Yoga helps back pain, and the energy balance still rules

Published 1.16.2017
It's Monday, so it's time to consider some recent inks and items that were interesting enough to note but not enough to inspire longer commentary.

• Yoga can improve back pain, but not by much, and it takes time. Still, yoga practice had no adverse effect, which can’t be said about most drug treatments. Moving is always better than not moving, and yoga is no exception.

• Some movement is better than none. If you can only workout on the weekends, then do so and don’t feel bad about it. Losing weight while moving more is the best idea as well (in my opinion).

• It’s the energy balance that matters, not when you eat. If you eat more than you expend— and you likely will if you add breakfast but don’t eat less at lunch and dinner— you will gain weight. There's no mystery here.

Read the rest.

• Call the neighbors wake the kids, when you control (take responsibility for) how much food is on your own plate you eat less. Not sure why this is considered such a revelation. How many times do restaurant serving sizes have to be exposed, investigated, slammed … pick your verb until people realize it’s not what’s on the plate that matters it’s how much— specifically how many calories — that matters. Put fewer calories on your plate and lose a bit of weight (or stop gaining). Maybe it’s a cultural thing? People feel like they’re being rude if they don’t eat all that they’re given? I know for too many it’s a value proposition. They paid for the meal and want their definition of a full value’s worth.

• Yoni Freedhoff highlights an asshole apologizing for being an asshole to fat people, but otherwise shows that obesity is the result of choices and habits— which seems not to be the message Freedhoff intends. The fact that the body compensates for those choices and settles into a set point doesn’t change that. And excuse me, but in the end he winds up changing habits to lose weight. Bottom line: realizing that you were an asshole to fat people doesn’t change the reality for how people get fat.

• No end to the errors of the “Paleo” diet. Humans eat EVERYTHING— including raw grasses if that’s what’s available.

• How much are doctors to blame for opioid addiction? There has been a movement to try and acknowledge and treat patients pain better/more aggressively. But pain perception is subjective. It’s an individual thing. What’s needed is a better way to measure the physical effects of pain, and non-drug ways to treat them. There are non drug ways to treat the mental aspects— asserts the non-medical professional. Always remember that I am not any kind of medical professional and have no medical training.

• Contra the Food Reward hypothesis for weight control, people who have more adventuresome palates tend to be leaner and healthier. The energy balance rules, of course, so however you find to eat that lets you eat only what you expend (or less than you expend if you’re trying to lose weight) is how you should eat. For those of us who have zero interest in eating the same bland food daily, though, this is a happy data point. FTR I know I’ve eaten 15 of the 16 foods defined as exotic, and might have had the last one too.

• The Chinese version of Taco Bell tells the truth: It’s not Mexican food. Even less so in China, where outlets will be offering chicken and waffles.

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