Completing the trine: vive la différence!

First, the obligatory picture of Hannah Spearritt :-)

Women have a harder time losing weight than men. Women retain water more than men for hormonal reasons, but a factor that's overlooked is that, on average, healthy women have higher body-fat percentages than healthy men. This is because women have babies and men don't. Who knew? On the plus side, women produce more DHA than men.

Why should having higher body-fat percentages make a difference to weight loss? See What is the required energy deficit per unit weight loss? The energy deficit required to lose 1lb of body-weight increases with increasing body-fat percentage. It's rarely 3,500kcals per lb.

If you really love mathematics, see The Dynamics of Human Body Weight Change.

From the above paper:- ΔU = ΔQ - ΔW

where ΔU is the change in stored energy in the body, ΔQ is a change in energy input or intake, and ΔW is a change in energy output or expenditure. This is the Energy Balance Equation. As I said back in Back to black, CIAB, pharmaceutical drug deficiencies & nerds.

Where body weight is concerned, calories count (but don't bother trying to count them).
Where body composition is concerned, partitioning counts.
Where health is concerned, macronutrient ratios, EFAs, minerals, vitamins & lifestyles count.

N.B. Poor health can adversely affect body weight and/or body composition, by increasing appetite and/or by adversely affecting partitioning.

Chow on chow, Parkinson's Law, two ways of doing something, and love.

Another mixed bag of subjects. First, here is Mr Carson C. Chow.

From A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity

According to Mr. Chow, Americans are getting increasingly fat because they're eating increasingly large amounts of "chow", because there's increasingly large amounts of it being produced. That's classic Parkinson's law (consumption expands to absorb the available supply).

According to Armi Legge, over-fat people need to . . . . Eat Less (& Move More).

There are two ways to "Eat Less".

1) Measure everything that goes into your mouth, calculate the calories in it and stick to an average daily calorie limit. Weigh yourself daily and adjust your intake to achieve a certain rate of rolling-averaged weight loss i.e. you consciously create a caloric deficit.

2) Tweak your diet until you find one that you can live with, that results in your belt and/or clothes getting looser i.e. you unconsciously create a caloric deficit. If you can't unconsciously create a caloric deficit, there will have to be some conscious restriction.

1) suits athletes & body-builders, as they are highly-motivated people who have a specific target in mind, whether it be athletic performance or a specific body-fat percentage/muscle mass/appearance.

2) suits the general public, as they aren't generally highly-motivated and won't tolerate hunger pangs.

Unfortunately, "Move More" has to be done consciously. Unconscious "Move More" i.e. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) a.k.a. Spontaneous Physical Activity (SPA) is genetically-determined.

Finally, I read Stretching out. I've been spending too much time on a blog full of fallacies & hate and it's been making me tetchy. I've now disengaged from that blog permanently. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's better!

Continued on Completing the trine: vive la différence!

Wall Sit research

James Steele was good enough to point this out to me.

In the basic Hillfit routine the wall sit is a fundamental exercise.  This is an isometric squat held for time with your back supported by a wall.  I included the wall sit for a few reasons:

• you do not need any equipment
• it is scaleable - if you are weaker, hold an easier position for example do not adopt a 90 degree knee position, don't bend your legs as far
• it is low skill - you don't need to learn a complex move.  Squats are actually pretty complex to perform properly.  I think a good squat pattern is important for health and mobility.
• it is safe - it keeps you in safe positions for your structure and muscles. (Bill DeSimone calls it a congruent movement - you use your muscles in a way that they are strongest where the movement is hardest)

I also find it an effective move for the thighs and hips in terms of producing strength.  Holding a 2 minute wall sit takes some strength.  I've talked about the exercise on this blog before by the way.

Anyway, James pointed out this paper, just published.

The effects of isometric wall squat exercise on heart rate and blood pressure in a normotensive population.

