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Biohacking Lite

karpathy.github.io

81–90 of 370 posts

Re: Biohacking Lite

#81
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…

In general, I agree with a lot of what you're saying here about eating more vegetables and way less sugar being the way to go health-wise, but I do want to respond to some specific things you've said.

> 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-added, except in Asian restaurants

Restaurants are typically not where I go to eat healthy food anywhere in the world, although I do think you have a pointed that American restaurants are often relatively junk food oriented.

> ban every processed food, sauce, appetizer....

There is nothing inherently wrong with "processed" food; it is entirely possible to use industrial processes to make a perfectly healthy and wholesome food product. Take for example, (this is by no means an endorsement) Larabar [1]. They make snack bars that typically contain 2-3 ingredients that are all just dried fruit. Should they be banned as "processed" food because of how they are made?

> If you would not eat a spoon of every single ingredient of some food, don't eat it

This is a ridiculous statement and is one of the main reasons why I'm commenting. I wouldn't eat a spoonful of yeast, should I not eat bread? I wouldn't eat a spoonful of salt, should I not eat... anything?

> It looks like this is hard to do in the USA: you don't easily find, for example, yogurt without sugar added.

I've never lived in an area in the United States where I've ever had any problem finding anything like this.

[1] https://www.larabar.com/

Re: Biohacking Lite

#82
post #30

After years of experimentation, lately I’ve decided that eating like my grandparents (i.e., eating like a traditional Japanese) is the easiest way to keep myself lean and healthy. Traditional Japanese meals follow a standard format [1]: a bowl of rice, several small sides (which can change by the day), and an optional cup of miso soup. Sticking to this format every day can be boring, but it keeps my diet reasonably b…

This is very informative.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#83

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…

> 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 diabetes from too much of it) - so our evolved system tries to get rid of it first, while hanging on to the "good stuff" for as long as it can.

This is not the standard textbook biological view of the bodies use of glucose and fats.

I'm all for having heterodox opinions but I think you should let people know what is a heterodox position, and provide more supporting evidence than when giving a textbook explanation.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#84
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick remark: Sugar, as other carbohydrates, is cheap . It also tastes well, objectively (as much as taste can be objectively measured). So if you go for industrial-level food production, you end up with a higher proportion of sugar than what would be considered healthy. Sugar per se ist not bad at all (try to have an apple without it ;)). But our economy demands cheap, somewhat tasty, calories. Hence we end up with…

I've never known that people add sugar to their apples. I have lived in US & Canada and I find that odd people need to add sugar to enjoy an apple. Croissants or baguettes are not a daily thing if my assumption is correct. My experience is buying them when walking home from work and if I'm in the mood because bread isn't generally healthy for people compared to something else that happens to be better. edit: okay, I…

Yeah, I think you misread the original comment. The "average" apple contains nearly 10g of sugar[0].

[0]: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/171688/n...

Re: Biohacking Lite

#85
post #25

As someone struggling to gain weight it always bugs me how "being healthy" is only associated with weight loss.

Do a Mark Rippetoe program for 1 year. Thank me later. edit : Caution: don't start on squats without coaching.

Seconded almost as strongly as I possibly can, but with added caveats! I was a bean pole for my entire life, struggling to gain weight. The answer was simple: I wasn't giving my body the signal to gain muscle by lifting some HEAVY weights. I read Starting Strength and followed the program. I put on ~30lbs over 3-4 months, and got WAY strong. That's after having done crossfit for at least 5-6 years. I took my squat from 185lbs to 300lbs.

It took 2 months of rereading the squat chapter, filming myself, correcting myself, etc, before I finally got that one down. Now that I understand it, I can spot faults in others, but it took a while for it to click. Rereading the dbook helps, though a couple of Rippetoe's coaching cues set me on the wrong path. A starting strength specific coach can straighten you out in just a couple of sessions. DON'T think any other certification, personal trainer, or coach is a substitute, they are NOT.

Don't do starting strength for a year. (If it takes you that long to do the novice linear progression, you are definitely doing something wrong.) Rippetoe's advice for intermediates is pretty marginal IMO and you can't possibly stay a novice for a year doing the program.

Switch to Barbell Medicine's "the bridge" instead of resetting the weights a second time.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#86
post #17

As someone struggling to gain weight it always bugs me how "being healthy" is only associated with weight loss.

I was a bean pole into my early twenties, and would have been 20 lbs skinnier still if not for cycling. I never gained any more weight until I dumped the classical advice and did my own thing. Everyone tries to compress a workout into a single time interval in the day, where you do n sets of each exercise and then go home. To do three sets in three minutes, you're going to have to pick a very conservative goal. Doing…

I just started my exercise journey a few weeks ago, but I'm leaning towards this style of exercise as well.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#87

> Clearly, my actual weight loss (red) turned out to be slower than expected one based on our simple deficit math (blue). So this is where things get interesting... so we don’t get to fully resolve the mystery of the slower-than-expected weight loss. Weight loss is difficult and I think everyone, no matter how smart, dumb, famous or obscure they are, has trouble with it. It's always a surprise how difficult it is.

The body basically has a bunch of tricks for tricking you into not losing weight. It starts making you subtly lazier, reduces random energy expenditures, slows down basal metabolic rate, it makes you hungrier, it makes you crave more calorie dense food, and it even starts to reduce willpower related to food.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#88
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do a Mark Rippetoe program for 1 year. Thank me later. edit : Caution: don't start on squats without coaching.

Seconded almost as strongly as I possibly can, but with added caveats! I was a bean pole for my entire life, struggling to gain weight. The answer was simple: I wasn't giving my body the signal to gain muscle by lifting some HEAVY weights. I read Starting Strength and followed the program. I put on ~30lbs over 3-4 months, and got WAY strong. That's after having done crossfit for at least 5-6 years. I took my squat fr…

Sorry you're right. I remember doing a 1 year program, only the first 7 months were Starting Strength. Remaining 5 months were a weight loss program.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#89
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…

Any websites for healthy lazy cooking options?

Re: Biohacking Lite

#90
post #81
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…

In general, I agree with a lot of what you're saying here about eating more vegetables and way less sugar being the way to go health-wise, but I do want to respond to some specific things you've said. > 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-added, except…

> There is nothing inherently wrong with "processed" food

There's a distinction between processed and ultra-processed (or highly processed). For example, canned fish is processed (added salt and oil), while a frozen TV dinner is ultra-processed (many ingredients added, some of which you probably don't have in your kitchen).

Processed food is fine assuming you're aware of what's in it, how it's processed, and make sure you're not overeating any of it.

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