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	<title>the knackered hack &#187; weight loss</title>
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		<title>the sweet smell of failure</title>
		<link>http://knackeredhack.com/2009/03/12/the-sweet-smell-of-failure/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-sweet-smell-of-failure</link>
		<comments>http://knackeredhack.com/2009/03/12/the-sweet-smell-of-failure/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:51:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackeredhack</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[book reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[failure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[illness and injury]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[life the universe and everything]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nutrition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weight loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[what hacks off the hack?]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ancel Keys]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chocolate tax]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Walker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gary Taubes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Yudkin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[low-carb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sugar]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[A Scottish doctor today is arguing for a tax on chocolate to tackle obesity and the concomitant rise in type II diabetes. Of course some, including myself, have been labouring under the impression that chocolate might just be good for you, and that this might explain certain cravings, assuming you are eating the very high [...]

<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/04/the-diet-delusion/" rel="bookmark">the diet delusion</a><!-- (12.6)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (9.8)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/31/sugar-baddy/" rel="bookmark">sugar baddy</a><!-- (9.1)--></li>
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<p><img class="alignleft" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3187/3063430122_1f01bd940a.jpg" alt="Sweet and Dangerous" /></p>
<p>A <a title="Dr David Walker argues for Chocolate Tax on BBC" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7938282.stm" target="_blank">Scottish doctor today</a> is arguing for a tax on <strong>chocolate</strong> to tackle obesity and the concomitant rise in<strong> <a title="Type 2 Diabetes on Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_2_Diabetes" target="_blank">type II diabetes</a></strong>. Of course some, including myself, have been labouring under the impression that chocolate might just be good for you, and that this might explain certain cravings, assuming you are eating the very high cocoa solid variety. But an empirical test this morning confirmed that it is not the chocolate I crave but the sugar. I read somewhere on the internet that if you think you crave chocolate because of a nutritional deficiency you should try eating some pure cocoa. So I did just that. It took about a quarter of a teaspoon of <a title="Green and Blacks Cocoa Powder" href="http://www.greenandblacks.com/us/what-we-make/hot-chocolate/fairtrade-cocoa-powder.html" target="_blank">Green &amp; Black&#8217;s Cocoa powder</a> to convince me that it&#8217;s the sugar in chocolate that I&#8217;ve been craving. I&#8217;m pretty good at acquiring tastes but cocoa is nothing on its own: it needs sugar. And all that sugar does, it seems, is boost your <strong>insulin</strong> levels and leave you wanting more when your <strong>blood sugar</strong> crashes again later. Chronically, this will kill you.</p>
<p>A few weeks ago, I finished reading <em><strong><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0091924286?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=knackeredhack-21&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=19450&amp;creativeASIN=0091924286">The Diet Delusion</a></strong></em> by <strong>Gary Taubes</strong>. If he is correct, the book pictured (above) by <strong><a title="John Yudkin on Wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yudkin" target="_blank">John Yudkin</a></strong> is from the graveyard of nutritional science. Published in the US in 1973 for a cover price of $1.95, this copy of <em><strong>Sweet and Dangerous </strong></em>appears to have left a thrift store some time later &#8212; somehow riding a wave of inflation to sell for $2.75 &#8212; before hopping the Atlantic where it would have been acquired by my late mother-in-law from a UK charity shop for 40p. By this time its bubble had finally burst, and Yudkin&#8217;s work is now well out of print. Were it not for the normal prevarication over getting rid of any books in the Knackered household, this battered edition might already have returned to second-hand bookstore oblivion; instead, it has been sitting on my desk for nearly nine months asking to be blogged about, reprieved by Taubes&#8217; mention.</p>
<p>According to Taubes, the hypothesis that sugar consumption could be a primary cause of heart disease and other chronic illnesses was being taken seriously in the research community in the early 1970s. But it was in competition with <strong><a title="Ancel Keys" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys" target="_blank">Ancel Keys</a>&#8216;</strong> prevailing hypothesis that dietary fat was what mattered. This is what Taubes says:-</p>
<blockquote><p>By the early 1970s, Keys&#8217;s dietary-fat hypothesis of heart disease, despite the ambiguity of the evidence, was already being taught in textbooks and in medical schools as most likely true. After Yudkin retired in 1971, his hypothesis effectively retired with him. His university replaced him (at Queen Elizabeth College London) with Stewart Truswell, a South African Nutritionist who was among the earliest to insist publicly that Keys&#8217;s fat theory of heart disease was assuredly correct and that it was time to move on  to modifying the diets of the public at large accordingly.</p></blockquote>
<p>Yudkin became a figure of ridicule, and further research into the sugar and refined carbohydrate hypothesis was avoided by those who knew what was good for them professionally, so says Taubes.</p>
<p>Taubes draws out just how dramatic has been the increase in our refined sugar consumption over the past two centuries, suggesting that Yudkin was right to be more concerned about sugar metabolism:-</p>
<blockquote>
<p align="left">But the greatest single change in the American diet was in fact the spectacular increase in sugar consumption from the mid-nineteenth century onward, from less than 15 pounds a person yearly in the 1830s to 100 pounds by the 1920s and 150 pounds (including high fructose corn syrup) by the end of the century.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A fuller review and more mentions of Taubes&#8217;s book will arrive in due course. Just to say that I&#8217;ve been wondering whether it might be the most important book I&#8217;ve ever read. The paperback edition is now out in the UK.</p>
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<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/04/the-diet-delusion/" rel="bookmark">the diet delusion</a><!-- (12.6)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (9.8)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/31/sugar-baddy/" rel="bookmark">sugar baddy</a><!-- (9.1)--></li>
	</ol>

