Uncle Muck\

Even in December of 2012, people still think the obesity epidemic is caused by people eating too much and exercising too little. A case in point is this recent article;

http://theconversation.edu.au/the-obesity-epidemic-too-much-food-for-thought-7969

The opening paragraphs talk of larger portion sizes and a lack of smaller options. It’s not long before the writer trots out the old favourite;

The result of energy intake exceeding overall expenditure is a positive energy balance.

No, that’s simply rubbish, and anyone studying health and nutrition knows it. Boil it all down and sugar is the problem, not portion sizes. Eat real, health, fatty foods, and the problem goes away.

I wonder when this obvious message will start to be the popular view?

Nice to see that Jimmy is doing so well that those that disagree with him are now producing online hit pieces to try and discredit him;

There’s not a lot more to add, this video is nothing more than distortion of the facts to make it seem like low carb is a bad idea. Of course, if the authors of this video read a little science, they’d know how wrong they are.

I was just reading an article discussing the idea that eating carbs later in the day would actually help you lose weight.

The study cited as evidence that eating some carbs at dinner / evening may help with weightloss does NOT suggest that at all.

The study compared two diets, where the only difference was the time of day the carbs were eaten. So the conclusion from that study, is that if you are going to eat significant carbs and protein (the protein is important) then you must restrict calories and you should eat the carbs late.

This is a problem with quite a lot of dietary and health studies. They take the standard average diet, and compare it to one minor variation. When they find the variation works better for good health, they erroneously decide that is the ideal diet.

The reality is that in this study, calories were restricted. It has been shown conclusively that restricting calories is unsustainable for any number of reasons. So what happens when the subjects stop restricting calories? They get fat again.

A much better study would have a range of diets, including a high fat, low carb approach. Then you would find that low carb would trump the other approaches, even without calorie restriction.

The erroneous conclusion being drawn here simply gives people the idea they should be eating carbs, and you will find those people always struggling with weight control because of it.

I have started seeing tweets bemoaning the LNP’s “absolute power” after what looks at this stage to be a landslide win in the 2012 Queensland state election. I find these kinds of statements silly for a couple of reasons;

Firstly, they are issued by those who prefer the former government, and who had no problem with the absolute power wielded by them. Some would say in this case the irony of the complaint is that the Labor party have been thrown out after they abused their absolute power, but that’s another blog post. At the end of the day, whoever wins the election weilds absolute power.

Now where I really think this argument is silly is that the parliament only runs for three years. That’s not absolute power, thats a temporary grasp which can be taken away if you don’t behave yourself. So Queenslanders who prefer a Labor government have nothing to fear, if Campell’s team get up to no good, it is a sure thing Queensland will throw them out in three short years.

Now I must go back and watch the coverage.

The Jet Star Himself

Tonight I discovered some comedy gold. It came in the form of Stuart a guy who apparently hails from Tamworth, but now exists in an interdimensional portal. But I am getting ahead of myself, lets start at the beginning.

A few days ago one of my twitter peeps was lamenting the poor service she was getting from Jetstar. So naturally, she mentioned @Jetstar in her tweet. I followed up with a comment that was pertinant to the case and again included @Jetstar in my tweet. Then, tonight, the fun began with this @ reply to me;

(forgive the horrible styling of these, thats his idea of a quality colour scheme)

@LordPhantom why ask me?

January 7, 2012 10:29 am via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@jetstar

Stuart

Huh, I thought? So I went over and had a look at his twitter stream and profile, and realised what had happened. This Wally had decided he should be @Jetstar on twitter. Well, normally that would just be his loss, and onward I would go, but I noticed he was on a bit of a rant, @ replying everyone he could;

@forcetwelve no no, you are the joke. You got the wrong person! Ha!

January 7, 2012 10:28 am via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@jetstar

Stuart

@LisaMLange @melkettle another. Not impressed with you.

January 7, 2012 10:32 am via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@jetstar

Stuart

Wow, he’s a bit bent out of shape over this. I thought, maybe a light ribbing, along with some obvious advice was in order, so I tweeted;

@jetstar Might be time to change your twitter handle. :-) Failing that, get less bent out of shape over people assuming you are Jetstar

January 7, 2012 10:31 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@LordPhantom

Mathew Taylor

Well, he wasn’t having any of that nonsense! He is @JETSTAR and nobody is going to tell him otherwise!

@LordPhantom no #getlost #dontblamemeforyourinadequacies

January 7, 2012 10:36 am via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@jetstar

Stuart

My inadequacies eh? Interesting. I’m the guy who’s day has been forever improved by the comedy styling of Stuart, I have no such inadequacies. Plus, I am pretty sure nobody is going to launch an airline called LordPhantom after all. Of course, he defends himself by saying;

@LordPhantom @melkettle I had it before they existed so fuck off being a smartass. They don't exist here either. #thinkyouknowitall

January 7, 2012 10:42 am via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@jetstar

Stuart

Well that’s interesting Sir. I had a look, and Stuart established his twitter account in 2007, while Jetstar launched in 2003. This is also the tweet where I realised he exists in a parallel dimension, because where he is, Jestar doesn’t exist. Well Stuart, the rest of us here on planet Earth co exist with Jestar quite happily. In a similar vane, I won’t be changing my twitter handle to @united or @delta any time soon.

You’ve got to hand it to this guy, he must really think highly of himself. His twitter bio reads;

I could fly a plane a few years before I could drive a car. Originally from Tamworth. Keep on rockin’ in the free World.

Obviously his choice of twitter name is his way of compensating for something.

