a tube in her nose and a pouch of slurry in her bag is a bit odd.

I guess because I have a finance background, I quickly made an analogy of this quick fix K-E Diet to lottery tickets.

Stay with me here…

You’re 60+ years old and the date of your retirement looms.  Problem is, you haven’t saved any money for it.  So… eureka… you’ll start buying lottery tickets.  If you win, you’re retirement is assured.

OK, so to make this analogy fit to the brides on the K-E Diet, our lottery buyer wins the money for his retirement, just as the bride-to-be loses the weight she wants in time for her wedding.

Problem is, most lottery winners lose their money way before they’re in the grave.

Because they didn’t go through the process of earning and saving he money, learning investment and spending lessons along the way, the lottery winnings are quickly frittered away.

Similarly, because the K-E dieter didn’t learn to eat properly for sustained nutrition and weight, she will inevitably regain the weight lost on her K-E lottery ticket diet.

Over at Forbeswoman, Alice G. Walton weighs in about this diet in her article, The ‘Feeding Tube Diet’ And Our Limitless Weight-Loss Idiocy, where she quotes David L. Katz, MD, MPH, founding director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center.  He says this about the K-E Diet:

“In terms of quick weight loss, it is a guarantee of quick rebound, since it involves no useful behavior change whatsoever. It has nothing at all to do with health, and basically endorses the notion that weight loss by any means is acceptable. If that is so, I recommend a 10-day cocaine binge. It will work as well, and probably be more fun, than a nasogastric tube.”

Cocaine binge aside, with us humans, it seems that most things propagate from our psychology, our attitudes, which brings me to the comment made by psychoanalyst Bethany Marshall, who said matter-of-factly:

“If you lose the weight too quickly your mind is not going to be able to catch up with a newer, skinnier you.”

He didn’t expound further on this line of reasoning, but me thinks he’d concur with my assertion that the K-E Diet is another crazy diet that’s hardly worth it.

Watch Dr. Di Pietro’s video about the K-E Diet below. You can watch the Good Morning America show here. Tell us what you think in the Comments section below.

Related posts:

1. Five Diet and Exercise Myths that Need to Die
2. Dr Oz and the 14-Day Reboot Diet Plan
3. Weighing the Evidence on Exercise and Diet to Lose Weight

Ladies and Gents… have you been seeking a male contraceptive method?  One that’s simple, safe, relatively cheap and lasts a really long time?  Well, if the gentleman is really brave, you need to learn about why the best birth control in the world may be for men.

Click to enlarge and read the description of how this male birth control method works.

But I’m going to write about it anyway.

A friend of the female persuasion sent me an article about a new simple procedure that renders a man’s sperm infertile for a very, very long time.

“Blog about that!”, she declared.

“Off topic”, I said.

“You don’t even know what your topic is on your blog”, she countered.

Then a mutual friend of ours, again, of the fairer sex was recruited to twist my arm.

Then another.

“Why is birth control for men so important to all of you”, I whined.

As in a chorus, they sang in various ways the same song that distills down to:

“Because it’s about time that you guys carried the burden of birth control!”

And so with that as an explanation, let me get into the meat of this male birth control matter.

For Brave Men Only (and the women beside them)

Jon Clinkenbeard, author of The Best Birth Control In The World Is For Men, began his article thus:

“If I were going to describe the perfect contraceptive, it would go something like this: no babies, no latex, no daily pill to remember, no hormones to interfere with mood or sex drive, no negative health effects whatsoever, and 100 percent effectiveness. The funny thing is, something like that currently exists.”

And indeed it does, but I’m not letting any needle puncture my testes.

Yes, this “perfect contraceptive” for men is some gluey mixture that’s injected into their scrotum and, in effect, tears apart the sperm by something called the “polyelectrolytic effect.”

The result is that a man can experience the usual delights of ejaculation (sperm does exit), but it carries nothing in it that will impregnate his partner.

Apparently, this procedure is relatively cheap and simple to administer to those remarkably brave men who are willing to proffer their junk to a sharp needle.

And, by the way, it lasts 10 years.

The procedure, called RISUG in India (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance), takes about 15 minutes with a doctor clutching a syringe, is effective after about three days, and lasts for 10 or more years.

Did I mention the “10 years” part?

If during that time period, you get the notion that maybe you’d like to procreate, a trip back to the doctor’s office for another injection that will flush out the gel will get you back to your dangerous self.

Want more information?  Then read Mr. Clinkenbeard’s article.

Rather Make Babies?

For those of who not looking to stop procreation… indeed for those with a baby in the oven, planning for one, or already had one, you’ll not want to miss these amazing photos of a baby from conception to birth.  (Actually, these pics are for everyone ready to be amazed by nature.)

Related posts:

1. From Conception to Birth — Watch and Be Amazed!
2. Penis Size Matters, But Mainly To You, Dick… Jane Doesn’t Care