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	Tags: <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/ancel-keys/" title="Ancel Keys" rel="tag">Ancel Keys</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/chocolate-tax/" title="chocolate tax" rel="tag">chocolate tax</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/david-walker/" title="David Walker" rel="tag">David Walker</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/diet/" title="diet" rel="tag">diet</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/gary-taubes/" title="Gary Taubes" rel="tag">Gary Taubes</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/john-yudkin/" title="John Yudkin" rel="tag">John Yudkin</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/low-carb/" title="low-carb" rel="tag">low-carb</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/nutrition/" title="nutrition" rel="tag">nutrition</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/obesity/" title="obesity" rel="tag">obesity</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/sugar/" title="sugar" rel="tag">sugar</a><br />
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>friday fractal iv</title>
		<link>http://knackeredhack.com/2009/01/09/friday-fractal-iv/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=friday-fractal-iv</link>
		<comments>http://knackeredhack.com/2009/01/09/friday-fractal-iv/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:46:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackeredhack</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[behaviour]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fractals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[life the universe and everything]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nutrition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weight loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brassica]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[friday_fractal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[low-carb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[savoy cabbage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://knackeredhack.com/2009/01/09/friday-fractal-iv/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Correlation does not equal causation.  But since abandoning refined carbohydrates I&#8217;ve developed a passion for brassicas, the more lightly cooked the better. Happy New Year. Donate and help me buy back my Fender ('About' tells you why) Related Posts friday fractal ix friday fractal vi fractal mafia and the roman doctor Related posts brought to [...]

<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2009/06/19/friday-fractal-ix/" rel="bookmark">friday fractal ix</a><!-- (11.1)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2009/02/13/friday-fractal-vi/" rel="bookmark">friday fractal vi</a><!-- (10.9)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/09/fractal-mafia-and-the-roman-doctor/" rel="bookmark">fractal mafia and the roman doctor</a><!-- (10.8)--></li>
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<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3126/3159812440_f23f9450d3.jpg" alt="2008 December 102" /></p>
<p>Correlation does not equal causation.  But since abandoning refined carbohydrates I&#8217;ve developed a passion for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica#Medicine" title="Brassica on Wikipedia" target="_blank">brassicas</a>, the more lightly cooked the better.</p>
<p>Happy New Year.</p>
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<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2009/06/19/friday-fractal-ix/" rel="bookmark">friday fractal ix</a><!-- (11.1)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2009/02/13/friday-fractal-vi/" rel="bookmark">friday fractal vi</a><!-- (10.9)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/09/fractal-mafia-and-the-roman-doctor/" rel="bookmark">fractal mafia and the roman doctor</a><!-- (10.8)--></li>
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	Tags: <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/brassica/" title="brassica" rel="tag">brassica</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/friday_fractal/" title="friday_fractal" rel="tag">friday_fractal</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/low-carb/" title="low-carb" rel="tag">low-carb</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/savoy-cabbage/" title="savoy cabbage" rel="tag">savoy cabbage</a><br />
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		<item>
		<title>sugar baddy</title>
		<link>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/31/sugar-baddy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sugar-baddy</link>
		<comments>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/31/sugar-baddy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:44:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackeredhack</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[illness and injury]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[nutrition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weight loss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[appetite]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[low-carb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obesity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paleo-diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Zane_Andrews]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[This preoccupation with refined carbohydrates and their exclusion from diet may look odd, but the evidence confirming the significance of removing or moderating their intake continues to mount. Nature, via Science Daily, has published research from Dr Zane Andrews of Monash University (and others) showing that appetite-control cells are damaged over time, with carbohydrates and [...]

<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2009/03/12/the-sweet-smell-of-failure/" rel="bookmark">the sweet smell of failure</a><!-- (11)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/02/19/bringing-the-banana-forward/" rel="bookmark">bringing the banana forward</a><!-- (9.7)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2009/01/09/friday-fractal-iv/" rel="bookmark">friday fractal iv</a><!-- (8.1)--></li>
	</ol>


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<p><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/57/153625904_6e29bda493.jpg" alt="mmmm, doughnuts" /></p>
<p>This preoccupation with refined carbohydrates and their exclusion from diet may look odd, but the evidence confirming the significance of removing or moderating their intake continues to mount.  <strong><em>Nature</em></strong>, <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080821110113.htm" title="Science Daily on Monash study ref carbs and appetite" target="_blank">via <em>Science Daily</em></a>, has published research from <strong>Dr Zane Andrews</strong> of <strong>Monash University </strong>(and others) showing that appetite-control cells are damaged over time, with carbohydrates and sugars playing an important part in that damage process:-</p>
<blockquote><p>Dr Andrews found that appetite-suppressing cells are attacked by free radicals after eating and said the degeneration is more significant following meals rich in carbohydrates and sugars.</p>
<p>&#8216;The more carbs and sugars you eat, the more your appetite-control cells are damaged, and potentially you consume more,&#8217; Dr Andrews said.</p></blockquote>
<p>Interestingly, the effects start to occur from early adulthood:-</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8216;People in the age group of 25 to 50 are most at risk. The neurons that tell people in the crucial age range not to over-eat are being killed-off&#8230;</p>
<p>&#8230;A diet rich in carbohydrate and sugar that has become more and more prevalent in modern societies over the last 20-30 years has placed so much strain on our bodies that it&#8217;s leading to premature cell deterioration,&#8217; Dr Andrews said.</p></blockquote>
<p><http:>Full <strong><em>Nature </em></strong>abstract <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7206/abs/nature07181.html" title="Nature article on impact of carbs on appetite cells" target="_blank">here</a>.  Thanks to Jess for the pointer and <a href="http://bunchofpants.blogspot.com/" title="Complete Bunch of Pants" target="_blank">bunchofpants</a> for the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bunchofpants/153625904/" title="Doughnut photo at bunchofpants on Flickr" target="_blank">photo</a>. </http:></p>
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<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2009/03/12/the-sweet-smell-of-failure/" rel="bookmark">the sweet smell of failure</a><!-- (11)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/02/19/bringing-the-banana-forward/" rel="bookmark">bringing the banana forward</a><!-- (9.7)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2009/01/09/friday-fractal-iv/" rel="bookmark">friday fractal iv</a><!-- (8.1)--></li>
	</ol>

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	Tags: <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/appetite/" title="appetite" rel="tag">appetite</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/diet/" title="diet" rel="tag">diet</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/low-carb/" title="low-carb" rel="tag">low-carb</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/obesity/" title="obesity" rel="tag">obesity</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/paleo-diet/" title="paleo-diet" rel="tag">paleo-diet</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/zane_andrews/" title="Zane_Andrews" rel="tag">Zane_Andrews</a><br />
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		<item>
		<title>uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</title>
		<link>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:52:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackeredhack</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that today Bryan Appleyard published his long-awaited interview with Art De Vany in The Sunday Times Magazine. For new subscribers to this blog, Professor De Vany is a long-term advocate of a lifestyle that mimics that of our paleolithic ancestors, at least in terms of diet and exercise. The Knackered [...]

