Your Tax Dollars At Work

Just stumbled across this piece. “Feds Wonder Why Fat Girls Can’t Get Dates“.

To my amazement, more than half a million dollars was allocated in grants to explore why overweight obese fat girls lose out in the dating arena.

To those of us up here in the cheap seats, the answer is obvious: The vast majority of men do not find overweight obese fat women attractive. There. I said it. Let the games begin… If you don’t believe me, just look at the contortions and poses that overweight obese fat girls go to in order to hide their true size in their online profile photos.

For those who need to know — or care — here is a brief guide to what men find attractive in women.

• Slim
• Hourglass figure (waist-to-hip ratio is more important than size)
• Long Hair
• Good teeth/nice smile
• Smooth skin/symmetrical features.
• Few piercings/fewer or no tattoos
• Friendly/good-natured

After reading the above, I am sure several heads of women wearing comfortable shoes exploded. But that’s the way it is. You can howl and yowl and argue and complain all you like, but you can’t argue with biology anymore than men can argue with the Hallmark Channel, selfies and attention-seeking on Facebook (which is why we don’t bother). So let me acquaint you with the underlying biological reality.

At the back of every man’s brain dwells a caveman, whom we shall call Mister Ug. Now Mister Ug is biologically wired to reproduce as efficiently as possible by coupling with as many fertile women as he can. To this end, he is able to visually identify a female from about a mile away by her walk.

Naturally Mister Ug wants the best mothers for his offspring, so he will seek out the healthiest women he can find. Long hair is a good indicator of good health. Short, lank, damaged or no hair shows poor health. Same goes for smooth, unblemished skin. An hourglass figure signifies the win-win of (relatively) easy delivery of babies, and free food, and a slim waist is in indication for a healthy metabolism.

Yes, modern society, culture and, dare I say it, Feminism has made numerous attempts to kill off Mister Ug, but it is an effort that is bound for failure, as Mister Ug, the ancestor of all action heroes, refuses to die; it will be a long, long time before they can entirely wash away half a million years of biological best practices.

In the meantime, ladies, put down the donuts, lay off the chocolate, leave the cake alone (the cake is, after all, a lie). cut out the sugars and starches, avoid junk food, and learn to cook real food from scratch.

And if your butt is wider than you want it to be, stay out of restaurants unless you work there.

Can I have my half-million dollars now?

Food for thought

A disparate and semi-random collection of random nutrition-related thoughts and opinions:

• “Cow’s milk is natures perfect food… if you are a baby cow” (Mark Hyman)
• Fat doesn’t make you fat; sugar makes you fat. Decades of low-fat diets have left us fatter than ever. But when the manufacturers removed the fat, what was left tasted horrible, so to make it taste better they added… sugar.
• Unhealthy Breakfast:.Cereal + Fruit Juice + Toast.
• Healthy Breakfast: Eggs + Ham + Fruit
• Whole Milk Good. Low-fat milk Bad. Fat-free/skim milk Ugly
• The three most profitable foods in the supermarket are soda, salty snacks and breakfast cereal. You don’t actually need any of them.
• If is doesn’t rot, don’t eat it.
• You don’t need much sugar to function: Normal blood glucose level is 100mg/dL. Which is a gram per liter. You have five liters of blood on average. So the sum total of your blood glucose is about five grams – which is about a teaspoon of sugar.
• Restaurant food is bad for you: They want you to enjoy the experience, so to make the food taste better they add sugar and/or salt. So… if you’re fat, stay out of restaurants… unless you work there.
• Eat Butter.
• Drink lots of water. There is no habit as conducive to long-term health as drinking plenty of water.
• “If it tastes good, spit it out”
• Walk! Americans do not walk enough. Get a pedometer (or install a pedometer app on your smartphone)
• Sugar is a poison – treat it as such.
• Avoid white foods
• Shop “on the edge”. Most supermarkets have the fresh (perishable) foods around the edges of the store, with the non-perishable stuff (Twinkies, anyone?) in the center, mainly for logistical reasons. This works to your advantage. Staying out of the middle makes shopping simpler, too.

