If you want a quick easy way to guestimate your body fat percentage then take a look in the mirror and then at these pictures.
Archive for the ‘Weight Gain’ Category
Body Fat Guestimations
March 5, 2011How to calculate my BAI (Body Adiposity Index)
March 5, 2011I like the sound of this new alternative to BMI as a non-invasive measure of body composition.
BAI = Hip circumference (cm)/ (Height (m)x √Height (m)) – 18
Use this Google Spreadsheet to calculate your own BAI.
Here is a description on how to take your hip circumference.
Here is the article in Obesity.
The inconvenient truth…about health & nutrition
September 19, 2010A quote from Going Long that speaks the (often denied) truth:
With a few medical exceptions, the way you look is dictated by a huge number of tiny decisions that you make on a daily basis. In order to change ourselves, we need to take responsibility for ourselves.
Honest food labeling
February 17, 2010Imagine for a moment that every food available in the supermarket was packaged in a one-style-fits-all manner. All food was either in its fresh state, or in clear labeling, with only the top 2-3 ingredients determining the foods name.
I think this would immediately encourage people to buy ‘food’, rather stuff that has been manufactured to resemble food, more often.
I have looked through my cupboard, and present below, as a point of example, what some foods would become (current name, followed by actual components (new name):
Pumpkin; actual: Pumpkin
Vanilla Almond Cluster Crisp; actual: Cereal sugar
Drinking Chocolate; actual: Sugar cocoa
Maple flavored syrup; actual: Fructose (sugar) water sugar
Sweet Tangelo Orange Marmalade; actual: Sugar water
Honey, can you pick up some cereal sugar, sugar cocoa, sugar water sugar, and sugar water while you are down at the supermarket?!
It would of course make shopping a hell of a lot more confusing, but would at least increase the consciousness of what were are actually buying and eating.
Women eat less calories with more male company
February 14, 2010Interesting ‘naturalistic’ study which showed women eating at a University cafeteria ate fewer calories when in the company of men, than they did by themselves or in the company of women. The total calories they consumed also increased with the more men that were present.
Teach every child about food
February 13, 2010In Defense of Food
January 10, 2010
You may recognize Michael Pollan as the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He has followed that up with another great book called In Defense of Food.
Summarized in 7 words it is:
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
In more than 7, some notes and tidbits from the book:
- The health claims surrounding high fat leading to CHD and obesity were unfounded and have been proven incorrect.
- Focusing on individual nutrients (e.g. fiber, cholesterol) when trying to lose fat is based on the false assumptions that these by themselves are good for you.
- “guilt” was the highest ranking word association for Americans shown the words ” chocolate cake”. “celebration” was for French people shown the same word (presumably in French!).
- A whole food is more nutritious than the sum of it’s parts.
- I would add: “enjoy food”.
Interesting blogs
November 10, 2009Here are links to some interesting articles I have come across recently:
The Hindu Push Up – a variation on the old classic
Eating quickly is associated with overeating – and overeating associated with…
The human body is built for distance – on a hot day a human can outrun a horse over a marathon
Moderate amounts of protein best for building muscle – over 30g may be a waste of your time
Baseball – head first slide is quicker – and more likely to result in your head hitting baseman’s/catcher’s knees!
17 Home truths from Dietblog
October 20, 2009Here are 17 home truths according to DietBlog.
I particularly agree with #7:
Don’t ask me about intermittent fasting, macro-patterning, cyclical ketogenic diets or meal replacements if you aren’t eating enough vegetables.
And #13:
You won’t likely be able to out-exercise a poor diet.
Nanny State & Obesity Prevention
October 7, 2009In south Los Angeles legislation to minimise big fast food stores is mis-directed, with the area actually having less of these stores per-capita than other areas of LA. The probable problem here is large number of smaller fast food outlets.
I have heard a similar argument before regarding Fast Food vs Fine Dining. An often ignored fact is that the typical Fine Dining restaurant in your area produces meals every day that are as bad, if not worse than many Fast Food outlets. The reason one is condoned and the other celebrated is because of their absolute effect on the community. Simply put: more people eat at McDonald’s than any Fine Dining restaurant. In this regard it seems some Fast Food Outlets are really just a victim of their own success.
