So I've been looking into the "High fat diets cause heart disease" "No they don't -- high carb diets do!" "You're wrong!" "No, you're wrong!" "You're a big fat doody-head" "Well, my Daddy can beat up your daddy!" arguments.
Best article is here. And it's just what we didn't want to hear: no, fat isn't that harmful -- but saturated fat, the kind in steak, cheese, and butter, is.
No, carbs aren't the devil, but chowing on potatoes and white bread all day isn't good for you either.
In other words, lean meat, whole grains, and lots and lots of veggies and fruit. This from the author of the Harvard study that people have been touting as "establishing no link between fat intake and heart disease". It's the same old boring, less tasty diet we've all been trying to avoid by cutting out the carbs or the meat or what have you. Yes, Atkins may lower your cholesterol. But its long term weight-loss outcomes are no better than any restrictive diet; some people stay on it, but most people don't, and then they gain the weight back. And the cholesterol lowering effects seem to be related to the weight loss, not the fat metabolism. Of course, if that's the only way you can lose weight, and you can stick with it, then it's a lot better than chowing on eight pounds of pasta a night. But it's not a magic bullet. Any more than the Dean Ornish "Extremely Healthy But Impossible for All But the Tastebud-Deprived" diet is a magic bullet.
This is just not the diet any of us wanted to hear was good for us -- not meat and potatoes men, nor sweet-toothed gals. That's probably why almost everyone is looking for a restrictive diet that allows them their favorite foods, instead of biting the bullet and seeking moderation. Trying to adopt this guy's diet would have half of my friends up on their chair screaming "Flopsy! Mopsy! Cottontail! Time for supper" and the other half begging to be taken to the nearest Olive Garden. It tells us we have to moderate the best tasting parts of our diet: the succulent red meat, the roasted chicken tender with fat, the pasta and bread and luscious, saturated-fat-and-sugar-nirvana of the dessert menu.
There are in-betweens. I hate brown rice. But I like converted rice, which has more fiber and nutrients than "white" rice. I hate couscous. But I like lentil-barley soup. Just as you don't have to give up all meat to cut down on your saturated fats, you don't have to start looking for recipes for millet to improve your carb-picture. You can go pretty far just by limiting yourself to, say, white bread, pasta or potatoes only once a day.
I know, I know. Moderation. Snore. But remember this: if you go on Atkins, or Ornish, or any of the other highly restricted diets, and you lose weight, and you can't stick with it, recent advances in our knowlege about the hormones that regulate appetite indicate that you'll almost inevitably gain back more than you lost. So baby steps beat springing forward and then falling back.
And one thing I have learned from all this: a medium rare buffalo meat burger is not only low in fat and high in protein, but also damn tasty.
John Ellis, who writes some of the savviest, invective free political commentary in the blogosphere, has some good thoughts on why the Cuomo campaign collapsed.
Atkins, Day Four You know that things are getting desperate when you find yourself tempted to eat out of the dog's dish.
Due to my mother's undiagnosed obsessive/compulsive issues, my dog is on a natural food diet. The dog gets pasta and rice every day, while I stare forlornly at his bowl. Last night, when I was putting the pasta in, I actually found myself considering stealing a few rotini for myself. How the mighty have fallen.
I may not be on this diet much longer. One of my kidneys has started to hurt. Probably it's just psychosomatic. But why the hell am I going to risk kidney failure to lose five pounds? I mean, there are many women in New York who would have their kidneys removed and go on dialysis for the rest of their life if they thought it would get them any closer to their goal of having the same profile as a paper doll. But I have better things to worry about. Anyway, I don't want to go back to my college weight; I looked like a toothpick with a lot of hair.
So I went in with a calorie counter to analyze the last three day's meals. Except for yesterday, when I ate three meat-and-cheese laden meals (cheese omelette and bacon for breakfast, roast turkey, mozzarella, a buffalo wing, and some salad for lunch; buffalo burger with a slice of cheddar and mushrooms, and more salad, for dinner) I've been eating about 300 fewer calories than on a vegetarian diet. Yesterday I ate probably 300 calories more -- my ability to accurately estimate my calorie count is hampered by my inability to figure out how many ounces are in one slice of cheese. I've been figuring 2-3 ounces per meal, which could be high or low.
