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Biohacking Lite

karpathy.github.io

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Re: Biohacking Lite

#181

Post by dpoochieni »

gdebel wrote: post #51

I'm French (and incidentally a doctor,and my post is not judgemental in any way, this is not the point). Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" (= by my own standards). You can find really good junk food everywhere, or pay a really high price to eat in high-level Italian restaurants for example, but it is very difficult to eat standard meat-with-vegetable-without-sugar-add…

As a Mexican I agree (even if I think hating on sugar is misguided, in an otherwise healthy diet you would be sufficiently healthy to deal with it in reasonable amounts.) The US simply has such a mind boggling reliance on empty calories and overall low-quality food, with brothless soups, iceberg lettuce salads, and frying everything in cheapo oils like sunflower, canola or similar. If I do not cook at home, or choose very carefully, or as you say spend the big bucks at a fine restaurant, I simply cannot find nutritious good quality food. I now realized I was spoiled growing up by having two parents who love to cook good stuff and find good eats.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#182

Post by fudged71 »

scythe wrote: post #50

I've studied nutrition out of my own curiosity for more than ten years now. When I opened this article, one of the first things I did was ctrl+F "potassium" -- the most underrated nutrient. Average potassium intake is below recommended levels and resolving this may lead to significant reductions in mortality[1]. Potassium may also reduce the severity of osteoporosis[2], although I (male) don't need to worry about tha…

I switched from table salt to "No Salt" or "Lite Salt" which cuts the sodium with potassium. It isn't noticeable in most dishes, and it's a great simple substitution for getting an important mineral.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#183

Post by jacobush »

lumberingjack wrote: post #178
gdebel wrote: post #51

I'm French (and incidentally a doctor,and my post is not judgemental in any way, this is not the point). Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" (= by my own standards). You can find really good junk food everywhere, or pay a really high price to eat in high-level Italian restaurants for example, but it is very difficult to eat standard meat-with-vegetable-without-sugar-add…

As an American that avoids sugar like the toxin it is I agree. The food manufacturers put it in everything. I got an off brand of milk the other day because of the shortage, a local brand it had added sugar, I took two gulps and said "WTF". Bread it's like a staple now in baking white bread fuck it pack it with sugar from corn. Pizza make %50 of the sauce sugar. Drinks, would you like 100MG of liquid sugars in every…

Bean filtered water, that’s what we had during the war. What is your war? :-)

Re: Biohacking Lite

#184

Post by gtrubetskoy »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #75
gtrubetskoy wrote: post #21

I wouldn't rank glucose above fats. As I understand it, it's not exactly a "shorter battery" than fat - it is simply a form of energy that is abundant in plant life, but fat is still a (much) "better battery". The reason our body always favors burning glucose first is NOT because glucose is "better" but actually because it is an inferior type of fuel (it creates "pollution" and is difficult to burn - you can develop…

You don't develop type 2 diabetes from being fat, you develop diabetes from high average blood glucose levels triggering insulin resistance. Also, what is the pollution you are talking about? From what I understand, lipolysis generates ketones, which at normal lipolytic amounts aren't toxic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_2_diabetes?wprov=sfla1

> Also, what is the pollution you are talking about?

For example reactive oxygen species.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1865572/

Re: Biohacking Lite

#185

Post by RealityVoid »

gdebel wrote: post #51

I'm French (and incidentally a doctor,and my post is not judgemental in any way, this is not the point). Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" (= by my own standards). You can find really good junk food everywhere, or pay a really high price to eat in high-level Italian restaurants for example, but it is very difficult to eat standard meat-with-vegetable-without-sugar-add…

I am totally not convinced by this argument against sugar. Yes, sugar is calorie dense. Yes, it's easy to eat a lot of calories from sugar. But in the end, even eating NO sugar, if you eat a ton of things, you'll get fat. An then you go on to recommend honey as though there is something magic about it and not pretty much the same thing with sugar.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#186

Post by GordonS »

metrokoi wrote: post #165
GordonS wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bread is sweetened > Bread sucks I spent some months working in Houston a while back, and this drove me crazy! I mean, why on earth would you sweeten bread?! Another thing that struck me was how many ingredients everything seemed to have - you could pick up just about any item in a grocery store, and it was pretty much guaranteed to contain 10-30 ingredients. Even the bread. > Basic cheese in the US This too - most…

It's expensive to make good bread. Not in terms of raw materials, but in terms of labor. A machine cannot make a quality loaf of bread, you must gently knead it and let it ride with human hands. There is also a large cost in the right-on-time delivery of "good" bread. There is still quality bread sold at my grocery store, but that kind of bread isn't a staple because people don't want to go to the grocery store every…

I'm not hating on cheap bread. You can find cheap, basic batch loaves anywhere in the western world - but the crap I found in the US was the worst.