The isometric wall squat could be utilised in home-based training aimed at reducing resting blood pressure, but first its suitability must be established. The aim of this study was to determine a method of adjusting wall squat intensity and explore the cardiovascular responses. Twenty-three participants performed one 2 minute wall squat on 15 separate occasions. During the first ten visits, ten different knee joint angles were randomly completed from 135° to 90° in 5° increments; five random angles were repeated in subsequent visits. Heart rate and blood pressure (systolic, diastolic and mean arterial pressure) were measured. The heart rate and blood pressure parameters produced significant inverse relationships with joint angle (r at least –0.80; P < 0.05), demonstrating that wall squat intensity can be adjusted by manipulating knee joint angle. Furthermore, the wall squat elicited similar cardiovascular responses to other isometric exercise modes that have reduced resting blood pressure (135° heart rate: 76 ± 10 beats ∙ min⁻¹; systolic: 134 ± 14 mmHg; diastolic: 76 ± 6 mmHg and 90° heart rate: 119 ± 20 beats ∙ min⁻¹; systolic: 196 ± 18 mmHg; diastolic: 112 ± 13 mmHg). The wall squat may have a useful role to play in isometric training aimed at reducing resting blood pressure.

Interesting to see this benefit of the exercise - reducing blood pressure.  Exercise is often promoted as a way of controlling blood pressure, but people usually take that as "cardio", thinking strength training will raise blood pressure.  Here the wall sit is shown to be able to benefit blood pressure.

Another nice point in the abstract (I've not read the whole paper) is the observation that  

wall squat intensity can be adjusted by manipulating knee joint angle. 

That is what I mean by it being a scaleable move.

Taking levothyroxine & overheating in hot weather - the penny bounces back up.

Oh, whoops!

Two weeks after discontinuing levothyroxine, I was still feeling too hot (we're still having a heat wave). I thought that maybe my pituitary had started to function and my thyroid had started to produce thyroxine. I checked my body temperature. It was 35.3°C (95.5°F). The penny bounced back up.

How hot I feel ≠ How hot I am.

I'm back on 125μg/day of levothyroxine.

Back to black, CIAB, pharmaceutical drug deficiencies & nerds.

First, a song by someone who should be alive, but isn't...

The above video was inspired by a Facebook friend who had an accident with Schwarzkopf black hair dye and spent ages getting the stains off her skin. You know who you are!

I may have mentioned that nutrient deficiencies can adversely affect mental (and/or other) function. Nowadays, many people live on a diet of Crap-In-A-Bag (CIAB). There's just enough essential amino acids (EAAs), essential fatty acids (EFAs), minerals & vitamins to keep their bodies alive. However, Alive ≠ Working properly.

To compensate for one (or more) nutrient deficiencies, many people are prescribed one (or more) pharmaceutical drugs to tweak how their brains work e.g. fluoxetine, citalopram/escitalopram, venlafaxine, quetiapine, risperidone, valproate etc. There are no pharmaceutical drug deficiencies!

There are people who suffer from mental (and/or other) illnesses, despite having diets & lifestyles that provide sufficient amounts of all nutrients. This post isn't about them. There are people who suffer from depression due to traumatic & inescapable events/situations. This post isn't about them, either.

Finally, nerds! We nerds love to compile information. For an interesting interview with a top compiler of useful information, see Examine's Supplement Goals Reference Guide.

For an excellent article with a mere 148 references, see Why Calories Count. To sum up:-

Where body weight is concerned, calories count (but don't bother trying to count them).
Where body composition is concerned, partitioning counts.
Where health is concerned, macronutrient ratios, EFAs, minerals, vitamins & lifestyles count.

N.B. Poor health can adversely affect body weight and/or body composition, by increasing appetite and/or by adversely affecting partitioning.

Continued on Chow on chow, Parkinson's Law, two ways of doing something, and love.

Fast Effective Weight Loss

If you're ready to start losing weight, you want to learn some tips on how you can get a flat stomach. I looked at all the talk about weight loss and a quick and efficient manner Fast Effective Weight Loss.