I am firmly in the camp with the researchers who say people lose weight on Atkins because they're eating less. Yesterday I really poured it on and ended up at under 2,000 calories. For someone who's 30 pounds or more overweight, that translates into automatic weight loss. I on the other hand already often clocked in under 2,000 calories, so I'm not sure how much good it does. And that was really stuffing myself. I'm sure there are people out there who can put a 3/4 pound of burger on a plate with three slices of cheese and a couple lettuce leaves and really dig in, but how many of those can there be?
The other thing I'm noticing is that it's expensive as hell. I'm spending $20 a day on food. Now, of course, I'd be spending less if I packed my meals. But how much less? Buffalo meat isn't cheap. Vegetarianism is much more economical.
Oh, and there's the monotony. Meat, meat, meat. How many kinds of meat are there? I'm trying to rotate them. Today's tuna day. That, and lamb, are all I have left. Of course there are other meats, but it's not convenient for me to start grilling my own swordfish, I hate almost all other fish, and I can't afford shrimp or lobster.
It's beef, that's what. Beef and bacon. My dairy farmer relatives would be pleased, except that they can't imagine a meal without potatoes. But frankly, I never want to see a piece of either again. The funny thing is that, bagels aside, what I really miss are my vegetables. Lentils. Soft, ripe, tomatoes. Peaches. Apples. Melon. Mushroom curry. Big buckets of salad. Maybe I just wasn't meant to be a carnivore.
It's certainly been an interesting experiment. But unless my kidneys feel better by midday, it's me for a bagel and a bucket of salad. Any medical professionals out there who can advise?
Atkins, Day 3 I don't understand why people say they're not hungry. I'm hungry all the time.
Menu so far:
Tuesday: Cheese omelette Bacon
Veal chop with mustard cream sauce Large salad
Wednesday: Roast beef Lettuce Provolone Egg
Barbeque chicken, two pieces Salad
Two stalks of celery with 1-2 tablespoons cream cheese
Thursday Mushroom omelette with cheese Bacon
Thankfully, the nausea and stomach cramps have started to abate somewhat. I find it's better if you put a little carb into each meal; all-protein meals make me sick.
I've started to notice things. First, that I'm amazingly hungry when I eat. I find myself stripping the bones and pursuing every last lettuce leaf. I've never found lettuce so appealing before. I mean, I like it and all. But now it's the best part of the meal.
Second of all, even though my food is prepared with more fat, I don't know how much more fat I'm getting. Take the cream sauce. Normally, if I ate such a thing, it would come with lovely bread with which to mop it up. Now I end up with large pools of salad dressing and cream sauce on my plate, where it has run off my lettuce leaves and meat.
Third, I don't get full. My vegetarian diet had a lot more bulk. I go to my meals hungry and leave a little less hungry. Presumably, I could eat four pieces of chicken instead of two, but that's a lot of chicken to eat. My hunger levels are steadier, but also unfortunately omnipresent. Perhaps they'll get better as my stomach shrinks.
Fourth, I'm losing a hell of a lot of water. I don't think I'm losing any fat, though. I've started weighing myself, and was five pounds tubbier than I thought. We'll see what happens day by day.
Fifth, I think I'm eating more calories than before. But I'll have to go in with a calorie counter to be sure.
Its neighbour had spent the first 60 years of the 20th century running Cuba as a semi-detached state – and a source of cheap sugar, sex and salsa. No more Mr Nice President: when Castro started to implement reforms, and laid the foundations for vast improvements in health and education, the White House turned nasty. Its incumbents filled the remainder of the century with a spite that played into the hands of the man the Americans sought to destroy.
That's right, it wasn't the cozying up to our Cold War enemies, nor even the decision to allow the Soviet Union to move missiles onto their territory so they could be pointed at us; no, it was the vaccination programmes and the building of the Ernesto Guevara Primary School in Havana that pushed us over the edge.
The truth is that house prices, like equities, cannot for long outpace the growth of nominal incomes. In the long run, the ratio of house prices to earnings is thus the best guide to their sustainable value. And in Britain, America and some other rich countries, that ratio is now at or near record levels. That does not mean that house prices are sure to collapse; but it makes it highly unlikely that they will go on rising as fast as they have been.
