Well this is a departure ....part 2

Not that is important, but it looks like we are on track for 5 in 5 .......

As we bumble along lamenting a lack of carbs, thanks go to Orlando and crew for a lovely Easter... well done yoo !



I Hope you are well and happy

>>WB

Well this is a departure ....

Well here we are ... long overdue, and guess what ... victim to society all is revealed....!

I hope this finds you well and happy !

WB>>

Fitness and Fatness

Taking a week off.... can be an emotionally reinvigorating experience, good for the soul, the heart and mind......... especially if from time to time one gets to drop in on daytime television....to see what the alternate can be..

So many images, messages, inuendos, insinuations about body, shape, weight, age, wrinkles, hair colour, hair loss, finger and toe nails, skin texture, calories and kilojoules, energy food, skin elasticity, teeth colour, body odour, bowel movements …... etcetera etcetera... in fact after only thirty minutes and 51 advertisements you and I are clearly so imperfect the world would be a better place if we stopped trying to participate...

Of course … there is a motive here... to get you and me the consumer to consume, in fact anything goes, so long as we part with our hard earned ... buy whatever you believe you need to be the person you dream of being... or of not being …..whatever works...

Billions in advertising dollars are spent in each segment, to make sure you know what is required to be the perfect you.....Even the most hardened derelicts in our society are impacted … when this sector have no buying power they are used to benchmark what we will all become if we don't participate...

Not only is the food industry conspiring to bring you the most tasty, most fulfilling edible delights at the lowest price (not to say anything about the nutrition or lack of it), but the fashion industry is wholly damming should you be anything but perfect, in shape, size and appearance (not to say anything about clothing and accessories)

So here is the trap, consume to be a good citizen, and be dammed for being less than perfect. …What a consummate success for retailers … now everyone except you wins, but that's because you're the consumer..

None is so baneful in my view than the war being waged against people about their weight....

Put on a few pounds …. because of to much consumption... And boy do we have a deal for you... we have diets, we have exercise regimes, we have gym (which requires memberships, lyrca suits and gym shoes of course), we have stomach surgery, we have Jenny Craig and Lite n' Easy , we have Dr Aitkens and vitamin pills, and appetite suppressants and we have home rowing machines and personal trainers and Lo Carb, and Diet Coke, and Pepsi Max, and the best new starter in my view …...just last month Lo GI sugar

Some more educated folks will shy away from all this commercialism, try to take the moral high ground in the debate... stating “Body weight is a simple problem ….

Weight gain = Calories in – Calories Out “

Now most people can get to this …. if I eat less calories I can lose weight, or if I burn more calories I can lose weight or better still if I do both I will lose weight even faster..... and it's here where we start consuming again...

We have low calorie food to buy, we can have rabbit food and vitamin pills, get rid of all those nasty fats, carbs, sugars, in fact get focused on Lo Cal or better still No Cal the supermarket shelves are overflowing. On the other hand we can walk ten miles a day, buy new joggers (trainers) and an exercise bike and stay home watching reality TV like the Biggest Loser

My problem is that I think the biggest losers are the folks watching the show. This is not some snide back hander to the television audience .... These people are being duped by commercial interests …. in the name of health and self esteem and good corporate citizenery... a particularly nasty plot in my view....

Assuming we accept that weight gain is a bad thing ….....(I'll come back to this point), lets stay with the argument a while yet :

Weight gain = Calories In – Calories consumed,

Weight Gain

The equation assumes a static you.... so for the equation to be true, your metabolism (the organic processes in a cell or body necessary for life) needs to be static, which in fact is never true, especially over time..... your energy requirements as a growing young person are vastly different to energy requirements as an elderly person (just to stay breathing).

The equation is also challenged on a number of other levels, on average 55-65 % of your body weight is water , interesting water has no calories, but as your water levels go up and down, so does your weight.

Calories In

Calories In offers us a few interesting angles.

Calories In is also influenced by types of food, generally simple sugars convert more readily to fat than do proteins, fats and starches are laid down where other food types are not. At first the argument was focused on fat, monosaturated and polyunsaturated and loads of other manufactured words to described what sort of fat you should eat... or not eat whatever the message.

Half a generation later folks wised up, it's not all about fat, then it became about sugar … and we were treated to Diet Food's with additives no-one can pronounce like Phenylanoline. In reality it does not matter what the food type is just so long as we buy whatever product does or doesn't have the attribute we are or are not selling.

Have you ever noticed that big people eat a lot of food, and little people tend to eat much less. In my experience there are very few big people that consistently eat little or no food.