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Home Exercises For Women To Lose Weight

home exercises to lose weight for women Here are some easy home exercises for women. These exercises will help you accelerate your weight loss while you save a lot of time and effort home exercises for women to lose weight. If you work a lot, but home exercises for women to lose weight do not get the results you want, then read this now so you can learn how to get faster results in weight loss.



home exercises to lose weight for women Easy home exercises for women :

home exercises to lose weight for women they are beyond easy. Everyone knows it. The question is, why people do not make them unless they are in class years ago gymnastics? home exercises for women to lose weight I do not know the answer to this question, but I know that it is proven to help accelerate weight loss. How to make the best use of the dolls?

home exercises to lose weight for women I recommend that you make them for 1 minute at a time. But the key is, you do 1 minute "mini-workouts" a bunch of times. Why do home exercises for women to lose weight it this way? Because it has been shown in this way to increase your metabolism better than further training home exercises for women to lose weight.

home exercises to lose weight for women So do not forget that many of the best training results shorter than most of the weight loss workouts more home exercises for women to lose weight.

home exercises to lose weight for women Or towers .. home exercises for women to lose weight. Or both. Here's the deal. Take 10 minutes to walk up and down stairs in your house, condominium or apartment building home exercises for women to lose weight. I guess if you do not have stairs available, you can not do this or you have to find the place that contains the staircase home exercises for women to lose weight.

home exercises to lose weight for women After 10 minutes thereof. Not something to think about, nothing to remember. What I do is I run up the stairs and walk home exercises for women to lose weight.

But you just walk both up and down the stairs. Within two weeks, you will be writing to me and thanking me big time ... That is, if you do it. The results are incredibly fast home exercises for women to lose weight.

home exercises to lose weight for women These two types of easy home exercises for women to lose weight ... As long as you have a drawer at home (I'm crossing my fingers hoping to) home exercises for women to lose weight.

home exercises to lose weight for women If you are sick and tired of the same old boring weight loss advice ... As you know, like "Eat more fruits and vegetables, drink 8 glasses of water, jog, and blah blah blah home exercises for women to lose weight"

Examine's Supplement Goals Reference Guide

This post is a short interview with Sol Orwell.  Sol is the mastermind behind the amazing resource that is Examine.com  He has just launched a new product, a Supplement Goals Reference Guide, so I took the opportunity to ask him about Examine and the new Guide.

Can you tell my readers something about your background in health and fitness?

My journey is a bit different than most :) I "retired" a while ago - my internet businesses ran themselves, and I wasn't interested in the rat race. I'd rather travel, walk with my dog, and so forth. 

So after traveling and moving for a few years, I came back to Toronto in 2009. Out of shape (way too much delicious ice cream in NYC and Argentina). As I started fixing up my physical body, I also started reading and learning as much as I could. Im a notorious notes-taker, and slowly and surely the pieces started to come together.

What were you trying to achieve with the Examine.com website?

A lot of the knowledge I learned was from various forums. Forums always have their idiots, but some have some really smart people. People who have doctorates, people who compete, etc. And I noticed a lot of smart information was basically lost over time - we could have a really interesting conversation, but then one month later, that thread was (for all intents and purposes), gone. 

I wanted to build Examine.com as a repository of said information. I'll be honest - I knew a lot, but compared to some of these guys, I was a five year old. I found a great partner in Kurtis, who was just finishing up his dietetics degree. So he got to focus on the research, and I took care of everything else.

What does The Supplement-Goals Reference Guide add to the great information at Examine.com?

The site is more geared towards the supplement->health goal relationship. It goes into pharmacology, interactions, etc. Basically, it's nerd heaven. I will eat a hat if anyone can find a page that goes more in-depth on supplements like fish oil, creatine, vitamin D, vitamin K, and so forth. 

The reference is meant for two purposes: 

1. Fast access. Open up the PDF, "search", and done. You instantly have the most pertinent info right in front of you - in vivo trials (animal and in-vitro studies excluded). 

2. The opposite view: health goals->supplements. We are mostly anti-supplements in a bandaid fashion (eg if you eat fatty fish a few times a week, drop the fish oil). But targeted supplementation is brilliant. Berberine for diabetics. Spirulina for middle-aged people. Creatine for vegetarians. You can drill into your specific health goals (over 180), and find supplements that work (and even potentially supplements that can cause problems - eg someone with high blood pressure can find which supplements could increase his or her BP).

Who is the Guide aimed at?

People who take their health and fitness seriously. This includes coaches, naturopaths, teachers, nutritionists (all with clients), and also includes biohackers and quantified-selfers. People who appreciate their bodies and realize potential limitations (and potential areas to improve).