<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/29/ancestral-fitness/" rel="bookmark">ancestral fitness</a><!-- (15.4)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/02/19/bringing-the-banana-forward/" rel="bookmark">bringing the banana forward</a><!-- (14.2)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/15/caveman-lunch-with-taleb/" rel="bookmark">Caveman lunch with taleb</a><!-- (13.8)--></li>
	</ol>


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<p>Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that today <strong>Bryan Appleyard</strong> published <a href="http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet_and_fitness/article4523487.ece" title="Art De Vany in The Sunday Times Magazine" target="_blank">his long-awaited interview with <strong>Art De Vany</strong></a> in <em>The Sunday Times Magazine</em>.</p>
<p>For new subscribers to this blog, Professor De Vany is a long-term advocate of a lifestyle that mimics that of our paleolithic ancestors, at least in terms of diet and exercise.  The Knackered Hack has been echoing this approach, with increasing strictness, for well over a year now.  Appleyard, who has himself adopted the diet and shed about a stone, noted how vigorous the professor was for a 71-year-old in various domains,<em>  </em>about one of which I am myself still gathering data <img src='http://knackeredhack.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' />  .  If the professor&#8217;s nocturnal experience can be replicated, then this will  probably be the clincher for a lot of people as they realise the value of the paleo diet in helping them with more than just weight-loss.</p>
<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3184/2771881494_e7b018c760.jpg" alt="uncle" /></p>
<p>More seriously, you can&#8217;t help but feel pleased that De Vany&#8217;s devotion to the study, practice and dissemination of a more natural way of health is getting the recognition that it surely deserves.  This is perhaps an important landmark when you consider that it was <strong>Nassim Taleb </strong><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/21/caveman-lunch-with-taleb-part-2/" title="Caveman Lunch with Taleb Pt 2" target="_blank">who told me in the same context</a> that press coverage overstates the risk to society of terrorism and understates the risk of insulin insensitivity, so that we wander around with the wrong probabilistic map. <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/04/the-diet-delusion/" title="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/04/the-diet-delusion/" target="_blank"><strong>Gary Taubes</strong>&#8216; <em>The Diet Delusion</em></a> gets a mention in the piece too.</p>
<p>One objection that could be raised is that economic pressures might now be pushing people towards a more refined-carb diet because it might appear cheaper.  But in my own experience of stress &#8212; and there has been no shortage this year with a double bereavement and other tricky family matters to attend to &#8212; the cognitive benefits of the paleo lifestyle can also provide a necessary fresh energy and focus to tackle these new challenges. My basic advice would be to avoid &#8220;comfort&#8221; food at all costs.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m reading <strong>James Le Fanu</strong>&#8216;s book on <em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0349112800?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=knackeredhack-21&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=6738&amp;creativeASIN=0349112800">The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine</a></em> at the moment (a tip also from Art&#8217;s early blogposts which I&#8217;m also in the process of re-reading).  Like Taubes, Le Fanu debunks various post-war social and dietary theories of health, particularly with regard to cancer and heart disease.  Cancer, Le Fanu says, is best understood as a disease of ageing rather than lifestyle.  And yet, in contrast, it&#8217;s evident that De Vany (as Appleyard makes clear) is no quack, but someone who has applied the sciences of complexity to a rigorous examination of what we &#8220;modern lab-rats&#8221; really should be doing to forestall that process of terminal illness. Weight-loss is clearly such a central issue that a diet capable of returning you to your weight when you were 21 must be taken very seriously indeed.</p>
<p>Well, on my desk for a number of weeks (apart from many august tomes that I should have been reading and absorbing) one has stood out.  It&#8217;s a 1936 children&#8217;s book, entitled <em>Uncle Ray&#8217;s Story of the Stone-Age People</em>.  It looks like it came out just before De Vany was born.   It belonged to my father-in-law: himself a sometime professor of mathematics, WHO health statistician, and poet.  Alas, it certainly did not encourage him to follow anything like a paleo lifestyle.  The one seemingly useful piece of science that the book contains is the suggestion that our ancestors broke the bones of their prey in order to consume the marrow.</p>
<p>Of course, while our diet may have changed a lot in the past 100,000 years (and arguably for the worse), this humble volume would indicate that casual male efforts to combine DIY and childcare have been alarming womankind for millennia with remarkable consistency. A <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/29/ancestral-fitness/" title="Ancestral Fitness post " target="_blank">more up-to-date orange-coloured book of Stone Age advice</a> will soon be available <a href="http://ancestralfitness.com" title="Ancestral Fitness site" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/29/ancestral-fitness/" rel="bookmark">ancestral fitness</a><!-- (15.4)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/02/19/bringing-the-banana-forward/" rel="bookmark">bringing the banana forward</a><!-- (14.2)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/15/caveman-lunch-with-taleb/" rel="bookmark">Caveman lunch with taleb</a><!-- (13.8)--></li>
	</ol>

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		<title>ancestral fitness</title>
		<link>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/29/ancestral-fitness/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ancestral-fitness</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:45:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackered hackette</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[I thought I should point you in the direction of a new anthology of blog posts, written by some of the leading online proponents of ancestral fitness. It&#8217;ll soon be available at www.ancestralfitness.com and will make the ideal gift for the Neanderthal in your life in need of a little self-improvement. For those unfamiliar with [...]