Can Republicans sue their way into the Ivory Tower? Probably not; the 1964 Civil RIghts Act doesn't cover political affiliation. But there is one interesting area the author didn't explore: evangelical Christians. I've heard more than one scuttlebutt story about Christians who were zapped from an academic position because of their religious beliefs, and they are covered, especially at colleges that get Federal money, which is to say all of them.
The author also points out that conservatives don't actually need to win the lawsuits. The prospect of explaining, in public, to the taxpayers and alumni who fund them, why conservative viewpoints are unnecessary and indeed, unwanted, on campus would (will, if the administrations have any sense, which is of course not always the case) bring about an immediate sea change in hiring practices.
Something's wrong with Blogger. . . there's a delay in my posts, and they have the wrong time on them. Oh, joy. Yes, I know I should move to another program, but I move around too much for that. Sigh. Well, y'all are missing some great posts.
Tee-hee! Missed this part: "But a majority of Americans, 52 per cent, think that the US should remain the only world superpower, while 65 per cent of Europeans said that the European Union should become a superpower similar to the US. Only 33 per cent of Americans agreed."
The Europeans seem to think that becoming a superpower is like getting elected prom-queen; if you want it badly enough, and suck up sufficiently to all the little people whom you would never, ever let in your house, you can wear the crown. Guys, this one's not subject to a UN vote. If you want to be a superpower, you're going to need at least one of two things: a world class economy, or a world class military. Economically, you're structurally unable to compete with the US, and as the Economist points out this week, your demographics only make this worse. And militarily? Titter. Snort. No, really, stop it, it hurts when I laugh that hard.
I realize that you had a third plan, which was to develop multilateral institutions that you would dominate, and which would succeed in crippling the US's superiority. However, you should have learned something from watching our movies: neither the hero nor the villain is going to succeed with plans based on their opponent acting in blind disregard to self-interest. Okay, I know it worked for Hitler, but let's be frank: he wasn't playing against the varsity.
I think it's fine if Europe wants to be a superpower. Go get rich or powerful, and I'll be happy to vote the US off the field. But if the secret plan rests on our actively cooperating in our own demise. . . well, then, you'd better have a hell of a recipe for ex-lax brownies.
In related news, 100% of Americans think that Europe was "entirely to blame" for World Wars I, II, the Holocaust, and Communist atrocities in the former Soviet Union and associated territories. 99.8% of Americans think that "The next time Europeans get themselves in any kind of trouble that requires US intervention, they can k*** my a**". And 89% of Americans think that "If those same Europeans are against invading Iraq, then it's time to put Sadaam in a whole world of hurt."
The point of weblogs is their off-the-cuff nature, their unscripted, up-to-the-minute commentary. Politicians do not do unscripted, up to the minute commentary, and with good reason. I do not have several thousand motivated readers seeking out-of-context quotes or unfortunate phrasings with which to get me fired come next November's electoral performance review. And if I take a position which subsequently turns out to be wrong, I just say "oops, called that one badly" and move on. Politicians can't do that. Any position they take attracts the attention of highly motivated interest groups, and if they renege on that position, however mildly, those interest groups become highly motivated to get them unelected.
Any politician's blog would have to be vetted by the Committee For Making Sure the Congressman Doesn't Say Anything He'll Regret. By the time a post actually gets through this process, it will either be utterly banal ("The Taliban is killing puppies for illustrative purposes. Let me go firmly on the record as against the killing of puppies. If re-elected, I promise to do something about the deaths of cute little fuzzy puppies everywhere.") or hopelessly out of date. Congress might develop this sort of weblog. But then it wouldn't be a real weblog. It would be an extension of the congressman's website.
There are exceptions. Jim Traficant would make an interesting blogger, since clearly he doesn't care what the hell comes out of his mouth, and neither do his constituents. I can imagine Barney Frank with a blog; the Democrats will keep on nominating him, and it's not like his constituents are going to vote for a (eew!) Republican. But mostly, they'll avoid any sort of lively, timely commentary like the plague. And really, that's probably a blessing.
Atkins, Day 2 Well, I can certainly understand why people lose weight. I'm hungry, but I can't face the prospect of another round of eggs and bacon. Last night's veal chop with mustard cream sauce and salad were delicious. But I'm already tired of eggs, and it's only day two. By day five, I'm afraid I'll be too tired of it to eat anything at all.