Ten simple steps to healthier living

1. Cut out sugar – Nothing has had more impact on my health over the past year than the decision to cut out sodas, sweets, cakes, donuts etc. Watch for “sneaky sugars – even bread has sugar in it. The ugly fact is that sugar is a poison, and it is as addictive as cocaine (which is why so many children won’t eat their vegetables but will happily inhale all the candy that they can lay their grubby little fingers on). This is why I predict that ten years from now we will think of sugar the way we now think of nicotine.
2. Cut back on starches – God may have created the potato, but the devil boiled, mashed, and added a pint of cream and a pound of butter to it. Pasta, rice, breads, all OK in moderation, but the less the better. Remember that your digestive system breaks down starches into sugar molecules.
3. Smaller portions, more of them – Human beings were designed to graze on natural, high fibre foods on a continuous basis. Three high-fat-high-sugar binges a way play merry hell with your blood sugar levels and “stretch” your stomach into expecting bigger meals.
4. Fruits not fruit juices – for me the most stunning revelation was the realization that fruit juices contain more sugar than sodas! Terminate with extreme prejudice. Fruits have the same amount of sugar, but the fiber prevents the digestion of some of the sugar, and slows down absorption of the rest, so you don’t get it all in one hit.
5. Eat Breakfast – A blend of good fats and protein is best. stay away from cereals (mostly starch) and fruit juices (mostly sugar) as they are not “part of this nutritious breakfast”. This is the most-skipped meal in western culture… and the one meal that should not be skipped.
6. Eat out less often – There are three things we should minimize consuming: sugar, fat and salt. Paradoxically, there are three things that taste nice: sugar, fat and salt. Restaurants want you to enjoy their foods, so they will improve the taste any way they can, usually by adding… sugar, fat and salt. Once or twice a month is plenty.
7. Cut back on junk foods – I have not had a hamburger in nearly two years. Wherever possible, I have a grilled chicken sandwich. My heart will thank me later. I would like to thank my doctor for making this possible.
8. Cook real food with real ingredients – Read the labels: If you can’t pronounce the ingredients, or they read like a chemistry lesson, look elsewhere. Oh, and remember that 4 grams of sugar = 1 teaspoon of sugar. So the 39g of sugar in that can of soda comes to almost ten teaspoons of sugar! Ewwwwww….
9. Drink a lot more water – many ailments can be avoided or minimized by drinking plenty of water.
10. Stand up and walk! The human body was designed for walking, running and lying down. Sitting was not in the design spec. Sadly, most of us have sedentary jobs that keep us sitting for long periods of time. And we wonder why we have lower-back problems. Walking is the third-best exercise there is (swimming is the second). While in London recently I typically walked four or five miles a day, with peaks of up to nine. No back pain or knee problems. Back at work, I am lucky to get three. Predictably, aching knees and back pain have returned. Make of that what you will.

Some preach “All things in moderation”, but the fact is that you can survive without “empty calorie” sugars and starches that we were not designed to consume in large quantities. As for me, my weight is down, my belly fat is GONE and my waistline is back to where it was a quarter of a century ago.

I am my own Lab Rat

For the past few years I have been thinking more and more about the human condition; what out bodies are meant to do, how they work, and what makes them break down. I have watched too many men my age or younger dropping like flies from heart attacks, and I have seen too many fat kids wandering around supermarkets with carts full of chips, soda, cookies and candy. This is what I have learned:

Sugar is a Poison: In my younger days, I used to have three spoons of sugar in my tea, and four to six cups a day. These days I have none. A youtube video finally made me realize that sugar is a poison – a sweet-tasting poison, but a poison nonetheless. I still consume sugar, but only occasionally, and in miniscule quantities.