<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (16.4)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/15/caveman-lunch-with-taleb/" rel="bookmark">Caveman lunch with taleb</a><!-- (11.3)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/02/19/bringing-the-banana-forward/" rel="bookmark">bringing the banana forward</a><!-- (11.3)--></li>
	</ol>


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<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/2714551354_458b6c92c2_m.jpg" class="alignleft" alt="AncestralFitnessCover" />I thought I should point you in the direction of <a href="http://www.ancestralfitness.com/" title="Ancestral Fitness" target="_blank">a new anthology of blog posts</a>, written by some of the leading online proponents of <strong>ancestral fitness</strong>. It&#8217;ll soon be available at <a href="http://www.ancestralfitness.com/" title="Ancestral Fitness" target="_blank">www.ancestralfitness.com</a> and will make the ideal gift for the Neanderthal in your life in need of a little self-improvement.</p>
<p>For those unfamiliar with the concept of ancestral fitness, it describes a lifestyle philosophy which attempts to incorporate diet and exercise regimes consistent with our evolutionary biology. That translates as a diet avoiding &#8220;easy&#8221; carbs, and exercise revolving around high-intensity workouts.  There&#8217;s more to it than that, naturally.</p>
<p>Of course, top of the list of contributors is <a href="http://www.arthurdevany.com" title="Art De Vany's blog" target="_blank"><strong>Professor Art De Vany</strong></a>.  But why they roped in the last guy is anybody&#8217;s guess.  I bet he&#8217;s pleased to be in such illustrious company.</p>
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<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (16.4)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/15/caveman-lunch-with-taleb/" rel="bookmark">Caveman lunch with taleb</a><!-- (11.3)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/02/19/bringing-the-banana-forward/" rel="bookmark">bringing the banana forward</a><!-- (11.3)--></li>
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	Tags: <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/ancestral-fitness/" title="Ancestral Fitness" rel="tag">Ancestral Fitness</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/art-de-vany/" title="art-de-vany" rel="tag">art-de-vany</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/diet/" title="diet" rel="tag">diet</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/evolutionary-fitness/" title="evolutionary fitness" rel="tag">evolutionary fitness</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/evolutionary-biology/" title="evolutionary-biology" rel="tag">evolutionary-biology</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/exercise/" title="exercise" rel="tag">exercise</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/fractal-press/" title="Fractal Press" rel="tag">Fractal Press</a><br />
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		<title>the diet delusion</title>
		<link>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/04/the-diet-delusion/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-diet-delusion</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:32:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackeredhack</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[behaviour]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Given that there is an obesity epidemic, you might expect that when one of the world&#8217;s leading science writers, Gary Taubes, addresses the subject &#8212; challenging thirty years of official dietary advice &#8212; it would get a lot of press coverage. That the book took five years full-time to write, and has a 60-page bibliography [...]