I'm also afraid of another round with yesterday's horrific stomach cramps. I don't think it's a good idea to eat eggs, bacon, and cheese with nothng else; at least, my stomach didn't seem to enjoy it. Today I think I'll have some mushrooms in my eggs. Or I can just wait for lunch and have some roast beef. I haven't decided yet.
Looks like we're shipping tanks to the Gulf. I think there's very little doubt at this point that we're going after Sadaam, and probably this fall.
I also think there's very little doubt that if it goes to congress, it will pass. Not because our reps necessarily support it. But the vulnerable Democrats, from the South and Midwest (Michigan the obvious exception) are not going to go on record as against the war, no way no how. New England, New York, and the West Coast will vote against. But everyone else will line up behind Bush out of a keen sense of survival, if nothing else.
I further think there will be more casualties than in the first Gulf War. (Which brings up an interesting point -- what do we call this one? Gulf II?) But I don't think we're talking "Quagmire". First of all, there's no Iraqi equivalent of the NVA. Second of all, there's no financial equivalent of China or Russia -- the Saudis aren't that stupid. Third of all, militarily he's in worse shape now than he was then, although he does of course have the advantage of experience, and time to plan around incompetent commanders and defections on a massive scale. And fourth of all, it's a highly fragmented tribal country currently ruled with an iron fist. I think that at the first signs that Sadaam is going to lose, his people will start losing their enthusiasm for guarding him with their bodies. History loves a winner, and historically, populations ruled by nuthatch dictators generally sell out to the conquerors as soon as the outcome becomes obvious.
In fact, I think that if we want to get any good patriotic war songs out of this we'd better start writing them now, because we won't have much time after the balloon goes up.
Final post on diet, for those who aren't thoroughly sick of the subject.
Ultimately, the main point that I wanted to make about the Taubes article is that Taubes was taking two trends -- the increase in our national consumption of carbohydrates, and the increase in obesity nationwide -- and saying that since they were both rising at the same time, the one must be causing the other. This is the worst sort of statistical nonsense unless it's backed up by solid regression analysis, and not only did Taubes fail to do any sort of real analysis, but also, the data he was looking at yielded a simpler answer, one with more scientific evidence to back it up -- according to the FDA, we didn't just increase our carbohydrate intake, we increased the number of calories we consume. There's no need to posit some conspiracy of pigheaded doctors Refusing to See the Light, although of course that makes a better story; we were eating more than we expended. Surprise! We got fatter.
So what do I think is the culprit? Well, Taubes might be surprised to find that I agree with him -- we ate too much sugar. 30 pounds more per person, per year. But I don't think it's because the government told us to, although it might have been because that's what we wanted to hear.
But actually, there's an even more interesting explanation than that. It has to do with the revolution in portion sizes we've undergone since the 1950's. Consider that, according to Fast Food Nation, in the 1950's the average fast food soft drink was eight ounces. Eght ounces! Hardly enough for a modern American to wet his throat. McDonalds sold hamburgers, cheesburgers, and the equivalent of today's small fries. And your typical family going out for dinner had one burger, one eight ounce soft drink or milk shake, and a small fries. How many of you ordered that daintily the last time you went out for some fast food?
A look through the 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook is instructive. It's filled with ways to economize, substituting bread and noodles and cheese for meat, making cakes that don't use expensive butter or eggs, dressing up horrible processed things with tomato sauce or pimientos to make them palatable. When was the last time you ate oatmeal because you couldn't afford the eggs? We didn't get scammed into getting fat; we got rich.
We also got marketing savvy. The revolution in portion sizes that we've undergone is not merely a function of better production efficiency or richer consumers; it's also a product of what we've learned about human consumption patterns since then.
Back in the 1970's, Pepsi wanted to study peoples' beverage consumption patterns in order to figure out how better to market their product. To that end, they gave some families an unlimited supply of Pepsi to see how much, and what, they would drink.
What they found was astounding. It didn't matter how much soda they gave them; they drank it all. They kept increasing the weekly ration, and the families kept pouring whatever they sent them straight down their gullets.
Out of this revelation was born the two liter bottle. And the Big Gulp. And the supersize. Remember, almost none of a fast food processors cost stems from the ingredients; most of it comes from the real estate, the advertising, and the labor. If they can get you to pay more money by selling you a huge portion, most of the extra money you give them is pure profit. Thus the proliferation of leviathan meals across the land. And not merely in fast food restaurants. Unless you're at a really top of the line restaurant, the kind most Americans can't afford to enter, the average restaurant portion is 2-3 times the size of a healthy meal. And as a nation, we're eating out more than ever.