There are however skinny people that eat heaps, often reveal that Calories Out is a controlling factor.

It seems reasonable to draw the conclusion that the most cost effective method of using Calories In to influence weight loss is to eat less of whatever you are eating, whilst acknowledging there might be all sorts of other health reasons for changing the type of calories.

When is comes to Calories In, volume is an important factor

Calories Out (consumed)

There are good studies around to demonstrate that movement is a factor in promoting a longer, healthier and happier life. In fact I'm yet to see a health recommendation telling us to stay on the couch watching daytime TV.

There is a subtle but important point here, because I'm also yet to see any evidence that elite athletes live a long time, and in fact many of the elite athletes I meet are living with painful and often debilitating injuries that they collected being young and elite.

There are plenty of commercial messages telling us that we need to do more exercise to lose those pounds, be the new healthier you..... it is this crux of healthier you…. wherein lies the deceit.

Pounding the footpath running ten miles every day takes the best part of 1-2 hours and is almost certain to create joint injury and slips, trips and falls if done for long enough. These injuries are sustained during the best years of your life, with no evidence to suggest you will add other than pain to the later ones.

So there is a balance here, consuming more energy through exercise will burn up calories, but in elite athletes these calories are often replaced to sustain performance. It is hard to see how exercise alone will result in any sustainable weight loss, but will most certainly take time out of the prime of your life....

An interesting picture emerges if we plot these attributes :

• Box A offers us the opportunity to pay for exercise and be left having consumed more of our best years risking injury into the future

• Box B offers us the opportunity to pay for exercise , and pay for exotics in our food food, and be left having consumed more of our best years risking injury into the future.

• Box C offers us the opportunity to pay for all kinds of exotics in our food, and do a healthy amount of exercise

• Box D offers us the opportunity pay the least and make some choices about food and exercise

What this simplistic model does not show is the results from each approach. If you so happen to have empirical data, I'd be pleased to publish it here..... but in the meantime I'm sufficiently cynical to hold the view that the answer is NOT box B.

My data to support that view is that for decades the range of exotic foods has been multiplying, and our exercise choices ever more creative whilst as a race, the level of obesity is soaring. …....

Epilogue

The folklore view that fitness is good and fatness is bad, is the underpinning theme of this whole discussion. I do not accept this mantra, it is true that a total lack of fitness can lead to a miserable life, or gross fatness a pointer elevated health risk factors , but I for one believe the societal messaging has gone way too far.....

I'll go further, I think we are less than one generation away from class actions by people harmed or harming themselves by unsubstantiated 'Commercial Bullying' , such that this kind of attack will need to be substantiated with generally accepted proof before being allowed into peoples lives......

What say you....

WB>> I hope this finds you well and happy

From good to almost great...

Good morning......

It was serendipitous this week that I caught up with an old friend... friend in the loose sense of the word, especially nowadays when social networking has evolved to the point of defining the language ....

Of little consequence I guess..

I became re-acquainted with Tim Minchin this week. Take a look if you like, meander a while...... It's rewarding to see him build upon gifts he has found within, expanding his engagement with the world, insightfully tugging at a taboo or two..

Musically richer, comedically more poignant and sufficiently different that your expectations are reset again and again. He is clearly developing the genre more than his act. All up a great show ... Bravo !

Interestingly what dropped out the bottom of the show, truly was unexpected... Along the way one Phil Daoust is slam dunked by Minchin for a review he wrote in 2005.

Now it is a pathetic review, (the review, not what he said about the show), but Minchin's response is a preemptive nuclear strike on a protester burning the US flag.

As I understand it, there is much mathematical and scientific evidence suggesting that 'Tit for Tat' is actually a very effective military strategy, but this loses all perspective. And it's on two dimensions firstly in the language (not the profanity, but the innate cruelty), and secondly with the voracity of the delivery.

It is unequivocal in sport, if you play the man rather than the ball, you're red carded and sent off, even pugilists understand these rules.

Attitudes change slowly, but irrevocably... should the journalists collective draw the view that this has gone too far ... I dread the consequence for Minchin.

Come on Tim... give it up .......... just makes you look small ...


On to far more important matters, thankfully the only two great forces that really matter (the Sun shining and Earth turning) continued unabated this week, and so chances are your world is as it should be...

I hope this finds you well and happy...

>>WB

[photo : Slaughteryard Road Feb 2005]

Democracy is just great if you're human...

Funny thing about time to think ... mind wanders all over the place.

