Sorry. A passion has gotten the best of me, lately.
About five years ago, I got too fat to fly. No, it wasn't a command, not even an admonition. I just felt fat...crappy. Essentially, I felt a deep unworthiness to fly -- hang gliders (my primary deal), powered planes, sailplanes. I quit doing all of them.
So yesterday I strapped into the cockpit for the first time in 4 1/2 years. Then, it had been nearly 8 months since my last solo outing and my instructor called to offer to keep me current. So we did, next day. tok a ride and he signed me off to continue solo training. He didn't make that offer again, nor should he have; because I hadn't flown since.
So, I've taken on a double challenge: re-familiarize myself with piloting and learn a new airplane all at once. I learned on the Citabria, a tail dragger. And while their Citabria fleet numbers somewhere between 8-10, now (more than before), they also have that gem, above. And I wanted to check her out.
So I did, last two days in a row. I found out that she still remembers how to fly. The takeoffs & landings (and radio work with the tower) are rusty -- better day 2 -- but apart from that stress and even creating stress with stalls and other work at altitude, it was all very good. Not exactly like riding a bicycle, but enough principal elements remain to make it very much worth it to rekindle a passion.
C'mon, what lost passion do you want to recapture?
About to jump on a plane for a weekend trip. Destination, pool side near Palm Springs. I'd wanted to write more about the video that follows, but it pretty much speaks for itself. Watch.
Think the Mafia metaphor is a bit much? I don't. Quite the contrary. The Mafia would actually be marginally easier to work with, you'd stay in business, wouldn't have to spend oodles on attorneys, solicit the help of friends and family. Most of all, there would be no pretense of righteousness.
...Every time I stumble on Sean Hannity and his pathetic "Let Freedom Ring" schtick on the radio, I wanna put my fist through it. That train left the station decades ago.
I've been spending a good dead of time both unsatisfied with how this blog has been meandering along and wondering what, if anything, I might want to do about that. Here's a possibility, from an email received just this morning, copied verbatim.
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Wow. And all that "FREE of cost." Waddya think? Ha, I'm almost tempted to take 'em up on it just to see what I'd get -- though, I imagine they're just steal something "relevant on your interest" from another site somewhere. Hell, I'd probably get some of my own posts as there are certainly enough bot sites out there stealing my content.
OK, there is a serious point to the first paragraph. Here's where I'm at: much as I like to be a place of motivation, entertainment, communion and ongoing education for those well steeped in the Paleo/Primal health style, I'm coming to see that as a much lesser mission -- with the primary mission being to attract, interest and assist those unfamiliar with any of it. Of course, that already happens but I wonder how many stumbling in here aren't enticed to investigate further because it's just not so obvious where and how to access the best relevant information.
Of course, a beginner's guide or ebook would help. Also, a much more formalized section of testimonials from readers.
So, just a brief update on what I'm thinking about. There are a lot of blogs out there, now, and most seem to be focussed on providing ongoing information to the already established paleosphere. But I get a lot of random traffic here from Google and other places and it seems to me that regular posts exclusively of interest to beginners might be called for without being to much of a bore for the old timers.
Very impressive research and analysis but, at the end of the day, we all only believe what we WANT to believe. For example, one person may read the bible and think it’s the greatest story ever told and also believe that it’s the truth. Another person may read the bible and conclude that it’s really just the greatest story ever told. So, whilst Debra’s work is impressive for the amount of time and effort she’s put in, as a vegan I am, not surprisingly, very firmly sat in Dr Colin Campbell’s camp. I just believe Dr Campbell.
My mom went to the doc yesterday. As a Type 2 diabetic who controls it pretty well, she nonetheless still does regular visits. She's very low-carb Paleo-ish, and while she was able to be off insulin for a time completely, still finds she needs very small doses now and then.
To the endocrinologist's credit (a new doc), she did acknowledge being impressed with my mom's diet and supplement regime. But there was one little problem: mom's total cholesterol is 217. The doc asked her if she wanted cholesterol lowering meds. But my mom reads this blog and was thus prepared, indicating that for women, higher cholesterol is associated with increased longevity (lowest all-cause mortality and not just an overly reductionist tunnel vision, zeroed in on cardiovascular mortality).
