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scripttorture · 4 years

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Hello! I've browsed this blog a bit and came across the idea that torturers often develop mental illness because of their repeated exposure to the violence/trauma of seeing another person in pain, which I'd never considered before. A) Do you believe torturers can therefore be a type of victim as well, depending on the circumstances, and therefore deserving of compassion/therapy? B) Can you point me to more information about this/what kinds of mental illnesses develop in torturers? (1/2)

C) Do you think it's possible for a mass murderer/torturer character to have a realistic, satisfying redemption arc? Do you know any media that's pulled it off believably? Thank you so much for taking the time to read/answer this if you do! And for this excellent resource!

The most accessible sources that cover this are O’Mara’s Why Torture Doesn’t Work (good grounding, start with him), Rejali’s Torture and Democracy and the appendices to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth where he describes treating two torturers.

The most current research is about 600 pages of print on demand untranslated French. If you’re fluent in French (I am not and lock down etc has got in the way of me getting this translated) Sironi Comment devient-on tortionnaire?

Broadly speaking the symptoms appear to be the same as those survivors and witnesses develop.

And I will go into this in more depth later but keep in mind there is not anywhere near enough research on torturers for us to be entirely sure about most of this. I’m working with the best information we have right now.

The other two questions are subjective and sort of complicated. By definition a lot of this is going to be my opinion because well that’s what you’re asking for.

I think we need to be really careful about describing torturers as ‘victims’.

Yes they’re put in this situation by social structures beyond their control. It is not their fault that they weren’t given training or support in their job. It’s also not their fault that we have this global message that violence is effective or that so many workplaces are unnecessarily pressured/stressful. Most of the time they are drawn in to abusing others because of the social groups and structures within the organisation they join.

Oversight (with a drive to eradicate torture), funding, training and clear consistent messages about the right way to handle difficult situations would probably prevent most cases of torture.

This does not change the fact that on an individual level each of them chose to hurt other people.

Some of them will have made that choice understanding there was a threat to their own safety if they did not. Some of them will have made that choice just because it was what everyone else was doing. Some of them genuinely believe what they did was the ‘right’ decision at the time.

They still made that choice. And given that we have records of people in similar positions refusing, even when it put them at risk of attack or death, I don’t have a lot of sympathy with the choice torturers made.

The fact I’m a pacifist factors into this. Consider my biases.

Torturers typically show a very low understanding of the impact their actions have had on other people.

They might regret their actions but this is typically framed in a very self-centred way. They usually don’t express more then cursory regard for the victims. They regret it because they’re suffering now, because they have nightmares, because they can’t keep a job. And oh it’s all so unfair.

I don’t know why this is the case. But it’s a feature Sironi described in interviews about her work. And I’ve seen it over and over again in interviews with torturers.

Yes torturers suffer. The symptoms they develop are terrible and have a lasting impact on their lives. They typically can’t hold down jobs and struggle to re-integrate into society in any meaningful fashion.

And yes I believe they should be treated. I believe that anyone with a disease or condition which requires treatment should have access to care and treatment. Whoever they are. Whatever they did.

I believe that as fellow human beings torturers are entitled to a degree of compassion. When I say that torture and mistreatment are wrong I mean it. My position doesn’t change just because the theoretical victim is a former torturer.

I do not think that treatment and compassion should be dependant on a person being suitably victimised. For me the only thing it depends on is their need and their humanity. In the literal physical sense of them being a human.

But we tend to think of ‘victim’ as a simple category that doesn’t overlap with mass murderers.

And I don’t believe the position of torturers is that simple.

Especially when so few of them are charged. Torture trials are rare. Convictions are rare. And sentences are short.

And their victims deserve justice too.

I feel conflicted about calling torturers ‘victims’ because of this complex reality. And because in fiction we have a tendency to focus on the torturers prioritising their voices over the survivors. I feel like presenting torturers as simple victims of society could risk adding to that.

For me the focus has always got to be the survivors.

And I think all of this feeds into how we handle redemption arcs.

I don’t think that writing redemption arcs for villains, even torturers or mass murderers is ‘wrong’. In fact I think that it can be a really good idea. Showing how toxic the environments these people are in is a good thing. Puncturing the way it’s romanticised is a good thing. And showing a way out of it, even if it’s imagined, is not a bad thing.

But if we’re going to do that in our stories then I think we need to think about what redemption means and in whose eyes the character is redeemed.

There’s also a small problem: we don’t really know what recovery for torturers looks like.

There isn’t enough research on them. Partly because of lack of interest but partly because the low conviction rates means sample sizes are small. We’re talking about a limited number of individuals who are jailed and we can’t really ‘prove’ that individuals who weren’t convicted were torturers. We don’t really know what the long term outcomes are, what treatments might be effective or- Much of anything.

Studies on torturers are typically based on very small numbers of individuals. (For a long time Fanon’s work was the only example of a mental health professional talking about torturers specifically. He saw two of them.) They are not statistically sound. And a lot of resources were simply journalists or mental health professionals compiling notes on the handful of individuals they talked to.

Everything I say about torturers is based on things like interviews, a handful of studies that have flaws and anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately as of right now it’s the best we’ve got.

Personally I don’t think there’s enough research on torture generally. Or enough attempts to collate relevant research from other fields. But that’s a rant for another day.

Let’s get back to that central question: what does redemption mean?

I think that it’s pretty easy to write a character changing for the better. You can build up the character’s level of insight into what they’re doing/did over the course of the story. You can show them choosing to stop. You can show them shifting to oppose their former allies.

But bundled up in the idea of a redemption arc is this: is it enough? And who is it enough for?

I don’t think survivors should be obliged to forgive former torturers. I also don’t think they’re likely to interact positively.

I’ve talked about this now and again when asked about the difference between legally defined torture and abuse. Because of the organised and widespread nature of legally defined torture there are usually communities of survivors. And communities that are collectively moving through a recovery process because even those people who weren’t directly attacked are likely to be witnesses, carers and relatives or friends of survivors.

These things echo down generations.

Cyprus gained independence from the British in 1960, my father is too young to have any real memory of the violence during the colonial period. But he referenced it in arguments with my English mother during my childhood. There are people throughout China today who won’t buy anything Japanese because of Japanese war crimes there during World War 2. There are people who won’t eat fish from the Black Sea, because the bodies of their ancestors were thrown into that sea during a genocide over a hundred years ago.

I know that as a both a Greek Cypriot and an English person there are people all over the world who will not want anything to do with me based on what my people have done to theirs. And the fact I wasn’t alive at the time does not really factor into it.

What I’m trying to illustrate here is that this is much bigger, broader and more complex then individual acts of forgiveness.

Survivors are a highly varied group of individuals. And each torturer can have thousands or tens of thousands of victims. Expecting each impacted individual, and any witnesses and all their family members and friends, to forgive these people is… let’s say ‘unlikely’.

So does redemption require forgiveness from the wounded party? Is there any possible action that can atone for the sheer scale of these atrocities?

If we play a simple number game causing this level of harm can be achieved in months or years, but saving the equivalent number of lives takes decades of skilled, dedicated work. If we look at concepts like wergild or jail as ‘paying your debt to society’ then how do we measure something like torture where the numbers are so big?

I haven’t seen a piece of fiction seriously tackle these questions. But then again I also haven’t actively looked for that fiction.

I feel like a lot of fictional redemption arcs judge a character to be sufficiently redeemed based on audience sympathy and the main cast forgiving the character. They don’t typically go on to broaden the scope of the narrative and question whether any one else impacted by the former villain’s actions also sees the character as redeemed.

One of my stories has a former torturer as a major character and I think they are a sympathetic character in many ways. I think that my readers would empathise with them through a lot of the story (which takes place decades after they stopped torturing).

They’re a mentor figure to some of the younger cast members. They’ve acted as a protector to them and taught the younger generation a lot about the minority culture they themselves are from. And they do genuinely care about these people that they helped to raise, consistently sacrificing to protect these ‘kids’. (The ‘kids’ are 30s-20s at the time of the story.)