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		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2009/03/12/the-sweet-smell-of-failure/" rel="bookmark">the sweet smell of failure</a><!-- (12)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2005/03/22/fts-tomkins-misses-the-point-on-diet-and-behaviour/" rel="bookmark">FT&#8217;s Tomkins misses the point on diet and behaviour</a><!-- (11.2)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (10.5)--></li>
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<p>Given that there is an obesity epidemic, you might expect that when <strong>one of the world&#8217;s leading science writers, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Taubes" title="Gary Taubes" target="_blank">Gary Taubes</a></strong>, addresses the subject &#8212; challenging thirty years of official dietary advice &#8212; it would get a lot of press coverage.  That the book took five years full-time to write, and has a 60-page bibliography indicating that pretty much all nutritional science over the past 150 years has been examined, means that journalism owes a lot of attention to such a work.  However, as Google is my witness, this still seems not to have happened. As far as I can tell,  <em><a href="http://www.economist.com/search/search.cfm?rv=2&amp;qr=gary+taubes&amp;area=1&amp;x=0&amp;y=0" title="Gary Taubes not on Economist" target="_blank">The Economist</a> -</em>- my news <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamberlain_%28office%29" title="Chamberlain on Wikipedia" target="_blank">chamberlain</a> &#8212; should also be ashamed of itself.</p>
<p>My own excuse for not reading it yet is that it&#8217;s a big book and I&#8217;m a notoriously slow reader.  But I&#8217;m kicking myself too that I missed it when it came out, even though my favourite blogs made mention of it, and a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R3MW66SBINF0R7/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm" title="Book reviews of Good Calories and Bad Calories" target="_blank">pretty hot thinker gave it a nod at some website or other that sells books out in the long tail</a>.</p>
<p>I will doubtless come back to the book in future, published as<strong> <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400040787?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=knachack-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1400040787">Good Calories, Bad Calories</a></em> </strong>in the US last autumn, and earlier this year as <em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0091891418?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=knackeredhack-21&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=6738&amp;creativeASIN=0091891418"><strong>The Diet Delusion</strong>: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Loss and Disease</a></em> in the UK. And I can&#8217;t wait to read it, now that the publisher has sent me a copy &#8212; that&#8217;s if I can wrest it from the Knackered Hackette&#8217;s grasp.</p>
<p>As an appetiser, there are two online video presentations Taubes has done around the book, <a href="http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=21216" title="Gary Taubes at Berkeley" target="_blank">one here given to the School of Public Health at Berkeley last autumn</a>, the one <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4362041487661765149" title="Taubes at the Stevens Institute for Technology" target="_blank">below</a> to the Stevens Institute for Technology. (They&#8217;re over an hour long, so if it rains at Wimbledon, you have something else to watch rather than Borg v McEnroe again.)</p>
<p><embed src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=4362041487661765149&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=true" id="VideoPlayback" style="width: 400px; height: 326px" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></p>
<p>The presentations are an interesting example of journalistic method.  But then, Taubes is unusual in his thoroughness.  You could say that he approaches the job of journalist like a scientist, or by simply applying his scientific training.  His subject matter &#8212; diet and public health &#8212; could not be more important. It also speaks for the importance of books, which have been getting a bit of a bashing by some <a href="http://publishing2.com/2008/06/17/connecting-the-dots-of-the-web-revolution/" title="Scott Karp on web, books, AP etc" target="_blank">online mavens recently</a>, who, like so many of us, live their lives increasingly through the <strong>Googleprism</strong>. Elsewhere Taubes describes how long it takes to produce such a thoroughly researched work, but it is that thoroughness which reveals the power of looking back through the science, journalism and politics of a subject to see how an idea was born, and then cascaded into a conventional wisdom.  Perhaps the following passage from an <a href="http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dhm4f3rg_36gg4956dm" title="Seth Roberts interview with Gary Taubes" target="_blank">interview</a> six months ago with blogging academic and self-experimenter <a href="http://blog.sethroberts.net/" title="Seth Roberts" target="_blank">Seth Roberts</a> helps partially to explain what happens:-</p>
<blockquote><p>Papers, and its still the case, for the most part, today, the people who got those jobs weren’t the shining intellects on the newspaper, and the shining intellects didn’t want to be diet and health writers. If you’re a whip-smart young guy or girl who wants to go into journalism, you want to be an investigative reporter, a political reporter, or a war correspondent; you don’t want to write about diet and health. Or at least you didn&#8217;t. So I think that was one of the problems&#8230;.</p></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>&#8230;So now it&#8217;s 1977, the McGovern Committee and the USDA make these proclamations about what constitutes a healthy diet, and there’s simply no skepticism. (With the possible exception of Bill Broad writing in <em>Science Magazine</em>, which no one outside the field of science was reading.) So the government tells us that we should eat low-fat diets &#8212; and not even learned authorities in the government, but Congressman and USDA bureaucrats channeling 30-year-old congressional staffers &#8212; and lo and behold, all these health reporters decide it must be true. That’s the failure.</li>
</ul>
<p>But I really liked Taubes&#8217; self-indulgence, which seems fully justified in light of his own self-effacement:-</p>
<blockquote><p>In my fantasy life, I get a call from the managing editors of the <em>New York Times</em> and the <em>Washington Post</em> and the <em>Wall Street Journal </em>and they say they&#8217;ve read my book and they want to know how they can improve their health and diet reporting. Because they can see, whether or not I&#8217;m 100% right, or 80%, or only 50%, surely their reporters did something wrong. Now there&#8217;s a fantasy for you!</p></blockquote>
<p>I&#8217;d extend his fantasy and suggest there&#8217;s a lot that Taubes as a journalist could teach these august institutions and their readers.  The difficult question these days is: will someone pay for it all?</p>
<p>The whole interview is worth a very close read because Taubes describes too how he approaches the process of science writing and, above all else, identifying bad science.  He applies some simple heuristics to divine a bad scientist when those he is dealing with are notionally more qualified than he.  For example, this is how he assessed one figure:-</p>
<blockquote><p>There are all kinds of signs. He told me there was no controversy, when there was obviously a controversy. His side might have been right, but to deny there was a controversy was ludicrous. He talked about the legitimacy of throwing out negative data. You measure salt consumption one way; you don’t see any effect on blood pressure, and so you decide that’s obviously the wrong way to measure it. The implication of everything he told me  was that he knew what the answer was before he did his experiments, and then he adjusted his experimental techniques and methodology until he got the answer that he wanted. And he believed this was legitimate science. There are other signs. I’m a stickler about the use of words like “evidence” and “proof”. So if someone tells you there’s no evidence for some controversial belief, you can be fairly confident that they’re a bad scientist. There&#8217;s always evidence, or there wouldn&#8217;t be a controversy. If somebody says that “we proved that this was true” or “we set out to prove that this was true” that&#8217;s another bad sign.  The point here, as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper" title="Karl Popper" target="_blank">Popper</a> noted, among others, is  that you can never prove anything is true; you can only refute it. So researchers who talk about proving a hypothesis is true rather than testing it make me worried.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote></blockquote>
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		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2005/03/22/fts-tomkins-misses-the-point-on-diet-and-behaviour/" rel="bookmark">FT&#8217;s Tomkins misses the point on diet and behaviour</a><!-- (11.2)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (10.5)--></li>
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		<title>hottest thinker in the world</title>
		<link>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/06/03/hottest-thinker-in-the-world/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hottest-thinker-in-the-world</link>
		<comments>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/06/03/hottest-thinker-in-the-world/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:04:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackeredhack</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[So, I was fretting about underdogs in the last post. This past weekend, the Sunday Times Magazine ran a long interview with Nassim Taleb in which he was described as &#8220;now the hottest thinker in the world&#8221;, charging up to $60,000 per speaking engagement, with the great and good beating a path to his door [...]

