About half the population are 'slow metabolizers' of caffeine (due to gene variation). Slow metabolizers of caffeine have a significantly increased chance of having a non-fatal myocardial infarction (heart attack) if they drink 2-3 cups or more of coffee a day.

So... there is a lot of information out there saying caffeine is not bad in moderation - I would advise taking this with a grain of salt.

http://www.doctorslounge.com/cardiology/articles/ischemic_heart/coffee_heart_attack/

I can't say for certain, but I'm think this video will change my life. I've been trying to lose weight for ages, not drinking any coke, doing exercise etc., but I've never realized the prevalence of high fructose corn syrup in all foods. I wrote down those 4 tips that he suggested to losing weight, and I'll repeat them here for those who missed it. I'll certainly stick to it and see if it works.

1. Get rid of all sugared liquids: only water and milk. Fruits are fine, because it contains all the fibers.

2. Eat carbs with fiber, because fibers are awesome. Fibers: Lowers total and LDL cholesterol, reduces risk of heart disease
regulates blood sugar, and speeds the passage of foods through the digestive system

3. Wait 20 mins for second portions, so your satiety response can kick in.

4. Buy your screen time minute-for-minute with physical activity.

Some other points:

-a calorie is not a calorie: you don't do exercise to burn calories, but to increase metabolism

-fructose IS NOT glucose. A large amount of glucose is used by the rest of the body, meaning it burns much quicker. Fructose can only be metabolized in the liver, and it's a volume issue. It means a lot gets turned into fat, and in that process, blocks receptors to generate certain chemicals which tell your body to stop eating, causing a vicious cycle.

-be a fattie or fart a lot (from the fiber). Make your choice.

Soda sucks. The regular sugary crap is inviting diabetes. The diet crap is asking for metabolic syndrome.

The regular crap sinks because it is essentially a crazy super dense sugar water solution, enough to overcome any little buoyancy that the can may have from trapped air. The co2 bubbles are effectively dissolved in solution until the can is opened. The diet crap floats because it isn't any where near as dense. Not enough to counteract the cans buoyancy. Again for any gas/air trapped.

The typical soda may contain around 44g of sugars. 10 teaspoons. I dare you to try to eat that straight up and not in a solution and see how you feel afterward. Nasty. Actually. These days it is mostly corn syrup. Even worse than processed granulated sugars.

>> ^Mcboinkens:

He proposed a problem, but no solution. So he gets nothing. Stopping dispersants will keep the oil on the surface, and then it will just screw up the coastline. Dispersants will keep the coastline slightly more clear, but may harm creatures that live under the slick because it will create a column of oilwater.
Anyone could say dispersants are dangerous. This guy had nothing interesting to say except that one heartbeat a minute still gives an all clear rating by the EPA, and even that could just be big talk. He said he worked on those type of tests and has seen it before. Well, way to speak up before the spill. What other chemicals have been given an all clear when they are really toxic?



While it is always easier to poke holes in the boat rather than make it float, it still is valid concern. Moreover, what if breaking up the oil saves the beaches and kills the entire ocean for the next 200 years instead? These are questions you want the answers to before you start dumping millions of tons of chemical solvents in the ocean. Let it be known that all forms of corexit are not non-toxic. 2-Butoxyethanol, a main component of corexit is known to cause tumors in air breathing mamals after exposure. Heavy exposure via respiratory, dermal or oral routes can lead to hypotension, metabolic acidosis, hemolysis, pulmonary edema and coma. The cure in this case might be worse than the sickness. We might toxify (which isn't a word sadly even though detoxify is) the oceans to the point of causing a breakdown in the phytoplankton's ability to ability to survive in coastal waters for some generations.

The point is we don't know, the studies on corexit are limited, even by the EPAs own admission. This could be the equivalent of dumping cyanide in the base of the food chain for most life on the planet.

I know this is dipping into conspiracy theory here, but the thing that stuck out in my mind after reading that article was "...Risks of ingesting fluoride include Chronic Kidney Disease, Thyroid Disease, reduced brain development in children, reduced IQs, dental fluorosis, skeletal fluorosis, and increases in hip and other bone fractures. ..."