But they’re also incredibly self centred. They don’t really interact with or have a lot of sympathy for the people they hurt. And while this particular family loves and forgives them society at large views them as a monster. Albeit one that is now leashed.

Is this a redemption story? Is this character redeemed? I genuinely don’t know. In fact that’s part of my interest in writing the story: trying to work out if there is a point, as this character grows, develops and helps others, when I believe they’ve done ‘enough’.

I think that redemption means different things for different people. A satisfying redemption story is different for different people. And if we can disagree so strongly about it with much simpler, smaller scale crimes then where does that leave us with torture?

There isn’t a simple answer or a one-size-fits-all writing solution. There can’t be.

My approach is to try and use the story to see if I can find an answer. Even if it’s only a limited one. For me the story itself is a forum for exploring human complexity and difficult ethical questions.

I don’t think we have a good solution for how to deal with these people in reality yet. But I do hold out hope that a good solution is possible. Fiction is an arena where we can safely explore possible solutions.

I guess in the end I’m not sure if there’s any story or arc that will work for everyone. I don’t think there are any hard rules for writing anything and I don’t think there’s ever a way to please everyone.

Redemption and forgiveness are complicated topics. I think we do a much better job when we engage with that complexity then when we assume a character just has to do a, b and c in order to achieve it.

When you consider someone to be truly redeemed is an ethical question that I can’t answer for you. I don’t think I should. The chances are you’ll know when you think your character has done enough.

Just be open to the fact that it won’t be enough for everyone. Consider reflecting that with the characters, because that can make for truly powerful moments.

In Midnight’s Children Shiva never forgives Saleem, even though Saleem isn’t responsible for Shiva ‘losing’ his life and family because they were both infants at the time. And damn there are a lot of flaws in the movie adaptation but that scene between them in the jail, when Saleem throws that in Shiva’s face hits hard. It shows us so much about both characters.

And I think that’s a better way to approach it then trying to figure out if a character is redeemed yet: figuring out how they’ve progressed, how others respond to that progression and why.

I hope that helps :)

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dsfsposts · 3 years

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HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT LED SHOEBOX LIGHTS FOR YOUR PARKING LOT

If you are considering upgrading your lights to LED, the parking lot lights should always be the first one to take into consideration, because of the large service area of parking lot and the high energy consumption of traditional metal halide parking lot light.

It’s not easy to research dozens of websites to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and answer all of your questions about what is the right LED shoe box light Fixture for your needs. For this reason, we prepared some tips about shoebox light, Parking Lot and Area Lighting in this article.

Here are several things you need to know before converting your facility:

1. Type of facility: Is the site retail, warehouse or other commercial use?

2. Type of fixture or lamp: Wall Packs, Shoeboxes, Flood Lamp

3. Wattage of existing lamps: This gives your LED manufacture insight to the LED equivalent needed.

4. Line voltage: LED products are voltage specific, and the LED installer will need to know this detail.

5. Needs from the changes: To increase/decrease the lighting output, address a specific problem or area, meet a specific specification or code

6. The best color of light: The sun is 5778k, and in the LED industry, 5000k is considered to be the closest to natural sunlight. Outdoor lighting is often oriented to a 5000k color.

7. Quality of LED products: Quality means you trust you will not have any warranty issues, service means if you do have any issues, the integrity of service will be tasked to work its magic.

What is high bay lighting, and what applications benefit from it?

Whenever a large indoor space needs to be illuminated, high bay lighting is usually appropriate. Consider spaces like manufacturing facilities, gymnasiums, warehouses, large department stores, factories, and more; these facilities are typically vast and cover a lot of vertical as well as horizontal space. This requires powerful lighting to provide the appropriate foot-candle levels to adequately illuminate. High bay lighting fixtures typically hang from the ceiling via hooks, chains, or pendants, or they may be fixed to the ceiling directly (similar to troffer lights). The image above features high bay lighting in action.

Various industries and facilities require high bay lighting. Some of the most common are:

Warehouses

Industrial facilities (read more about Industrial LED lighting here)

Manufacturing facilities

School and university gymnasiums

Municipal facilities like community centers or recreation centers

Commercial applications like department stores

Why choose LED high bay lights instead of metal halide, fluorescent, or other conventional high bay lights?

Historically, various lighting technologies were (and still are) used in warehouse and industrial settings when high bay lights were required. Some of the most common include metal halide (MH), high pressure sodium (HPS), and fluorescent. While each of these bulbs have their merits, industrial LED lighting outperforms its conventional counterparts in important ways. Let’s take a look at some of the various considerations when deciding whether an LED retrofit is appropriate for your warehouse or industrial space.

Industrial LED lighting vs metal halide high bay light: If you’ve ever been to a ballgame, you've likely seen metal halide illuminating the field. MH lamps are common in sporting and warehouse/industrial uses (as well as any setting where large, high spaces need to be illuminated). Benefits of MH lights include decent color rendering and comparatively adequate foot-candle levels (as opposed to other types of conventional bulbs). Some of their major drawbacks are a long time to warm up (sometimes 15-30 minutes) and a high cost to maintain, and their failure characteristics include flickering on and off. This is in addition to the fact that much of the energy they produce is wasted as heat. Read more about LED versus Metal Halide Lights.

Linear LED high bay light vs high pressure sodium (HPS) lights: HPS lights are often used in warehouse, industrial, business, and recreational facilities where high bay lighting is appropriate. Their benefits include cheap selling price, high energy efficiency (low operating costs), and a relatively long lifespan. HPS lighting technology retains these advantages over most conventional bulbs, but they lose on all three counts to LED high bay lighting. The downsides of HPS bulbs include the worst color rendering on the market and a warm up period. Read more about LED versus High Pressure and Low Pressure Sodium Lights.

Industrial LED lighting vs fluorescent lighting: Though somewhat less common, fluorescent lighting is sometimes utilized in warehouse or industrial applications (primarily T12, T8, and T5 lights). The benefits of fluorescent lights include cheaper initial costs and relatively high efficiency (especially when compared to other conventional bulbs). Downsides include the presence of toxic mercury (which requires certain waste disposal procedures), decreased lifetime if switched on and off, and requiring a ballast to stabilize the light. Read more about LED versus Fluorescent Lighting.

It’s no secret that LED lighting technology has surpassed the capabilities of conventional lighting in important ways. In addition to the considerations discussed above, there are three general benefits of LED lighting that apply to all lighting applications.

Decreased maintenance requirements. As discussed above, LED lights have a lifespan that is four to forty times longer than many conventional bulbs. This means fewer replacements for bulbs that wear out. LED lighting technology also generates light differently than typical fuel and filament lighting by using a diode (learn more in this blog). This means that there are fewer moving pieces to break, and consequently, fewer repairs or replacements. Maintenance is an especially important consideration when it comes to industrial lighting or warehouse lighting. By definition, high bay lights have higher mounting heights, which means that changing a bulb requires some specialized equipment or creativity. Scaffolding, catwalks, and hydraulic lifts are generally used to swap or replace bulbs, and each of these can result in additional maintenance or equipment costs. Again, the lifespan of industrial LED lighting means that fixtures need to be changed much less often, which means savings for your bottom line.

Improved lighting quality. Industrial LED lighting and high bay lights will typically score better in a head-to-head comparisons against most other bulbs when it comes to color rendering index (CRI), correlated color temperature (CCT), and foot candles. CRI is a measurement of a light’s ability to reveal the actual color of objects as compared to an ideal light source (natural light). In non-technical terms, CCT generally describes the “glow” given off by a bulb - is it warm (reddish), or cold (bluish white)? Foot candles compare the amount of light coming from a source and the amount of light hitting the desired surface; they’re basically a measure of efficiency. On all three fronts, LED lights perform very well. (Read more about CRI, CCT, and foot candles here.)

