via theonion.com
via weirdnews.aol.com
Calorie restriction with optimal nutrition (CRON) is one of the few life extension regimens that has solid scientific backing. However, many of the people who I know practice CRON look like famine victims — skinny, gaunt, weak. Ernestine, and other older bodybuilders such as Clarence Bass have better bodies than many people in their 30′s. I’d bet that a bodybuilding regimen will prove to better at increasing maximum longevity than CRON alone.
Intermittent fasting preserves lean mass
25-Mar-11
Dietary restriction is an effective strategy for weight loss in obese individuals. The most common form of dietary restriction implemented is daily calorie restriction (CR), which involves reducing energy by 15-60% of usual caloric intake every day. Another form of dietary restriction employed is intermittent CR, which involves 24 h of ad libitum food consumption alternated with 24 h of complete or partial food restriction. Although both diets are effective for weight loss, it remains unknown whether one of these interventions produces superior changes in body weight and body composition when compared to the other. Accordingly, this review examines the effects of daily CR versus intermittent CR on weight loss, fat mass loss and lean mass retention in overweight and obese adults. Results reveal similar weight loss and fat mass loss with 3 to 12 weeks’ intermittent CR (4-8%, 11-16%, respectively) and daily CR (5-8%, 10-20%, respectively). In contrast, less fat free mass was lost in response to intermittent CR versus daily CR. These findings suggest that these diets are equally as effective in decreasing body weight and fat mass, although intermittent CR may be more effective for the retention of lean mass.
via ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Fasting – the ultimate diet?
20-Mar-11
Stuart and Flemming published data from the longest fast, 382 days, on an obese man in Dundee, making it into the Guinness Book of Records, after reaching a 75% WL
via onlinelibrary.wiley.com
“Conclusions:
We can conclude that fasting is a ‘quick fix’ to achieve a substantial WL (up to 5% loss in 6 days). There is, however, the problem of elevated hunger during food restriction and this may provide too great a challenge to a ‘faster’ in not breaking compliance to the dieting regime and reaching for the biscuit barrel. Also, fasting results in minimal loss of fat tissue, in comparison with other dietary regimes and does involve substantial loss of lean (protein) tissue and this may impact on physiological function. Therefore, short-term fasting may not be a regime that optimizes the health benefits of fat loss per se. During fasting, increased fatigue can reduce spontaneous physical activity by ∼1–2 MJ d−1, and this will ultimately limit negative energy balance and may be seen as counter-productive. Nonetheless, a zero calorie intake does guarantee WL and this overrides some of the impact of reduced energy expenditure. Post WL, it is unclear what mechanisms or behavioural traits promote weight stability and whether fasting could contribute to maintenance of WL in some phenotypes. This continuous fast regime is not suitable for all individuals and would require medical supervision. For medical reasons we cannot promote it as a public health WL strategy. Nonetheless, intermittent fasting remains an intriguing intervention that may provide a novel method of body weight control for certain individuals.”
Dr. Hindhede discovered that potato protein is high quality, providing all essential amino acids and high digestibility. Potato protein alone is sufficient to sustain an athletic man (although that doesn’t make it optimal). A subsequent potato feeding study published in 1927 confirmed this finding (17). Two volunteers, a man and a woman, ate almost nothing but potatoes, lard and butter for 5.5 months. The man was an athlete but the woman was sedentary. Body weight and nitrogen balance (reflecting protein gain/loss from the body) remained constant throughout the experiment, indicating that their muscles were not atrophying at any appreciable rate, and they were probably not putting on fat.
via wholehealthsource.blogspot.com
I’ve just arrived at Le Corre’s training base in the Brazilian rain forest. For the next 3 days, he’ll be teaching me one of humankind’s oldest, trickiest, and most indispensable physical disciplines. Le Corre calls it “Natural Movement” — or “MovNat” in its French abbreviation — and to explain what it is, he points at Zuqueto.
“This guy is in amazing shape,” Le Corre says, speaking Brazilian Portuguese with an almost native accent. “He’s strong and he has great endurance. But what happened here? All he had to do was get on top of this pole, and he couldn’t. I can do it. Zuqueto’s great-great grandfather could probably do it. At one point in time, just about every man alive could do it. But Zuqueto can’t. And why? Because his body isn’t smart enough.”
A smart body, he explains, knows how to convert force and speed into an almost endless menu of practical movements. Hoisting yourself onto a pole may seem as trivial as a circus stunt, but if you’re ever caught in a flood or fleeing an attacking dog, elevating your body 5 feet off the ground could mean the difference between safety and sorrow.
And with that one word — “practical” — Le Corre exposes a key weakness in modern exercise: Our workouts are domesticated, while the world out there is still plenty wild. In a pinch, can a man put gym-generated biceps and tank-tread abs to any real use? Could it be that our treadmill-running, elliptical-gliding, well-oiled Cybex world has turned us into show dogs who can’t hold our own in the hunt?
via menshealth.com
For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.
His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most — not the nutritional value of the food.
The premise held up: On his “convenience store diet,” he shed 27 pounds in two months.
via cnn.com
Tools Unmask Desires
19-May-10
How much do we really know about why we do what we do? We are usually quite ready to explain the reasons for our actions in some detail, but on closer examination such explanations often seem to be rationalizations. So how can we tell which of our explanations to believe? If we are not willing to take people at their words, how can we learn what really drives their actions?
Automation offers an important clue. When people are willing to consistently delegate their choices to an automatic process that makes choices on the basis of certain explicit criteria, we can have more confidence that those criteria are really central to their preferences.
For example, many folks are willing to type an unknown address into an automated route-planning tool, and then actually follow the directions it provides. If they were only deferential to a few tools, we might suspect they show allegiance to folks associated with such tools. But in fact people seem willing to follow the routes of a great many tools. Since these tools claim to seek the quickest path, and also seem to actually find quick paths, we have good clear evidence that many people in such situations actually do want quick paths, all else equal. This offers a small but concrete advance toward figuring out what people actually want.
On the other hand, when people seem unwilling to use simple available tools that would directly give them what they say they want, we can conclude they aren’t entirely honest about what they want. For example, consider someone who says they really want to lose weight, and yet are not willing to use a tool like stickk.com, where they would arrange to suffer a self-chosen financial penalty for failing to lose weight. While we might posit that they are unwilling to do something new or weird, the more comfortable they are with other new/weird things, and the less evidence that anyone would criticize them for this, the more confidently we can conclude they just don’t want to lose weight that much.
via overcomingbias.com
Posted via web from crasch’s posterous
According to a 2008 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, dieters who had a financial incentive to lose weight were nearly five times as likely to meet their goal when compared with dieters who had no potential for a financial reward.
via time.com
Posted via web from crasch’s posterous
Eating more fruit and vegetables has only a modest effect on protecting against cancer, a study into the link between diet and disease has found.
The study of 500,000 Europeans joins a growing body of evidence undermining the high hopes that pushing “five-a-day” might slash Western cancer rates.
The international team of researchers estimates only around 2.5% of cancers could be averted by increasing intake.
via news.bbc.co.uk
Posted via web from crasch’s posterous