one man's ceiling
Thursday, February 22, 2007
the alcohol metabolism thing
having given up pasta for lent inspired my zuska to give up her much-loved wine for the next 39 days or so. she posted about it here. she mentions that i had long suggested that eliminating alcohol would help in her quest to lose weight as it effects metabolism.
in the comments one of her faithful readers demanded, nay SHOUTED at me to site my sources. it's funny, because you accumulate knowledge over a long period of time and you just get to the point where you accept your knowledge as fact. then one day someone says "oh yeah? prove it, pasta boy!" and then you think hmm, where did i hear that? was it someplace credible, or did some homeless guy on the street shout that at me one day and it just lodged itself into the fact-y part of my gray matter?
this was one of those times where i love the internet.
after a few minutes of searching (something that could have been done in the time it takes to SCREAM AT ME to cite sources) i accumulated the following quick response (if you've zoomed over to zuska's site, or read it already, you can skip ahead):
the two primary points (i don't know which came first) were dr. dean ornish's and dr. andrew weil's work. ornish is a physician whose worked at the preventative research institute where he pioneered a study where people lost weight and reversed the effects of heart disease simply by changing their diet. dr. weil is a harvard educated physician who has been espousing the effects of spontaneous healing of a variety of minor and chronic ailments through the uses of alternative medicines, natural remedies and dietary changes as well. ornish initially may have alerted me to the idea that food isn't the enemy, and weil finally broke down my resistance to eastern and alternative medicines.
i hate to take such defensive stances on things, or beat them into the ground, but i was forced. had one harmless error not shouted at me i would never have been compelled to go digging. and as a former twenty-something know-it-all i can remember just how resistant i was to ideas that shattered the very foundations of my long-held (occasionally hyper-ignorant) beliefs. my current stance on such things is to let them brush past with a knowing laugh, but once i get shouted at, well, the gloves come off.
having given up pasta for lent inspired my zuska to give up her much-loved wine for the next 39 days or so. she posted about it here. she mentions that i had long suggested that eliminating alcohol would help in her quest to lose weight as it effects metabolism.
in the comments one of her faithful readers demanded, nay SHOUTED at me to site my sources. it's funny, because you accumulate knowledge over a long period of time and you just get to the point where you accept your knowledge as fact. then one day someone says "oh yeah? prove it, pasta boy!" and then you think hmm, where did i hear that? was it someplace credible, or did some homeless guy on the street shout that at me one day and it just lodged itself into the fact-y part of my gray matter?
this was one of those times where i love the internet.
after a few minutes of searching (something that could have been done in the time it takes to SCREAM AT ME to cite sources) i accumulated the following quick response (if you've zoomed over to zuska's site, or read it already, you can skip ahead):
two general problems with alcohol: it provides empty calories (they have no nutritional benefit) that the body cannot convert into energy and it weakens the liver which is the primary organ for dealing with fat metabolism. in addition, alcohol is full of sugars, stimulates the appetite, and prevents the body from recognizing when it has been sated, especially by fats, allowing for an over-stimulated appetite and excess eating.looking over the various sources i can safely say
all things you'd want to avoid if you were trying to lose weight.
general stuff here on diets and alcohol
www.jrussellshealth.com/alcwt.html
i find dr. weil fairly credible
www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA360805
here the point is that while alcohol itself doesn't add to weight increase in and of itself, the addition of alcohol to a person trying to lose weight is negatively impacted
alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa35.htm
yes, it's thin on supporting documentation, but consistent WITH WHAT MY DOCTOR ONCE TOLD ME
www.bodytrends.com/articles/diet/performnut.asp
here we get a report that says alcohol increases metabolism, but in doing so slows down the ability to burn off fat
www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/alcohol.htm
more of the same
www.drgillianmckeith.com/nutrition-weightloss.php
what i have found is that nay-sayers tend to suggest that alcohol in moderation is fine, and there are those studies showing the medicinal benefits of red wine, but the fact remains that alcohol has more going against it than for it in a person looking to modify their diet and or weight. zuska gets more benefit out of the cup of red grapes i put in her morning smoothie than she would in a glass of wine at the end of the day -- nutritional benefits of the grapes, medicinal from the skin, and lower in calories.
is this enough documentation?
the two primary points (i don't know which came first) were dr. dean ornish's and dr. andrew weil's work. ornish is a physician whose worked at the preventative research institute where he pioneered a study where people lost weight and reversed the effects of heart disease simply by changing their diet. dr. weil is a harvard educated physician who has been espousing the effects of spontaneous healing of a variety of minor and chronic ailments through the uses of alternative medicines, natural remedies and dietary changes as well. ornish initially may have alerted me to the idea that food isn't the enemy, and weil finally broke down my resistance to eastern and alternative medicines.i hate to take such defensive stances on things, or beat them into the ground, but i was forced. had one harmless error not shouted at me i would never have been compelled to go digging. and as a former twenty-something know-it-all i can remember just how resistant i was to ideas that shattered the very foundations of my long-held (occasionally hyper-ignorant) beliefs. my current stance on such things is to let them brush past with a knowing laugh, but once i get shouted at, well, the gloves come off.