Increased energy efficiency. Not only do LED lights generate light differently, they also distribute light differently than conventional lighting solutions, which results in less energy required to provide the same output. How does that work? First, many conventional lights waste a lot of the energy they produce by emitting it as heat (this is especially the case with metal halide lighting). Second, most conventional lights are omnidirectional, which means that they output light in 360 degrees. So, a lot of light is wasted pointing at a ceiling, or being diluted because it has to be redirected through the use of fixtures. Industrial LED lighting for applications that require high bay lights eliminates these two problems of wasted energy (through heat loss and omnidirectional emission).

Indoor Plant Lighting

Indoor plant lighting gives plants most of the energy they need to grow, thrive, even to stay alive.

The proper type of indoor plant light is more than just a matter of giving a plant the brightness it needs. There are three lighting factors that control growth of a plant:

Amount of light: number of hours of daylight on your plants

Intensity of light: levels of light from full sun to full shade

Spectrum: warm and cool colors

Gas Station Lights

Every location has its own unique lighting needs. When it comes to gas station lights, there are a few fixtures that are exceptionally well suited to this location. Let's take a look at a few of the most common solutions for gas station lighting.

LED

When looking at fixture options, you should first determine the right lamping solution to narrow down the choices. LED is the best choice for this unique location. LED offers a higher lumen output for a brighter fixture while operating on a lower wattage which saves on energy for utility costs. LED is also a no heat solution which means the life of the fixture will be protected from heat damage. Another benefit of LED is that the lamps last a long time to save on replacement costs and maintenance spent on maintaining fixtures. Best of all, LED is available in the most commonly used gas station lighting solutions.

Canopy Lights

When looking at gas station lighting, the most obvious area is the canopy. This is where the majority of the business happens since customers pump gas under the canopy. It is also important to make sure this area is well-lit, so customers can see it clearly from the road at night. A well-lit canopy also gives a feeling of safety and security when pumping gas at night that most customers expect. In fact, most customer will pass up a poorly lit gas canopy in favor of a brighter one, so this area directly impacts your business. This is where canopy lights come in and save the day! Canopy lights are made specifically for this type of environment, so they offer such features as vandal proof options, wet rated listings, durable polycarbonate lenses, and bright, powerful illumination where you need it most. Canopy lights come in choices of thin profile to save on space and low profile for lower canopies in terms of height.

Parking Lot Lights

While the canopy lights are the main draw on the exterior, you will still need additional parking lot lighting. Parking lot lighting is necessary for any surrounding parking spaces not covered by the canopy. They can also be used to add visibility to roads leading to the parking lot or behind the building for added safety and security. When choosing parking lot lights, you can go with either cobra head or floodlights. Floodlights are ideal if you have a larger lot whereas cobra head is ideal for smaller lots.

Interior Lights

While the outside lighting is important, the inside is just as crucial to a successful lighting plan. For interior gas station lighting, there are several great options to consider. A few of the most common are recessed troffer-style and surface mounted fixtures. Both options offer an easy to install and maintain solution to meet the needs of this location. In this type of location, you want to avoid suspended or chain fixtures since they can create more shadows and detract from the clean, bright atmosphere your customers appreciate.

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shapesnnsizes · 6 years

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Why You Should Eat Meat: My Appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience

Table of Contents

Background and Introductions

There Are Serious Problems with Epidemiological Research

No, Vegetarians and Vegans Don’t Live Longer

Is There a Connection between Red Meat and Cancer?

Does Saturated Fat Increase Your Blood Cholesterol?

Where (and When) Conventional Ideas about Saturated Fat Come From

Will Eating Animal Protein Shorten Your Lifespan?

Did the Sugar Industry Influence How We Think about Saturated Fat?

Red Meat and TMAO: Red Herring or Meaningful Association?

Does Fish Increase Your Risk of Diabetes?

Correlation Is Not Causation

Here, We Agree: There Should Be Lots of Plants on Your Plate

What Happens When You Give Up Nutrient-Dense Animal Protein

Is the Carnivore Diet Healthy? Here Are My Theories

On Sept. 27, my debate with Dr. Joel Kahn on the Joe Rogan Experience on the merit of including meat in a healthy diet lasted almost four hours. There are very few well-structured debates on this topic, and Joe did a great job of facilitating a lengthy discussion on such a controversial topic.

I’d certainly encourage all of you to watch or listen to the recording, but if you don’t have a chance to listen to it all, I’ll provide a summary of the highlights in this article.

You can also check out “Why Eating Meat Is Good for You,” the cornerstone page that we put together in preparation for the debate. It outlines my key arguments and contains links to relevant blog articles and studies categorized by topic.

Background and Introductions

For those who don’t know him, Dr. Kahn is a 42-year vegan who attended the University of Michigan medical school. He also did training in internal medicine and cardiology before opening a preventive, plant-based cardiology practice in Michigan.

Did you miss the debate on the health impacts of a vegan vs. an omnivorous diet? Not to worry! Check out this recap and find out why you should eat meat.

Of course, as many of you know, I was a macrobiotic vegan myself for many years, and a vegetarian for quite some time as well. When I was traveling around the world and became sick, it led me to question many of my earlier beliefs about vegetarianism and veganism and ultimately led me to reincorporate meat in my diet.

There Are Serious Problems with Epidemiological Research

To kick things off, we jumped right into the problems with nutritional epidemiology. Randomized clinical trials are incredibly expensive and, in many cases, impractical, so we’re left with observational studies that look at a certain group of people and try to draw inferences from their behavior about associations with disease.

I laid out the three biggest problems with nutritional epidemiology research.

Data Collection

Most observational studies employ “memory-based assessments” (i.e., questionnaires), which rely solely on a person’s recollection of what they ate.

The Healthy-User Bias

When someone engages in a behavior that’s perceived as unhealthy, they are more likely to engage in other behaviors that are perceived as unhealthy and vice versa.

Low Relative Risks

In nutrition, relative risks are often so low that they are indistinguishable from chance:

In fields outside of nutrition, nobody would consider an increase in risk less than 100 percent (a doubling) to be anything worth paying attention to.

Dr. Kahn contended that if we throw epidemiology away, we throw away about 80 percent of nutrition research. Since we can’t do the randomized controlled trials, we’re really left with basic science and studies of centenarians in blue zones like Loma Linda, California.

I certainly don’t think we should throw out epidemiological research, but we should understand the limitations and look at the findings with a critical eye.

No, Vegetarians and Vegans Don’t Live Longer

This led to a discussion of lifespan among those following different diets. I pointed out that there are eight major studies to date that have compared lifespan in vegetarians and vegans and omnivores, only five of which did a good job controlling for the healthy-user bias. Four studies sought to compare vegans and vegetarians against health-conscious omnivores, as opposed to the general population. The fifth study found did not select health-conscious omnivores as a comparison group, but it did a much better job controlling for potential confounding factors than most observational studies do.

They found that both groups had a longer lifespan than the general population, but there was no difference in lifespan between the groups. Several meta-analyses that consider all of the available studies have confirmed this finding. (1) For more information, see my article “Do Vegetarians and Vegans Live Longer than Meat Eaters?”

Is There a Connection between Red Meat and Cancer?

Dr. Kahn immediately turned to the 2015 World Health Organization (WHO) report that found an association between red meat and cancer. He argued that even though the differences are small, 50,000 people could potentially avoid colorectal cancer by avoiding red meat. Furthermore, with newer statistical methods, we can better isolate the effects of animal protein in observational studies.

I pointed out that the WHO report found only an 18 percent increased risk of cancer from eating processed meat, and a two percent increased risk from eating unprocessed red meat. This means that 5.3 people of 100 eating more processed meat would develop cancer, vs. 4.5 people of 100 eating less processed meat. As many epidemiologists have suggested, these tiny differences are difficult to distinguish from chance in observational studies.