Paired with the fact that 'They' want us to drink more and more water per day under the guise of 'General Health and Wellbeing' just adds more fuel.

>> ^Sagemind:

"ANOTHER LOOK AT FLUORIDE IN THE WATER SUPPLY"
http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/fluoride.htm


--


The water-table-effect is scary as well, guaranteeing that humankind as a whole is affected, rather than just civilized/urban areas. Why stupify 50% of the population when you can get 100%?

</tinfoil_hat>

Seriously though, potentially scary stuff... Pharmaceuticals in the water table are cause for a lot of *fear as well. I can't wait until literally everyone with a penis is walking around with a permanent hardon due to the massive amounts of Cialis, Viagra, and Levitra being dumped into the world-water-supply. Funny shit.

And no one will be depressed, but they may all be potentially suicidal.

I wonder about birth control as well. Surely 100% of the medication isn't being metabolized, so it would gather in waste water also. Population decrease, lower IQ, and perma-stiffy's the world 'round.

^first of all, i don't think it's fair to measure the energy calculation in joules.

Solar income is by far the biggest energy contribution to the production of crops, not any human factor. we're merely facilitating a nice opportunity for the plants to convert photons to food, because we can't to that ourselves. so the whole thing rests on our metabolism being "wasteful", energy-wise.

Another reason strict caloric calulation is meaningless for farming, is that the US and EU are subsidizing their domestic agriculture industry with billions of dollars, making farming methods and yields completely divorced from the financial success of a farmer.
Here, I can mostly speak from experience in the EU, where subsidies are often given for weird, counterintuitive behavior, meant to satisfy other goals than production, such as specific, fashionable environmental concerns ("preserve hedges and enclosures!"), or simply to preserve employment in that sector. Talk about wasteful.

And why isn't the haber process sustainable? Because it's dependent on fossil fuels? it only gets the hydrogen part from natural gas, the nitrogen comes from the atmosphere. A lot of people are spending lot of money these days on developing efficient, large scale, renewable hydrogen production, such as electrolysis machines running off solar/wind/nuclear power.
When people talk about "sustainable", they often forget to take into account future developments, and proceed to make gloomy prognoses based on current technology (see: Thomas Malthus)

@mgittle:

You can access it from google here.

The first link.

@mgittle

Can't see your link without a login, but I'd like to read it. I'll make an account later. Though I'm not sure how what you said directly after the link disproves the part of my article you quoted.



Well, the author you quoted states that:

1. increased ATP = increased metabolic stress
2. metabolic stress blocks mtor activity (*This point is wrong*)
3. increased mtor activity results in increased muscle gain.

He's basically saying increased ATP use results in decreased muscle gain, hence the rational for minimizing ATP use. However, this conclusion is incorrect since the literature shows that increased metabolic stress is actually GOOD for muscle gain.

"I'm not an expert, but I've always been told/read that tendons heal more slowly than muscle."



This is correct because your tendons do not have good blood flow compared to your muscles. I'm not sure that this also applies on a microscopic level that weightlifting may cause because I don't know how long it takes for your tendons to fully recover from specifically weightlifting induced wear and tear. Again, this plays into the whole overtraining thing. The key I guess is to avoid overtraining, and personally, I've never had any tendon problems as a result of doing 1 rep max lifting.

@mgittle

I looked a bit into that article, and it seems to do a pretty poor interpretation of the science available. While the article cites papers to support the relation between mTor and muscle mass gain, as well as increased resistance and activation of mtor, there was no evidence cited for the following:

"On the other side of the equation, mTOR activity is blocked by metabolic stress. This means that we want to use as little muscular ATP (an energy yielding molecule used in muscle contraction) as possible when we are doing our resistance training."



This part just has no basis whatsoever and doesn't make sense.

In fact, if you look at the literature, the exact opposite is true:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/506930
Increased metabolic stress is correlated with increased levels of growth hormone, epinephrine, and an increase in muscle cross sectional area.

Similarly, look at this quote from the article you linked:

"The highest absolute power is seen when performing fast lengthening contractions with a lot of weight (high jerk), or heavy plyometric exercises. This type of exercise is very effective in activating mTOR, but unfortunately can be very bad for tendon health, and as a result can lead to injuries."



