Tag: Pakistan

Diet Research? It must be January.

Yes indeed, it’s the first week of the year, and that means millions of Americans are trying to shed between 5 and 500 pounds. Some scientists were even willing to stick their necks out there and say fructose is a culprit in weight gain (a culprit not the culprit). Check the archives and you will find me many times saying that every weight loss diet that works requires drastically reducing if not altogether eliminating added sugars.

So Loyola University wants to help you out. They’ve got what they think are the top 4 reasons diets fail. Let me save you some reading:

  1. Underestimating calorie intake (e.g. eating too damn much)
  2. Overestimating activity and calories burned (e.g. imagining that an amble around the mall is just like a 5 mile run)
  3. Poor timing of meals (the dreaded “starvation mode“)
  4. Inadequate sleep (having a job and other responsibilities)

Really? I’m on board with reasons 1 and 2, although I see them as two sides of one coin. But do they really think that sleep is a bigger issue than unrealistic expectations in the first place, or diet plans that are for whatever reason unsustainable? Do they think that eating at the wrong time is truly a bigger issue than unsupportive friends and family who –subtly or openly — undermine the dieter’s efforts?

Want to lose weight without torturing yourself? Try eating reasonable portions of real food: plenty of veggies; adequate protein; no sweets, no crap that comes out of a box, no food-like chemistry sets. Hey, it’s no dumber than the other diets you’ve tried over the years.

In Closing: free classes; Downtown Vegas and F15; maybe now somebody will ask banks to follow the law pretty please?; Onna–bugeisha; ha!; conform or be called a terrorist; Malala; why oh why did Texas give him a second term?; more employment data than you probably want; somebody inform Scalia that 24 is not a documentary; the estate tax is not a wealth tax, it’s a wealth moving into the hands of someone who didn’t actually earn it tax; it turns out you need facts before you can figure out what to think about them; well that’s gonna have conservative panties in a wad; the Romney Loophole; is anybody surprised by this?; and I think Brent may have been playing Black Ops 2.

Old Time Religion

Today, a bunch of men in another part of the world were so threatened by the very idea that a woman might learn something that they shot a 14 year old girl as she rode home from school in a bus. What a bunch of big, manly men that they had to go shoot a teenager for daring to engage in radical activities like reading a freaking book. They tried to assassinate her for “want[ing] an access to the world of knowledge.” Oh no, she was a liberal and an infidel. The shooters wanted to make sure they had the right girl. After all, it served their purposes to leave the rest of them scared to go back to school; let them grow up to be ignorant and easily subjugated wives.

Damn right there’s “outcry” and “revulsion.”

Don’t pretend that this is about religion. This is about a bunch of scared little baby-men who fear that if women know about the world, they will demand the rights accorded to human beings and will stop allowing themselves to be treated like property.

Feminism at its most basic — at the level that anyone who isn’t a caveman, a member of Taliban, or perhaps a modern Republican should agree with — says that women have the same unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that men do. On this basis and this basis alone, I am a feminist. However, modern feminism has too much baggage. My partner will read this and argue that I’m not a feminist at all, but rather I believe in equal rights. I don’t think I’m any better than men. I don’t hate men. I don’t hate other women that disagree with me. I believe that a lot of my life is none of your business. I believe that the “patriarchy” is actually an over-hyped and under-effective tool of the oligarchy.

These ass-hats who think guns can enforce their opinion on morality should take their old time religion with them straight to whatever passes for hell.

In Closing: fragile infrastructure has real costs; cool boat; hedge fund pirates; fine print; yoga; Natalie reminds us that “not tested on animals” is a fraud; heh; explanation of the Washington bubble; on unemployment and payrolls; and I see his point.