Pasta is the food of the gods.

And why dont you quote me in context? I said I do that exercise every day in CLASS. You come to my class and tell my instructor that he should not use that exercise cause I'm certainly not going to do it. I would never disrespect him like that. "Ok class, we're going to do this stretch now"
"Oh, Sir, we CAN'T! We'll all snap our spines! I know you haven't but Socrastein said...."

Whatever....

 

Not hostile to you Mike, hostile to the idea you presented. You consistently fail to differentiate. I never attack you personally, but yeah I will attack a dumb idea ruthlessly. Not just yours, either. Obviously I was attacking the idea that we need carbs pretty ruthlessly throughout this thread, but Matt never took it as hostility.

Wasn't referring to your daughter specifically, I should have just said a woman. I wasn't quoting a conversation you had with your doctor either. They were all hypotheticals.

You need to remember that whenever you post something in a public forum you are putting it out to be criticized, refuted, poked at, etc. by the public. I can't address something that is never said.

It's no secret I think that science and reason are the best way to sort idiocy from things that make sense (wheat from chaff).

How do you think we best determine if something is idiotic?

 

I wouldn't recommend disrespecting your coach. I participated in a martial arts class that a friend brought me to a while back, and of course the warm-ups and drills were completely random and baseless, but I didn't say a thing. When everyone was doing a thousand sit-ups, I just practiced some civil disobedience and quietly sat there waiting until they moved on to something not completely retarded.

Now, if you have an instructor who insists you do everything his way or GTFO, I'd say you shouldn't worry about offending him because he doesn't deserve your respect. That's not a scientific conclusion though, that's merely my personal opinion

By the way, I think it's awesome you had 7 eggs for breakfast, for what it's worth.

 

But you CAN address it without verbally swinging at my face. every thing you write comes across as preachy and aggressive and I've absolutely had it with it. You can't question with out attacking and its unnecessary, uncalled for and chaps my ass.

And it IS personal. When you come at me the way you do, it becomes personal. You dont have a question or enter into conversation.... I've said all this before....

As for remembering things about public forums, I've been on boards long enough to know the deal and owned enough of them to understand the difference between unnecessarily abrasive and simply curious. I've talked about this at length with you already and it does me no good. The way you come at me is the absolute wrong way to get anything out of me other than the attitude I FEEL coming from you.

 

With all due respect to Mikey - a guy who's experience I've come to respect greatly over the short time he's been posting, I'm firmly with Socrastein on this point. There are many reasons studies may appear to contradict each other:

* As Socrastein points out, one reason is that they are not all created equally. Some studies may contradict each other because they used different demographics. IIRC, there was a clinical study a while ago that showed that NSAIDs improve muscle growth and strength gains as compared to a placebo. A subsequent study showed the opposite. Looking deeper, it turned out that the original study was done on elderly volunteers and the later on younger volunteers. One likely explanation for this discrepancy being that NSAIDs do in fact inhibit muscle growth but that the pain-killing effect was a larger confounding variable in the older population.

* Another is that they may be deliberately biased and/or cherry-picked (Ancel Keys lipid hypothesis, anyone?)

* A further confusion is that people often do not understand the difference between an observational study (which can only show a correlation - and never cause and effect) and a clinical trial. This confusion is often made worse by the way the studies are reported in the popular media. For example, an observational study may show a correlation between two things, e.g. nurses taking estrogen have lower levels of heart disease. The study itself may well make clear that this is simply a correlation and that further clinical trials are required. However, the press will likely just run a headline to the effect of "Science Finds HRT reduces Heart Attacks!" and the majority of the headline-skimming public will read it fairly uncritically. A later clinical trial may find that HRT increases the risk of heart disease once the confounding variable of health-conscious nurses being more likely to implement other healthy lifestyle changes is eliminated.

Personally (and this is just my own approach here) my own practice draws something of a compromise between the two. Science is by far the best tool we have for ascertaining whether something works and how it works. A properly controlled clinical trial is one of the most persuasive ways of getting me to chance my opinion on something. However, many of the studies are flawed or just poorly controlled, and many studies that we'd like to have done have not been. In the absence of good scientific data, our own and others anecdotal evidence is probably the next best thing we have.

The conclusion I'd draw from all this is that we should always keep looking at the science, always keep asking questions (of ourselves and each other), always keep debating and always keep an open mind.

 

That's a really great way to put it. It's not that experience and science are mutually exclusive, they should go hand in hand in the exact manner you describe.

 

BRILLIANT, CF!!! I AGREE with that whole thing, yet its for all the reasons you've stated that I finally, in frustration, chose to throw my hands up and just figure it out for myself. I remember distinctly trying to do some research on vanadyl sulfate back in the day that ended up getting me so turned around I finally took an "it'll either kill me or cure me" stance, lol.

My gripe was with the type of stuff that gets posted as if its the end all be all piece of knowledge available. Share your research and your knowledge but unless you're positive its the last word on the subject don't post it as such.

I didn't mean you as in YOU, I meant it in the generic sense, just fyi.

Also, sometimes those studies are lengthy, dry, bits of reading the bulk of which doesnt really tell me anything difinitive. I have always appreciated those who post the part that applies but provide a link to the full article if I want to read it myself. My ADD makes reading some of those things REALLY difficult and if I can sidestep the less important stuff I become far more prone to reading AND PROCESSING the real meaty stuff.

Anyway, thats where my "see what works for you" attitude came from.

GREAT post!

 

Don't get me started again Frodocious. We all know how much I like to argue, right Bigmikey?

 

If there is such a thing as "beer gut", why not a "pasta gut"?

 

Because people like to believe that their £1.75 asda pasta pot with creamy mayo and low fat yogurt will help them drop 5% bodyfat.
and people don't want to believe that serious training, hard work, blood sweat and tears is the secret to becoming fit.

 

Right on seiken steve! It is not the "poison" itself that causes "beer or pasta gut", it is your own inability to push yourself away from the table, or get your butt off the barstool, and get out to the gym.

 

Because the beer has Phytoestrogens from the hops which alter your hormone levels so that fat is deposited more heavily on the abdomen when there are excess calories.

 

Where else do you find Phytoestrogens? I ask because my father doesn't drink- he's had the same three bottles of Miller in the fridge since Christmas 2008- yet still has that "when's it due" look about him.

 

For a single person it's harder to answer since genetics can affect it as well as their medical history. Where you store fat is partly dictated by your hormone levels, as well as how much is stored. The Phytoestrogens in the hops are also true for other foods, soy is a big culprit as are cereals, nuts and even low quality meat. Also if he has a sweet tooth fructose and glucose in combination have been shown to shut down the sex hormone Binding globulin gene, preventing the natural reduction of free estrogen in the blood stream.

Probably not such a big factor but xenoestrogens, artificial molecules that act like estrogen can leak from heated plastics, so hot food in plastic containers or hot drinks could increase the total hormone levels.

 

Most italian men I know have large guts like beer drinkers, yet they drink wine and eat alot of pasta

 

160 replies and you're all wrong.

Big Mac pwns all.