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		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/15/caveman-lunch-with-taleb/" rel="bookmark">Caveman lunch with taleb</a><!-- (13.3)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (13.1)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/04/black-swans-and-icebergs/" rel="bookmark">black swans and icebergs</a><!-- (12.5)--></li>
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<p>So, I was fretting about underdogs in the last post. This past weekend, the <strong><em>Sunday Times Magazine</em></strong> ran <a href="http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4022091.ece" title="Sunday Times magazine on Nassim Taleb" target="_blank">a long interview</a> with <a href="http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com" title="Fooled By Randomness" target="_blank"><strong>Nassim Taleb</strong></a> in which he was described as &#8220;now the hottest thinker in the world&#8221;, charging up to $60,000 per speaking engagement, with the great and good beating a path to his door &#8212; from the world&#8217;s leading banks to <strong>NASA</strong>.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the interview by <a href="http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/" title="Bryan Appleyard's Blog" target="_blank"><strong>Bryan Appleyard</strong></a> included lunch and, naturally, had Nassim following <a href="http://www.arthurdevany.com"><strong>Art De Vany</strong>&#8216;s</a> dietary prescriptions of evolutionary fitness.  Well, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/05/15/caveman-lunch-with-taleb/" title="Caveman Lunch with Taleb" target="_blank">some of my most loyal readers will have heard it here first</a>.</p>
<p>For other reasons (and by accident) I found an old email pitch yesterday that I made in 2003 to a magazine on corporate governance; let&#8217;s say this was during my ugly duckling phase:-</p>
<blockquote><p>Also, I have an interview idea which you might be interested in.  Have you heard of a book <em>Fooled By Randomness</em> by Nassim Nicholas Taleb&#8211;a maths professor and hedge fund trader from the US?  He is in town in a few weeks and I thought I might try and get a hold of him.  Although his background is in quantitative trading, he has some interesting things to say about luck and probability in a business context, and it has struck me that this could provide some interesting reflections from a corporate governance point of view.  The underlying theme would be that over-remunerating senior executives is even more hazardous than we think if both success and failure may owe more to luck than judgement, backed up by a good dose of sound mathematics of course.</p>
<p>Let me know if you think it a bit too outlandish.  My owns sense is that Taleb and others are leading market thinkers and their ideas will permeate downwards in due course.</p></blockquote>
<p>I didn&#8217;t get a commission.</p>
<p>Back in those days, even though <em>Fooled By Randomness</em> was a bestseller, you could still turn up at the<strong> </strong>now-disappeared <strong>Financial World</strong> <strong>Bookshop</strong> in Bishopsgate and hear Taleb talk for nothing to a small and select audience of besuited quants and the odd unshaven, head-scratching scribe. And you try and tell that to the young people of today &#8212; will they believe you?  No.</p>
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		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (13.1)--></li>
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	Tags: <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/art-de-vany/" title="art-de-vany" rel="tag">art-de-vany</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/bryan-appleyard/" title="Bryan Appleyard" rel="tag">Bryan Appleyard</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/corporate-governance/" title="corporate governance" rel="tag">corporate governance</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/evolutionary-fitness/" title="evolutionary fitness" rel="tag">evolutionary fitness</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/fooled-by-randomness/" title="Fooled-by-Randomness" rel="tag">Fooled-by-Randomness</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/nassim-taleb/" title="Nassim-Taleb" rel="tag">Nassim-Taleb</a>, <a href="http://knackeredhack.com/tag/sunday-times/" title="Sunday Times" rel="tag">Sunday Times</a><br />
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		<title>reasons to cheer the underdog</title>
		<link>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/05/28/reasons-to-cheer-the-underdog/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=reasons-to-cheer-the-underdog</link>
		<comments>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/05/28/reasons-to-cheer-the-underdog/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 May 2008 11:18:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackeredhack</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Economist this week has two stories back-to-back in its Science and Technology section on cognitive enhancement. Not surprisingly the first one, which is about the widespread use of cognition-enhancing drugs (such as Ritalin and Provigil) to help you pass exams or improve performance, and the expectation of more to come, has been given the [...]

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<p><em>The </em><em>Economist</em> this week has two stories back-to-back in its Science and Technology section on <strong>cognitive enhancement</strong>.  Not surprisingly <a href="http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11402761" title="Economist story on Drugs and Cognitive Enhancement" target="_blank">the first one</a>, which is about the widespread use of cognition-enhancing drugs (such as Ritalin and Provigil) to help you pass exams or improve performance, and the expectation of more to come, has been given the greater attention by the wider press.  It&#8217;s a scare story about competition and cheating and raises the possibility of the need to test students as potential drug cheats. But<em> The Economist</em> takes a controversial tack in its <a href="http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11412603" title="Economist leader on Smart Drugs" target="_blank">editorial</a>, likening this to &#8220;harmless&#8221; coffee and arguing it is a good thing.</p>
<p>It falls on deaf ears here because this is a week when I did not drink or eat any coffee, milk, wheat product, potato, rice or any refined carbohydrate excepting that contained in one bar of 85% cocoa chocolate.   I drank no alcohol either.  I&#8217;ve been doing this as a stricter enforcement of a<strong> paleo-style diet</strong> to help regulate my weight, but above all else to enhance cognition, and for longer-term preventative health.  As far as I&#8217;m aware, it is working. With one or two qualifications. Those qualifications being a coincident virus that caused a migraine which lasted longer than I&#8217;d normally expect, prompting a little hypochondria and Googling for ideas about nutritional deficiency &#8212; to no avail.</p>
<p>The paleo-style diet (or lifestyle) is hard to sustain and I can tell you that it has been a lot harder in  the short run than popping a few pills.  But my argument with <em>The Economist</em>&#8216;s view is that the brain is a complex system: don&#8217;t mess with it if you don&#8217;t need to.  My own experience seems to suggest that I&#8217;m a little insulin-resistant, with diabetes in the family, so a lower-carb diet is likely to be beneficial.</p>
<p>But the <a href="http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11402754" title="Cognition and Social Power in the Economist" target="_blank">second story</a> in <em>The Economist</em> pairing owes more to my approach than the pill-popping.  This other story describing research that <strong>social position can be detrimental to cognition</strong> has received no mainstream attention elsewhere, as far as Google can tell us.  It has been, thus far, editorially cold-shouldered, and subordinated, and yet by far and away it is the more interesting story for self-experimenters, self-improvers, collaborationists, diversity specialists, managers, teachers, coaches and parents.</p>
<p><strong>Pamela Smith</strong> and colleagues from <strong>Radboud University Nijmegen</strong> suspected that a lack of social power might reduce someone&#8217;s ability to keep track of information and make plans to achieve goals in difficult and distracting circumstances.  This seems like common sense, not least because I&#8217;ve seen a number of situations, for example, where even senior executives have lost confidence and status and then suffered a quite immediate impairment.  I&#8217;ve even experienced it myself at significant moments.  I once had to pitch for $30 million for a management buy-out having been booked into a shoddy lower-Manhattan hotel where the breakfast was served on paper plates.  Not a good start to the day.  The next day, for the next pitch, I moved to a different hotel and a waterside suite &#8212; ironically for much the same price.</p>
<p><em>The Economist</em> says:-</p>
<blockquote><p>To explore this theory, she (Dr Smith) carried out three tests. In the first, participants were divided at random into groups of superiors and subordinates. They were told that the superiors would direct and evaluate the subordinates and that this evaluation would determine the subordinates&#8217; payment for the experiment. Superiors were paid a fixed amount. The subordinates were then divided into two further groups: powerless and empowered. A sense of powerlessness was instilled, the researchers hoped, by having participants write for several minutes about a time when they were powerless or by asking them to unscramble sets of words including “obey”, “subordinate” and so on to form sentences. The empowered, by contrast, were asked to write about when they had been on top, or to form sentences including “authority”, “dominate” and similar words.</p></blockquote>
<p>Not much, you might say, to induce a sense of inferiority or superiority when compared with the real-life stress of a domineering boss or other confidence-draining circumstance, but nevertheless enough to make an impact on several cognitive tasks:-</p>
<blockquote><p>In all three tests Dr Smith found that low-power participants made 2-5% more errors than their high-power counterparts. She argues that these results were not caused by the low-power volunteers being less motivated, as they had the same financial incentive as the high-power volunteers to do well. Instead, she suspects that those lacking in power suffered adverse cognitive effects from that very lack, and thus had difficulty maintaining their focus on the tasks.</p></blockquote>
<p>A common problem in evaluating how well someone is doing relative to their ability is the often-mentioned <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error" title="Fundamental Attribution Error" target="_blank"><strong>fundamental attribution error</strong>:</a> a pretty universal cognitive bias where we will tend to ascribe <em>another</em>&#8216;s failure in a task to their personality rather than their circumstances &#8212; largely because we will probably have more data about their personality than the circumstances.  Conversely, we judge our <em>own</em> failures more kindly because we know what extenuates them.</p>
<p>What Pamela Smith&#8217;s findings suggest is that when we are judging an individual for promotion, for example, it is quite possible that their performance will be transformed once they emerge from a subordinate position, and even more so if we have failed to motivate them properly.  They may have been swimming hard against a tidal flow that we cannot see.</p>
<p>Of course, this applies from hiring manager to teacher, coach, and parent, and should require CEOs and other leaders to show a little more humility given the cognitive momentum their high status affords them.</p>
<p>While I love what the cognitive sciences are doing these days, I can&#8217;t help but be reminded of the existing literature on these matters.  This one evokes the first record I ever owned: Hans Christian Anderson&#8217;s tale of <em>The Ugly Duckling</em>.  And this YouTube rendering is not so different from the way I used to enjoy it nearly 40 years ago.</p>
<p>Take a look.  And believe that you are a swan.</p>
<p><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="l_mmQjjxZFw"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent" ></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/l_mmQjjxZFw" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></p>
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<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/03/14/something-to-read-when-the-sport-is-on/" rel="bookmark">something to read when the sport is on</a><!-- (14.6)--></li>
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		<title>war and pizza</title>
		<link>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/03/05/war-and-pizza/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=war-and-pizza</link>
		<comments>http://knackeredhack.com/2008/03/05/war-and-pizza/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:59:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackeredhack</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[I am still recovering from a weekend jaunt in the countryside, which felt like some of the toughest training I&#8217;ve done for a while. The reason: I had to go to the woods with my just-turned teenager and play war games for his birthday party treat. This is evolutionary biology at its most visceral. Anyway, [...]

