Posts by ds1973

Maybe she can now focus full time on body recomposition...

Original Post by floggingsully:

enjoy.

Yeah, complexes are awesome.  They'll get you lean and muscular (assuming your nutrition's in check) probably better than anything else.

Original Post by lysistrata:

My unfortunate experience is that the government is staffed with people who want a regular paycheck, paid vacation and generous benefits, and who could otherwise give a rat's ass about doing a good job.  I deal with all kinds of different government workers, including administrators for Social Security and Medicare (which are the likely models for a government-run health care program) and I can safely say that I have never once encountered a hard-working, caring individual.  Which is not surprising when you consider that the government has no incentive to provide customer service, because they do not depend on your satisfaction to stay in business.  They can always just come take more of your money.

Agree.  Many government workers have great benefits, low hours and treat the public like they're imposing on them.  In my experience this behavior decreases and sometimes turns around as you get to the small, local level.  So local government = more pride in work, care more about their jobs, state = less so, federal = worst.  

I know this is a long article, but if you're really interested in how the US got into the mess it's in (you guessed it, govt intervention) it's a good read.  It outlines the history that's brought us to our current system - govt intervention in health care and medicine, discusses attempted solutions, then outlines a genuine solution.

Moral health care vs "universal health care"

I'm leaving for vacation this afternoon, so you have plenty of time to read this.  I probably won't see your response till Monday.   

Some highlights:

"The tax code must be changed to treat all Americans equally with respect to how they purchase health insurance and medical services."

"Whereas people generally keep the same auto or homeowners insurance for many years, employees rarely have the same health insurance for more than two or three years, even while remaining with the same employer, because the employer chooses and changes the plans at his discretion, usually with an eye toward minimizing premium costs. Unlike auto insurance policies, under which the insurers often give significant discounts to safe owner-drivers in order to retain them as long-term customers, under employer-sponsored health insurance, the employers, not the employees, are the customers, and there is little, if any, financial incentive for insurers to build long-term relationships with the employees."

"One innovative insurance solution that is likely to become commonplace in a truly free marketplace is a combination of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and high-deductible, low-cost catastrophic insurance. HSAs enable individuals to save money for possible future medical expenses and to spend their own money on routine health care according to their own best judgment...."

------

"Americans who cannot afford medical care “are necessarily a small minority in a free or even semi-free country. ..... Those unable to afford any particular medical services would have to rely on voluntary charity, not on the empty promises of government. .... 

The advocates of Medicaid and Medicare under LBJ did not claim that the poor or old in the ’60s got bad care; they claimed that it was an affront for anyone to have to depend on charity.

But the fact is: You don’t abolish charity by calling it something else. If a person is getting health care for nothing, simply because he is breathing, he is still getting charity, whether or not any politician, lobbyist or activist calls it a “right.” To call it a Right when the recipient did not earn it is merely to compound the evil. It is charity still—though now extorted by criminal tactics of force, while hiding under a dishonest name"

Even with the government violating rights to the extent that it currently does, many examples indicate the sufficiency of charity in this regard. Here are just a few: The Shriners’ Hospitals provide free care to children and adults with orthopedic, spinal cord, and burn injuries. St. Jude’s Hospital provides free catastrophic care for children. Pharmaceutical companies provide enormous quantities of prescription drugs to those who are unable to afford them; for instance, they provided free (or nearly free) prescription drugs to about 6.2 million people in 2003 alone, and have been providing free prescription medicines to those unable to afford them for years.66"

I don't have a problem with the military, because that is the function of government.  To "secure these rights" the government needs to have some sort of monopoly on force. 

The real concern with the military is that 1) it needs to be volunteer, the draft is enslavement & 2) appropriate use of the military. 

This second concern is a foreign policy issue and one that needs to be based on using force only when American freedom is threatened and then with clear-cut objectives and minimal risk to our soldiers. 

Private ownership of roads and the water supply is not so far-fetched.  Why not?  Government subsidies just make people waste resources.  Subsidies allow people in arid climates to wash their car every weekend or farm in the high desert. 

Aren't we getting a bit off topic here with the military, roads and water?

I think we all agree that there is a problem with third party payment in health care.  Not only the HMOs, but the government.  Rationing of services and increased government control of behavior is a reality of government run programs.  It's simple economics.  If you subsidize something, the demand for that service goes up and then someone (usually the subsidizer) has to step in and to ration that product or service by other means.  This usually means the introduction of general, "one size fits all" rules and regulations leading to an inflexible system that dehumanizes the individual.

I've heard the stories from relatives in Greece about doctors not taking extensive measures to save "older patients" because "they've lived their lives" or handing the doctor an envelope of cash to be sure they got the better treatment (black market style behavior) during their heart surgery.

I'm all for a single payer system in which the patient pays the doctor for services rendered.  Third party "insurance" should be reserved for emergencies.   Some people will have to rely on the charity of doctors.  If there's one thing that many in the medical field are is charitable.  Let the individual doctors determine the best way to allocate their own services.   The skills of the doctor are his/her property, you are not entitled to them by force or theft. 

