To Weigh or Not to Weigh

On By SupremeCmdrIn addiction, Diet and Disease, Foodborne Illness, Lifestyle Underwriting, Memoir, Obesity, Survival strategiesLeave a comment

The National Weight Control Registry has published several studies on the habits of those who have successfully achieved and maintained significant weight loss over 10 years (4, 5, 6, 7). Their findings are based on the tracking of over 10,000 individuals through detailed questionnaires and annual follow-up surveys designed to identify behavioral and psychological characteristics and strategies used to maintain weight loss. 75% weigh themselves at least once a week.

Here’s a short literature review on weighing habits in the processes of losing weight and maintaining weight loss.  Read the source article here.

I completed my annual National Weight Control Registry survey this morning.

For the first time in a very long time I reported a weight loss since the last follow up.

When I tell people I’ve lost 200 pounds they are always surprised and ask how I did it.

Well, you’ll just have to buy the book when I finish writing it.

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Education, not income, the best predictor of a long life

On By SupremeCmdrIn ICYMI, Lifelong Learning, Lifestyle Underwriting, Survival strategiesLeave a comment

The researchers point out that better education leads to improved cognition and in turn to better choices for health-related behaviours. Recent decades have seen a shift in the disease burden from infectious to chronic diseases, the latter of which are largely lifestyle-related. As time goes on, the link between education and better health choices, and therefore life expectancy, will become even more apparent.

Read the source article here.

Download the original study at this link.

I should have gone to graduate school.

Data shows 400 pension funds could trigger garnishment – Wirepoints Special Report April 16, 2018

On By SupremeCmdrIn ICYMI, ManagementLeave a comment

It’s foolish to think that garnishments are going to solve anything. Taxpayers in municipalities across the state – who already pay the highest property taxes in the nation – have been putting more and more money into pensions, only to watch the funds continue to deteriorate.

Despite a doubling of taxpayer contributions since 2005, police and fire pension debts have doubled to $10 billion instead of shrunk, while funding ratios have fallen.

HT – Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge.

 

(Eat Like an Asian) A Healthy Asian A Posteriori Dietary Pattern Correlates with A Priori Dietary Patterns and Is Associated with Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors in a Multi-ethnic Asian Population

On By SupremeCmdrIn Culture, Diet and Disease, Foodborne Illness, ICYMI, Lifelong Learning, Lifestyle Underwriting, Nutrition, Survival strategiesLeave a comment
Results

We identified a “healthy” dietary pattern, similar across ethnic groups, and characterized by high intakes of whole grains, fruit, dairy, vegetables, and unsaturated cooking oil and low intakes of Western fast foods, sugar-sweetened beverages, poultry, processed meat, and flavored rice. This “healthy” pattern was inversely associated with body mass index (BMI; in kg/m2) (−0.26 per 1 SD of the pattern score; 95% CI: −0.36, −0.16), waist circumference (−0.57 cm; 95% CI: −0.82, −0.32), total cholesterol (−0.070 mmol/L; 95% CI: −0.091, −0.048), LDL cholesterol (−0.054 mmol/L; 95% CI: −0.074, −0.035), and fasting triglycerides (−0.22 mmol/L; 95% CI: −0.04, −0.004) and directly associated with HDL cholesterol (0.013 mmol/L; 95% CI: 0.006, 0.021). Generally, “healthy” pattern associations were at least as strong as a priori pattern associations with cardiovascular disease risk factors.

Conclusion

A healthful dietary pattern that correlated well with a priori patterns and was associated with lower BMI, serum LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol, and fasting triglyceride concentrations was identified across 3 major Asian ethnic groups.

Full abstract here.

Eat like an Asian.

When the product is “free,” WE are the product

On By SupremeCmdrIn TechnologyLeave a comment

There are many people who think nothing of it. They laugh at us. For them, we’re fossils that just cannot grasp the modern world where private life takes place on the Internet and is stored forever in the cloud. Formerly innocuous devices like toothbrushes, dolls, TVs, thermostats, fridges, mattresses, or toilet-paper dispensers, that are everywhere around the house, will see to it that more and more personal and even intimate data gets uploaded to the cloud as the Internet of Things invades not only our home but our body cavities…

But there will be a day when we will be forced to surrender our data to get health insurance, drive a car, or have a refrigerator and a thermostat in the house. This is where this is going. Why? Because data is where the money is. And because many consumers are embracing it.

A toothbrush that sends your personal usage data to “The Cloud”.

This is a must read article.

Binge-eating mice reveal obesity clues

On By SupremeCmdrIn addiction, Mice Abuse, ObesityLeave a comment

For example, when offered chocolate for just one hour per day, the animals will compulsively ‘binge’, consuming as much chocolate in one hour as they would over a whole day if it was continually available. They also showed inflexible behaviours, similar to those seen in addiction, choosing to wait for chocolate while ignoring freely available standard chow. Yet, at the same time, the chocolate did not seem to satiate hunger as well as regular food.

The team found that animals on the high fat or chocolate diet also changed their daily routines. They were more likely to eat during the daytime — mice are usually nocturnal and feed at night — and they ate shorter more frequent ‘snacks’ rather than larger, longer-spaced meals.

We had friends over for dinner on Saturday.  While at the store shopping for provisions I saw some gelato on sale for 99 cents.

$0.99!  The only flavor on sale was chocolate.  I bought some.

The next night I had to have some chocolate gelato.  Because it was there!

The mice have proven what I already know.

Read the source article here.