Tag: nutrition

New Years Resolutions? Just Say No.

the54thvoid

We’re now well into the Western New Year and perhaps I’m a little late to the party. Well, no problem, I don’t do parties and neither should you. Parties are for children and clowns, or politicians and celebrities. You and me? For my part, I’m way happier sitting with my wife by my side, slurping a beer and munching crisps while watching a re-run of Columbo at 480p on an ultra-HD 55” TV. The stark contrast of technology and 70’s cinematography reminds me I’m alive. Now, that’s a party.  

But what about those resolutions, I hear you cry. Just like parties, resolutions are beholden to certain groups: politicians (again, they have all the fun, especially dictators; they love a resolution), special committees, and, well, I’m not sure who else. Maybe the UN. Or the WHO—you know, huge global entities that need to make resolutions. And this is a good place to ask: are you a huge global entity? Sure, it’s a hell of a moniker to insult an overweight person but no—you’re not a global entity. Nor should you use that term as I just suggested. This is a nice place; it’s not suited to bad thoughts.

The resolutions you’re thinking of might be things such as:

  • I promise not to eat chocolate more than three nights a week, or
  • I’ll abstain from alcohol for one month, or
  • I will join the gym, or
  • I’ll refrain from posting mentally deranged conspiracy theories on social media

Well, apart from the last one, I have helpful advice on the general notion of resolutions. If the last point is on your agenda, I’d suggest you book yourself into a secure padded room and eat the key; everybody is out to get you and you’re very much safer inside—away from the rest of the world.

So, what is a resolution? Ready? Ready? Look up, here comes the penny drop. A resolution is an abstraction of something somebody wants you to become involved with. A resolution, at least the concept of it, is a sales tool to make you briefly alter your life trajectory by buying into somebody else’s lifestyle scam. Instantly, you can derail my cynicism by pointing out that eating or drinking less costs nothing—in fact, it will save you money. Correct. But, and there’s always a bigger but at this time of year, people replace their vices with something else. Raise your hand if own a Nutribullet, or some form of Ninja inspired fruit pulper. Admit it. Don’t be afraid. As for point three—joining a gym—that definitely has a cost, though, at this time of year there are an abundance of offers. Why? Because they’re zeroing in on the monetary benefit of resolutions.

Are all resolutions mired in profit? No, of course not. If your resolution involves helping others without fleecing them, then your New Year change of course is noble. Taking stock of how messed up our planet has become and wishing to change it would also be a worthwhile thing to do. Go clean your local beach by picking up the plastic and associated mess so that you can then can bury it in a greenfield site in the countryside. Ouch, that was nasty of me but my cynicism runs deep. If you really want to help the planet, insist on using cardboard or other non-plastics—and still go clean the beach or river. Maybe dump all of it in the middle of a concrete metropolis. Save the green and lush countryside and forests by destroying our cities instead. This is too dark; I’ll get back to the fitness angle.

Why are fitness resolutions bad? Intrinsically, they’re not. But what so few people realise is that (just like Mothering Sunday), it’s all about making you spend money elsewhere in time. Your desire to change your behaviour shouldn’t cost you money. If it does, you’re a puppet dangling under the influence of somebody else’s hand. That can seem an unfair judgement but it’s all about timing. Why make a resolution now? Why does it take a period of relaxation and excess to make you want to change behaviour? Simple—it’s guilt. And by buying into the resolution fad at this time of year, you’re doing nothing more than following a well-worn path of socially manipulated consumerism.

Don’t do it. Take stock of your life and look beyond the past four weeks. I’ve seen the clear trends over 26 ½ years. Every single January, without fail, I see the faces of people I see for one-quarter of the year. People who return to the gym with religious zeal in January, who become more moderate in February, and then by March they’re really nothing more than whispers of people I know who I’ll see again the following January. And every year, they get larger. And greyer. It doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t need an abstracted moment in time to make decisions about where your life should be heading.

Then, what is a real resolution? Bad news—it’s nothing but another Unicorn of whatever industry is taking advantage of your current slump. There are no real resolutions. To resolve is to make an attempt to overcome a problem, or to change an attribute that requires to be ‘solved’. And it doesn’t require a window in time to make that promise to oneself—you can do it in any of twelve months of the year. A resolution is nothing but a decision to alter an outcome, or to change a metaphorical direction in life. People will say a resolution is a promise to oneself, a contract, to secure something better. Those are nothing but glorified words for something so simple as a decision. After all, the notion that a resolution holds any permanence through promise is squashed by the reality that so many fail. And if you believe your resolution is special and it fails to deliver you to happiness, then what of the feelings of failure? It is better to say no to resolutions and instead take stock of your life and how you wish it to be.

