From my personal experience, as well as my reading, I know that it simply isn't necessary to exercise to lose weight. I've lost plenty of pounds following my low carb, high fat (LCHF) way of eating without resorting to what Mark Twain called the "loathsome" practice of exercise. I wrote a blog post about it a few years ago, featuring Mr. Twain, which is one of my personal favorites even though no one else ever cared for it. Maybe readers thought I was advocating a sedentary lifestyle. In fact, … [Read more...]
Of mice brains aflame and other travesties
A note to the editors of ScienceDaily -- this is what a high fat human diet looks like. Or it might look like a plate of scrambled eggs with bacon, or a green salad with cheese, avocado, and black olives. What a high-fat human diet does not look like is that pile of buns, pizza, french-fried potatoes, and onion rings that you used to illustrate your story about a recent mouse study. The collection of carbs shown in your photo would choke a moose, never mind a poor little mouse. Oddly, … [Read more...]
Fat governors, fat taxes, and me
I've had trouble deciding on the topic for this blog post. This is a sure sign that someone is taking his blogging too seriously. When I started out, any post with the words "low carb" in it was good enough. Good enough for me, anyway, if not my readers. But in the early days, I didn't have any readers. (The way this post is going, that could come to pass again.) Enough stalling. Let's get down to picking a topic. What has been the big food, diet, weight or nutrition news of the last few … [Read more...]
Study findings undercut soda taxes as a way of curbing obesity
At the risk of being mistaken for a tool of soft-drink industry, or worse yet, a Libertarian, I am jumping once again into the debate over government action to curb our consumption of sugary beverages. (Well, someone's consumption; I don't touch the stuff anymore. I don't believe anyone should.) I stated my position a month ago, in response to calls by New York City officials for a ban on the use of food stamps to purchase soda-pop. Another East Coast official, Mayor Michael Nutter … [Read more...]
McGovern defeats Nixon!
As we gear up to elect a U.S. president next year, I'm thinking about the first presidential contest in which I took part. I had a small part. I voted. It was 1972, George McGovern vs. Richard Nixon. The fate -- and as it turned out, the weight -- of the nation hung in the balance. Nixon won in an epic landslide. He was the incumbent, and viewed as a pragmatic centrist, if oily. McGovern was viewed as a left-wing pacifist weenie -- seldom a winning image in American national … [Read more...]
Governor wants Michiganders to shape up, will track fat kids
I live in Michigan, a beautiful state with a weak economy and a whole lot of fat people. Our governor, Rick Snyder, sees a connection between our economic and waste-line problems. He may have a point. Technically, I'm one of the fat Michiganders. My current body-mass index (BMI) puts me in the "overweight" category. I've improved from obese, and am still losing, but for the moment I'm overweight, at least according to my BMI. (See my latest progress report.) About two-thirds of Michigan's … [Read more...]
Obesogenic: a new word for an old idea
A commentary by Jane E. Brody in yesterday's New York Times has a promising title: Attacking the Obesity Epidemic by First Figuring Out Its Cause. You have to admit, there's logic in that approach. There's logic, too, in Brody's central claim that we live in an environment that encourages, or at least enables, frequent eating and discourages, or at least enables the avoidance of, exercise. But is that environment "obesogenic" as Brody and some of her sources claim? Does the modern world … [Read more...]
Study: lifetime “dose” of obesity linked to diabetes risk
My old alma mater is famous for a football stadium that seats (or at least wedges in) about 113,000 people, give or take a couple thousand. If the current obesity trend continues, it will get progressively harder to squeeze all those spectator butts into Michigan Stadium without the liberal use of butter. This lends special urgency to the research into the causes, consequences and cures for obesity, some of it being conducted across town in Ann Arbor at the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital. A … [Read more...]
Helping the President raise awareness about childhood obesity
Happy National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month! That's right, September 2011 has been so proclaimed by President Obama. The President notes that a third of American children are obese or over-weight and urges "all Americans to take action by learning about and engaging in activities that promote healthy eating and greater physical activity by all our Nation's children." I can't find a place on the proclamation to leave a comment, so I'll do it here. Mr. President, I'm with you on the … [Read more...]
Let them eat beans! Why soda pop bans are a bad idea
Should the USDA allow states or cities to bar the use of food stamps to purchase soda pop and other sugary drinks? Or perhaps go a step further and enact such a ban itself? What the heck, why not just enshrine the ban in federal law? The New York Daily News in a recent editorial slams the feds for blocking an attempt by New York City to try the soda pop ban for two years to see what if any impact it would have on obesity rates in poor communities. The newspaper cites a four-part series on … [Read more...]