Further reading:

Health care is not a right

"The right to life, e.g., does not mean that your neighbors have to feed and clothe you; it means you have the right to earn your food and clothes yourself, if necessary by a hard struggle, and that no one can forcibly stop your struggle for these things or steal them from you if and when you have achieved them. In other words: you have the right to act, and to keep the results of your actions, the products you make, to keep them or to trade them with others, if you wish. But you have no right to the actions or products of others, except on terms to which they voluntarily agree.

To take one more example: the right to the pursuit of happiness is precisely that: the right to the pursuit—to a certain type of action on your part and its result—not to any guarantee that other people will make you happy or even try to do so. Otherwise, there would be no liberty in the country: if your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives, no say in what they do, they have no liberty, they cannot pursue their happiness. Your "right" to happiness at their expense means that they become rightless serfs, i.e., your slaves. Your right to anything at others' expense means that they become rightless. 

That is why the U.S. system defines rights as it does, strictly as the rights to action. This was the approach that made the U.S. the first truly free country in all world history—and, soon afterwards, as a result, the greatest country in history, the richest and the most powerful. It became the most powerful because its view of rights made it the most moral. It was the country of individualism and personal independence."

A few articles on dangers of socialized medicine:

Obama's Magical News Conference for Socialized Medicine

Why are we moving towards socialized medicine?

More importantly, "medical care" is not a right.  A right is a freedom to action.  You have the freedom to ask for and purchase medical care (something that has been made artificially expensive to us by government regulation, see last article) . You do not have the freedom to enslave others to pay for your care.

We need to be more concerned about protecting individual rights:

Individual Rights don't come for free

Wonder why medical care is so expensive, it's BECAUSE of government involvement.  And HMOs, well they're also a problem created by the government.  Third party payment schemes disconnect the provider from the consumer.  The consumer is more willing to "buy" services because their not paying for it directly and the third party is either expected to cough up or has to find some artificial way to hold down costs. 

This article explains it better:

The History of HMOs

"The individual was first discouraged from buying insurance in 1942 when employee health premiums were made tax deductible to employers--not to individuals. Congress created Medicare in 1965, making individual insurance for those over 65 obsolete. Subsidized, unrestricted health care for seniors lead to an unprecedented frenzy of spending by patients and doctors.

Costs went up, introducing an economic obstacle to individual health insurance. .... President Nixon appeased the left and proposed the HMO Act, which Congress passed in 1973. The law created new, supposedly cheaper health coverage with millions of dollars to HMOs, .... Combined with Medicare, the HMO Act eventually eliminated the market for affordable individual health insurance.

The new managed care plans mushroomed with federal subsidies. Employers perceived managed care as less expensive than individual insurance and stopped offering a choice of plans, making insurance more expensive for the individual. The government had effectively instituted HMOs, at the insistence of the left and the capitulation of conservatives and pragmatic businessmen.

Nixon's HMO Act was passed 25 years ago. Since then, the individual has become a prisoner of the tax code. Covered by an employer and herded into managed care, the individual patient is powerless. Under managed care, if the patient gets sick, he or she may wander the maze of managed
bureaucracy, be treated, or, languish in pain awaiting treatment. The patient may also be refused treatment and die.

Premiums under managed care do not pay for an insured contract for medical care decided between the patient and the physician--premiums pay for the management of care, i.e., health maintenance, by a third party.

Unrestricted free choice in medicine--health insurance chosen, provided and paid for by the individual--has practically vanished."

I like exrx for the detail they give on which muscles are being worked in each exercise.

I frequent this site daily (new articles every day):

http://www.tmuscle.com/index.jsp

The version for females has been maybe 1 article a week:

http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/

The business model is to give out lots of good information free and sell supplements.  Seems to be working.

Take some advice from Thomas Jefferson:

"Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, that that of blindfolded fear. ... But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. .... Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe ther is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, and that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; .... Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision."

- Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Peter Carr (8/10/1787)

Then consider Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand.  Read Atlas Shrugged and "Objectivism, The Philosophy of Ayn Rand"

Americas true religion

"Here is a core belief of the real American religion: the idea that life on earth is good and should be cherished and enjoyed. The idea that an individual human life is sacred, irreplaceable, and that an individual life belongs solely to the person living it and that no one--no group, no government, no collective--not even God--owns that life or has any claim on any aspect of that life."

Eat them.

Original Post by clairelaine:

 I'm forced to be almost totally sedentary due to medical condition and I eat a high carb and relatively high fat diet that is low in calories.  I just had bloodwork done and it was stellar.  My cholesterol was 167, down from 230 at my heaviest.  I did it all with diet, whole grains, vegetables, fruits and good fats, and low protein.  Portion control is the key.  Sure, it took me a long time to lose, but my burn is only 1650 because of my age and activity level.  And my weight is staying off.

How low is low protein (what type of percent of your daily calorie intake is it)?  Is being sedentary a lower risk than Sarcopenia?

If you want to lose weight and keep muscle mass, you should be getting enough protein (~1g / lb bodyweight) and weight training.   Most people probably don't need to worry about low carbs or carb cycling until they're at low body fat levels and are trying to shed the hard to lose fat.