What’s more, there are several other studies that have shown no relationship between unprocessed red meat consumption and cancer. For an excellent review of the role of meat in a healthy diet, I suggest this article by David Klurfeld, the National Program Leader for Human Nutrition in the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and an associate editor at the American Journal for Clinical Nutrition.

We next discussed several mechanisms for how processed meat might contribute to cancer risk, with N-nitroso compounds, heterocyclic amines, heme iron, Neu5Gc, and TMAO being the most highly cited. However, these often don’t consider the context of the meat consumption. For instance, chlorophyll-rich green vegetables prevent myoglobin form being turned into nitro compounds. Similarly, certain spices and marinades have been shown to reduce the formation of heterocyclic amines.

Given this, not surprising that in all the studies of the relationship between red meat and cancer that controlled for vegetables, a greater increase was seen in people not consuming vegetables. (2) Vegetable consumption seems to confer a protective effect against any potential harm that may come from eating meat. (3)

Dr. Kahn agreed with this and encouraged listeners to at the very least eat vegetables with their meat.

Does Saturated Fat Increase Your Blood Cholesterol?

We next moved to saturated fat. Dr. Kahn claimed that basic science has shown that when you eat foods rich in saturated fat, you reduce the receptors on the liver that take cholesterol out of the blood. Cholesterol stays in the blood and eventually leads to atherosclerosis. He cited a 1997 paper that analyzed the results of 395 metabolic studies where they changed the diet and measured the response to cholesterol: (4)

You add saturated fat, cholesterol skyrockets.

I took a brief look at this paper after the debate, and they did find an increase in blood cholesterol when saturated fat was replaced with complex carbohydrates, but the difference was only 9.4 mg/dL reduction in LDL. It also resulted in a reduction of HDL of 1.8 mg/dL. Many of these metabolic ward studies were also short-term feedings studies that lasted less than a month, and did not measure clinical outcomes. (5)

Dr. Kahn further argued that every major health agency in the world recommends limiting saturated fat intake. I reminded him that these agencies are often behind the times, and:

… the history of science is really the history of most scientists being wrong about most things most of the time.

In the last two revisions of the USDA dietary guidelines, they removed restrictions on total fat and cholesterol—and I wouldn’t be surprised if saturated fat is next.

The most important question, however, is not whether eating saturated fat increases blood cholesterol levels. It’s whether eating saturated fat increases the risk of heart disease. After all, if saturated fat increases blood cholesterol but doesn’t increase the risk of heart disease, why should we care about cholesterol going up?

Turns out this is exactly what studies suggest. Large reviews including hundreds of thousands of subjects have shown that there is no relationship between saturated fat or cholesterol intake and heart disease.

What Low-Carb Diets Reveal about Saturated Fat

To stress the saturated fat point further, I mentioned that several meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials have found that low-carb diets (which also tend to be high in saturated fats) have no effect on LDL cholesterol.

Moreover, low-carb diets are associated with a reduction in cardiovascular risk factors like: (6)

Body weight

Triglycerides

Fasting blood glucose

Blood pressure

Abdominal circumference

Plasma insulin

C-reactive protein

Where (and When) Conventional Ideas about Saturated Fat Come From

Unfortunately, we seemed to get bogged down in the saturated fat issue for quite a while. Dr. Kahn consistently wanted to rely on studies from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, which he believes are still useful if “it’s in retrospect, valid.”

I continually stressed that observational research is only useful for generating hypotheses, not coming to firm conclusions, and that:

… we can’t throw out really the highest standard of evidence, which is a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Will Eating Animal Protein Shorten Your Lifespan?

We briefly touched on animal protein and longevity. Dr. Kahn argued that the amino acids found in red meat, combined with their saturated fat content, trigger biochemical pathways at the cellular level that accelerate aging:

The amino acid mix found in animal protein is different from the amino acid mix found in vegetable protein, which is why […] plant protein beats the crap out of animal protein. This is high-level cell metabolism.

While it may be true that animal protein is associated with cancer in basic science experiments, I argued that there are:

… no studies that show that eating meat in the context of a healthy diet shortens your lifespan [...] We can’t just focus on mechanistic studies. We have to look at actual endpoints that matter to people.

When you look at real endpoints, it’s clear that there is no effect on overall lifespan.

Did the Sugar Industry Influence How We Think about Saturated Fat?

Somehow, we got dragged back to the saturated fat and blood cholesterol issue. This time, Dr. Kahn referenced the Hegsted equation, which was published in 1965 by David Mark Hegsted and described the relationship between changes in saturated fat intake and serum cholesterol. This, in combination with research performed by Ancel Keys, ultimately led to the original recommendations to reduce dietary saturated fat intake.

However, Hegsted, recently found to have been in the pocket of the sugar industry, was largely responsible for downplaying the connections between sugar consumption and heart disease, instead focusing on saturated fats as the primary culprit. (7)

What’s more, recent studies have shown that the Hegsted equation isn’t relevant in the context of low-carb diets. (8)

Dr. Kahn did not adequately address the evidence I repeatedly presented in regard to recent meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials, ultimately saying:

I stand by the fact human physiology will not change.

Red Meat and TMAO: Red Herring or Meaningful Association?

Finally, we moved on from saturated fat onto red meat and TMAO. I’ve written about this extensively, and you can also find more information about it on our cornerstone page.

Dr. Kahn mentioned several studies that showed a causal relationship between increased consumption of carnitine and choline and TMAO. However, certain species of fish increase serum TMAO orders of magnitude more than meat or eggs, yet fish are associated with reduced cardiovascular risk. (9)

Moreover, only certain types of gut bacteria metabolize choline and carnitine to TMA, which is then converted in the liver to TMAO, so:

… scientists have speculated that high TMAO levels are essentially a result of a disrupted gut microbiome.

Does Fish Increase Your Risk of Diabetes?

Dr. Kahn consistently relied on single studies to support his claims:

The assumption is that fish is a superfood. […] Fish intake is associated with increased risk of diabetes, I’m sorry, that’s epidemiology.

While the single study he referenced did find a slight increase in relative risk in the group consuming the most fish, I preferred to rely on the weight of evidence: (10)

Of course we can go and find one study here, one study there, that has a different result, but that’s not the scientific method. The scientific method is to look at the weight of the evidence and to continue to evaluate that over time as the evidence changes.

In this case, a 2012 meta-analysis found no association between fish intake and diabetes risk, and many studies suggest that seafood consumption is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. (11)

Correlation Is Not Causation

One of the running themes throughout the debate was the need to realize that correlation is not causation. This is clearly illustrated by a study I mentioned in a population of hospitalized patients that found “24 diagnoses were significantly associated with the participants’ astrological signs.” (12)

The relative risks were 15 percent and 38 percent, which is on par with the 18 percent increased relative risk that was used in the 2015 WHO report that linked processed meat to cancer.

To further this point, I offered a quote from John Ioannidis:

Given the complicated associations of eating behaviors and patterns with many time varying social and behavioral factors that also affect health, no currently available cohort includes sufficient information to address confounding in nutritional association. (13)

In other words, there are so many factors that influence our health that it’s virtually impossible to parse these out in observational studies.

Here, We Agree: There Should Be Lots of Plants on Your Plate

Dr. Kahn stressed that he believes we have more than enough data to advise the public and echoed Michael Pollan’s “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants,” noting “that is a synthesis of 50 years in nutritional research.”

This was certainly one of the few points where we could agree. As many of you readers know, my recommendation is, and always has been, that your plate should consist of two-thirds or three-quarters plant foods and the remainder animal foods.

Moreover, anyone who is making an effort to be conscious about their diet, whether vegan or omnivore, is going to be much better off than someone consuming a Standard American Diet full of processed foods.

What Happens When You Give up Nutrient-Dense Animal Protein

This segued into a discussion of the benefit of keeping that one-quarter of your plate as nutrient-dense animal protein. I contended that vegetarians and vegans are often deficient in many nutrients, with vitamin B12 representing the biggest issue:

Some of the effects of B12 deficiency are irreversible. It’s a pretty serious thing.

