By Tommy Leung on 11/28/2011 in Life
I’m going to propose an idea that isn’t actually possible but, just imagine it was. Suspend reality temporarily.
Let’s say we could apply wealth redistribution to health. Hear me out.
There’s more fat people in America than there are poor people. In fact, even poor Americans are fat. This is a problem. A massive problem. Possibly, a bigger problem than poverty. The cost to care for all the ailments that inflict fat people are enormous. The money we could save by avoiding the diseases tied to obesity would instantly make poor Americans richer!
Everybody wins.
So let’s imagine we solve the obesity problem the same way many folks recommend to solve the problem of poverty or to shrink the gap between the rich and the poor. We’ll take good health from the minority of Americans who have lean physiques, exercise regularly, and watch what they eat and give that good health to the majority of Americans who are carrying a few small children in extra weight, barely exercise, and eat Chinese takeout while watching TV.
Absurd?
Why would you think this is absurd? I told you to imagine. Forget that we can’t actually take health from one person and give it to another. Just imagine we could.
Isn’t it unfair that some people are just born with good genes?! They eat whatever they like and don’t exercise yet, they look like Greek gods and goddesses! The nerve! It is only fair that we should take their health and give it to those who are less fortunate. Those who have bad genes.
The other hoarders of good health who meticulously watch what they eat and exercise religiously? Well, it isn’t fair that they are able to have such self control and determination. Other people just don’t have that kind of mental fortitude. We should take their health as well and give it to others who just aren’t able to work that hard!
Health redistribution. Just imagine the kind of America we could have if we were actually able to redistribute health!
By Tommy Leung on 11/04/2011 in Fitness, Life
Before I discovered the paleo diet, I wouldn’t have thought for a second to consult with evolution or ancient cultures to deal with or help shed light on modern health issues. It seems like common sense now that we should look at how humans have lived, thrived, and evolved in order to understand what good human health ought to be. That’s how we study every other creature on the planet: we observe what they do in their natural environment.
The natural next step after modeling diet around evolution is to see what other things can also benefit by applying the same ideas. A paleo-style diet works wonders so it is logical to suspect similar benefits can be achieved in other parts of life like physical fitness, sleep, activity levels, and even sex. It is important that we remember this isn’t paleolithic times. The objective isn’t to imitate cavemen and ignore modern science but, to use what we know about human evolution to guide us.
I came across this post at Hunt Gather Love about the sexual practices of two indigenous tribes in sub-Saharan Africa through one of Mark’s Daily Apple’s Weekend Link Loves and it intrigued me! Yes. Sex interested me. Shocker! I even read the entire text of the study. I read the full text of a lot of studies and papers so this isn’t something strange but, this was more entertaining to read about than a study on how vitamin D3 supplementation affects bone density and prevents fractures in seniors. As much as I love vitamin D, sex is just more interesting!
There’s a few charts in this study and one that stood out is this one about frequency of sex in a week:
This is a comparison between married couples and not the overall population of the United States and the people from the Aka and Ngandu tribes. There’s plenty of jokes in the modern world about couples having virtually no sex once they’re married and this data for Americans seems to support it! It looks spectacularly worse compared to these African tribes. So, what the hell? Are we not doing it enough? There’s plenty of studies that point to more sex correlating to better health. Whether these studies have any merit is another story but, why would anyone ignore any piece of science that tells them to have more sex?!
This chart makes married Americans look like sexless prudes but, are these indigenous peoples really having that much sex? And if they are, why? And how are they doing this? Sex eight times a week is no physical feat to scoff at. I’m sure larger waist sizes in America isn’t helping our cause but, if we’re not having enough sex, are they having too much sex? The Ngandu tribe seems to have a much more reasonable and desirable amount of sex. Why the disparity between the two tribes?
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By Tommy Leung on 10/17/2011 in Life
There are so many things that I want to write about that I can’t sit still and write about any single one of them. It’s a problem. Instead, I’m watching Weeds on Netflix! Great show. You need to watch it if you haven’t seen it before. And speaking of Netflix, I don’t have any problems with a single thing they’ve done in the last few months. Everyone else appears to be fuming and Netflix’s stock price has sunk like a faceless corpse tied to a stone. I don’t get it. Why are people still renting DVDs?!
Anyway, I poured myself a hefty glass of merlot–a little more than a quarter of a whole bottle. I figured it was going to help me with these allergies I’m having. Changing of seasons always tends to be slightly problematic. I’m not sure if it helped since I’ve also turned on my air purifiers. That probably actually did something. Oh well, the wine has other effects and since I didn’t eat much of anything today, there’s a magnified effect! I’m writing this a little buzzed. That’s where the best writing comes from!
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By Tommy Leung on 10/08/2011 in Life, Tech
At age 56, Steve Jobs has passed away. It was quite shocking even though the state of his health was no mystery. I found out through a text message from a friend. It was sad news and the Internet quickly swelled with quotes and memories of Steve Jobs. The man will not be soon forgotten.
It wasn’t too long ago that I called myself a PC. Not that it really meant anything, I didn’t know why I didn’t like Apple products. I didn’t know much about Steve Jobs aside from the fact that he headed up Apple and Bill Gates headed up Microsoft. Microsoft was the champion of Team PC and Apple was the champion of Team Mac.
I used PCs all my life so I was on Team PC.
I grew up with Windows based computers. That’s what my parents understood because that’s what they used at work. My parents aren’t particularly computer savvy. I am often reteaching them how to do things with their laptop, digital camera, digital camcorder, digital picture frame, etc. that they promised to remember and understand if I taught them once.
I’ve used Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows ME, Windows ME Second Edition, and Windows XP. I’ve toyed with Windows Vista and Windows 7 but, I haven’t owned a PC with Microsoft’s latest OS offerings–Vista was also terrible so I stuck to XP like a lot of other people did. Microsoft and Windows in particular underscored my technological life from my first computer until I got an iPhone–the 3GS model.
That was the trojan horse that will forever change the way I appreciate technology.
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By Tommy Leung on 10/02/2011 in Fitness
Before we get too excited, I’m talking about man-breasts. Not so appealing now, is it?
So, what does bread have to do with jugs on a dude? Everything. It might be the single biggest factor leading to more and more men walking around with a protruding belly and a pair of man-breasts as a complement. I’ve advocated breaking up with bread in the past but, this might be the best one yet. My past reasons to break up with bread were good ones but, nothing holds a candle to how bread–specifically the wheat–causes you to gain visceral fat, develop a pot belly, and then the dreaded man boobs.
Conventional wisdom is to eat healthy whole grains. Things like whole wheat bread, cereal, pasta, etc. Whole grains are healthier than white flour. This is true. Studies have shown that markers of health all improve when you replace white flour with wheat flour. However, as Dr. Davis, the author of Wheat Belly, points out, just because something is better doesn’t mean a lot of it is even better.
Stated differently: just because filtered cigarettes will kill you slower than unfiltered ones doesn’t mean that more filtered cigarettes will make you live forever.
That’s the logic error we’ve made with wheat. It’s better than white flour but, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still detrimental to your health. And just by using our observational abilities, we can see that folks are getting fatter and fatter while they are eating more and more healthy whole grains. We can’t claim causation through such a general observation but, you’d have to be blind as a bat to not see that there is clearly something going on!
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