Think of what can be done to improve what you are, where you are. Put on the old thinking-hat and consider if there are realistic ways to better your situation. Does it need to involve money or can it be done through sheer will and determination? Hint—if it’s not realistic, set it aside for now. You can play with that toy later. As an example, consider my dream. I want to be a successful and published author. My current submission is failing to gain any interest from agents; what can I say, they don’t get me. But my mini-dream is easy to fulfil, I can self-publish, and I know there is an audience out there, so in that small way I will be one step closer to my dream. My super-dream is to become comfortable financially through writing alone—to be able to quit my day job. For now, that is the toy I can’t play with. But this is the reality of change; it is better to take baby-steps to make something happen and to plan for it beyond the fiction of New Year. Just ask yourself: what do I need to do to be where I want to be? And then find the very smallest thing you can do to start that journey. You don’t need a fancy resolution for that—you just need a plan, even a simple one. So go, start planning. But remember, keep it real. Stay away from those pesky Unicorns.

Weight Loss for Cynics

the54thvoid

This post is longer than normal. And more serious, while still being cynical. Be warned, humour drought ahead.

There are two types of people in the world: Healthy cynics, and everyone else. To be cynical isn’t a bad thing. It’s a suspicion radar, a ‘ping’ that tells you to check something out. But you have to be careful. Cynicism works on a scale of human stupidity. Gullibility lies at one end; extreme paranoia at the other. I’m centre-right, only trusting what I can investigate, or what is clear common sense. Of note, Flat-earthers don’t belong on this scale. That’s another trip altogether, beyond paranoia and conspiracy. We’re not going there. But for reference, this is the family bubble:

Gullibubbles on the left, Cynispheres on the right.

The weight-loss industry relies on an individual’s gullibility. It doesn’t work well on cynics. Cynics tend to question things, read the instructions and discover the nonsense in the PR blurb. To illustrate, there is an incredible piece of marketing magic, universally used by slimming and diet products. It is this one single line (and to be fair, it is genius):

This product will only aid weight-loss as part of a calorie-controlled diet

What that actually means is:

This will only work if you change everything else as well

It wouldn’t work in car safety:

Keeps your family safe from accidents—as long as you don’t crash

Or for arms dealers:

This armoured vest will keep you safe—as long as nobody shoots you

Be a cynic. Read the labels. There’s also another word that is heavily involved in the marketing of any weight-loss or health supplement. One tiny word: May. As in:

This product may help you…  <and really, once they have said, ‘may’, you can insert any bunch of crap right here>

I mean, we can add the two monolithic quantifiers together and you’ll see how ridiculous the concept is:

This product may aid weight-loss if you are on a calorie-controlled diet

Well, pass me that burger Sherlock, hold the poop.

The industry relies on maintaining some semblance of mystery about weight-loss. It absolutely tries to bamboozle you with science. Except, as someone who studied Sports Science at University, and has spent 25 years in the fitness biz, I can tell you this: it’s all crap. What follows is known by everyone. My ageing Chinchilla understands it. My coffee cup knows it. It’s such a basic premise, the industry needs to polish it to make it sexy. But it’s not. It’s dull. And it’s a fact:

Consume fewer calories; expend more energy, and weight loss will follow

There are caveats to that statement but the basis is valid. So, if you had a stable but hefty weight issue, (i.e. not gaining pounds) all you need to do is obey the above rule. If you were getting heavier, you may need to cut even more calories, or do more activity, but the fact remains.

Instead of giving you the truth, the industry relies on pseudo-science. Pseudo-science is a special branch of science in the same way that astrology sounds like astronomy. In other words, it’s not science at all. PR companies will use terms they have often coined themselves, or they’ll float actual science but wrap it up in a shell of shiny nonsense. They need to do this because it makes it sound more legitimate. I mean, if you look at the logic of it all (or lack thereof), what the weight-loss industry is trying to do is sell you their calories, when all you need to do is cut down. Weight-loss should save you money, not cost more!