Increasingly I have become disillusioned with a lot of the fitness information on the internet.  There are dodgy gurus out there promoting all sorts of secret knowledge to deliver muscle gain and fat loss.  Does the guide help to keep us on solid ground safe from the excesses of the marketing experts?

You know it :-) We've been around for 2.5 years. We never recommend any brands nor any products. Our advisory board is not only chock full of pedantic people who take us to task for a misplaced word, but you can see on our testimonials that we have a host of MDs and PhDs who are willing to attach their name to what we do. And these are people from all over the fitness and health industry.

The Guide

Could the Guide save me money through stopping me buying useless pills?

100%. Trib (for testosterone-boosting). Glutamine (for muscle building). Glucosamine for joint health? Black cohosh for monopausal symptoms? I could go on and on.

Is there anything else you would want to tell the readers?

We personally believe supplements are both over-rated and under-rated. As I broached before, one should not take supplements willy-nilly because it may have some undefined health benefits. Find out what your health goals, look up which supplements impact those goals (both positively and negatively), and supplement accordingly. Your health *and* your wallet will thank you.

Thanks for that Sol!

Examine.com is a superb resource which I would recommend to anyone with an interest in health and diet.  The Guide is adding something new and impressive to their toolkit.

FAO the over-fat and/or those with metabolic syndrome: Big breakfast, medium lunch & small dinner is beneficial.

Breakfast like a King/Queen.

Go to work on an egg.

According to High caloric intake at breakfast vs. dinner differentially influences weight loss of overweight and obese women.
"High-calorie breakfast with reduced intake at dinner is beneficial and might be a useful alternative for the management of obesity and metabolic syndrome." See the other PubMed studies listed in the above study, which corroborate it.

What about all the "artery-clogging" cholesterol in egg yolks? See Eat Whole Eggs All Day and Throw Your Statins Away? 375x Increased Dietary Cholesterol Intake From Eggs Reduces Visceral Fat & Promotes Healthy Cholesterol Metabolism.

A "does he even lift" jump

What I like about this video is that the guy does not look like your typical uberlean fitness model.  He is an O lifter and a great athlete however.

I don't believe it.

And neither should you.

From http://workwithstuartchalmers.com/wp/blog/2012/10/02/banners-broker-it-care/

Well, opinions are like assholes, honey. Everybody's got one and everybody thinks everybody else's stinks. The internet is full of opinions. Why should anyone believe anything they read on the internet?

If a writer has (a) qualification(s) in "A", it means that they know something about "A". It doesn't mean that they know anything about "B", "C"....."Z". However, humans being human, they have biases. Writers write in a biased way. Also, readers read in a biased way. Having (a) qualification(s) means diddly-squat. What does mean something, is backing-up what's written with quality evidence. As I have no formal qualifications in Diet & Nutrition, I try to do that as often as possible. When I don't, it's my opinion.

Many people are intolerant of other people's opinions. No wonder so many "fights" break out on forums, message-boards & blog comments. As a writer's qualifications mean diddly-squat, what's the point in arguing about a writer's qualifications? There isn't one! It's an ad hominem fallacy. Bloggers whose blog contents consist mainly of ad hominems & other fallacies are ass hats.

This blog was morbidly obese!

Uh, do what?

That's my blog, that was!

According to http://www.statscrop.com/ for this site:-
"This site weight is 261 Kbs. The site weight should ideally be less than 125 Kbs in length."
This blog is over twice the recommended site weight, which makes it morbidly obese. The reason for this is because I like to have a large number of posts visible on the main page. Unfortunately, this makes the main page take an age to load.

I've now put this blog on a PSMF (Posts Strictly Mother F***er), by reducing the number of posts visible on the main page to four. As there's a search box in the top left-hand corner and a blog archive section & comprehensive list of labels to the right, it shouldn't be hard to find what you're looking for.

Bursting from the seams: "Obese adipocytes" literally "explode" and leave a nasty inflammatory mess.

I just read a Public post on Facebook from someone I follow and whose blog is in my list.

https://www.facebook.com/profdrandro/posts/533941643320863

It contained a word that I've never seen before, but would like to see more often - Pyroptosis. 
See Obese adipocytes show ultrastructural features of stressed cells and die of pyroptosis.