Fat does not make you fat: America has been on a low-fat diet since the 70s. It hasn’t worked. But the government won’t admit when they’re wrong (too much liability and loss of face/confidence, I suspect) – and the food lobbyists and trade organizations like things just the way they are. Yes, some fats are bad for you, but others are actually good. Full fat yogurt tastes better, and you eat much less of it (four ounces leaves me feeling full). Full-fat milk tastes creamier and you drink less of it.

It’s not Junk Food, it’s just junk:  I haven’t had a fast-food hamburger in about two years. I love burgers, fries, pizza and fried food. But they don’t love me.

Listen to your body. The ad-men say that you should pop a pill if you get indigestion. I say that Indigestion is God (or the universe) telling you that you shouldn’t have ate what you just ate. Or that you ate too fast. Or too much.

Exercise is important, but don’t go overboard. I flatten my belly with ten minutes of exercise a day. If I wanted six-pack abs, I could get them by putting in an extra couple of hours each day, but it’s not worth it for me. I do a lot of walking (but not enough!) but I love my knees too much to go running.

Trust the Government? There are over four hundred food additives approved by the FDA. Not one of them is there for your benefit. So who’s watching your back? You are.

Am I right? I don’t know – but I am in better physical shape now then I was ten years ago.

Want to get started? Watch the Video: Sugar: The Bitter Truth, then read any of the the following books:

• “Food Rules” by Michael Pollan
• “Fat Chance” by Robert Lustig
• “Younger Next Year” by Chris Crowley and Dr. Harry Lodge

Majid’s

Milady and I do not dine out often, so when we do, we like to make it count.

In bygone years, one of our favorite eateries was a place called Saffron’s, but we have not eaten there in years, mainly due to the fact that we rarely get to go downtown. The proprietor, Majid Ghavami, has opened up a new restaurant in Chenoweth Square, a stone’s throw from Seafood Connection, another favorite of ours. He is obviously a modest fellow, for he has named this restaurant after… himself.

The restaurant is divided into two areas; a small, quiet dining room, and a larger, more boisterous area with a bar. When we arrived, the place was fairly quiet, so we were somewhat alarmed when our hostess led us to the bar area. Our dismay was short-lived; she led us to a table in an elevated area at the back, which gave us a commanding view of lesser mortals and was more than satisfactory. The music was perfect,  and the environment convivial without being noisy.

Moments later our waiter appeared. His name was Brian. He bought us some bread with an indolently rich blue-cheese dip which was irresistible and took our order. When he bought our starter — escargots (Milady’s favorite) — he bought us some more bread and dip. It was dangerously easy to find yourself sated before the main event rolled around.

And roll around it did; our entrees arrived pleasantly quickly, but not suspiciously so. Milady had ordered the Seafood Stew; fish, scallops and huge shrimp that were, in her words, “cooked to perfection”. Though it was a little spicier than we had been expecting, it was still highly enjoyable. I had ordered the Lamb Shank, a staple favorite at Saffron’s, but boy, was I surprised when it arrived — this thing was massive — as big as every Saffron’s Lamb shank I had eaten all put together, I said, only half-jokingly. Apparently they sourced their lamb locally, and this was one of the better ones that they could not always obtain; apparently we had been lucky. It was, to put it bluntly, simply glorious.

While we were eating, the eponymous Majid, who had been “working the room”, happened by our table. He greeted us warmly, and remembered us from our days at Saffron’s. The ever-solicitous but never annoying Brian kept our water-glasses filled, laughed at my attempts at humor, and generally made the evening a memorable occasion. We passed on dessert, and went on our way with most of my lamb shank in a box. I had it for lunch a few days later.

As we started the engine, we marveled at the fact that we had only been in the restaurant a little over an hour. The food had been excellent and the service beyond reproach — Brian was a prince among men; any nubile young women reading this are exhorted to throw themselves at him. It was not cheap, but it was worth every penny.

We shall return