But that’s where the cynicism works, or more, it doesn’t for them. They need a gullible audience. And they can use special tactics to make you a little more susceptible to their marketing ploy. This is the sinister side of things, where you are socially manipulated to loathe yourself for having a spare tyre. Well, it used to work that way. Nowadays, social media fills that role. A whole host of awful people will gladly prance about to make you feel inferior. Shiny, plastic, vacuous personalities exist to make you question your own body image. It’s a trade-off for the ages: what was once done by weight-loss pros is now performed by social media bandits, all of them after your cash. And once you stare at that small phone screen and see buns of steel and glorious abs, you might cry a little into your chocolate fudge lasagne. So, you promise to be a better person and lose some weight. You turn to the industry, and it welcomes you with open arms. Nutrition companies will sell you expensive Bam-Bam Nuggets, filled with protein and despair. Online Personal Trainers will take your cash and give you a diet & exercise plan that they’ll say is personalised to you. Hint—if an online PT doesn’t communicate personally with email – there’s nothing personal about it. Regardless, nobody will tell you the truth. None of them care to educate you. Because they know that when you learn how to lose weight, their industry is finished.

So, how do you lose weight? Well, for only 50 bucks… Kidding! I’ll lay it out right now, right here. Professional advice without any sugar-coating or a plastic wrapper. This is weight-loss for a 21st century cynic. And, of course, none of it’s easy.

  1. Stop snacking. You’re a human being, not a cow—you don’t need to graze.
  2. Learn to appreciate hunger. Constant eating is bad for our bodies. Fasting is good.
  3. Become a Fibre fan. Eat more plant-based foods that require some effort. That’s why we have molars—to grind food into a more digestible pulp. Fibre also works wonders inside of you.
  4. Eat slowly, take your time. Your body has got a terrible ‘tank full’ gauge. If you shovel food, you’ll fail. You’ll feel fuller, if you eat slower. Drink water with a meal to amplify the boredom.
  5. Cut down on:
    • Sugar. Look at the food label. If a product has more than 10g of sugars per 100g, put it down. Sugar is nasty. Tastes awesome. It’s the crack-cocaine of the food world. You should feel guilty for splurging on the white stuff. Cut it out. Every time you eat sugar, a Unicorn dies.
    • Fat. If it sizzles and drips, it’s fat (or possibly plastic, and you should NOT eat that). Full of calories. When you eat fat, a cute Amazonian species goes ‘pooft!’. Actually, if you eat Brazilian beef (most animal fats come in meat form), you’re probably displacing animals and indigenous people.
    • Dairy. Cheese is basically just fat and protein. If you want to be weaned off it, think of it as though a cow pooped a solid block of milk. Milk Poo. The white dung.
    • Booze. My personal failing. I like beer. But booze is liquid food. Not very nutritious food. But, if you want very unhealthy advice, which if you follow, you’re a fool, and you can’t sue me—if you know you’re going to have some cans, reduce your calories elsewhere.

These are just a few things that will help. You need to work on all of them to succeed. Doing one or two should have an impact but follow them all and your chances are far greater. In fact, technically, if you do all of the above in good faith—I guarantee you’ll succeed. If you don’t, you’re not being honest with yourself.

There are a few more radical things you can do. I’ll call them the Nuclear Options. These are big red reset buttons that will require substantial life changes (and further guidance).

The Exercise Tactic. Eat what you want but exercise as if your life depended on it. Because it will. One hour of hard graft for your average Joe will expend about 750 calories (very rough guide). That will get trashed by a single Big-Mac meal. Or one-and-a-half choc-chip muffins.  You want to eat Snickers all week? Then run a marathon every day. (See what I did there?).

Calorie Arithmetic. Tedious, but methodical. Count your calorie intake—all of it! You’re liable to fail, because you’ll not remember ‘that small wafer’. Even though you ate fifteen of them. You need to count everything. But there are Apps that can help you. For average Joe, consume <1800 kcals/day. For average Jane, drop to 1500 kcal/day. AND, be active.

Learn to Cook. Seriously, it’s a manual task, so you’ll burn calories while you prep your own dinner. You’ll also find the goodness in raw ingredients and learn that plastic packaging doesn’t grow in the ground. Who’d have thought it? Potatoes aren’t cuboids. And Bechamel isn’t in Lord of the Rings.

Become Vegan. It’s very difficult to be a true vegan and be fat. Or have friends. Kidding!!! But seriously, as drastic as this is, it’ll work, but it needs serious commitment to succeed. Veganism is more than a dietary choice for many. Kudos to them for that.

