1. No matter how hard you train, someone will be born better than you
2. Goddesses only have daughters & gods only have sons
3. You can have minority and female characters in a movie, but their sole purpose has to be support or love interest to the white male protagonist
4. Creatures killed in the past just come back to life, and no new ones are ever created
5. Ancient gods and their offspring are stuck in the past and can only use primitive warfare techniques
I hear the books are way better, at least in terms of character development. Read a book!
Read more!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Live with Intent
AKA You Are What You Eat
Go get a piece of chocolate, or something else that is a treat for you. Mark the time. I want you to finish that treat at precisely half an hour from now. You can nibble on it, or save it until then, but you are to end consumption at that time.
There's an abbreviation for how the average American eats, and it is SAD - the Standard American Diet. It lives up to the connotations, centering on high fructose corn syrup, poor quality hamburger, sugar, refined white grain, starches, caffeine and preservatives. It's a diet without purpose based on cravings that are often the result of what was put into the body last. People mistake boredom or thirst for hunger, and then go pump in the empty calories, often leading to insulin spikes and further insulin resistance. This is not the prime state of existence, and many think that it is the root cause of heart disease and other health problems.
What's missing? Why are people like this? I live by the assumption that the default societal standard is not very well thought out or inline with my goals - in this case, it is unhealthy. Thus, it requires thought. A weighing of the pros and cons, acknowledging the consequences of whatever you do. Live with intent.
Coursing through the main dietary components, let me tackle a few with you. It is my opinion that the number one item of dietary destruction is sugar. It is the main cause of that insulin spike. I've heard tell that if you give sugary foods to a monkey, even it doesn't know when to stop, indicating that we don't have an off button for sugar, and that's not a good thing. It will leave you hungry within half an hour, and it has no nutritional content. Tell me that you have room in your diet for something that does not provide nutrients - really, go put your foods up on the CRON-o-meter or some calculating device and tell me that you've gotten a perfect amount of every nutrient before the day is up and you reach your satisfactory calorie goal. It just doesn't happen often.
Let's move on to grains and starches. More empty carbohydrates! These follow the same thought process as sugar, only they have another factor: fiber. Isn't fiber good? Maybe. It seems to help us poo. If we assume that bowel movements are always a good thing (are they?) then it's great. But one study simulated the effects of fiber, noting that the way fiber worked was by hitting the cells on the sides of our intestinal tract and damaging them, causing them to release mucus. Damage and mucus? Is a bowel movement worth that? Our guts are meant to stand up to a certain amount of wear and tear, but that seems a little much.
The other macronutrients - protein and fat - always seem to be jam-packed with micronutrients, so they are helping you function on all scales, rather than just providing energy. I've seen some iffy studies on both, but, if you reduce carbs, you have to up those two, so it just makes sense. Try to eat various proteins to keep your amino acid profile varied and go for healthy fats (saturated fats can be healthy; trans fats not so much).
Anything above that is up to you. Are you a vegetarian? Watch out. It's hard to get the necessary proteins, fats, and micronutrients when you're focusing on avoiding animal products. A healthy vegetarian diet beats an unhealthy omnivorous one, but healthy omnivorous seems to be best to max out health, partly because it's easier to find healthy foods when you don't limit the definition of food. Personally, I find pesce-vegetarian (often paired with "Weekday veg," the idea of being vegetarian on weekdays, and allowing fish and/or meat on the weekends or on special occasions) to be a decent balance between the ethics of not eating animal products with the health and convenience of doing so.
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." - Michael Pollan
Beyond that, there's really not that much more you can do to be the healthiest you except to listen to your body - and by healthiest, I mean most mentally capable, most physically fit, less illness prone, more likely to live longer and more sane, more able to tackle anything life throws at you.
Sources/Interesting links:
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/
http://www.paleonu.com/
http://www.dadamo.com/
http://www.imminst.org/forum/
Read more!
Go get a piece of chocolate, or something else that is a treat for you. Mark the time. I want you to finish that treat at precisely half an hour from now. You can nibble on it, or save it until then, but you are to end consumption at that time.
There's an abbreviation for how the average American eats, and it is SAD - the Standard American Diet. It lives up to the connotations, centering on high fructose corn syrup, poor quality hamburger, sugar, refined white grain, starches, caffeine and preservatives. It's a diet without purpose based on cravings that are often the result of what was put into the body last. People mistake boredom or thirst for hunger, and then go pump in the empty calories, often leading to insulin spikes and further insulin resistance. This is not the prime state of existence, and many think that it is the root cause of heart disease and other health problems.
What's missing? Why are people like this? I live by the assumption that the default societal standard is not very well thought out or inline with my goals - in this case, it is unhealthy. Thus, it requires thought. A weighing of the pros and cons, acknowledging the consequences of whatever you do. Live with intent.
Coursing through the main dietary components, let me tackle a few with you. It is my opinion that the number one item of dietary destruction is sugar. It is the main cause of that insulin spike. I've heard tell that if you give sugary foods to a monkey, even it doesn't know when to stop, indicating that we don't have an off button for sugar, and that's not a good thing. It will leave you hungry within half an hour, and it has no nutritional content. Tell me that you have room in your diet for something that does not provide nutrients - really, go put your foods up on the CRON-o-meter or some calculating device and tell me that you've gotten a perfect amount of every nutrient before the day is up and you reach your satisfactory calorie goal. It just doesn't happen often.
Let's move on to grains and starches. More empty carbohydrates! These follow the same thought process as sugar, only they have another factor: fiber. Isn't fiber good? Maybe. It seems to help us poo. If we assume that bowel movements are always a good thing (are they?) then it's great. But one study simulated the effects of fiber, noting that the way fiber worked was by hitting the cells on the sides of our intestinal tract and damaging them, causing them to release mucus. Damage and mucus? Is a bowel movement worth that? Our guts are meant to stand up to a certain amount of wear and tear, but that seems a little much.
The other macronutrients - protein and fat - always seem to be jam-packed with micronutrients, so they are helping you function on all scales, rather than just providing energy. I've seen some iffy studies on both, but, if you reduce carbs, you have to up those two, so it just makes sense. Try to eat various proteins to keep your amino acid profile varied and go for healthy fats (saturated fats can be healthy; trans fats not so much).
Anything above that is up to you. Are you a vegetarian? Watch out. It's hard to get the necessary proteins, fats, and micronutrients when you're focusing on avoiding animal products. A healthy vegetarian diet beats an unhealthy omnivorous one, but healthy omnivorous seems to be best to max out health, partly because it's easier to find healthy foods when you don't limit the definition of food. Personally, I find pesce-vegetarian (often paired with "Weekday veg," the idea of being vegetarian on weekdays, and allowing fish and/or meat on the weekends or on special occasions) to be a decent balance between the ethics of not eating animal products with the health and convenience of doing so.
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." - Michael Pollan
Beyond that, there's really not that much more you can do to be the healthiest you except to listen to your body - and by healthiest, I mean most mentally capable, most physically fit, less illness prone, more likely to live longer and more sane, more able to tackle anything life throws at you.
Sources/Interesting links:
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/
http://www.paleonu.com/
http://www.dadamo.com/
http://www.imminst.org/forum/
Read more!
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