Basic Pursuits

Ten years ago in the late spring I decided that I was going to lose all the weight that I put on the previous winter. Furthermore I determined to develop a plan to keep the weight off, particularly the pounds I tended to gain during the holidays.

If you are up for some reading, check out this summary of the Vitamin D Symposium in San Diego last month. If you are really interested, there is a link in the first paragraph to the slides that the speakers used in their presentations.

The April 9th vitamin D symposium

There is so much confusing information about health. It's hard to know what's bs without clearcut scientific evidence, which is really hard to come by. Like who's going to pay for experiments that only benefit the public good?

Try applying the gene test. How did our bodies evolve to nurture themselves?

Here is a somewhat documented piece about five food rules which are myths. I hope that the writer is right because I regularly violate all but one of these rules.

My basic premise is that it's not so much what you eat, but how much. I've heard it a thousand times and so have you. Moderation.

Keep calories low. Keep nutrition high. That's the middle path for eating.

One of the most formidable enemies of weight loss and nutrition is the idea of "diet." "Going on a diet;" "diet secret of the stars;" "eat what you want diet;" frankly any diet that is meant to fix a weight problem is a sham. For most it is the entry to a merry-go-round of fools, almost all of whom end up fatter than when they began. And the ride is full of frustration, guilt and shame.

Here's five reasons why diets make you fatter.

Lifehacker, one of my favorite reads, recently referenced a blog that enjoins us to set specific goals like, "I will lose 10 lbs." rather that vague goals like "I'm going to lose some weight."

For years scientists have known that the only way to increase lifespan in many, many
creatures (rats most often) is to restrict the amount of calories that they eat.

It has been a mystery why this is so, but that mystery may be close to being
solved. Researchers at the University of Florida recently completed a study
using rats that tests the phenomenon of autophagy.

Say what?

"Autophagy is a housekeeping mechanism that keeps cells free of damaged and

In my Internet wanderings this morning, I saw where someone had developed a gadget that keeps track of your weight. The gadget works on Google's homepage service known as IGoogle.

Here is a fact. Tracking your weight is one of the most frustrating and useless wastes of time you will ever undertake.