However, there's nothing unhealthy about low carb diets.  What those diets tend to eliminate is a lot of processed crap that people eat on a day-to-day basis (french fries, potato chips, candy bars, pizza).  Vegetables and real meat are great foods.  Eating a lot of processed meat all day (eg: sausages and hot dogs) is probably not the way to go "low carb".

That's awesome!  Great job changing your lifestyle and losing all that weight.  My understanding with Type II is that you're insulin resistant and need to become more insulin sensitive, correct? 

I've never done P90, does it ease you into the workouts?  If you're worried the P90X program may be too intense, you may considered starting off doing some body weight exercises (squats, lunges, pushups) at your own pace first. 

What do your doctors say about the percent of carbs in your diet?  Can you drop them lower to say 40-50 % and up the protein to 30-40%?   If you want to hold onto muscle as you lose fat, you should look into weight training and keeping your protein up (~ 1 gram per lb body weight).

Overall, you're doing great.  If you're still losing doing what you're doing and happy with the results, great!  If you start to level off or become interested in building/keeping muscle, consider adding the weight training and adjusting your macros as mentioned.

This article talks about manipulating insulin for bodybuilding goals, but has some info on manipulating insulin sensitivity:

The anabolic power of insulin

"RW — So what are some practical ways to manipulate insulin sensitivity?

...Finally, your diet can make a big difference. I recommend moderate quantities — 40-50% of the diet — of fibrous carbohydrates like oatmeal, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. I also recommend eating moderate quantities (30-40% of the diet) of high-quality proteins like casein, whey, chicken, beef, fish, dairy and eggs. And finally, I recommend eating low quantities (20% of the diet) of fats from olive oil, flax oil, fish oil, and nut oils...."

First off, even the calorie restrictors are quick to point out that this SHOULD NOT be done by those under 21 who are still growing.    Heck, read all the other risks.  I wouldn't want to catch the flu in this state or have my son jump on me lest he break my bones.

Besides, it seems that one of the mechanisms is actually loss of fat and staying lean.  I'd rather have muscle and watch my body fat than me a weak, skeletal figure afraid of catching a cold or slipping and falling.

Calorie Restriction Increases Life Span: A Molecular Mechanism

"Calorie restriction increases the life span of many organisms, from yeast to mammals. ... The effect is lipolysis and loss of fat. Lowering of adiposity appears to be one mechanism whereby calorie restriction affects life span."

It seems there are other theories as well, so it's still not well understood.

Here's a glimpse into the cult-like life of some calorie restrictors: The Fast Supper 

This reporter lived the life for 2 months.  Honestly, these lives are kind of scary.  That guy Michael is at a BMI of 15.6 (6 ft, 115 lbs).  Think about yourself at that BMI!  There's a pic of two of them on page 2.

Select quotes:

"Paul, blue-blazered, gray-haired, with the face and gaze of a preppy Don Knotts and the approximate body-mass index of a Noguchi floor lamp (five foot eleven, 137 pounds)...."

"...Michael, stands beside her at the ready: a boyish-looking 35-year-old with brush-cut red hair, translucently pale skin, and at six feet tall and 115 pounds an eerily spare physique..."

"....Michaels regimen of 1,913 calories a day is exactly that: 1,913 calories every single day, 30 percent of them derived from fat, 30 percent from protein, and 40 percent from carbohydrates..."

"...'Men are stereotyped and still associated with Arnold Schwarzenegger and that kind of thing,' he complains. 'But to be honest, when I see a man like Michael, I think that's how a man should be. I think he looks absolutely handsome - intelligent, dapper, sexy. It's a mark of intelligence, of how a great role model should be: slim, bright, calorie-restricted!' ..."

"...Of all the physiological inconveniences known to face the long-term calorie restricter - chills that sometimes accompany reduced metabolism rates, stamina deficits that can cut short the capacity for protracted physical labor - none strikes dismay into the heart of the initiate quite like CRs potential, often mentioned but little understood, to squelch the libido. ..."

"...Michael smiles, just a little. 'I consume an enormous amount of carotenoids, beta-carotene and lycopene, which are found in foods like carrots, kale, tomatoes,' he explains. 'If I had skin like yours, the effect probably would be barely noticeable, but because my skin is an extremely pasty white to begin with,

So wait,' Adam interjects, 'you eat so much kale, tomatoes, and carrots that your hands actually turn orange?'...."

"...I made my way home that night with the growing sense that I had just come closer than I ever had to falling down the bottomless black hole of cult membership. ..."

"...by any objective standard, the food is lousy, but believe me: Starve yourself long enough and even a tofu-coffee-macadamia-nut-and-flaxseed smoothie becomes ambrosia..."

Original Post by marieclairehill:

You look the way most people are TRYING to look :)

Actually, I wouldn't want to look like her.  I don't think my wife would like it either.    

If you give up eating too many calories, you'll lose weight faster. 

Eggs and lean meat can be a healthy part of any diet.  At least they're real foods.  I think it'd be better to eat two eggs and a small portion of lean meat for breakfast than cereal from a box.