Gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time: If I can do it, anyone can

var citeN=0; The idea of gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time seems impossible because of three widely held misconceptions: (a) to gain muscle you need a calorie surplus; (b) to lose fat you need a calorie deficit; and (c) you cannot achieve a calorie surplus and deficit at the same time.Not too long ago, unfortunately I was in the right position to do some self-experiments in order to try to gain muscle and concurrently lose fat, without steroids, keeping my weight essentially constant (within a range of a few lbs). This was because I was obese, and then reached a point in the fat loss stage where I could stop losing weight...

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Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 6

Well, wash me down with some soapsuds. We've hit Week 6 of the Rubbish Diet Challenge, which means after taking time out this week for some much needed personal care, and getting ready for next week's declutter, we will soon be hitting the Zero Waste Week and it will all be over.But before you can put your feet up and give yourselves a well-earned rest, I'm going to get you to mull over your beauty regime.So if you've got time for spot of pampering while you ponder your waste reduction challenge, roll up your sleeves, take a deep breath and relax....preferably in the vicinity of your bathroom.Week 6 is really amalgamating all that you've learned during the last five weeks and simply putting it into context in the bathroom.  There's lots of scope for introducing ways to cut waste, whether...

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The Rubbish Diet, Wk 5: A cold, compost & Master Composters

It's a good job this week's topic was garden related, because I've spent much of the week thinking about how much compost I've been creating.And trust me, I've been creating loads, mainly of the citrus peel variety.  All because I came down with a cruddy cold on Monday and I've been busy fighting it with, amongst other things, some decent doses of vitamin C.Citrus peel is one of the many items that you can add to a compost heap.  However, unlike my lazy approach, advice is that chopping or tearing it up into smaller pieces will help it compost better.  But frankly, this week, I've only had the attention span of a gnat to dedicate...

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Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 5

Welcome to Week 5 of The Rubbish Diet Challenge.   This week, the focus is on the garden and with Spring almost in the air, it's perfect timing to start thinking about how your garden can help reduce rubbish, as well as how you can reduce waste whilst gardening.Even if like me, you're not a particular useful gardener and are more likely to fall into the category of willing but hapless, there are still things that you can do, to inspire you to keep slimming that bin.So for those who are ready to embark on Week 5,  have a think about this week's mini-challenges.1. Stop buying those bagged salads and grow your own instead.  You don't need much space.  A couple of pots will do for planting a few seeds of mixed mediterranean leaves.  So when you're out shopping this...

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The “pork paradox”? National pork consumption and obesity

var citeN=0; In my previous post (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 1) I discussed some country data linking pork consumption and health, analyzed with WarpPLS (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 2). One of the datasets used, the most complete, contained data from Nationmaster.com (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 3) for the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States. That previous post also addressed a study by Bridges (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN))...

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The Rubbish Diet, Wk 4: Saturday catchup. Bins, Blogs, Zambia & Cars

I'm afraid I've not been around much this week, but with very good reason.  It's been a very busy half-term holiday and we've been scuttling around keeping the children entertained, including visits to London and Cambridge.Of course, always on the look out for rubbish inspiration as well as examples of urban grot, I had my camera at the ready to snap some photos, some of which were tweeted using the hashtag #RubbishHolidaySnaps.  Well, one has to maintain one's reputation, don't you think, especially when it's been previously noted in the national press.But it's great to see that more towns and cities are now providing on-street recycling...

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Meet the bin slimmers from Bucks & Lincs

Each week, since the start of The Rubbish Diet Challenge, we've had the chance to learn more about the individual challenges and the focus of each of the households that have volunteered to be taken through their waste-busting missions. We've scooted around Suffolk, dropped into London, as well as New York, and now this week, it's time to visit Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire to catch up with two more families who are making great changes to their waste.Meet MelanieMelanie lives with her husband, two children and their pet dog (and a seasonal snowman), in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire.Although life has been very busy of late...

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Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 4

Welcome to Week 4 of The Rubbish Diet Challenge. I can't believe that already we're almost half-way through. In one way, it feels like a hard slog, but in other ways, the time's been whizzing along, and it will be Week 8 before we know it.Sadly I didn't get a chance to publish the regular Friday Journal during Week 3, due to battling a cold and Wi-Fi failure, but did you spot the latest news from Sainsbury's?  In a bid to help reduce food waste, their new labelling will now advise customers that they can freeze products right up to the Use By date, replacing outdated advice which instructed households to freeze on day of purchase. That's great news and hopefully other supermarkets will follow and update their guidelines too.By now, anyone taking part in The Rubbish Diet should have got...

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Does pork consumption cause cirrhosis? Perhaps, if people become obese from eating pork

var citeN=0; The idea that pork consumption may cause cirrhosis has been around for a while. A fairly widely cited 1985 study by Nanji and French (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 1) provides one of the strongest indictments of pork: “In countries with low alcohol consumption, no correlation was obtained between alcohol consumption and cirrhosis. However, a significant correlation was obtained between cirrhosis and pork.”Recently Paul Jaminet wrote a blog post on the possible link between pork consumption and cirrhosis (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 2). Paul should be commended for bringing this topic to the fore, as...

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Meet the bin slimmers from Suffolk

Every week, I like to find out more about the households that have taken on the Rubbish Diet Challenge and who have allowed me to have a physical or virtual rummage through their bins.  And this week, we're back in my own county of Suffolk to catch up with a couple of bin slimmers, Kate who lives in one of Mid Suffolk's pretty villages and Jax who lives over on the coast.Meet Kate Kate lives with her husband in Mid Suffolk, just a few miles away from Ness, who was featured on the blog a couple of weeks ago.  I had the pleasure of visiting her quite recently, where she was brave enough for me to rescue a few things from her kitchen bin.Kate...

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Tom Hunt and The Forgotten Feast

Tom Hunt, the creator of the Forgotten Feast.Thankfully it's not just householders standing by their rubbish bins at home who focus hard on food waste, there are plenty of unsung heroes in the catering sector who are tackling the issue head-on too, combatting much wider problems than we have on the home-front.  Given the challenges of Week 3 of The Rubbish Diet, I thought it quite timely to introduce a fabulous idea, known as the Forgotten Feast that's about to hit London by storm. The Forgotten Feast is a new restaurant concept organised by Tom Hunt, (chef at waste awareness events Feeding5k and FOE), created specifically to highlight...

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The impressive nutrition value of whole dried small fish

var citeN=0; When I visited Japan a few years ago I noticed a variety of dried small fish for sale in grocery stores and supermarkets. They came in what seemed to be vacuum-packed flat plastic bags, often dried. The packing was a bit like that of beef jerky in the USA. Since I could not read the labels, I could not tell if preservatives or things like sugar were added. Beef jerky often has sugar added to it; at least the popular brands.I have since incorporated dried or almost dried small fish, eaten whole, into my diet. My family eats it, but they don’t seem to like it as much as I do. The easiest small fish to find for sale where I live are...

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Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 3

Blimmin' 'eck, don't these weeks come around so fast.  Already we're getting cracking with Week 3 of The Rubbish Diet Challenge and what a week we've got coming up!After testing out your recycling muscles and sending you off shopping, this week we're going to tackle the slops.  Yes, it's time to talk food waste.Now food waste is a topic that's really close to my heart because four years ago, when I first attempted to slim my bin, I was a total slopaholic. You know the kind of thing.  My life was very much like..."if you cook too much food, no worries, just bung it the bin".  "If you buy too much take-away. no worries... just bung it in the bin."  "Rotten bananas? No worries...let's aim them at the compost bin"..... and so on, culminating in my wasteful habits being...

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