Finally, I was gratified to see that I wasn’t the only one who thought he should change his twitter handle;

@jetstar you're using a username the same as a major airline. Have a think about it.

January 7, 2012 10:31 am via Tweetbot for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@forcetwelve

Adam Gibson

So if you’re bored, go tweet @Jetstar and see what happens.

Facebook is a strange place sometimes. People behave so differently on Facebook that in some cases you don’t recognize them as the long standing friends you know. I’m not sure why this is, but here are a few thoughts in how to behave better on Facebook.

Protect the children.

If I came into your home and began swearing and discussing donkey porn in front of your kids, you would be appalled. So why do you think it’s okay to post that stuff to your Facebook feed where kids can see it? It’s easy enough to hide your adult content from the kids on your profile, so do it.

No censorship please

Having said that, don’t try to tell others what they can and cannot post to their Facebook profile. Where we are all adults, then we can choose to cope. If I am posting stuff you find offensive, message me and explain why. If you don’t agree, then comment and make your case. If you can’t bear my updates any longer, hide me from your news feed. It’s not hard, just do it,

Consider what you post

Think about your updates. Think about what other people’s news feeds will look like if you post a list to 20 different items from your favorite online store in 10 minutes. Ask yourself if you really need to repost that glib rubbish sixteen of your friends already posted. Look at giving value to your friends, and in so doing encourage them to give value back. Facebook can easily be a place to share knowledge with the people you are supposed to care about. Give it a try.

A recent story in the Queensland Times regarding the exploits of Matthew Perry really bothers me. Long story short, the guy broke into a home to steal stuff, twice, while the family were home, and on the second occasion brought his wife to help carry stuff out.

I’d be interested to know who was taking care of the couples five children while the parents were off burglarising homes in the middle of the night. What are these people teaching their children, that it’s okay to steal, and okay to leave the kids alone all night while you do it? Not good.

But the real rub is the work of the judge in question. He says he recognised that Perry had no real history of dishonesty. Okay, but then why was he on PAROLE? If his prior offences were not matters of dishonesty, then perhaps they were violence related, so we have ourselves a dishonest violent thief, and judge lets him off with a suspended sentence.

It’s high time our esteemed government looked at sentencing options for crims like this Matthew Perry character. I have no problem with minor offences not getting jail time, especially if they have kids to look after, but we need to do more than send them home and wait for them to offend again.  Lets start by ensuring people on parole are wearing tracking bracelets, and lets at least give them curfews so they somewhat restricted in what they can do.

And then, when they offend again, lets throw them in prison so they can’t. Once is a mistake, but twice is intentional.

Today I saw “Cook Yourself Thin” on iView for the first time. In short, it’s the worst diet show I have ever seen. The advice on this program must be as close the opposite of what you should do as the producers could make.

The part of the first episode that really made me nuts was the Carbonara. They suggested eating carbonara the way the poor victim on the show was doing it was no good. That part they got right, but their solution was to take out the butter, cream and bacon! The only three nutritious parts of the meal, and they did away with them!

Then later on they do their little study on subliminal diet CD’s. Just a bunch of filler here, nobody in their right mind would believe that listening to a CD would affect your weight, except of course the fact that in doing so you will be thinking about your weight more and are likely to make other changes that probably will reduce your weight.

Clearly the producers and ladies appearing on the program have no clue about proper nutrition. Hopefully they do some research and fix the show pronto!

I had to laugh when I read this story at the courier mail today. The two main giggle points are;

The woman in the story is quoted saying things that suggest her money went walking because the services she was using were not secure. She might earning huge money but she’s not smart enough use strong passwords and take other simple measures to protect herself.

The other nugget was how the reporter Alex Dickinson chose to describe those that managed to steal the funds. Clearly terms such as “criminals” or “online thieves” were too boring for this star reporter, so he went with “cyberpunks”. Sounds like the makings of a great B grade movie to me.

In my business I have a small team. I think they are all great people, or I wouldn’t have hired them in the first place, but there are times when I wish they were greater,

Such is the case right now, and I’m trying to figure out exactly where to draw the line. Do I just have to suck it up, or do I have some right to at least talk to the team member about it? Can I offer to help improve the situation?

I’m talking about sick days. The government in their wisdom suggest I should give my team 9 sick days off a year, which is to say, the gold standard of I’ll health is no more than 9 days a year. Before I go on, let me clarify, I’m not talking about serious disease here. We did have one team member with a serious condition, that took doctors months to properly diagnose and needed 6 weeks off work to resolve. Fair enough.

However, when a team member takes 6 days off work sick (not consecutive, one at a time) over the first 10 weeks of their employment, I have to wonder what’s going on. I’m not even suggesting they aren’t actually sick. If I caught them taking sick days when they weren’t sick I’d fire them immediately, after all, if they can’t tell you the truth, they cant work for you.

But if they really are getting sick for a day this often, are they taking care of themselves? If they aren’t taking care of themselves, are they taking care of my business? Should I have to put up with the lost productivity caused because they apparently refuse to do the things that would prevent them being sick in the first instance?

Going further, should I, or can I, intervene? Can I insist on a medical checkup? Can I insist they take vitamins, eat healthy? None of my team smoke but if they did, can I insist they give up?

I’m a fairly proactive, nurturing kind of boss. I’d be happy to pay for some or all of these things after all, healthier team members make a healthier business. Clearly I’m motivated primarily by the success or failure of my business, but is it not also true that better health would be of great benefit to the team member as well?

If you are an employer or employee, I’d love to get your opinion on this, as right now, I’m not sure what, if anything, I should do about this.