The first part of this quote states exactly why 1 rep max is so effective. However, the second part of this, which quotes increased levels of tendon injury, is again completely baseless and unsourced.

I have by no means done a comprehensive analysis of the article you suggested, but it seems to me that it uses bits and pieces of science to come up with false conclusions to support the author's personal preferred exercise methodology. The evidence brought up by this article instead seems to support the theory that 1 rep max is an effective method of strength training.

You have a Zappa playlist???!!? awesome... hmmm, I kind of remember it I think. Zappa is awesome

In reply to this comment by moodonia:
Thanks again for the promote! I am right now going through your playlist too and thanks for the invitation, I had no idea invites could be made so I will will have to send you one to the Zappa playlist I made. Sorry my response time has been slow, we have two inches of snow here so naturally the entire country has ground to a halt (including my metabolism), I've only briefly broken out of hibernation to catch up online

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
*promote!

Thanks again for the promote! I am right now going through your playlist too and thanks for the invitation, I had no idea invites could be made so I will will have to send you one to the Zappa playlist I made. Sorry my response time has been slow, we have two inches of snow here so naturally the entire country has ground to a halt (including my metabolism), I've only briefly broken out of hibernation to catch up online

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
*promote!

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday You are being manipulated.


So you are against corporate manipulation of markets, and instead prefer government manipulation? As if a politician is any more caring of your needs than a businessman. PROTIP: nobody with money gives a shit about you. What makes you think corporations have a harder time manipulating politics than they do markets? They don't, ask any CEO if they want a "free market" and they will say hell no. They love government regulations because regulations can be bought and sold as easy as apples at the store.

Your argument is absolutely retarded. Like "I can't believe he went full retard" retarded.

How about a system with NO manipulation...government, corporate, individual or otherwise. When you hear "free" you think "anarchy" that is why your arguments sound so god damn stupid. By "free" we mean "free from manipulation."

Believe whatever you want, I couldn't care less about your views, America, Americans, or any of the "plight" any of the above find themselves in. I couldn't care less about people eating 150lbs of sugar a year who don't have the $50,000 for their cancer, diabetes, and heart disease treatment. If you are too ignorant to google "cancer metabolism" maybe you should be dying on the street. PROTIP: Diseases of civilization are curable; do some research before spending your life savings on toxic pharmaceuticals, you damn sucker.

This country can crash into burning ruins and I wouldn't blink an eye. People who willingly hand over their possessions, independence, and ask to be ruled by others (or supported by others) deserve whatever harsh, pathetic life they receive in return.

I still find it mind-boggling that those horrificly hyped-up metabolisms can be sustained on little more than sugar-water. Seems like they'd need something with a bit more oomph, like suet.

As per the tags, it seems Liam Hoekstra has a genetic mutation affecting production of myostatin, a protein that is known in some animals to limit muscle growth. Before Liam, it was unclear whether myostatin performs the same function in humans, but his development seems to strongly indicate it does. As the condition is very rare, it's not known whether there will be any downsides to the mutation in the long run. Presumably there's a reason evolution hasn't selected more strongly for this mutation, but it could just be that in harsher conditions, a high metabolism and high muscle mass may not be ideal as someone with such a body will require more nourishment than a less-muscular person. Also the ability to put on fat is quite important for anyone without a guaranteed, steady source of energy. In a wealthy society, however, famine is not very common, so this kid may do just fine.

The idea has been thrown in the air, by the way, that the myth of Hercules might have stemmed from someone with this mutation. Completely unverifiable, of course, but a fun thought anyway.


Edit: Apparently this kid's condition is a little different, I was thinking of a German child whose body wasn't producing myostatin, leading to increased muscle growth. This is related as well, but apparently Liam's body does produce myostatin, it just isn't affecting him in the usual way. Apparently there could be several myostatin-related methods to increase muscle growth.

The hardest part is eating right.

For a boxer the diet is 45% high Fiber carbs, 40%protein and 15% fat.

According to the site, any one doing anaerobic exercise needs to eat about 6 small meals a day to keep insulin up.

Something about High Fiber Carbohydrates and slower expenditure of energy, it keeps the metabolism going. So that fat is being converted into energy even when the body is at rest.

No soda, no fast food, and finally no "bad days".