Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Are people panicking on stationary bikes? You'd think so from the signs in window of a local gym: "Keep Calm and Cycle On." Is the human equivalent of an exercise wheel so stimulating that people need a reminder to keep their wits about them? Maybe it's reverse psychology: up until now, it's been all about pumping us up with motivation a la Richard Simmons to keep up a routine that's as exciting as proofreading retirement plan financial statements. What some people really need is encouragement to continue avoiding carbs in the face of low-fat fuddy-duddies or the Atkins flu. I'm not a fan of motivational fluff, but someone in delicate health could really be frightened by low-carb scare studies and misguided advice to avoid fat. A pithy phrase might help more than a lecture on glycation, endocrinology or lipoproteins. Suggestions: Keep calm and keto on Keep calm and Kerrygold on Keep calm and tallow on Keep calm and Grok on

Readers may be familiar with the Tao Te Ching , a classical Chinese text of philosophy. It has some common themes with stoicism--to live in harmony with nature, to not be concerned with things outside your control. It reminds me of Bible verses about a soft answer turning away wrath and the meek inheriting the earth; of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work on flow . Maybe that's as dull as watching the grass grow, but I'd rather do that than bang my head on my desk. From Verse 38. The Master does nothing yet he leaves nothing undone. The ordinary man is always doing things yet many more are left to be done. Or as we say here and now, the faster I go, the behinder I get. My own experience is that once I started low-carb, I spent a lot less time exercising and cooking and got better results--twenty pounds of fat and a bunch of health problems, gone. From Verse 58. Try to make people happy, and you lay the groundwork for misery. Try to make people moral, and you la

Everyone loves a good mystery, but in real life, we all love a good solution even more. The book Why Isn't my Brain Working? by Datis Kharrazian is the latter. Even if your brain is working (and I think mine works pretty well), it's worth reading for the insights into the gut-brain connection, cross-reactivity of foods, and what you can do if you get glutened. In my younger days, I read self-help books and went to counseling to be happier. It didn't help much--all they talked about was attitude. Relying on attitude to solve a biological problem is like trying to smile your way out of an infection of H. pylori. I guess I was lucky that I didn't go in for drugs and didn't think doctors could help me. Good thing. I now know my problem was largely hypoglycemia. The management of [certain patients with poor blood sugar control] is so fundamentally basic and easy....[Yet] It is not uncommon for [them] to be put on psychotropic drugs, sleep medications, or labeled

And more importantly, would moving to Colorado help you lose weight? A recent study suggested that some people in the northern US may be lying about having a svelte figure by fudging on their height and weight in phone surveys. The abstract of the study didn't mention the West, but all the obesity maps I've seen show Colorado as having the lowest rate of obesity in the US. I don't know whether that's accurate, but I think we're better than average. A few months ago, my employer held a firm-wide video conference where we could see members of all or most of the other offices. We have two offices in Colorado; the rest are in downtown areas of medium and large cities in the South and the Midwest. We all work in the same industry; the employees are mostly white, college educated professionals. As far as I know, the only big difference between all of us is our locations. I'm guessing there were a few hundred people in total on screen; we saw different offices at

Do your best to rein in your desire. For if you desire something that isn’t within your own control, disappointment will surely follow; meanwhile, you will be neglecting the very things that are within your control that are worthy of desire. -Epictetus, Stoic philosopher, and Sharon Lebell, author(1) All week, people have kept asking me if I'm looking forward to getting my braces off. I haven't been anticipating it at all: when I build something up in my mind, the reality hardly ever matches my expectations. Today was a perfect example of why anticipation is a bad habit. I thought I was going to get my braces off today, but all my orthodontist took off was the wire on the brackets, which his assistant replaced with different wire on some of my teeth. Tomorrow, after the second part of my implant is put in, a different wire is going back on. In a few weeks, I'm going to have to get my braces off for my dentist to take a mold for a crown. I don't know what my dentist

"Machiavellian: A person who is charming on the surface, a genius at sucking up to power, but capable of mind-boggling acts of deceit for control or personal gain."(1) "Understanding the narcissism epidemic is important because its long-term consequences are destructive to society. American culture's focus on self-admiration has caused a flight from reality to the land of grandiose fantasy."(2) Exasperating to deal with and dangerous when gullible people believe them, narcissists and Machiavellians really have become more common since the beginning of agriculture. There are several reasons--Machiavellians  producing more offspring and passing on their traits; culture; parenting practices; even viruses. I can only imagine life as a hunter-gatherer, but possibly, living such a life among 50 to 150 people, some who'd known you all your life, meant facing reality every day and knowing who you were and what you could do. Nevertheless, the occasional hunter-g