Adipocytes dying, huh? You know what that means? Loss of body-fat. Unfortunately, there is an issue with the nasty inflammatory mess left, after adipocytes "explode". This limits the rate at which adipocytes can be "exploded".

See also SuppVersity Cellulite Special: The Etiology of Cellulite, Genetical and Behavioural Risk Factors? Physical and Supplemental Treatment Strategies & Their Efficacy. Warning! Not Safe For Work, due to pictures of naked botties.

Diet, Nutrition & Fitness: Whatever the question, the right answer is "It all depends".

The carbohydrate pendulum keeps on swinging! Bloggers keep on fighting!

Carbohydrates are good. No, they're bad. Wait, they're good again. Nope, bad again. Good again. Aargh!

So, are carbohydrates good or bad? See the title. Gluten? See the title.

As Everyone is Different, whether "X" is good, bad or indifferent all depends on genes (including gender), the expression of those genes, environment (i.e. birth weight, exposure to pollutants in the womb & after birth), general diet (i.e. nutrients, anutrients & anti-nutrients), lifestyle (i.e. sunlight exposure, stress, sleep etc) and type, level & volume of activity.

How many working brain cells do researchers have? Part n+1

Once upon a time, I took the mickey out of some eejit researchers in How many working brain cells do researchers have? Guess what? I'm doing it again. A Facebook friend sent me a link to a worrying "new" study Omega-3 Supplements Linked To Prostate Cancer. Oh, dear. Things are looking bad for oily fish & fish oil supplements. Just a moment!

I did some digging on PubMed for the author and found this:- n-3 Fatty acids and prostate cancer risk. The main feature of wild oily fish & fish oil supplements is their high ratio of EPA & DHA (long-chain omega-3 fatty acids) to LA (a shorter-chain omega-6 fatty acid). It would therefore be logical to assess oily fish consumption and/or fish oil supplement intake by measuring the ratio of serum EPA:LA and/or DHA:LA and/or (EPA+DHA):LA.

What did Brasky TM, Crowe FL & Kristal AR actually do? According to the abstract, they measured only serum EPA, DHA & (EPA+DHA). They didn't measure serum LA. Therefore, if the subjects in the EPIC study ate a diet with a high omega-6 (n-6):omega-3 (n-3) ratio (i.e a Standard English Diet), subjects with a high serum n-3 level would have a very high serum n-6 level. As excessive levels of serum n-6 pufas are carcinogenic (see Completing the trine: Which are the safest fats?), it's not surprising that the study produced the results that it did.

There only one thing to do, in cases like this...

Because one palm just isn't enough!

EDIT: Here's a better analysis:- Fish Oil and your Prostate. It looks as though n-6 was measured, which makes my analysis wrong, but I'm keeping the double face-palm, as the full study is hidden behind a £30 pay-wall. Here's another good analysis:- Omega-3 Fats and Cancer.

Searching for validation

No magic bullet

One of the themes that I've come back to a few times in recent months is the fundamental that there is no "magic bullet" when it comes to training.  So often we are searching for the new method, the gnostic truth that, after all these years, will finally yield those long desired gains in muscle and losses of fat.  We are a desperate and gullible market.  Show us an abstract from a study, or an impressive transformation photo and we are yours...paypal dollars flow for whatever ebook or course you are selling.

The truth of course is that there is no secret method.  Patience, consistency and simplicity are what counts.  Realistic expectations.  The fundamentals remain fundamental.  Train hard, progressively and consistently over a protracted period on some safe exercises and be satisfied with the results.  Lots of methods will work within that space.

Tell me I am OK

What I've noticed in myself a few times in relation to all this is how eagerly I seek validation of my ideas.  I will mull over my training, analyse and re-analyse an exercise or routine and come up with an approach that I think will work for me.  Then, however, I start to google.....I begin to try to find those out there that agree with my approach, my new idea.  If I find some to agree with me - then great.  If not then I am cast into a slough of despond and doubt.

The basics

Let's just be boring.  Stick to some basics for a while.  Forget what else is out there.  Put some blinkers on for a while.  Give it a chance.  Be realistic.  Stick at it long enough for it to make a difference.

