weight loss.............................

 

.................................and mind games:

What you’ll often notice is that the cravings aren’t coming from a growling stomach. They’re coming from your head. Your tummy isn’t saying “hungry”, it’s your brain saying “tasty.” Your body is like a buddy-cop movie where your stomach’s the by-the-book detective, and your brain is the loose cannon.
Want a stark illustration? Try “the broccoli test.” Next time you swear you’re hungry ask yourself, “Would I eat plain broccoli right now?” If you were truly starving, of course you would. But if you turn up your nose at this question, you don’t want sustenance — you want tasty.

enduring........................

 

Your body reflects what you eat. Your mind reflects what you consume.

For a healthy body, choose whole foods. For a sharp mind, choose lasting knowledge.

What’s lasting knowledge?

It’s wisdom that endures: Timeless principles, foundational ideas, and insights that remain relevant for years, not hours.

Before diving into the news or scrolling through feeds, ask: “Will this still matter next year?” If not, it’s probably mental junk food. The sugar high will leave you craving even more.

Avoid mental junk food. Feed your mind substance. Your future self will thank you.

-as cut-and-pasted from the Farnam Street blog

Watched this video and..............................

 

.............had a delicious chocolate milk shake for lunch.

via

Like it's not 100%....................?

 Cutting calories by 25% can slow the rate of aging in humans and lead to a significant reduction in mortality risk, according to a new study from Columbia University.

-as lifted from here

Depends on whether ice cream is also involved?

 . . . in the battle between the dieter and the brownie, the brownie always wins . . .

-via

A weighty subject......................

 Next time you’re “hungry”, ask yourself: “Would I eat broccoli?” If not, you’re probably not really hungry. This will make you a leaner person. No, I didn’t say happier. I said, “leaner.”

-Eric Barker, from this post

About this time every day..............

 

Why dieting is difficult.....................

 When dopamine signaling reaches a certain level you increase learning dramatically to the point where something becomes habitual. We have a name for this: addiction. Addiction has a terrifying sound to it, but it’s just the point where something learned is so powerful it can overwhelm constructive behavior. . . .

Next time you’re “hungry”, ask yourself: “Would I eat broccoli?” If not, you’re probably not really hungry. This will make you a leaner person. No, I didn’t say happier. I said, “leaner.”

-More neuroscience on the subject here

Ravikant..................

As diets go...........................

via        via

Yesterday.........................

More proof (as if you needed any)..................

........................... that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

Feels like it's time for another Creamsicle.....

The science of nutrition is maddening. There truly is no consensus. Show me any study on diet and I’ll show you a counter-study.

-Ben Casnocha, as lifted from this cleansing exercise

Conflicts of interest..........................

Back in the 1960's, the scientific community was at odds about whether sugar or fat was the culprit in the increasing rates of heart disease.  In 1967, three Harvard scientists conducted a comprehensive review of the research to date, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that firmly pointed the finger at fat as the culprit.  The paper was, not surprisingly, influential in the debate on diet and heart disease.  After all, the NEJM is and was a prestigious publication and the researchers were, all three, from Harvard.  Blaming fat and exonerating sugar affected the dies of hundreds of millions of people for decades, a belief that caused a massive shift in eating habits that has been linked to the massive increase in obesity rates and diabetes.
     The influence of this paper and its negative effects on America's eating habits and health provides a stunning demonstration of the imperative of disinterestedness.  It was recently discovered that a trade group representing the sugar industry had paid the three Harvard scientists to write the paper, according to an article published in JAMA Internal Medicine in September 2016.  Not surprisingly, consistent with the agenda of the sugar industry that had paid them, the researchers attacked the methodology of studies finding a link between sugar and heart disease and defended studies finding no link.  The scientists' attacks on and defenses of the methodology of studies on fat and heart disease followed the same pro-sugar pattern.
     The scientists involved are all dead.  Were they alive, it's possible, if we could ask them, that they may not have even consciously known they were being influenced.  Given human nature, they likely, at least, would have defended the truth of what they wrote and denied that the sugar industry dictated or influenced their thinking on the subject.  Regardless, had the conflict of interest been disclosed, the scientific community would have viewed their conclusions with much more skepticism, taking into account the possibility of bias due to the researchers' financial interest.  At the time, the NEJM did not require such disclosures.  (That policy changed in 1984.)    That omission prevented an accurate assessment of their findings, resulting in serious harm to the health of the nation.

-Annie Duke, Thinking In Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

The danger of overloading on..................

............................................................................."news"

Next thing you know....................

...................................they will be telling us that quarter-pounders with cheese, with a side of fries and a coke, are bad for you.  I wish these people would just stop.

via

Counter-intuitive..............................

.................................but human nature is a fairly mysterious thing:


"As the level of information and access to knowledge continues to improve it’s only making it harder for most people to make better decisions."


-Ben Carlson, as he concludes this post about the Dorito Effect

In praise of worms (and stuff)...................?

It is probably not just worms. The impoverishment of our gut flora — the bacteria in our intestines — in the modern world, as a result of excessive hygiene and antibiotics, looks increasingly likely to be the cause of various other health issues, including obesity and possibly autism, though early experiments on the latter are inconclusive. Open Biome is a “stool bank” that will supply you with faecal transplants from healthy people to enrich your gut garden. It will also pay good money for faecal donations from healthy people. Now there’s a tip you did not expect to read in The Times.

I do hope you enjoy your lunch.

-concludes this Matt Ridely post

Life its ownself.........................

.................................Good thing the year's not over yet.

Oops.........................

...................A cautionary tale for those who believe in "settled science."  Forty years ago, there was a dietary fork in the road:  who would be the villain - sugar or saturated fat.  It is a longish and very interesting tale. It is told here.  The fruit of this bad science is our current obesity epidemic.  And it didn't have to be  this way.  An excerpt to set the stage:

In 1980, after long consultation with some of America’s most senior nutrition scientists, the US government issued its first Dietary Guidelines. The guidelines shaped the diets of hundreds of millions of people. Doctors base their advice on them, food companies develop products to comply with them. Their influence extends beyond the US. In 1983, the UK government issued advice that closely followed the American example.

The most prominent recommendation of both governments was to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol (this was the first time that the public had been advised to eat less of something, rather than enough of everything). Consumers dutifully obeyed. We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine and vegetable oils, eggs with muesli, and milk with low-fat milk or orange juice. But instead of becoming healthier, we grew fatter and sicker.

thanks craig