Labels: alcohol, andrew weil, blog comments, dean ornish, diet, weight, zuska
¶ Thursday, February 22, 2007 6 comments
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
gung hay fat tuesday!
yes, it is the conflagration of celestial events that pushes the chinese new year up against the end of mardi gras. and being neither chinese nor any sort of practicing christian it may strike some as a bit odd that i tend to observe the forty days of lent by giving up some food item, but there it is: i am that bit odd.
in the past i have gone to extremes. i have given up chocolate (very heard) and all carbs (extremely hard) all meat (not so bad for the first 20 days or so, but then i was living a few doors down from a burger joint...) and once i gave up on giving things up, what you might call a protest against an idea that i really don't find fault with. yeah, i do that as well, protest things in principle that i later have to admit i don't quite believe in.
and just to be fair, i have twice practiced daytime fasting during ramadan just to see if i could do it. you know, it really wasn't so bad, but it also wasn't that hard to slip back into a regular eating schedule either.
this time around the word is pasta. givin' it up in all its many glorious forms until some time after easter. since i'm normally only eating pasta once a week i'm only giving it up for a five or six weeks, but that's not going to be as easy as it sounds. i like pasta.
i also recognize that those are very heavy carbs and i could really use to drop a few pounds.
like maybe forty pounds.
like between now and the end of july. when i'm hoping to go to europe and not wanting to be the ugly american schlepping his lard ass around the great cities of the old world. but that goes into diet and exercise and not what i'm talking about now.
right now i'm talking about the last meal. i'm talking about dropping huge piles of chili with beans on top of spaghetti with two kinds of cheese, 'cause that's the way i roll when the pasta's goin' down.
having consumed more than i should have -- because, yeah, it tasted superfine yummygood -- i now feel bloated and i don't give a damn. the next week will trot by like a breeze and then things
will get rough. but i know i can handle it. i know because last year i pretty much cut all high fructose corn syrup out of my diet, with a handful of exceptions. i know because i was once heavier than i am now -- not by much, but enough -- and i know i've lost that weight in the past. and i know that as an american male in his midlife i need to get back down to a more human size if i expect to live to see 92, which i do.
and i know that the journey of a thousand calories begins with a single bite. and that i can cut back on the evil foods of my life if i cut them back ever so gradually. the same way i gained all that weight. and after forty days i hope to find that i don't crave the pasta, and that i can build on that by dropping something else just slightly more significant. like sugar.
so tonight, hey! pasta away! and tomorrow, when i wake up groggy with the carb hangover i'll know i partied about as hard as i wanted on the eve of lent.
yes, it is the conflagration of celestial events that pushes the chinese new year up against the end of mardi gras. and being neither chinese nor any sort of practicing christian it may strike some as a bit odd that i tend to observe the forty days of lent by giving up some food item, but there it is: i am that bit odd.
in the past i have gone to extremes. i have given up chocolate (very heard) and all carbs (extremely hard) all meat (not so bad for the first 20 days or so, but then i was living a few doors down from a burger joint...) and once i gave up on giving things up, what you might call a protest against an idea that i really don't find fault with. yeah, i do that as well, protest things in principle that i later have to admit i don't quite believe in.
and just to be fair, i have twice practiced daytime fasting during ramadan just to see if i could do it. you know, it really wasn't so bad, but it also wasn't that hard to slip back into a regular eating schedule either.
this time around the word is pasta. givin' it up in all its many glorious forms until some time after easter. since i'm normally only eating pasta once a week i'm only giving it up for a five or six weeks, but that's not going to be as easy as it sounds. i like pasta.
i also recognize that those are very heavy carbs and i could really use to drop a few pounds.
like maybe forty pounds.
like between now and the end of july. when i'm hoping to go to europe and not wanting to be the ugly american schlepping his lard ass around the great cities of the old world. but that goes into diet and exercise and not what i'm talking about now.
right now i'm talking about the last meal. i'm talking about dropping huge piles of chili with beans on top of spaghetti with two kinds of cheese, 'cause that's the way i roll when the pasta's goin' down.
having consumed more than i should have -- because, yeah, it tasted superfine yummygood -- i now feel bloated and i don't give a damn. the next week will trot by like a breeze and then things
will get rough. but i know i can handle it. i know because last year i pretty much cut all high fructose corn syrup out of my diet, with a handful of exceptions. i know because i was once heavier than i am now -- not by much, but enough -- and i know i've lost that weight in the past. and i know that as an american male in his midlife i need to get back down to a more human size if i expect to live to see 92, which i do.and i know that the journey of a thousand calories begins with a single bite. and that i can cut back on the evil foods of my life if i cut them back ever so gradually. the same way i gained all that weight. and after forty days i hope to find that i don't crave the pasta, and that i can build on that by dropping something else just slightly more significant. like sugar.
so tonight, hey! pasta away! and tomorrow, when i wake up groggy with the carb hangover i'll know i partied about as hard as i wanted on the eve of lent.
Labels: carbs, mardi gras, pasta, weight
¶ Tuesday, February 20, 2007 0 comments