I constantly hear about ways to relax--but what about stimulation? Most of us go to school and study a lot of subjects we're not interested in, or have routine jobs, housework and commutes. Maybe we hear more about relaxation because highly sponsored things like TV, movies, and shopping are more passive than stimulating. We all need something fun and exciting--something with flow. A few ideas that have worked for me: Get a dog. Mine is half Australian shepherd, and she squeals when I come home, hollers when we're leaving the house, gets me out of bed, runs on the treadmill, rolls in the snow and swims in the river. Now she's trying to catch flies. Even if you have a small yard and a full-time job, the life you'd give a dog would probably be better than the one it has at a shelter. Go kayaking or rafting. Worries vanish when you're looking for the next wave or waterfall. Take up dancing, preferably something you can do at a club, not just at a studio. For tha

I just got back from a trip to San Diego that wasn't at all what I thought it would be. It started with skin care products. These used to be my crack cocaine, especially when I was on a low-fat diet. I thought I was past that, but a dealer found me on the street and got me to drop what used to be a mortgage payment (before I refinanced). At least the stuff she sold me worked. Spending such an embarrassing amount of money on skin care was a wake-up call to be more stoic and less of a hedonist. The weather and hotel set the mood. It was so cold, cloudy and humid that I wore my long down coat and alpaca gloves. The hotel was the noisiest room I've had since I lived in a military dorm. Some of the guests let their doors slam shut with a BOOM!; my room was across the street from an all-night construction site; and very late one night, someone on the second floor pulled the fire alarm for no discernible reason, sending everyone out to shiver on the front steps for half an hour.

Have you seen those Dove chocolates with dreamy, self-indulgent phrases inside the wrapper? Or the Chocolove bars with poems in the wrapper? I have a similar idea: very dark chocolate pieces, a little bitter, with Stoic phrases in the wrapper. Soldier on! Hug someone--it could be the last time Steel yourself Have you insulted yourself today? Quit buying useless crap Tolerate someone detestable Chin up! Accept the inevitable Make do and mend Throw yourself into your work Enjoy what you already have Five percent of profits would go to Urban Peak, the only homeless youth shelter in Denver (population two million). Phrases benefit readers inundated with buy now, pay later, get more, indulge yourself messages of the mainstream media.

What if one or two little tweaks could transform your life? Instead of spending years in therapy, hours a week on the treadmill, gagging down whole grains every day, or tearing your hair out over a positive test for an illness, it's possible that making a few little changes could change everything. I've added a list of posts that could do this for a lot of people (see the list below my profile). Don't worry, there's nothing to buy. You might need to check out a library book and do some N=1 experiments on yourself. Overall, these should save you time and decrease your aggravation. Cardio: A Waste of Valuable Dance Time. Actually, there's a school of thought that cardio is a waste of any kind of time (unless you enjoy it). Sure, you burn calories, but you move less later and get hungrier. Studies have shown that it's not effective for losing weight. I don't do cardio (I lift weights instead) and don't need to lose weight. That wasn't the case when

It's funny how a holiday season of giving thanks, religious rites and the start of a new year has turned into a festival of avarice, gluttony and drunkenness. An antidote: Stoicism. Hear me out. Briefly, Stoicism is a middle way about material things, between being ascetic and finicky. Alcohol, fine foods, trendy gadgets and fancy furnishings can be enjoyed, but they aren't held dear. If you're hung over, if your pants don't fit, if you can't pay off the credit card bill, you've gone overboard, even if everyone else is doing it. Stoics don't care much about what everyone else is doing. It's out of their control, so they don't worry about it. They don't worry over the past, either. If you overindulged over the holidays, they'd tell you to forget about it and get back on track. If there are things you simply can't eat, drink or buy, stop thinking about them. And internalize your goals. Instead of saying that you'd like to lose 20

Peace, love, positive energy. "...it's like a second skin. I don't leave the house without protection and guidance," goes a current radio ad. The voice actress isn't talking about carrying a map and some condoms. Does the peace, love and positive energy bit mean, for instance, helping homeless youth , or raising awareness about foster care , or fighting city hall ? No, all those things are hard. The annoying radio ad is about Alex and Ani jewelry: " positive energy products that adorn the body, enlighten the mind, and empower the spirit. " I love jewelry. What I don't love is the message that wearing jewelry will make you smarter, positive or more courageous. It's a no-effort solution, and like almost all no-effort solutions, it's bunkum. It's the twenty-first century, and yet a big business can be built on a bunch of BS. Want to empower your spirit--for real? Even where magic really does exist, people (like Harry Potter) need cou

At lunch today a couple of coworkers mentioned how icky they found meat. What a nice topic of conversation! If we hadn't been at the table, I'd have mentioned that plants process poop .