Moreover, many vegans and vegetarians are only measuring serum B12, which will only be affected in late-stage B12 deficiency, and even those who are supplementing may not be getting enough.

Dr. Kahn agreed that it was something to keep an eye out for:

It’s responsible for a healthcare practitioner to advise somebody eating plant-based to take vitamin B12. […] I don’t advise my patients to rely on food because there’s neurologic and hematologic potential for trouble.

He demonstrated how easy it was to take the supplements necessary to prevent B12 and other deficiencies, saying:

My patients are totally complete. The industry has provided solutions to a relatively simple problem.

However, I maintained that this “does beg the question of whether we should be following a diet that can’t meet our essential nutrient needs.” My position has always been that we should be getting as much of our nutrients from food as possible.

Just some of the other nutrients that are an issue with vegetarian and vegan diets include bioavailable zinc, calcium, taurine, creatine, vitamin A, EPA, and DHA. For those vegans and vegetarians who are not ideologically opposed to eating small amounts of animal foods, even just one clam oyster and four grams of liver per day would completely meet your needs for vitamin B12, zinc, copper, and choline.

Is the Carnivore Diet Healthy? Here Are My Theories

Finally, Joe asked about the carnivore diet, and how so many people could be experiencing benefits from eating meat alone. I offered my theory that the carnivore diet mimics some of the benefits of fasting but allows people to persist for longer since it’s providing some nutrition.

The carnivore diet is essentially like a gut rest or a fast.

Of course, this is all speculation:

We don’t yet have any evidence, but meat is absorbed very high up in the digestive tract, and so when you only eat meat, it’s a low residue diet. There’s nothing leftover to irritate or inflame the gut.

I’m certainly empathetic to those who find that the carnivore diet works for them, but it does not mean that there aren’t potential consequences to the diet in the long-term.

Dr. Kahn pointed out that since these people aren’t consuming sugar or fibrous vegetables, they may be hyper-efficient at absorbing nutrients like vitamin C. While there are anecdotal reports of individuals who have tracked their nutrient status, I think we don’t yet have the evidence say that this does not result in nutrient deficiencies.

From an evolutionary perspective, every culture we know of that has been studied ate some combination of animal and plant foods, even though the ratio varied from place to place.

Join the Debate! Do You Eat Meat?

And there you have it, almost four hours boiled down into the key highlights and takeaways! I’d love to hear what you thought about the debate in the comments below. Be sure to also check out the cornerstone page and share it with your friends and family. If you’re interested in delving into the research behind this topic, take a look at the bibliography page.

I hope this debate and these resources serve as a big step towards clearing up the confusion and misunderstanding about this topic.

Now it’s your turn to join the debate. Do you eat meat? Have you ever followed a vegetarian or vegan diet? Leave a comment and let me know!

The post Why You Should Eat Meat: My Appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience appeared first on Chris Kresser.

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jpgsheedy · 6 years

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How We Got Here...

(If you came from Facebook you’ve basically already read this so feel free to skip!)

OK so I’ve spent the past six weeks deciding whether to do this or not but in the end I concluded that there was no good reason not to. My relative efficacy at running a second life is not a good reason to carry on doing it, particularly when it casts a particularly large shadow of shame over your actual real life. So rather than put things together in piecemeal fashion and work out who I should tell what and why I figured hell this is what social media was for before we took pictures of food and had a minimum of seven hashtags per sentence.

Now most, if not all, of you will be aware that my health has not been particularly great for some time now, if so equally you’ll know I decided several years ago I’d stop talking about it for the most part. There were a great number of reasons for this but the strongest was simply that I didn’t want to, I felt it was my business and my business alone.

Then came the launch of what I call the ‘mental health industry’, people who have infected the public consciousness by whining about problems they don’t have. Anyone who uses Twitter or regularly reads the news online will have seen the flourishing of these people whereas those with actual diagnosed conditions are tossed aside and shunned.

Sadly this was latched onto by major organisations such as MIND who now seem to dedicate themselves solely to representing people who test well in the media but actually have nothing wrong with them.

There were great exceptions of course, people like Jonny Benjamin forced society to acknowledge that psychosis was real and it didn’t make you dangerous to anyone else. He’s a special guy who rose to prominence purely on the basis of his strength, talent and decency. So to say it’s all bad would be a injustice to him and people like him.

In spite of that though the major organisations now want to turn away from serious mental illness and instead talk about ridiculous buzzwords. Lying to the public by saying one in four people have a mental illness when it is nothing but fiction. True and serious mental illness is not common in the slightest. It may not be extremely rare either but this pathetic attempt to ‘sanitise’ mental health to make it palpable to the general public has caused nothing but suffering for those with conditions the media would rather not acknowledge.

For me I had a condition that simply changed its adjectives over the years. Diagnosed with Depression about seven years ago that would become Depressive Disorder, then Major Depressive Disorder, then Severe Major Depressive Disorder and now Severe Treatment Resistant Major Depressive Disorder. By reaching that final stage several months ago I sadly got promoted the Premier League of Depression (and you know it’s serious when I’m using sports metaphors).

Over this period of seven years I was tried on around 20 different medications (don’t worry I’m not going to list them as in Britain we use the medical terms as opposed to brand names and we’d be here all night) and underwent therapy with around 10 different people and/or groups. It was at this point a few months ago that I essentially hit the dead end of conventional treatment. The drugs were exhausted, the therapies had become pointless, I was in the psychiatric cul-de-sac.

So I was given a few options, the main two being a relatively new and experimental treatment known as Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) and the more conventional but controversial Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). It was during these past few months that I made my decision and opted for ECT.

ECT is also commonly (though not medically) referred to as Electroshock Therapy. It is under the latter term you will have likely heard of it however your knowledge of it is probably limited to the rather extreme depictions of the treatment in asylums many decades ago. It’s regularly been depicted in cinema as something bordering on torture because in the 40s and 50s it was. The procedure of today however has almost nothing in common with those days, we have long since evolved.

One thing remaining the same is the principle of using electricity to produce a seizure. However, the procedure is now carried out with a general anaesthetic and the use of muscle relaxants so not only are you asleep, your body does not convulse at all meaning there are next to no injuries and those that happen are very minor. It is an entirely safe medical procedure with the same level of risk as any other general anaesthetic (which many of you will have had or will have at some point) which are of course incredibly low.

The side effects mainly revolve around memory loss. This does not mean there is any chance of you forgetting who you are or your life, it simply means you may lose the details of certain events in your life and in rarer cases some events may disappear completely.

In spite of this relatively low side effect profile and low procedural risk many still look down on this treatment and vilify it because they cannot extricate their minds from horror movies or documentaries about the 1950s. That is no more acceptable in society than the attempts of Jehovah’s Witnesses to vilify blood transfusions. As an enlightened people we should demand better than simply accepting what we’ve heard and actually look at the facts ourselves or consult an actual professional on the matter.

Which brings me full circle to why I’m doing this now. Firstly it is because I am not ashamed of this. If you are freaked out it’s certainly your prerogative but I don’t have to take that on myself. Secondly I am rather tired of living the second life at this point where I’m working, happy and doing all kinds of things. Stopping lying will probably be a good thing for me to try going forward. Thirdly I wish to raise some awareness around this specific issue because it sorely needs it. Finally and perhaps most importantly I need to acknowledge the past seven years and even before that.

There are times over this period where I have been treated badly, either by the system or by other things. However more importantly during this time I have at various periods acted in ways that are completely unacceptable. Particularly during my drinking days I certainly had a screwed up head, but it was never an excuse for my often acute selfishness and self absorption during that time. I mistreated those I cared most about either directly or indirectly by turning them into carers rather than friends by my actions. I put levels of pressure on people that were and are unforgivable. My going sober was part of addressing this and making some amends from the past, me doing this is trying to tackle the rest. It will never make it up to those people but I will at least try to do the right thing now.