Just recently found myself musing over the elections that yielded Barack Obama... I hold the view it was not a moment too soon ... interesting when the fellow is still completely unproven, during the peak of the most turbulent financial storm in history...

Still ..........there is not much better than hope........ to keep folks engaged.

Lot's of debate on so many topics, it's hard to keep pace... especially with some of the more inconvenient topics... point and counter point in the great climate debate... a wonderfully sick level of understanding in the community about what is the reality, about what can I do...

I saw recently an article in the press calling out that if folks can't see how their contribution is going to fix climate change, chances are they'll give up hope ... no matter how dire the circumstances.

Had a ring to it for me.... the debate hardly seems to be inclusive, especially missing the Ma and Pa type folks trying to make their way in the world, raise a family, be good citizens.... At least they have a democracy... and from time to time get to exercise a little hope for the next Obama to come along.

It struck me though that by far and away (even with 6.5 billion people), humans are still in the minority on planet Earth. Funny how none of the rest get any say at all. So long as we all exercise a level of humanity .... everyone is happy with the outcomes for animals, birds, fish, cephalopods, insects, reptiles and bacteria.

Seems to me it's the non humans that are the big losers here... no Obama hope for them.... well at least he does seem to embody a great deal of humanity.... all good then...

Till next time, I hope this finds you happy ..

>>WB

A place to be happy..

I was scrolling through some old photos over the weekend, ... since I spend so much time on about being happy.... close your eyes for just a moment, I'm sure you can hear the waves too....


>>WB



[Photo : Noosa - Australia.. June 2008]

In the end we're all just renting...

Been an interesting time ... the last few months don't you think...

A global financial meltdown.... the problem as I understand it was asset values not being what people thought they were... it always seems fortuitous when they are higher... not so when they are less.

This is not a sustainable position, all these people losing money... money they never really had in the first place... our collective response ...........print more money.. in the scheme of things seems if the only tool you have is a blunt instrument, when times get tough you need to be blunt.


I have no wish to lessen or trivialize the losses folks have suffered through the recent turmoils, they are real and peoples lives will be forever changed.

But I'd venture that in the last 6 months the world has printed many $trillions ... more money for everyone.. Just let is wash around for the next decade, not hard to see where it will finish up.. in today's world with the Saudi's and Chinese.

How long do you think they will hang onto it.. a generation, two, five generations... there are those of us that still believe the great empires never went away, that even today you can still see the marks on society today of the Egyptians, the Romans and most all of the other previous great civilizations.. Are we just seeing the birth of the next one unfold before our eyes...

It's interesting to ponder for a moment... what is it that gets left behind ... a few monuments that take a couple of thousand years to atrophy, a language, a music, a culture, a religion, a perspective, a memory, a lifestyle, an environmental disaster, a hatred, a belief system a sense ones surroundings, a cure for disease, a bible.... a way of interacting with the world...

I for one would not argue that these are not worthy legacies.. some more than others perhaps but none not worthy...

But in the end .. the notion of ownership is a false belief system in my view... truth is we all come into this world with nothing material.... at best loving intent from our parents... and most of us depart his world leaving a noteworthy legacy, but taking nothing material out... In terms of material wealth, life is a zero sum game.

The problem is that ownership, or the desire for it, or the social obligation for it, or the perceived need for it, or the aspiration we drive into our kids for it, propels our societies both positively and into conflict. The difference in thinking we 'occupy' something compared with we 'own' something places us on trajectories that lead to outcomes that we face into every day.

Each artifact that we come to believe belongs to us.. is in fact time bound... stricken into the physical web of the world by forces unable to be controlled by us... sure we can direct energy, create change, fabricate stuff, make houses, roads and cars... but instant the energy expended by us in maintaining these things wanes, the great forces of nature (which were there all along), take up the slack and entropy prevails.

In the end isn't this what life is about, expending energy to maintain and progress the society into which we were born... do you ever really own anything.

Whether it be our houses, our cars, our bodies, our lifestyles our beliefs.... without the sustained energy exerted to retain these things sunlight and gravity will reclaim the physical and chemical elements.

I quite like the idea, that in the end you hand back everything that was 'yours', a bit like leaving a place of employment, handing back you access card, your mobile phone, your laptop, your corporate credit cards... in the end, you can't even get back in the door to take a pee...

If our lives were focused more on the notion that ownership as an aspiration is flawed, we might become more attentive to leaving the world in a better place on out way out than we found it on our way in...

I hope this finds you happy >>WB