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. -Archimedes By conventional wisdom, I should be a fat, lazy slob. I eat at McDonald's, play a lot of video games and watch violent cartoons when I get home. I haven't exercised in months, not since my accident in late July. I have my reasons for these things, but they're not important here. What's important is that these things haven't turned me into anything. I'm still slim and trim (though I've lost some muscle tone), still thinking critically, and my coworkers and creditors can still depend on me. Today I even downloaded a book on salt--400 pages written by an engineer in 1898.* It's unlikely to be light reading. My point is the difference between what matters and what doesn't. The endless worries about fat and salt and dietary cholesterol don't matter. Chronic cardio--exercise that's supposed to make you lose weight--doesn't matter (unless

As much as people complain about stress, they go out of their way to create it. They over-schedule, overspend, under-sleep, and under-nourish themselves. I'm still working on getting enough sleep, but I've found some ways to reduce other sources of stress. Poor diet will affect your mood. Contrary to what's written by a lot of self-help authors, your mood isn't just a matter of attitude. Your brain is mostly made of fat and cholesterol and requires various nutrients to run properly. It needs glucose, but the glucose needs to be in your bloodstream, not your stomach in the form of carbohydrates. (Your liver can make glucose out of protein.) Drs. Phinney and Volek describe how low-calorie, high-carb diets can affect the brain in The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living. (The short answer: depending on how much you exercise, you can mentally and physically hit the wall.) If for example you decide to eat 1200 kcal per day, composed of 25% protein (75 grams), 25

Monday morning found me in the dentist's chair for the fourth time this year. "You look like one of those Tour de France guys," said Dr. Michelangelo. It wasn't a compliment on my cycling ability. The day before, I was riding my bike and went to enter the driveway of the grocery store. The next thing I knew, my face hit the pavement. I'm still wearing cement in a few of my teeth. A little girl and her father asked me if I was OK. We talked for a moment, and the little girl said, "Just walk your bike home. I fall down on my bike all the time, and that's what I do." I took her advice. I have a minor radial fracture in my arm and a fractured tooth. The arm should heal in a few weeks. Meantime, friends and neighbors are opening cans, bringing me things I need, and offering to water the yard. Strangers helped me pull a movie out of the Redbox machine and open a bottle of children's Alleve. A cosmetology student washed my hair, which wasn't da

Sometime soon, I'm going to post on the germ-fighting properties of coconut oil. (In a nutshell, your body converts the oil into a microbe killing machine--as long as the microbes are lipid coated. If you have staph or H. pylori, among other things, it could help. Cold sufferers, you're on your own.) It might even help HIV. FWIW, it helped my recent ear ache. Meantime, I've been taking another approach to help medical science: a video game called Fold.it. Computers aren't very good at determining how proteins are folded. Some humans are good at spatial problems, but most of us don't know much about molecular biology and aren't inclined to read a book on the subject. So a group at the University of Washington created Fold.it. I'm a bit puffed up about placing 8th out of 298 players in my first competition, and being first and third in two others in progress. Want to try it? Go to fold.it and download the game (for free), go through the beginner

Relative: What are you doing? My mother: I'm throwing out everything with carrageenan in it. It's really bad. Scientists use it to make [research] animals sick. That's what made Lori so sick the other night with a migraine headache. Relative: I'll take the salad dressing. It doesn't bother us. My mother: Doesn't your daughter get migraine headaches? This conversation sounds absurd, but knowing the people involved, I'm sure it happened as my mother described it. In the relative's household, there's obesity, diabetes, migraines, hypoglycemia, fatigue, acne, and no doubt some other ailments I'm not privy to. Is this the new normal? Does illness seem so inevitable that some people aren't willing to think about what's causing it? Or do anything with an answer when it's handed to them? Let me tell you how I've felt since I've been free of carrageenan poisoning for the past week. My stomach doesn't hurt, I can eat low car

A proposed movie plot: a patient with a serious but treatable medical condition goes to a rehab center, where his condition isn't treated, he's given drugs that make him worse, and so he has to stay and pay for his board. Problem: something similar has already been done, both in the movies and real life . This was the danger my father was in. Almost a month ago, he had a stroke and went to a rehab center, where he made some progress but stalled. Under Medicare rules, he had to leave or pay full freight for continuing to stay there. The discharge coordinator offered no help to our family. What's worse, the pain in his side was never diagnosed, just treated with a pain patch, and he was given a statin drug without his consent. Statin drugs can cause muscle weakness, fatigue and foggy thinking--some of the reasons my father couldn't go home right away. And according to what I've read, there's no evidence they do any good for people over age 65. Dad is 82. He tr

The past few days at the office have seen boxes of pizza, pastries, cupcakes, Chinese food, and wraps for meetings. Temptation? No--except for the wraps made of turkey and spinach, which I ate without the wrapper, of course. This wasn't any great feat of willpower: after over two years of eating little or no wheat, pizza or Chinese, these didn't even look like food to me. The Chinese food was overcooked (broccoli is supposed to be bright green, not dull chartreuse) and the pizza smelled like a wet dog. I think I understand why the French avoid junk food much more than Americans: they just don't like the stuff because they eat real food. Here's the problem with a frequent cheat day: it keeps your taste for junk food alive. If a friend were trying to quit smoking, would you recommend a weekly smoking day?