I can never change what’s already been but by being less of a coward and facing these things directly I can at least hope they won’t happen again. If I live openly there is less chance of my putting undue pressure on any one person or group.

So from now I’m on this journey in public and hopefully some people will learn some things about mental health from the inpatient perspective. I’m currently in Highbury Hospital just outside of Nottingham and from this point on I’ll be blogging about it. I will try and keep it daily but on treatment days it’s likely to be a little briefer as I’ll be much more tired.

Anyway thanks if you took the time to read this, I hope it was a little enlightening on the topic although the blog is likely to be a bit more interesting than that long train of thought going forward.

Look After Yourselves

xxxxx

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kevinvtague · 6 years

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An update on Argentina

Argentinian assets have been under material pressure in recent days. I thought it would be useful to write my thoughts on the recent moves and implications for markets going forward.

Over the past two months, the Argentinian peso had become overvalued in real terms following large inflows from foreign investors in 2017. These capital flows caused the nominal exchange rate to depreciate by much less than inflation. Those investing in Argentinian assets cited the carry trade theme, relatively low volatility, and the entering of Argentinian local currency sovereign bonds into the JP Morgan Government Bond Indices as investment rationales. However, the tide started to turn late last year when the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) made a policy mistake by raising the 2018 inflation target from 10 to 15%. The adjustment of the inflation target subsequently allowed the BCRA to cut interest rates in early January this year.

The cut in interest rates dented the BCRA’s credibility, and concerns grew about whether monetary policy was free of interference from the government. Another policy mistake was the announcement of a 5% tax on Argentinian peso Treasury bill investments, which impacted both locals and foreigners and led to a reduction in holdings of Argentinian peso Treasury bills by investors. Higher than expected inflation readings, and a strengthening of the US dollar finally generated large pressures on the Argentinian peso. After attempting to support the local currency by buying over USD 5 billion worth of pesos in the currency market, the BCRA finally realised that its monetary stance had to be tightened. We have now witnessed three emergency hikes (a combined 12%), bringing the policy rate to an eye-watering 40%. I believe the monetary authorities will now be successful in slowing the depreciation of the currency going forward.

The overvalued peso also contributed to Argentina’s current account deficit widening 5%. I expect the current account deficit to begin to start narrowing again as the currency moves into equilibrium (say, to 24-26 against the US dollar by year-end) and the economy slows as a result of the monetary and fiscal tightening (a 0.5% tightening of the fiscal deficit was also announced). The implications of this will be higher inflation this year and possibly next, lower growth and a further decline in Macri’s popularity.

If this a default situation? Not yet. I see this as a re-pricing of Argentinean risk which had started earlier in the year, coupled with an already ongoing emerging market sell-off in the local and hard currency space.

On the positive side, I believe that there are two silver linings for the time being.

Firstly, the next election is not until late 2019, so there is some time for the authorities to take its bitter medicine this year – including more utility tariff hikes, a depreciation of the peso, and attempt to control the next public wage negotiations in September. Accepting these tough measures will allow the economy to readjust over the course of 2018. The opposition and Peronists are still divided, so while Macri’s re-election chances and policy continuity look much more complicated now, it is still not a given that Argentineans will choose another populist government.

Secondly, the IMF may be prompted to get involved. Unlike other countries which would ideologically be opposed to an IMF program (Venezuela for sure, potentially Turkey, while Ecuador is uncertain as always), the authorities may end up under a program if they lose access to the markets and/or Argentina experiences a balance of payment crisis fuelled by capital flight. Argentina and the IMF have had a tumultuous relationship in the past, but under different administrations (Menem, Nestor and Cristina). The goal in this case, for both sides, would be to ensure stability so that Argentina does not return to its failed populist policies under a new administration. The current government is full of technocrats that understand this and, if push comes to shove, would convince Macri that this is his least worst option. Such an event would provide sufficient funding sources until at least the end of next year.

from Surety Bonding Solutions https://www.bondvigilantes.com/blog/2018/05/08/an-update-on-argentina/

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danihoule61987-blog · 6 years

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Video Game Headlines, Reviews, Previews As well as Blog post.

As the gliding glass doors from the hospital electrical power free, the mid-day sun blinds me. While my eyes get used to the obvious lighting, I can not see the paradox but help from the culture before me. An other half is actually gingerly assisting his partner from her wheelchair. However other car organizations are profoundly skeptical, keeping in mind that a nationally scrappage plan would not target the metropolitan places where air contamination is a problem which several contaminating diesel-powered automobiles are actually relatively brand new, consequently incredibly costly to scrap. Having said that, final month buyers additionally rushed to buy vehicles prior to brand new car excise obligation rates enter pressure. If you want to check out more regarding lumaxywax.info look at the web site. The conventional car sector has actually gradually been improving its own result of clean electric and hybrid diesel/electric styles, yet in handful. 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Those that heavily depend on a smartphone everyday will be happy to listen to that the 2016 Optima assists Android Auto, which lets your mobile phone take control of the in-vehicle screen with a Google.com Now-esque user interface. A good tactic to utilize to create a résumé is actually the four-section (or quadrant) method. In fact, several experts have taken note that today's electricity autos usually provide extra carbon exhausts to the environment in comparison to a regular gasoline-powered automobile, given that certainly not simply perform they frequently draw electricity from dirtier power sources compared to gasoline, there are additional energy expenses in charging the batteries and, much more considerably, in the complex manufacturing from the electric batteries themselves.

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friedsharkland-blog · 6 years

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GLA Supplements Show Assurance For Fat burning.

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I strongly believe that if you teach as difficult as Matt carries out, then you will definitely possess the muscle mass as well as for that reason the improved metabolism to clear any kind of food you consume, even if that is actually a junk food thing like pizza. Within a hours from reading his theories about The Final Supper, deprivation and also his experiments and reviews with typically thin" individuals I really felt s SIGNIFICANT launch from worry, food obsession dismay and all the food crap travel luggage I 'd been actually taught with. . In the diet regimen sense, possibly a healthy-minded vegetarianism that possesses values as its own manner can be thought of even more like religious belief that needs to be respected regardless of whether you do not care about that on your own. It seems to pay attention to meat the uncloven unguis creature as meals or even fish versus poultry. 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The investigators' objective for this group from over weight people was actually for reduction from 7% from physical body weight through diet regimen, exercise, and routine therapy sessions. Information showed the diet just group dropped 6% from preliminary body system weight, however cannot keep 5% weight-loss after an additional 6 months. Come back to regular blood sugar level checks when your diet plan or workout regimen changes. Enjoyable fact: once I decided to carry out specifically what I wished along with my body system as well as exactly how I supplied that, I possessed a lot opportunity to accomplish factors besides plan my diet regimen as well as bother with my weight all day that my life came to be filled up with awesomeness (like creating this blog, obtaining published in a journal and also doing a podcast ). My life is TECHNIQUE more meeting now compared to when I complied with the body-police policies. If you carry out have a body system mass mark in the obese assortment, speak with a general practitioner or a dietician or even other healthcare qualified regarding incredibly low energy diet plan as a choice. This additionally assists to boost the look of dimply skin - yet another concern that can easily occur after losing a lot of body weight. Regardless, http://blogpourhomme.fr/gouttes-hommes-hammer-of-thor-avis-prix/ seems that a very-low-carb diet could be among the best dietary techniques to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Even those that saw to it to add workout and diet also cannot view any type of end results.

The various other issue is actually that folks may do a lot of damage with their diet that is practically inconceivable to make up through exercise, claims Johnson. I presume all physical bodies are actually amazing - thin, fat deposits, impaired, fan, shapely, angular, apples, pears, carrots, oatmeal (what, thin folks can't possess food items body-descriptors?). They possessed suggestions for me to drop weight and also one was actually certainly not to cut calories that considerably, in order to get enough nutrients and also not to enter famine method. I accept, I have actually only begun my new eating habits (I refuse to phone it a diet regimen - sounds short-lived) as well as I' v dropped concerning 1.5 pounds a week ... really well-balanced.

