The Definite Article

I'm officially obese!

Yep, that's right. I have a body mass index of something like 30. I'm 6' 4" and 17 1/2 stone.

But recent research See it here shows that stress is far worse than gaining even 40 pounds, so I've elected not to worry about it, or take any guff from anyone about it, although I'm exercising (more on this later).

Furthermore, high blood cholesterol doesn't cause heart attack or ill health. Vulnerable plaques sure do, however, and the current going theory is that a higher blood cholesterol count is more likely to lead to vulnerable plaques - but only because you can induce endothelial dysfunction in rabbits by feeding them twice their body weight a day in pork brains.

I believe that increased blood cholesterol without elevated ketone levels is probably bad for you, but that's only going to come about if you eat fatty foods, then stop because you're worried about weight or cholesterol, then start back up again.

Think about it for a moment: cholesterols, like any other solute, will precipitate out of solution if the solution becomes supersaturate. The solution (your blood) will not be saturated so long as sufficient ketones are present to dissolve the cholesterol. Ketones are produced when you eat fatty foods. Cholesterol is a byproduct of fat metabolisis (and dietary intake of cholesterol). If you know enough to keep your ketones high, then you won't have to worry about your cholesterol. This is probably why Italians and Greeks have such a low rate of heart disease in spite of a high fat diet. Check mortality rates of various countries here.

Also, there is no reasonable morphology connecting elevated blood cholesterol and restenotic inflammation. The existing evidence is based on (admittedly several hundred) studies - but each study is litterally statistically insignificant and can be safely ignored. No study that I found examined more than twenty subjects.

You probably remember that a reasonable population of data is at least three thousand samples.

On the other hand, animal studies involving high-collagen co-factor diets (i.e. high in Vitamin C), show that animals that have high Vitamin C intake don't develop vascular lesions even with high cholesterol diets.

So Cholesterol worship is bad science. This isn't my opinion, really; I'm just stating what the only person to ever win two unshared Nobel Prizes has said: Linus Pauling pointed this out years ago. He's well known both as the author of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban treaty and as the discoverer of vitamins. On this one, I'll let you do your own research.

Anyway, I've thought a lot about cholesterol, and decided that it's utter bunkum to worry about it.

As for weight, though, there's good evidence that being overweight is strongly positively correlated with numerous health problems, not the least of which include heart disease, diabetes and not getting laid. While worrying about it will just kill me quicker, doing something about it won't.

I've been exercising since I got to Edinburgh and have lost a stone and a half through running and calisthenics three times a week, swimming three times a week on the off days and walking eight miles three times a week. I also lift weights three times a week.

At first, I was just tired and still fat, but now I feel great after a workout, especially swimming (swimming is also when I walk; the pool is about four miles away, and I walk there).

I've changed my diet, but I'm watching calories, not cholesterol. That's not to say I don't also watch WHAT I eat, but that means no junk food or fast food. I pay pretty close attention to what my body wants. If it's asking for butter or mayonnaise, it's probably because it needs it, and that's what I give it.

As a side note, I make my own mayonnaise from eggs that I buy at the Farmer's Market, from farmers who feed their chickens corn that they buy from the farmers across the road. I get nearly all my food there: my vegetables, my seafood, my steak, my bread, my butter, my garlic, my herbs - they all come from people that I know, who grow or raise them themselves. The food is organic, but not Organic, if that makes sense. They do the work themselves and grow it the same way that they've been doing it in Scotland for about twenty thousand years.

Is it more expensive? Well, quite a bit, actually. For just me I spend about £100/week. That's almost $200, so I'm spending close to $800/month on food. On the other hand, this is my principle hobby and pastime, and I spend more time thinking about this and planning it than any other activity in my life, including work. I live to eat well.

I moved here in part because I can walk to work, don't need a car, can live healthily with far less stress or planning and have access to a far wider range of good food than anywhere else I've ever lived. It beats the States hands down. My commute is almost as short as last year - and last year I worked from home.

Finally, I've found that I'm happiest when I'm attractive, and this is a completely subjective thing with a self-reinforcing feedback loop. When I think I'm attractive I'm self-confident then other people want to be around me then I feel more attractive and so on. So it's not really connected to weight.