But don't get too busy blaming the fast food companies. We're the ones opening our gullets and shoving a pound of french fries down there. The only reason they can sell it to us is that we're buying it. And don't give me that hogwash about how people don't know that it's bad for them. My grandmother's high school health class textbook says nary a word about calories, but she can tell you what makes you fat -- big, heavy meals, and lots of sweets. Those people on the street toting an extra hundred pounds or so did not spring from some primeval glade where the innocent natives were unaware of the relationship between the food you consume and the weight you gain; they came from the same culture you and I did, where everyone is well aware that if you eat too much, it shows. They may not have wanted to believe this. They may have denied it. Or they may have temporarily forgotten it for the purposes of consuming a Supersize Big Mac Meal (1600 calories and twice your fat RDA if you order it with a regular coke. And thank you, Dr. Atkins, but the carbs aren't the culprit -- well over half the calories in that meal come from fat.) But they weren't innocent victims of the lying, rapacious food processors who duped them into believing that a chocolate shake had the same health properties as a stick of celery.
The real question is why the Europeans aren't getting fat. After all, people everywhere like consuming soda. And it's not like the marketers there aren't aware of this phenomenon -- they sell 2 liter bottles everywhere now. But restaurant portions in Europe are tiny compared to those sold here. And you can get on a bus without getting whacked every three seconds by someone's spare tire.
Part of the answer is that they're poorer. They don't just eat less; they excercise more; outside of the cities (and New Yorkers, too, are skinnier than their country cousins), no one walks anywhere any more. I was in the Philadelphia suburbs this weekend, and I walked five minutes to the convenience store rather than go to the trouble of getting into my car. From the looks I got, you would have thought I was skipping along the roadway in a Dorothy costume singing the Liebestod aria from Tristan and Isolde.
Part of the answer is that agricultural subsidies there bias shelf space towards natural foods, and who wants to drink two liters of milk while watching the World Cup?
And part of the answer is that they are getting fatter. The British Isles are close to passing us in the Millenial Obesity Challenge. And portion sizes there are exploding. With the proles lining up twenty-deep at Mickey D's, can Europe be far behind?
So I think that Taubes was engaging in the same kind of wishful thinking we all do when we're dieting. We want there to be a magic bullet, an easy answer -- something other than "eat less, move more". But getting the nations on Atkins isn't the answer. As long as we are a sedentary nation with an overstuffed diet, we'll continue to expand.
What is the answer? Child, if I knew that, I wouldn't be running this blog. I'd be off making my fortune in the weight loss business. But for a start, how about turning off the computer, getting out of your chair, and walking around for a little while?
Meanwhile, don't forget that Blogger Bash III is coming up fast! All those who want to see the results of this dieting can come out and view the fat cells live and in person. Everyone else can just come for the drinks and scintillating conversation.
Atkins, Day One Eggs, bacon, and cheese for breakfast. I feel horrible. Not diet-horrible, as in hungry, but unhealthy, "What the hell is going on in my stomach?" horrible. Obviously, some of this is psychological. I have eaten breakfasts without carbohydrates before. But I don't think all of it is. After four hours, breakfast is still sitting in my stomach like a lead balloon, sullen and immobile. No wonder people lose weight on this diet; the mere idea of eating anything else is utterly revolting, especially if it is another meal like the one I had this morning.
I have decided to limit myself to two meals a day. I think I can face an omelette without toast around mid-morning, but frankly, I'm afraid of using up all my salad greens (3 cups, max) at lunch and having nothing for dinner but a big hunk of meat. If I limit myself to eating twice a day, I won't have to face the prospect of an enormous hunk of protein towering menacingly over an otherwise empty plate.
I'm still trying to figure out why people find it easier to go Atkins than veggie. Vegetarians have a large world of available foods; Atkins followers have -- meat-o-rama, three times a day. But then, as Grandmother is fond of saying, differences of opinion are what makes horse races and marriages.
Phew! My high school made the list of the top 100 feeder schools for Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. We're number 89, but that's not what's important. What's important is that we made the list. I'm going to go right out and buy a Princeton beanie to celebrate.