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celticnoise · 7 years

Link

Keith Jackson. Oh man. Why is it always his paper I have to write about? Chris Jack is a stain on The Evening Times, he and Derek Johnstone, but at least Johnstone has been around the block and played the game. Those two aside that paper isn’t bad. But The Record produces crap writers and they in turn produce dreadful swill day after day.

And so on to today’s particular story, Keith Jackson on Derek McInnes, and the sheer weight of presumption in it. The central plank of it has nothing to do with McInnes at all though; the story is built around how he will find Ibrox impossible to resist if Sevco acts now.

I sit here and wonder; why should that be the case? And why does Jackson continue to believe it? Why does his paper, and its editors?

It’s because they have never accepted that everything has changed. That Sevco is not Rangers and that Rangers itself was a phantom construct built out of debts and tax fraud.

It’s bad enough to base your entire view of this Ibrox club based on the exploits of the last one, but when the last one wasn’t even real you are doing more than chasing ghosts. You are chasing fairytales. That never ends well.

Read the following lines, which open this article;

“The assumption is that sooner or later Rangers will be forced to confront the obvious. That at some point in the next few days they will finally pick up the phone to Pittodrie and ask for the handset to be passed to Derek McInnes. And that, whenever that call is eventually made, a grateful McInnes will bound out of the door and speed down the A90 as quickly as the average speed cameras will allow him.”

A grateful McInnes. For what? For a job offer only marginally better, if it is better, than the one he has right now? You think McInnes is sitting, waiting, for that call? You think he’s in a hurry to dump his low-expectation number to go to a club where the pressure is relentless and the expectations wildly overblown? A club in serious peril?

For just a moment, he seems ready to confront this;

“But, the longer they wait to turn assumptions into reality, the more time they are allowing McInnes to consider about what is really waiting there for him at the end of the road. The more reason he might find to think twice about accepting the charges …”

And yet this isn’t an admission that Sevco is a basket-case club; it’s a mild musing on whether or not McInnes will “feel wanted.”

Let me tell you, manager’s don’t make decisions like based on the warm feeling they get inside when they pick up the phone and hear how loved they are. They base them on hard-nosed facts, on cold analysis, and McInnes will certainly not be in any rush.

The other assumptions in the article are equally specious.

“Sound logic and basic arithmetic will tell him he can get much closer to Rodgers and Celtic with a budget of circa £15m to spend on building a team as opposed to the relatively paltry wage bill he’s been afforded at Pittodrie.”

So that’s how it works, is it? Sound logic and basic arithmetic? Imagine, Keith Jackson having the brass ones to write that sentence as if he understands logic or arithmetic. He clearly doesn’t know what “£16 million in debt” means. He thought Craig Whyte was a billionaire. He believes that Celtic and the Ibrox club are separated by the simplest equation of “we can spend a tenner for every fiver they do.” And it couldn’t be further from the truth.

In transfer terms, the media says they outspent us in the summer; maybe they did. But where does Jackson think all the money at Celtic Park goes? Our wage bill isn’t twice what theirs is; it’s three times bigger, a gap they will find impossible to bridge.

Here’s how the “sound logic and basic arithmetic” shakes us for Jackson though.

“The sums alone would make him more than five times more likely to put up a genuine title challenge.”

This guy can’t possibly be for real.

And check this out for utter drivel;

“Also, McInnes cannot go on for ever bumping his head off a glass ceiling. The work he has done in transforming Aberdeen has been truly remarkable but he may well believe his best chance of winning trophies with them came and went with Ronny Deila. The game has changed to such an extent since the arrival of Rodgers at Parkhead that only Rangers can finance his own managerial ambitions And, assuming if the board there are prepared to spend as much money on his squad as they were on Pedro Caxininha’s it stands to reason that McInnes will use it far more wisely. He doesn’t need to blow fortunes in attempting to make Rangers better than Celtic. He only needs to give them their money’s worth by making them better than the rest.”

So, McInnes is bumping his head off a glass ceiling at Aberdeen. But even in the event that he gets the kind of money Crazy Pedro did, he only has to make Sevco better than everyone else bar us … tell me how that’s different from what he’s doing now? Tell me how making them better than everyone else equates to catching us?

Here’s the crux of it.

“When McInnes concentrates on scenarios like this, he will begin to convince himself that Rangers is the right job at the right time rather than the poisoned chalice which Caixinha created. He will back his own judgement too and believe that he can sift through the deadwood and rubble which the previous two managers have left behind. So long as the board and the Rangers supporters are prepared to back him on a long term basis – and over a number of transfer windows – McInnes will be able to build something far more reliable and trustworthy.”

The mention of the “long term basis” and this assumption that the board and the fans will back him over the stretch. Sevco fans know he’s a second rater before he even gets in the door. They know the best they can expect from him is to steady the ship; hiring McInnes will be an admission of defeat, of failure, before the ink is even dry on the deal.

Celtic is heading for seven in a row. Jackson and his “basic arithmetic” should be able to do simple sums. Next up is eight. After that it’s nine.

The closer Celtic is to that number and the next one the more desperate people over there will become. I think we’ll have seen at least two more Sevco bosses before our ten in a row; beyond that the pressure might be less but I wouldn’t count on it.

The “deadwood and rubble” the last two managers have left behind can be summarised in the simple image of an empty cupboard. McInnes won’t have the chance to “sift through” it; this is the squad he’ll be working with until he can get rid of some of them, and I wouldn’t count on that being easy with guys like Herrera and Pena and Alves.

There is no huge transfer kitty. Only loans from a convicted tax cheat who’s facing court sanction and possible banishment. The club has to sell before it can buy which means finding people willing to take dreck off their hands for actual money. Even Morelos, the £10 million superstar, has gone something like eight games without a goal … this is a mess.

And Jackson is oblivious to all of it. The name “Rangers”, even if it’s not the name of the club playing at Ibrox right now, not the real name anyway, is all he sees.

Any good manager would look beyond that name … and that’s why Graeme Murty is still favourite to land the job, and why Sevco fans should be prepared for it.

