Be Excellent To Each Other

Oh sure, i'm highly suspicious by nature, but dude on tv does this shit a lot and he was convinced, and it worked for him. Also, my other half being in the nutrition game and educated in this crap gives me an insight. She didn't think it was too ludicrous either.

Regardless of the science behind it, tv dude lost over stone, blood sugar was way down and cholesterol was much improved after following a 5-2 fast plan for 5 weeks, so if that is all it does then it is worth it for that

Heh. There is a paper* which has this in the abstract:



However I'm not so inclined to chuck $31 dollars at it.

I get suspicious about claims made on or around dieting and such, as I consider tehre to be too much bullshit floating about, and even proper scientific dieticians can't really get their heads around what a human needs. it's a personal prejudice.

*If you are so inclined, you can search that site using the box at the top (lastname, initial) and see what papers I gone and done some time back.

I'm not convinced that there are any proper scientific dieticians that are capable of getting funding that isn't motivated by special interest groups.

We're still using the same dietary advice that we decided was true 40 years ago. At the point that the western world started up a slope of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease that is showing no sign of slowing.

Absolutely. As an example, Mrs T's first job position in the hospital (dietetic assistant) was funded by the private supplement company that supplied their brand of supplements to the hospital. The choice of which supplements to order in was made by the dietetic department.
No conflict of interest there then...

Have you read Bad Science, by any chance?

I'm boycotting Goldacre until he says "thank you" to me.

I'm going to start eating Pygmies.

I have.

You want to be asked for what, don't you?

Then you should know to take some guy off telly and a nutritionist as anecdotal evidence, surely?

it's around ehre somewhere.

EDIT: Also, he got a bit too smug in hiw writings, and a bit preachy and I disliked that, and went off him. he seemed to be hounding epople to drum up his own PR, with acolytes following him through the rbeaches and it all got abit too much for me, the self satisfied tweets and forum posts.

We can land a one tonne nuclear powered robot on Mars and have it send back pictures of Space Volcanoes, but no one can agree if me eating this steak is good for me or not. I blame Liberal Academics in their Ivory Towers.

I recommend Gary Taubes' book Good Calorie, Bad Calorie. It's thoroughly fascinating. Goodness knows if any of it is true, mind. But it looks like science, so I'm sold.

He's not as bad as Dawkins.

Is there a chapter on grenades?

I'm guessing you didn't watch the show? It was more than 1 dude's opinion.
Regardless, i'm just stating what the show said, not that I believe it. It's interesting and the weight element fits with my own past experience, which is all I know for certain

As an aside, the main problem I have with Goldacre and Bad Science is that it places all anecdotal evidence in the same bucket. Does the anecdotal thoughts and opinions of someone who spent three years studying the science of diet and nutrition at degree level, and then worked in a hospital for a year treating patients have more weight than the guy off the street? Of course it does, even though they are both anecdotal.

He doesn't say they are the same, just that any kind of anecdotal evidence is so much more unreliable than proper scientific study, that they might as well be.

Andrew Wakefield.

Scientists live in a world of nuanced doubt, and once they think they know how something is, they do their best they can to show it isn't that way. Then get other epople to look at what they have done, and try and break the idea, too. Many rewrites and stuff later, it might get published as "our best explanation so far".

To do things any other way is folly.

Yeah, fraud is exactly the same thing...

I don't disagree in the slightest.

You do realise you are both commenting on a show neither of you actually watched, don't you?

Of course. Current nutritional guidelines, however, aren't founded on reams and reams of peer-reviewed academic research. They're founded on decisions made by government bodies seemingly in a science-less vacuum.

I don't doubt it. Look at the government's drug policy, for example.

I am staying at Mimi and Russ' at the weekend - last time I saw Russ I was much fatterererer.

Therefore I hope he notices the lack of rotundness on my arrival.

I will report back with findings.

Let's hope he doesn't read this, so it's a fair experiment.

It's quite low down on the page. I doubt he can bend that far.

Oh trust me, he can.

Okay. When I started this I was 121.2 kilos(267.2lbs), today I am 116 kilos(255.7lbs). So I have lost over 5 kilos (11lbs). I think this is good, I just wish I felt or looked even slightly different.

Well done

Good going, GJ! That's amazing in what - 3 weeks?

You probably do, subtly. But you won't notice it yourself. Give it more time, and wait for the comments.

And well done

It's great work. Go to the supermarket and put 5 bags of sugar in a basket. That's how much you've lost.

Heavy innit?

Thanks guys. It was 3rd of July I realized how heavy I was, so probably started that day. So just over 4 weeks? It's a nice steady loss I suppose.

Well done. You will look different, you just won't notice because it's a steady loss (the best way to do it). I bet Joans has though, eh?

Heh, Sam was 9lb 4 when he was born, and I know how heavy he was (made my arm ache!). It's good to have an idea of how much that actually is though.

I'm impressed that I'm sticking to it, I hope I continue to, I've been really hungry these last few days.

He hasn't said anything, but to be honest it seems to have gone from over my ribs/ under my boobs. I've only noticed it because over my stomach is where my work belt sits.

He's officially doing it wrong then!

I've mentioned it several times.

A couple when I have, even then you look like you're struggling to see it - like me.

Good work, losers. On the topic of nutrition, does anyone have access to any old tins or somesuch from about 1996, because according to this NHS guideline the recommended calorie intake for a man is 2500kcal/day! Wow! And it it isn't just a vague statement it states I am sure when I first vaguely started paying attention to this sort of thing the RDA for calories was ~1800kcal/day. Also this is a circular reference; as the average increases, the number of calories to maintain that average will also increase. I only hope someone at the Guideline Making Department understands this - I fear not.

2000 for women, 2500 for men, I believe. I thought it had been that way for a while.

According to the nutrition bible sitting next to me, she says "dunno"

Hope that helps.

My workout today was good. Nearly puked off it for the first time in ages.

Had to do upper arm sets (of reverse lunges&dumbbell raises, jumping squat curls with a kettlebell and 'bionic press-ups' - jackknives into press ups with my feet on a swiss ball), and leg sets that I thought were cardio (step-based stuff).

Then the trainer said it was time for cardio! Rowing machine: 30 seconds on, 30 off, for six sets. That sucked. And was awesome.

Sounds about right. I'm on 1,900kcal a day at the moment, in order to lose 1lb a week.

I'm doing very badly at the moment.

It is 2000 for a woman and 2500 for a man, but wasn't the question, has it always been that? To which the response is

I think Bobby's point is that some men don't need so many and that it is all relative anyway (body size, age, lifestyle etc...).

I'm on 1250 a day.

Or was, before my diet got interrupted by a fucker of a chest infection.

Or did the diet cause it? Zounds!

I got my exercise bike today. Put it all together and it seems great. Can't use it until the physio says I'm allowed, though. In the meantime I'm doing fifteen minutes of stretching exercises every hour and a half and then spending ten to fifteen minutes with my knee in ice with a dumbbell hanging off it to try and get my leg to go straight.

Well, yes, but it was more what Trooper said. I think the RDA for an average person has been increasing, and I would suggest it has increased by at least 500kcal/day over the last 10-15 years. But this is going from vague memories and as such I can't be certain.