Now, of course, I never said it was easy. That’s why you’re probably already looking at some weight-loss chocolate bars. Hey, guess what—it won’t work. Fads don’t work. If all you can do is remember the simple equation, you’ll have a head start. And you can save your hard-earned cash. Remember:

Consume fewer calories; expend more energy.

Prove the cynic in me wrong.

Conan’s Wheel of Pain

the54thvoid

Untitled

(Conan the Barbarian, 20th Century Fox, 1982)

A good place to start. Arnold Schwarzenegger is an enigma. A focussed mind and an exceptional physique provided the eighties and nineties with the iconic build of Europe’s greatest export. Moving from the shadows of competitive body-building and, in time, into the spotlight of Hollywood, Arnold was (and arguably still is) the only body-builder to conquer the silver-screen. While Lou Ferrigno was on par with Arnold, he didn’t quite have the same impact.

The Wheel of Pain (from Conan the Barbarian) was a torturous device of constant manual labour. Pushed and pulled for hours upon hours, this is about the only thing I have ever seen in movies to explain a physiological response as gratuitous as Conan’s sublimely-honed build. But is it accurate?

No, of course it’s not. Conan was a slave child and the calorific effort of moving a mini-forest worth of lumber would be phenomenal. I can’t recall the movie that well but I’m pretty sure there was scant reference to adequate nutrition, let alone the vast quantities of carbs and protein (and other
things) that would be required to facilitate the build of Arnold’s Conan. But that’s Hollywood. It exists to present the audience with heroes and heroines of unobtainable perfection; be it the impossible musculature of Conan, or the sleek lines of every female superhero. And for the record, there is no logical reason for the dimorphism displayed between genders. 

And that’s a problem right there. Muscle size. No matter what the load is, whether it’s tossing a car or punching chunks out of a concrete pillar, the strength required would be equal. So, in those films where women lift the same as men, technically, the female would require the same physical attributes as the man. In other words, why are super-strength heroines always dainty little slips? It’s all about image and marketing, which in itself is about gender discrimination and inequality. Which is a shame because it would be cool to see more male heroes that look ‘normal’ (and to be fair, in the post Arnold era, strong heroes don’t need to be massive – unless your name is Dwayne). But when it does come to muscle-men, logic dictates that the same requirement should fall on the shoulders of super-strong females. But that doesn’t fit the Hollywood narrative of what a ‘woman’ should look like. If Marvel ever gets real about making a female Hulk movie (I know she’s called She-Hulk, which is woefully derivative), I hope they CGI the crap out of it and make her as big as a house with really hairy legs. But hey, that’s not going to sell…

If we want to travel further down the rabbit-hole of unnatural selection, there is another problem with obscenely athletic physiques. Food. All too often, our heroes are out and about for 25 Hollywood hours of every day. They rarely sleep, they never poop, and for certain, they don’t eat a balanced diet. Muscles don’t grow out of thin air and hope. They are real physical components derived from adequate training stimuli and created from excess calorie consumption. Carbs and protein are fundamental to fuel our body and repair cellular damage. After that, with enough hormonal stimulus, a body will slowly lay down more muscle-fibre in response to exercise-specific stress. And man, is that process slow. There is a shortcut, namely steroids and growth hormone, but for the sake of litigation, I’m not going to discuss that in this post. Yet the point stands – our heroes appear to be the fitness equivalent of cold-fusion; unlimited power with little input. But there’s the rub; would you watch a film where the awesomely handsome hero stops whatever he’s doing to crack out his 400g tub of pasta and chow down on a tin of dry tuna every two hours? And have you ever had the displeasure of smelling the buttcheek-breeze of someone on a high-protein diet? It’s just not pleasant.

So, if we consider that your average, over-sized chemically enhanced body-builder trains for 2-3 hours and can consume 5000-8000 calories (or more) each day, you can see how Hollywood has it so wrong. But why? Well, movies aren’t meant to be real. At least, not the ones with heroes whose muscles take up more space than the end credits. With mutants and comic-fantasy, Hollywood doesn’t need to obey any laws of natural physiology. And in fairness, many of us love the sheer escapism of watching something so absurd as a man-mountain warrior emerge from a hard-labour camp with one piece of prehistoric fitness kit. As I say, it’s fitness Jim, but not as we know it.