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Quote of the day

June 18, 2013 by Beth@WeightMaven

Harvard evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman thinks we pretty much need “socially acceptable coercion” to deal with our evolutionary preferences for gluttony and sloth:

When you walk into a train station and there is a staircase and an escalator, your brain always tells you to take the escalator. Given a choice between a piece of cake and a carrot, we always go for the cake. It’s not in your best interest, but it’s probably a very deeply rooted evolutionary instinct. …

If we want to practice preventive medicine, that means we have to eat foods that we might not prefer, and exercise when we don’t want to. The only way to do that is through some form of socially acceptable coercion.

Lieberman said in a talk at Harvard’s TED equivalent (Harvard Thinks Big — below) a year or so ago that as we can’t change our biology, we need to change the environment in which we live. Hmmm. Not so sure that the latter is easier!

Posted in Ancestral health, Public health, QOTD | 7 Comments »

Just two weeks til Google Reader is gone

June 17, 2013 by Beth@WeightMaven

bigrssI’m sure the 300 or so Google Reader subscribers who read this blog don’t need me to remind them that it’s going away on July 1st. But if you haven’t found an alternative yet or are, like me, waiting to see some last minute options, I thought I’d remind you anyways!

One of the things I’ve learned in checking into replacements (as of today) is that the best replacement completely depends on how you intend to use it, e.g., do you need/want an app? Or do you want cloud-based? Like something minimal? Or want something more visual? Just need an RSS feed reader? Or want something with bells & whistles like social?

Given that, if you’re still looking, I’d search for the best google reader replacement and start testing them out … that is after you’ve exported your subscriptions.

Me, I’m a cloud-based, minimalist kind of gal, so my leading contenders are The Old Reader, InoReader, and CommaFeed. If I had to pick today, I’d probably go with The Old Reader. But I’m going to wait and see what Digg unveils next week before I make my final choice.

Posted in Administrivia | 4 Comments »

Eggs in holes

June 14, 2013 by Beth@WeightMaven

enhanced-buzz-11838-1371055735-18

Wow … now I know what to do with some of the eggs from my CSA: 31 Eggs In Exciting Holes!

Posted in Cooking, Real food | 1 Comment »

First CSA!

June 12, 2013 by Beth@WeightMaven

First CSA haul

My first CSA haul of the season (or ever actually). Looking forward to seeing what I get over the summer!

Posted in Me, me, me, Real food | 6 Comments »

Today’s annoying study: morbid obesity rates

June 11, 2013 by Beth@WeightMaven

Argh. Via Stephan Guyenet on Twitter comes a nearly year-old study about the rise in morbid obesity (BMI greater than 40).

Here’s part of the abstract (emphasis mine):

Between 2000 and 2010, the prevalence of a BMI >40 kg m−2 (type III obesity), calculated from self-reported height and weight, increased by 70%, whereas the prevalence of BMI >50 kg m−2 increased even faster. … The growth rate appears to have slowed down since 2005.

And here’s what I find annoying: the journal titled the report “Morbid obesity rates continue to rise rapidly in the United States.”

I guess “Morbid obesity rates continue to rise rapidly in the United States except since 2005″ was too long to tweet!

BTW, one of the things that makes this rise “rapid” is that rise is a relative measure, and morbid obesity was fairly rare at the start of their measurement period (mid-1980s). In terms of absolutes, the authors estimate that the actual percent of the population that are morbidly obese is just under 7 percent (6.6).

This kind of measurement is statistically valid, but it can be misleading (think “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” It’s like those reports that say something like if you have a 1% chance of heart disease and you drink, you now have a 3% chance. That doesn’t sound so bad, but of course, the media will report it as “Have one drink, increase your chance of heart disease by 3 times!”

You may well decide that a life without alcohol (or chocolate or red meat or whatever the substance du jour is) is worth decreasing your risk, but you may decide that the cure is worse than the disease ;).

Anyways, I’ve got no real issue with the study. It’s pretty intuitive that more people are morbidly obese today than they were 25 years ago. But based on the authors’ findings, I find the title misleading *and* annoying.

Posted in Obesity, Research | Leave a Comment »

Scientific 7-minute Workout? Not so fast

June 10, 2013 by Beth@WeightMaven

Elyse at Skepchick goes all skeptical on the 7-minute workout:

The first thing I noticed was that this program requires thirty seconds of pushups. Immediately I knew that this is not a program for the couch-bound aspiring workout enthusiast. In order to even begin this workout you need to be in better shape than most people who have been dreaming of the day science develops a 7 minute workout so that they can finally fit exercise into their schedule. You need to be able to do things like tricep dips, pushup rotations and a couple dozen situps… which means that before you even get to the 7 minute workout, you need to put in several weeks of 30-45 minute workouts just to avoid getting seriously injured.

So don’t get too excited about saving yourself all that time:

So if you’re trying to get thinner or looking for the best most convenient way to just get your body moving or if your goal is to just be more fitness-y in general, HICT could be your answer.

Unfortunately, if you have specific fitness goals, like maybe you’re training for a marathon, you can’t just use it to substitute your Thursday 4 miler and call it evensies. Did you hear that, me? You are a cheater mccheaty pants and now you’ve only hurt yourself.

I’m with Shari … glad I didn’t give this one too much thought.

Posted in Exercise | Leave a Comment »

Quote of the day

June 10, 2013 by Beth@WeightMaven

How to make a fast-food executive very happy:

The holy grail of junk-food science is vanishing caloric density, where the food melts in your mouth so quickly that the brain is fooled into thinking it’s hardly consuming any calories at all, so it just keeps snacking. In the process, packaged-food scientists want to avoid triggering sensory-specific satiety, the brain mechanism that tells you to stop eating when it has become overwhelmed by big, bold flavors. Instead, the real goals are either passive overeating, which is the excessive eating of foods that are high in fat because the human body is slow to recognize the caloric content of rich foods, or auto-eating: that is, eating without thinking or without even being hungry. … Either way, if you end up with a food baby, a distended stomach caused by excessive overeating, you’ve made a fast-food executive somewhere very happy.

Posted in Food industry, QOTD | 1 Comment »

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