Seated Box Jump

I haven't had a decent jump on here for a while

Resistance training is not rocket science; simple is almost always best

The title of this post is a simple quote straight from an article by Clarence Bass.  He is someone that I have referred to on this blog before, someone who has long been an inspiration and an education, since I first read his book Ripped in 1986.    He has informed my thoughts about training and diet as much as anyone has.

This article says a lot about what i think about training.

The No-Nonsense Way to Build Strength

Taking levothyroxine & overheating in hot weather - the penny drops.

Last night, I was sitting in a hot stuffy pub listening to some excellent music being played at a jam session. During the breaks (when it was quiet enough to hold a conversation), I was chatting with Jack the Rapper. As I was chatting, a thought popped into my head about why I was dripping with sweat, when everyone else in the audience wasn't. Here it is.

The Hypothalamus secretes TRH (Thyrotropin Releasing Hormone) which reaches the Pituitary via the hypophyseal duct.

The Hypothalamic Pituitary Thyroid Axis (HPTA) regulates body temperature. It varies thyroid hormone levels (T4 & T3) which varies Uncoupling Protein (UCP) expression, which varies heat production, which varies body temperature. See Minimal changes in environmental temperature result in a significant increase in energy expenditure and changes in the hormonal homeostasis in healthy adults.

"Thyroid hormones axis Compared with exposure to 24 °C, exposure to 19 °C resulted in small, non-significant increases in total triiodothyronine (T₃) and TSH AUCs and a significant increase in serum free thyroxine (T₄; P=0.03). When the analysis was performed according to the gender, a small but significant increase in serum T₃ AUC was observed in males (P < 0.05) but not in females. Similarly, while the change in free T₄ was highly significant in males (P < 0.002), no significant change was observed in females." Is this why women feel the cold more than men?

My Pituitary doesn't secrete Thyrotropin a.k.a. Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH), so I'm prescribed levothyroxine 125μg/day every day. When the ambient temperature rises, my HPTA doesn't lower my thyroid hormone level as I am running "open-loop". My UCP produces too much heat which makes me overheat. Ker-ching!

From now on, I will adjust my levothyroxine dose to a value where I feel comfortably warm at all times. According to http://www.drugs.com/pro/levothyroxine.html, the half-life of levothyroxine is 6-7 days. Any change in levothyroxine dose will take about a week to get half-way to its final effect on internal heat generation. This could take quite some time!

Continued on Taking levothyroxine & overheating in hot weather - the penny bounces back up.

Sunday Smörgåsbord: liberty, the internet, worry, health & Lyle McDonald.

Five items this time, not necessarily related.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smörgåsbord

By liberty, I mean personal liberty. I believe that individuals should be free to do whatever they want, provided that they don't harm another individual. However, collections of individuals should not be free to do whatever they want, as collections of individuals (i.e. businesses) usually try to profit from individuals, so the welfare of the individual isn't of importance. Businesses obviously don't want to instantly kill their customers, as that's obvious and will probably get them sued. However, "killing them softly" isn't obvious!

In the EC, just about everything has a CE kite-mark in order that it may be sold in the EC. Standards include EMC (Electro-Magnetic Compatibility) to ensure that:-
a) Devices don't emit excessive levels of RF "radiation", which may interfere with other devices.
b) Devices don't respond to excessive levels of RF "radiation", which may interfere with their operation.
I put "radiation" in quotes, as it's TEM (Transverse Electro-Magnetic) radiation i.e. Radio Waves.

In the US, who knows?

This is about "Smart Meters" - again! I've recently seen a surge in Facebook statuses about Smart Meters. I posted a technical article about these devices in Smart meters. Even after I posted a link on Facebook to my article, links to alarmist pages still appeared. The latest one is The Great “Smart Meters” Hoax. Electromagnetic Fields Are Real And Dangerous To Our Health, where Sam Milham, MD, MPH epidemiologist & researcher tells us how things really are.

Unfortunately, he's talking shite. The problem with people talking alarmist shite on the internet is that people who read alarmist internet shite and who are ignorant of the subject, believe it! This causes Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt (FUD), which in turn causes chronic worry. Chronic worry causes chronic hypercortisolaemia, which isn't good. A placebo (e.g. wrapping aluminium foil around your Smart Meter or paying for a "proper" solution to the non-existent problem) alleviates the chronic worry, which improves health.