<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/02/19/bringing-the-banana-forward/" rel="bookmark">bringing the banana forward</a><!-- (12.3)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/29/ancestral-fitness/" rel="bookmark">ancestral fitness</a><!-- (12.2)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/05/28/reasons-to-cheer-the-underdog/" rel="bookmark">reasons to cheer the underdog</a><!-- (10.6)--></li>
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<p>I am still recovering from a weekend jaunt in the countryside, which felt like some of the toughest training I&#8217;ve done for a while.  The reason: I had to go to the woods with my just-turned teenager and play war games for his birthday party treat.  This is evolutionary biology at its most visceral.</p>
<p>Anyway, it mostly involved me screaming &#8220;Geronimo!&#8221; and running through the undergrowth toting a laser rifle at frightened (?) kids who proceeded to gun me down with great glee &#8212; so fulfilling the journalist&#8217;s combat charter: to be <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-21510,00.html" title="Guardians' Notes and Queries on first casualty of war" target="_blank"><strong>the first casualty of war</strong></a>.</p>
<p>Well I fell off the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo_diet" title="Paleo Diet" target="_blank"><strong>paleo diet</strong></a> too and am struggling to get back on.  Today was a bit more normal. [For the unitiated, paleo mostly means avoiding bread, potatoes, dairy etc]  I&#8217;ve been on it mostly since Christmas.  And the reason for the lapse? A ritual requirement these days, apart from barbecue, is for the male adult to be able to make homemade pizza for a party.</p>
<p>It was struggle enough with battle-fatigue to muster sufficient grub for 8 kids high on soda, let alone think what a hunter-gatherer might eat as an alternative.  The smell of freshly-risen dough, tomato sauce slowly simmered with garlic, oregano, basil, a few flakes of dried chilli, and garlic bread too, is enough to drive the strictest dieter crazy.  <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boxer" title="The Boxer on Wikipedia" target="_blank">So I declare, there were times when I was so <strike>lonesome</strike> hungry I took some comfort there</a>.</p>
<p>Thanks to brother-in-law, Ivor, for the post title.  And take a look <a href="http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/government/a/war_and_pizza.htm" title="War and Pizza: do pizza deliveries to the White House rise ahead of military action?" target="_blank">here for a bit of an urban legend</a> that could support a theory that war is correlated with excessive carb ingestion by policy-makers; a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action" title="Class Action on Wikipedia" target="_blank">class action</a> by peace activists against <a href="http://www.dominos.com/home/index.jsp" title="Domino's" target="_blank">Domino&#8217;s</a> beckons.</p>
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<h3>Related Posts</h3>
<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/02/19/bringing-the-banana-forward/" rel="bookmark">bringing the banana forward</a><!-- (12.3)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/07/29/ancestral-fitness/" rel="bookmark">ancestral fitness</a><!-- (12.2)--></li>
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		<title>bringing the banana forward</title>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:36:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>knackeredhack</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Bonking. It&#8217;s not such a good idea to mention this in polite company, unless you&#8217;re amongst cyclists. You&#8217;ll find that &#8220;bonking&#8221; means something quite different to these athletes. Whilst for most of us (in the correct circumstances) the idea of &#8220;a bonk&#8221; would normally be welcomed, for the cyclist it’s something to be avoided. I [...]

