Lots of Links

I think the biggest story that hit over the last couple of weeks was the results of a study that showed just two days of low-carb dieting helps you lose weight better than seven days of low-calorie dieting. Just two days a week appears to show significant results in cancer prevention too.

Sugar makes us sleepy. Cooking food releases more calories. And grains rot your teeth. Hunt, Gather, Love tries a vegan paleo diet and fails – I’d like to hope it would be possible if you weren’t also sensitive to fodmaps but it seems there’s a real limit to how well an animal (us) that evolved eating animal products can remove animal products…

Its great to see more mainstream coverage of the importance of fat in the diet – Salon covers Why Women need Fat. Seth takes a look at successful experiments in treating sleeping disorders like Restless Leg with b vitamins, meal timing and regulating light exposure. Here’s two years of results of the Shangri-la diet – using flavourless calories to suppress appetite.

Conditioning Research offers a complete guide to Interval Training, and the Great Fitness Experiment suggests ways to implement Tabata into your workout. And here’s another great study on why you should do them.

ITB, the scourge of the running community, debunking the myths.

Skepchick offers a guide to Meditation for those who want the benefits without the woo. And with New Years upon us – perhaps we don’t need to keep trying to be perfect ourselves.

For anyone thinking of a Vegetarian/Vegan Resolution – Silverhydra has produced a guide to the actual meat toxins and how to avoid them.

• Meat, unlike plants, do not contain any inherently toxic compounds in them when you eat them like ‘our ancestors’ did; stab the animal in the eye and feast upon its tissues. This isn’t how we eat meat though.
• When you add preservatives and cooking into the mix, you can form carcinogens. These were never ’factored out’ by evolution or ‘adapted to’ since they only adversely affect human health well past reproductive age and natural selection doesn’t apply.
• They can all either be avoided, or minimized.
• Heterocyclic Amines are formed from cooking, and their amounts are directly related to heat exposure and time. You can reduce the amount in meat with herbal and oil marination, but it would be best to limit cooking time in order to avoid excessive HCA formation.
• Nitrosamines are formed when the Nitrate preservative binds with amino acids, and can best be prevented by consuming reducing agents (vitamin C, or just veggies) alongside the meat.
• Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons are formed during smoking, from incomplete combustion of fatty acids, and can best be avoided through aromatase inhibition (veggies) or allowing all meats to fully ventilate, thus preventing the ‘incomplete combustion’ from being incomplete.
• Advanced Glycemic End products aren’t a huge concern, but are formed when meats get a crispy browning to them. They can be avoided by not browning the meats, but if you are worried about their effects in the body just get your blood glucose and HbA1c levels under control and don’t get fat.

Link Roundup

Norway is suffering a butter shortage due to the popularity of low-carb diets.

Stevia wins European approval – in general I try to avoid artificial sweeteners but if its safe, more choice is good. Jezebel looks at the evils of pharmaceutical companies. And now another reason to doubt rice is the benign grain – arsenic!

More evidence emerges that eating fish is good for you: helping to prevent alzheimers; and the younger a baby is when it starts consuming fish, the less likely it is to suffer preschool wheeze.

Lifehacker looks at how to stop negative thoughts. Rob Wolf looks at how to identify if your cravings are due to biological, emotional or external triggers.

Evolutionary Psychology looks at depression and chemical imbalance. Wheat Belly author, Dr Davis is interviewed at Wellness Mama.

Mark’s Daily Apple looks at how to train for a marathon the healthy way – I’m hoping this will be useful at my planned half-marathon level. I’m really not wanting to go through the carb binge cycle like last time. And while I’m thinking about it, Strength Running takes a look at the real world benefits of endurance running.

The Netherlands wasn’t always a cyclist’s paradise – a look at the deliberate planning that went into improving the cycle-friendliness of Dutch cities. Lovely Bike argues against social ideas of female modesty limiting women’s ability to talk about their experiences.

Skeptic North takes aim at the poor arguments used against those sceptical of Big Nature.

Speaking of sceptical wins – the Burzynski Clinic‘s attempts to silence their critics has backfired. Now they’re  firing their thug…