Get on the Bandwagon

I love popular diet literature's use of the term "metabolism." There is nary a more confused term batted about than this essence of cellular fuel useage, better known as aerobic and anerobic metabolism. Before diving into that distinction, what distinguishes human metabolism from numerous fuel burnning systems, is the lack of linguistic imagination. If automobiles were humans, and engines were cellular metabolism, then food would be . . . gasoline. Snap, it's linguistic genius. Yet the real motivation for the analogy is the examination of the gas tank or fuel source.

The analogy takes a twist when we consider the gas tank. Humans don't really have a gas tank or do they? Adipose tissue or fat serves as a reserve fuel when immediate fuel sources run low. Usually we cycle through all our glycogen first, but as that's running low an increasing futile cycle of protein breakdown sends amino acids into cells to be burned as fuel. Finally, at about 5 to 7 days of starvation, amino acid cycling slows down to conserve protein and fat from adipose is almost exclusively used by cells as a fuel source.

More when you're older,

WG

Tis The Season

My favorite time of year is diet season. From Christmas to around FebuMarch, the dieters come out in droves. My thoughts on dieting run from concern to suspicion. The terminology used by dieters, the concepts, and the diet formulas used--as well as the various tools necessary to put those formulas to work, are at first glance more depth than the average dieter might wish to wade into. After all, to really engage in a serious weight loss plan one is required to estimate energy needs balanced with energy expenditure. And that my friends, requires some knowledge and understanding of human metabolism.

Human metabolism is the rate at which we utilize fuel—with fuel being foods we consume containing glucose, protein and fat. The term metabolism is somewhat vague and gets used interchangeably with other more specific terms describing energy needs. In general, humming birds have a very high metabolic rate given their size, and other more slow moving mammals like the sloth, have a much lower energy requirement per unit body mass. What we generally refer to as our “metabolism” is actually a collection of energy considerations involving how active we are, our size, gender and age. Generally, the rate of metabolism (number of kcals used per hour on average) takes into account factors like how much we’ve eaten in the last 12 hours, how active we are and other vague and difficult to estimate notions like the amount of stress we are under, our sleep patterns, our hormonal levels and much more. To estimate the energy needs of an individual, we can’t take into account things such as emotional state, hormonal balance, frequency of meals and a host of other variables that may actually impact energy needs; in place of an exact measure, we use three components that are estimated. Therefore, to estimate daily caloric needs, we divide the overall concept of metabolism into three subcategories to consider:

1. Resting Energy Expenditure (Basal metabolic rate)
2. Thermic Effect of Food (energy cost of digestion and absorption)
3. Daily Physical Activity

Being able to estimate those components of daily living allows us to get a rough estimate of the total daily energy requirements--allowing us to again estimate how many calories to take in to actually lose weight. We can measure directly and indirectly the total energy expenditure but it involves expensive equipment and again, isn’t readily available to the general public. Calculations of energy requirements are available and easy to use, but again, to arrive at an estimate we need to cover the three basic areas of daily energy expenditure.

More Later

Battle of the Titans

In the nearly perpetual debate regarding which sandwich meat is better for you, bologna versus Spam, I feel the need to weigh in. Visually, and from the perspective of global greenness, Spam loses on both counts. Meat in a funky can is without question a waste of resources. In fact the cans might be used as body armor if the need were to arise. Bologna on the other hand usually comes in a plastic container and as we all know plastic polymers can break down in the environment, but never fully biodegrade.

In the category of unique nomenclature, Spam wins. Spam as it turns out stands for Shoulder of Pork with Ham, thus Spam. Adding ham to pork shoulder seems redundant, but what do I know about mass produced meat. In the category of historical sandwich meats with excessive sodium, it's nearly a tie, both have roughly 300+ mg of salt with Spam on the higher end and bologna nearer to 300 mg.

Lets tackle the fat comparison. And by that I mean the atherosclerotic, inflammation promoting saturated fat content. Surprisingly, Spam wins by a nose. Spam contains 2.76 grms per serving and bologna contains 3.12 grams. Comparing monounsaturated fat content, that "good fat" we all seek when choosing a Mediterranean diet, Spam is the winner again! A Spam serving has 3.9 grams and bologna has 3.4 grams. Now if bologna or Spam are fried, all bets are off and we immediately leave the Mediterannean for Scotland unless the cooking oil is known.

In the "other nutrients" category a few notable differences. Bologna is relatively high in zinc and contains 10 micrograms of fluoride. The kids can brush with it! Bologna also has a whopping 20 IU of vitamin A.

Finally, in the pop-culture, underground cookbook category, Spam wins hands down with recipes like Spam-cream, a variation on a popular frozen dairy product. And Spam-berry jam to accompany those peanut butter spreads. Lastly, Spam can be used as an industrial lubricant and for those with hard to hold hair and no gell, Spam-spray can hold those rebel locks in place for days. However, avoid dogs.

Wow, a new post. I bet you thought I had died. Well I may be alive, but I'm not claiming life in it's entirety just yet. In response to some well put criticism of this blog I'm changing the format: Instead of the usual crisp review of salient nutrition topics, I'm going to lie, give false promises and take anyone's money. As it turns out, I have a way to flatten abs without changing a thing. Just send me the small sum of $43.99 and I will send you the ab flattening diet. It's simple. Place carrots on your stomach at night for seven nights and by the eighth night your abs will be six-pack quality. It seems as though carrots selectively draw adipose from interstitial abdominal sites. I can't give references . . . but I feel good about it.