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<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/07/20/gym-fees-require-heavy-lifting/" rel="bookmark">gym fees require heavy lifting</a><!-- (16.9)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/04/02/bike-psyche/" rel="bookmark">bike psyche</a><!-- (16)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (15.4)--></li>
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<p>Bonking.  It&#8217;s not such a good idea to mention this in polite company, unless you&#8217;re amongst cyclists.  You&#8217;ll find that &#8220;bonking&#8221; means something quite different to these athletes.  Whilst for most of us (in the correct circumstances) the idea of &#8220;a bonk&#8221; would normally be welcomed, for the cyclist it’s something to be avoided.</p>
<p>I used to understand &#8220;the bonk&#8221; as a sensation felt by a competitor towards the end of a <strong>Tour de France</strong> stage, where all the <strong>glycogen</strong> or fuel stores in their muscles has been exhausted.   They’ve hit what marathoners call <strong>&#8220;the wall&#8221;</strong>. They are basically out of gas*.</p>
<p>For many years I commuted by bike between Twickenham (in West London) and Fleet Street.  I would ride hard and fast. I knew nothing about modulating effort or recovery.  And this intensity of a monotonous daily activity, I now understand, led to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtraining" title="Overtraining on Wikipedia" target="_blank">overtraining syndrome</a>.</p>
<p>On occasions I&#8217;d cycle home late in the evening, perhaps delayed by a transatlantic conference call. I’d have eaten a chocolate bar (usually Snickers) earlier in the afternoon.  By halfway, where I crossed the Thames at Putney Bridge (the famous start of the Boat Race) I was in an unexplained state of collapse, as if I had rowed stroke to the Mortlake finish for the Oxford eight.  My head was light, my legs were leaden, like I was pedaling through treacle.  Ready to faint,  I’d dash to the nearest gas station and stuff my face with potato chips*.</p>
<p>I used to joke that these episodes were<strong> &#8220;the bonk&#8221;</strong>, thinking that I was probably misusing the term.  Because how could 6 miles pretty much on the flat equate to a professional stage over the French Alps? However, while reading <a href="http://www.arthurdevany.com/2007/11/meal_frequency.html" title="Art De Vany on Meal Frequency and the Bonk" target="_blank">Art De Vany’s blog</a> only a few weeks ago, I saw the term &#8220;bonk&#8221; applied to just such a modest implosion, and it gave me pause.  It seemed to be saying something about my metabolism which confirmed a growing intuition that I had been, was, or was becoming, somewhat insulin-resistant.</p>
<blockquote><p>The really bad part of all this is that there are a lot of high insulin people out there who can “bonk” from low blood sugar if they don’t get their carb hit. And then after the hit wears off, they may “bonk” again. They may be driving when this happens and are easily angered and lose concentration. They can be a danger to themselves and others when this happens. I would bet a fair number of auto accidents could be traced to blood glucose/insulin surges.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>And when you&#8217;re on a bike, you don&#8217;t want to meet those people coming the other way.</p>
<p>So, since Christmas I’ve been trying to apply De Vany’s paleo diet strictures (which have informed some of my thinking for a while now) with much greater observance.  The effects on my current health &#8212; as far as I can determine &#8212; have been tangible, and arguably dramatic.</p>
<p>Way back in those glorious days when I used to dash home on my hand-built pillar-box red <a href="http://www.condorcycles.com/audax.html" title="Condor Cycles" target="_blank">Condor racing bike</a>, with its 27 gleaming <a href="http://www.campagnolo.com/jsp/en/groupset/catid_1.jsp" title="Campag Veloce Groupset" target="_blank">Campagnolo gears</a> (see below) I figured out a strategy to see off the bonk.</p>
<p><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/campag001cropped450px.jpg" title="campag001cropped450px.jpg"><img src="http://knackeredhack.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/campag001cropped450px.jpg" alt="campag001cropped450px.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>I called it <strong>“bringing the banana forward”</strong>.  This terminology caused much mirth among my Canadian in-laws at the time.  But I’d realised one thing about diet through this experience: the mid-afternoon Snickers bar was the principal cause of this strange loss of fuel-supply by late evening.  I cut that out and ate a banana just before leaving the office instead.  But that did not immediately do the trick.  I guessed this was because, depending on how ripe a banana is, it can break down into sugars quite slowly.  Timing the banana became an obsessive-compulsive ritual ahead of my evening departure.  I eventually solved the problem by eating the banana a little earlier &#8211; i.e. bringing the banana forward.</p>
<p>Now, what De Vany’s blog was describing was in the context of hypoglycaemic episodes.  The essence of much of this is that you don’t have to be diagnosed diabetic to experience wild swings in energy, attention, and perhaps even consciousness. In short, too many carbs at the wrong time can drive you bananas.</p>
<p>* I have self-consciously americanized this post, so apologies to all my British readers who expected to see the words &#8220;petroleum spirit&#8221; and &#8220;crisps&#8221;.</p>
<p><strong>Photo credits: banana <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/ekosystem/" title="-eko- at flickr" target="_blank">-eko-</a> , campag: </strong><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/8969412@N08/" title="knackeredhack at flickr" target="_blank"><strong>knackeredhack</strong> </a></p>
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<ol>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2007/07/20/gym-fees-require-heavy-lifting/" rel="bookmark">gym fees require heavy lifting</a><!-- (16.9)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/04/02/bike-psyche/" rel="bookmark">bike psyche</a><!-- (16)--></li>
		<li><a href="http://knackeredhack.com/2008/08/17/uncle-bryans-story-of-the-stone-age-people/" rel="bookmark">uncle bryan&#8217;s story of the stone-age people</a><!-- (15.4)--></li>
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