I don't know about US Smart Meters. For all I know, some eejit has designed them to transmit 1,000W of RF (I'm just being silly), to get an outdoor range of >100miles. As these devices are designed for short-range communication, they probably transmit up to 100mW (about the same power level as WiFi) to get an outdoor range of ~150m. 1mW is one thousandth of a Watt. Transmitting more power than is necessary increases the probability of interference to other electronic devices.

100mW is a lot lower than the power transmitted by mobile phones (up to 2,000mW for the 850/900MHz Vodafone/O2 network), which need to be able to reliably communicate with the nearest mast, which may be miles away. As mobile phones constantly transmit occasional bursts of RF (to let the network know that they are on) and they are either in a pocket or are held against the ear/in front of the face to make/receive calls etc (while transmitting regular bursts of RF) and they are safe to use, how can a Smart Meter which is transmitting a much lower power level at a much greater separation be harmful? It can't.

With WiFi, Equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) in the EU is limited to 100mW. Dunno about the US. Bluetooth is very-low-power (~1mW for Class 3 devices).

So stop worrying! Chronic worry (also, reading alarmist internet shite) is bad for your health.

Finally, I noticed that Evelyn Kocur "liked" an article that I'd read and completely forgotten about. It's Evidence From the Metabolic Ward: 1.6-2.4g/kg Protein Turn Short Term Weight Loss Intervention into a Fat Loss Diet. Interestingly, the protein intake for optimum body recomposition is 1.6-2.4g/kg LBM. This is equivalent to ~1g/lb LBM, which is the protein recommendation given by Lyle McDonald in his Rapid Fat Loss Handbook. Yup, Lyle was right all along. That amount of protein isn't bad for the kidneys (even 50% more protein than that, isn't bad for the kidneys).

How does yoga health?

You hear everywhere now of yoga and it should be very healthy. What's so healthy about yoga?
 

How does yoga health?

Yoga - The Basics

Yoga is a science of human nature. Form the basis philosophical writings, which were written thousands of years ago in India.

An important answer to what yoga is, we find in Yoga Sutra, the best-known yoga scripture. It says right at the beginning: Yoga is the "coming to rest the inner movements".

Is meant here is: if we have a balanced state of mind, we are all around us to see things more clearly able. This knowledge gives us the ability to act "correctly". The unpleasant feeling to be controlled externally, dissolves. We receive security and learn to judge ourselves correctly.



The 3 ways yoga exercise

In the last 50 years, yoga has become widespread in the Western world. In Germany alone, nearly 5 million people practice yoga regularly.

This practice includes:

Asana => exercises for the body postures

Pranayama => practice of breath control
Dhyanam => Meditation

From the practice of these 3 are mutually dependent exercise paths grows around a respectful approach to the people and things around us, but also with ourselves.

The Benefits of Yoga for Health

Yoga has become a permanent place in the health care and health maintenance. He is considered as an effective way to secure the body to old age health and elasticity.

By consciously moving, stretching and holding postures we reach the next physical "fitness" also strengthen the self-healing and mental stability.

The breath is of particular importance. He is regarded as a mediator between body and mind. All we know is in effect a breath. We feel excited, the breath is quick and unequal. In moments of physical or mental weakness of the breath is shallow. A fine, quiet breath control supports the balanced state of mind that is sought in yoga.

Through meditation and mind fulness exercises behavior patterns can be identified that might be the preservation of health and vitality in the way. For example, studies show that lifestyle changes under the influence of yoga can slow the progression of coronary disease.

Yoga exercises have many ramifications on in physiological, psychological and philosophical perspective. In his home country of India, yoga for millennia regarded as tried and tested method for higher development of the whole person to integrate mind, body and soul.

We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.

If you don't recognise the words in the title, here's the classic song from which they came.


An increasing number of people are becoming like birds in gilded cages. See The perfect crime.
"What's fascinating is this: the marketing is so powerful that some of the people being hurt actually are eager for it to continue. This creates a cultural feedback loop, where some aspire to have these respected marketing jobs, to do more marketing of similar items. It creates a society where the owners and leaders of these companies are celebrated as risk-taking, brave businesspeople, not as the modern robber barons that they've become."

Did I ever mention?...