It doesn't have to be that bad, it doesn't have to have lot's of sugar and corn syrup in it, and it doesn't have to have 20+ ingredients.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#187

Post by tomp »

fudged71 wrote: post #157

As a personal trainer I'm really impressed by the technical depth of this post, although it really only centers on the idea of caloric deficit, which is relatively basic compared to the other topics he mentioned. It's so hard to visualize small long-term biological changes without moving averages. "Trust the process" is so important. "Trust the algorithm" is even more apt: • what/when to eat, • what/when to train, an…

So... where can a non-PT find this kind of advice? Maybe you, or any other trainer you can recommend? Or some online resource?

(Personally, I'm probably above-average knowledgeable about fitness, but I still find the information unmanageably overwhelming - train every day, every 3 days, every muscle once a week, every muscle 3 times a week, big muscles less often than small muscles, focus on strength, focus on growth, focus on flexibility, cardio, no cardio, ...)

Re: Biohacking Lite

#188

Post by mettamage »

GordonS wrote: post #186
metrokoi wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's expensive to make good bread. Not in terms of raw materials, but in terms of labor. A machine cannot make a quality loaf of bread, you must gently knead it and let it ride with human hands. There is also a large cost in the right-on-time delivery of "good" bread. There is still quality bread sold at my grocery store, but that kind of bread isn't a staple because people don't want to go to the grocery store every…

I'm not hating on cheap bread. You can find cheap, basic batch loaves anywhere in the western world - but the crap I found in the US was the worst. It doesn't have to be that bad, it doesn't have to have lot's of sugar and corn syrup in it, and it doesn't have to have 20+ ingredients.

> It doesn't have to be that bad, it doesn't have to have lot's of sugar and corn syrup in it

This is my experience as well.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#189

Post by byproxy »

theontheone wrote: post #142
byproxy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, yea. I agree. I suffer from panic attacks and general anxiety and when I picked up lifting/running a while back one of my friends asked if it helped and I gave him the same, honest "uh..not really.", which he was kinda bummed for me about. But I learned to enjoy those things on their own. Or, at least, I enjoyed being able to pat myself on the back after running for 4 miles straight.

Your comment seems to imply that it didn't help. Would you recommend picking lifting/running up? I went on meds recently for the same issues but had a bad (lasting) experience, so I'm looking towards therapy and healthy eating / exercising for the future now.

Here's what I have to say, with the disclaimer that everyone's experience is different and your results may vary:

> Your comment seems to imply that it didn't help.

Not that, so much. More that it'd be disingenuous for me to say that I noticed that exercise had a direct impact on my mental health. Cutting down on my consumption of alcohol (a lot) has probably had the most direct link to increased mental health, for what it's worth.

> Would you recommend picking lifting/running up?

Yes, indeed. It's undeniably good for your body. Just... don't go in with the expectation that it's gonna be an immediate mood-booster, though. If that does happen, great! But expect the actual (and measurable) rewards to be increased strength and endurance. Be happy with that. :)

I've been prescribed medication, but never got it filled (didn't like that prescribing meds was the default "fix"). Been close to going to therapy, but haven't (I'm skeptical of certain therapist's qualifications and I don't think I can really afford it long-term). So far, I've been able to live with my malady's. Just...REALLY uncomfortably on occasion. But if you can afford it and have the time, then you should definitely make use of those resources!

Re: Biohacking Lite

#190

Post by outworlder »

gdebel wrote: post #51

I'm French (and incidentally a doctor,and my post is not judgemental in any way, this is not the point). Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" (= by my own standards). You can find really good junk food everywhere, or pay a really high price to eat in high-level Italian restaurants for example, but it is very difficult to eat standard meat-with-vegetable-without-sugar-add…

> I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally"

That very much depends on your location. High tourism locations will often have lots of junk food places. If you can move larger distances (i.e. rent a car and the like) you'll find wonderful and cheap restaurants pretty much anywhere. Even in otherwise expensive places like SF or NY.

Here's the problem though: portion sizes are _enormous_ . It took quite a bit of time to adapt, and adapt I did, if my measurements are any indication. If you want healthy portions, you'll either waste food, or you'll have to ask for a take out box. Essentially, a lot of places will serve you portions that are enough for two meals.

Ingredient availability varies a lot. In larger centers you can find almost anything you could possibility want. Even farmer's markets if you are lucky, which will often have locally sourced produce at lower prices compared to big supermarket chains (and sometimes even lower if you get there near closing hour ;) )

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