But the doc retorted with something I can't recall reading or hearing about, specifically. She asked my mom if the studies and information she's relying on concerned women with diabetes and not just a general cross-section, as diabetes is associated with twice the heart disease and stroke as for non-diabetics (according to the doc).
Hmm.... So I did some initial digging around. I ended up writing this in a reply email.
The problem is: what level of diabetes? You control yours pretty well, so there is no comparison between you and someone who doesn't.
There is ZERO benefit to lowering cholesterol, especially in women (indeed, the greater chance is it's harmful). Cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease; inflammation does and this is how statins, when they work, work. But keeping grains, legumes, sugar, and vegetable/seed oils out of your diet has an even more anti-inflammatory influence I suspect. Actually, it simply allows your body to go back to its natural, non-inflammatory state.
The fact that there is no statistically proven cardiovascular benefit from the use of statins for cholesterol reduction in women was first publicly disclosed by Uffe Ravnskov in his book, Cholesterol Myths and has been corroborated repeatedly by numerous longitudinal clinical studies.
The ASCOT study, the largest randomized clinical study of statin effectiveness in women, found that the women who took Lipitor, developed more heart attacks than women in the group given placebo.
While not statistically significant this finding hardly supports cardiovascular benefit. In this ASCOT study, 2,000 women were included among 10,000 patients having elevated blood pressure and at least three other cardiovascular risk factors.
Again and again, clinical studies have failed to show that the use of statins lowers cardiovascular risk in women who do not already have coronary heart disease or diabetes.
So just when you think it's all settled, there's that D word, right at the end. This is off the top of my head but as I recall, statins have only been shown statistically beneficial to men who have had a previous coronary event (statins reduce the rate of subsequent events). But is there another category of benefit out there I don't know about?
Aims To determine whether patients with diabetes without prior myocardial infarction (MI) have the same risk of total coronary heart disease (CHD) events as non-diabetic patients with previous myocardial infarction.
Methods Using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane and MeSH in this systematic review and meta-analysis, extensive searching was carried out by cross-referencing from original articles and reviews. The study consisted of cohort or observational studies with hard clinical endpoints, including total CHD events (fatal or non-fatal myocardial infarction), stratified for patients with diabetes but no previous myocardial infarction, and patients without diabetes but with previous myocardial infarction. Studies with less than 100 subjects, follow-up of less than 4 years and/or without provisions for calculating CHD event rates were excluded. The review of articles and data extraction was performed by two independent authors, with any disagreements resolved by consensus.
Results Thirteen studies were included involving 45 108 patients. The duration of follow-up was 5–25 years (mean 13.4 years) and the age range was 25–84 years. Patients with diabetes without prior myocardial infarction have a 43% lower risk of developing total CHD events compared with patients without diabetes with previous myocardial infarction (summary odds ratio 0.56, 95% confidence interval 0.53–0.60).
Conclusion This meta-analysis did not support the hypothesis that diabetes is a ‘coronary heart disease equivalent’. Public health decisions to initiate cardio-protective drugs in patients with diabetes for primary CHD prevention should therefore be based on appropriate patients’ CHD risk estimates rather than a ‘blanket’ approach of treatment.
So on the one hand, statins are of no benefit to women, even those who have had a previous coronary event (unlike for men), and on the other, even men & women with diabetes who have never had a coronary event are far less likely to have one than non-diabetics who've had one.
While that's not a direct study of the question (do statins lower coronary events in women with diabetes?), putting 2 and 2 together seems to imply to me that given the rate of serious side-effects experienced by those on stains, combined with what seems like a very dubious benefit to a woman with well controlled diabetes, equals not much reason to take them and lots of reasons not to.
Anyone have anything contrary, or better. Either way.
Tipping the scale at 230+ (5'10) in May, 2007, at 33%+ body fat, I decided to do something about it. This blog is about that continuing journey. Having lost 60 net pounds -- on the way to 10% BF -- I'm ready to reveal my "secrets." I'm enthusiastic about helping others achieve real results. The mainstream advice is mostly wrong. One need only take a look around.
Real Results: Primal in Philly
A Fine Day In The Echo Chamber
Downtown Campbell Farmers’ Market