http://ift.tt/2y6cZ9l

#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #TheCelticBlog #News

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shopdealman-blog · 7 years

Text

Forget the runway-copying conglomerates. The new breed of fast-fashion designer can turn a social-media trend into affordable clothing in the blink of an eye. Which is exactly as cool—and as ethically complicated–as it sounds. After the #menswear boom of the mid-to-late aughts, guys began looking in the mirror at their chambray shirts, raw selvedge denim and moc toe boots and wondering what was next for their sartorial lives. It wasn't long before they were trading in Yuketen for Yeezy, Ralph Lauren for Raf Simons, and A.P.C. for SLP. But swapping heritage gear for high-fashion looks put pressure on their wallets. Fast-fashion retailers like Zara and H&M were there to give them the trends they craved at a fraction of the cost (and often testing the boundary between "inspired by" and outright ripped off in the process). As menswear became more like womenswear—more driven by “it” items from season to season—guys started looking for new ways to keep up with the revolving door of trends. The times are changing once again. Interest in fast-fashion is, for the first time, waning. In the first quarter of this year, H&M had their first monthly sales drop in nearly four years, and Zara parent company Inditex SA saw profitability shrink to an eight-year low. They attribute these strains to divergent spending habits and the rise of competition, but it's also coming from the ground up—via young, independent, hungry labels that have used social media to attract young, trend-hungry customers. These brands might not categorize themselves as fast-fashion, but despite their relatively modest sizes, they understand the importance of instant gratification to their style-savvy, cost-cognizant audience. And like their more corporate competition, brands like Represent, KNYEW, and MNML have gotten popular by flipping the hottest current trends into instantly-available items, while using social media and YouTube to reach new customers. But to the designers giving the inspiration, like Fear of God’s Jerry Lorenzo, some of these new-age fast-fashion brands are more like imitators than actual designers. Richard Sung, the co-founder of Las Vegas lifestyle brand KNYEW, knows what makes customers apprehensive about traditional fast-fashion retailers. “When I think of fast-fashion, I think of a massive tornado,” he says. “It sucks up everything in its path, feeding off other designers, destroying the environment we live in with absolutely no remorse for the devastation it leaves behind.” But labels like Sung’s are still taking a page out of the Zara playbook. Rather than revolutionize by inventing the next big trend, they've gotten ahead by hopping on current trends quicker than anyone else. Brothers George and Mike Heaton started Represent with a small collection of distressed and ripped denim. Since then, the line has evolved into outerwear, velour hoodies, mohair shirts and crepe sole boots—the kind of products that hit runways a few seasons ago but are just now trickling down to the masses. "Fast-fashion puts such a pressure on the high-end seasonal approach to retail," George says. Represent has to keep up with trends just like any fast-fashion brand, but being small allows them to be nimble and selective about which trends they choose to hop on. They don’t have to make clothes in line with every trend. They just need the ones they bet on to be hits. Represent’s competitive prices—bomber jackets for $370 and jeans for $150 that resemble the $1,000-plus versions made by Fear Of God—are a product of striking while the trend iron is hot. “We’re able to exceed minimum quantities [for fabric orders], which in turn brings prices down, which helps us create a wholesale margin as well as a healthy retail profit,” George Heaton says. In that way, Represent isn’t much different than a traditional fast-fashion retailer. Sell a shit ton of a shirt or pants, and you can buy up the fabric to make them for less. Where they differ is in the amount of products they offer. Selling fewer total styles, which keeps the need to buy multiple different fabrics to a minimum. Like their customers, Represent pays close attention to social media. So do other brands. “We’re always keeping an eye on what’s going on in other industries as well—music, visual art, design—to make sure we’re developing upon other relevant areas to incorporate into our line,” says George. “With blogs and influencers, that product elevation allows [products] to be pushed hard to the masses, which in turn makes it a trend.” Parisian brand Nid de Guepes, too, points to a vague idea of “youth culture” as their inspiration, but they also have a pragmatic-veering-toward-cynical approach to the industry. "In the ready-to-wear industry and fast-fashion, everything has been invented, you cannot create something really revolutionary," says Erwan Ferriere, the brand's communications manager. “We don’t have the same market power Vetements, Gosha [Rubchinskiy] or Off-White has. It’s risky for a brand like us to release something that will be trendy before any high fashion brand releases it. So we must re-interpret what’s trendy—which is in the fashion world most of the time un-wearable—and make it wearable.” Courtesy of Represent Courtesy of Represent Other brands keep costs down in slightly less savory ways. The owner and founder of LA-based MNML, who prefers to go by “M” for what will be obvious reasons, admits that his designs do more than just pay homage. He works with factories overseas to make MNML’s line of jeans, primarily in India and China. He sends those factories examples of pieces to reproduce from popular brands like Fear of God and Saint Laurent. (He’s even had vintage Levi’s remade.) During our conversation, he says he’s wearing a pair of Saint Laurent jeans that served as the inspiration for MNML’s F36—though, in this case, “inspiration” isn’t entirely accurate. But he says his gear can hold its own. “The key to our success has just been partnering with amazing factories. We have probably the best wash house in China,” M says. “I see brands that make denim in LA or overseas. I walk into Barneys and I’m looking at $300 jeans and I’m like, ‘Your wash sucks.’ Our wash factory nails it.” He takes pride in the quality of his products because he’s done his due diligence in what he’s sourcing and who he works with. He knows he wouldn’t be able to keep costs so low if everything was sourced and manufactured in LA. “The minimums are absolutely insane. It takes forever,” he explains. “It’s the apparel business, so if you want to be successful, especially if you have a fast-fashion brand, you’re definitely producing overseas.” M. admits that, as someone who cares about fashion, he sometimes feels guilty about replicating the work of popular, trendsetting brands, but doesn’t get too bent out of shape. “At the end of the day,” he says, “it’s a wash and some holes in jeans. And it’s about giving people the look that they want for less.” Jerry Lorenzo couldn’t disagree more with MNML’s claim to being a sort of streetwear Robin Hood. “I don’t want to hear that they’re doing some service to people who can’t afford our product. If you want to do a service, go give some clothes to the homeless. Selling a pair of $100 jeans to a kid isn’t providing a service to him,” he says. In response, MNML’s designer M. sees things differently. “If a student can spend $64 for a pair of quality jeans as opposed to hundreds or even thousands of dollars to look good, I think that is a service to a degree. Even though we do donate to charity on a regular basis, MNML is obviously a business and we feel we are offering something of value to our customer.” Courtesy of MNML Courtesy of MNML To Lorenzo, what these upstart fast-fashion labels do is extremely damaging to his brand, especially when they’re able to knock off his designs before he can get the authentic product to customers. But he’s most frustrated by the idea that someone will mistake their gear for his. “It took us a lot of time and work to nail those proportions and details, and they’re stealing our designs and passing them off as their own,” he says. “No one knows that their track pants aren’t Fear of God, and so when they see it they might think, ‘That’s a $900 track pant?’ because their quality sucks, and that’s damaging to what we’re doing.” According to Lorenzo, MNML goes a step further than say a Zara or a Topman. The big brands might adopt his design language like side zippers and oversized fits, but not the whole design itself. “I take seeing pieces inspired by mine at, like, Topman or Zara as a sign we have influence,” he says. “But when you see a track pant or hoodie with the same seams, proportion, colors, and zipper placements, it’s just stealing. That brand built its entire brand off of our proposition. It’s like erasing our name off the homework assignment, putting yours on it and saying you did the work,” he says of MNML. But MNML isn’t willing to sell the farm on the fact that they are stealing designs, per se. “Our aim is to offer affordable fashion, and we are following the model that Zara, Topman, and H&M laid,” says M. “The only difference between them and us is those companies make poor quality clothes, billions of dollars and they don’t pay attention to the details.” He says his clothing is inspired by multiple sources, no different than any other designer or brand, and the number of styles of denim he’s producing, along with the positive customer feedback he receives, is proof that he’s doing right by the customer. MNML Track Pants Fear of God's Fifth Collection Fear of God Track Pants Legally speaking, however, Lorenzo's options may be limited, as his designs don’t rely on heavy branding or ornamentation—marks, like Adidas’s three stripes or Nike’s swoosh, that are easier to copyright. Still, Lorenzo says his legal team is currently working on how to address MNML and companies like it. Previously, Fear of God took legal action against Represent for a bomber jacket Lorenzo felt was too close to his own—an issue that he says has since been resolved. (For what it's worth, Represent still sells a bomber jacket that is quite similar to the one Fear of God made back in 2014.) Micro-trends, Instagram marketing, aggressive litigation: the world of independent fast-fashion is in its Wild West period. And that’s all because these brands want to serve a much savvier consumer than the retail world has ever seen. They’re online, they know the trends, and they know how much they're willing to spend to get them. In their pursuit of young, cool customers, these labels are not unlike their more profitable elders. And some of these independent labels can even stake a legitimate claim to delivering designer looks to the masses for less, without all of the negative connotations that come with fast-fashion mall shopping. For now, though, the line between counterfeit and inspiration remains blurry. And while a label like Represent can use its indie status as cover for trend-hopping, they want to expand: Represent plans to open its own store in 2018. And as indie fast-fashion jumps into the big leagues, a these companies will have to confront a challenge: they’ll run the risk of becoming the very thing they set out to disrupt.

Forget the runway-copying conglomerates. The new breed of fast-fashion designer can turn a social-media trend into affordable clothing in the blink of an eye. Which is exactly as cool—and as ethically complicated–as it sounds. After the #menswear boom of the mid-to-late aughts, guys began looking in the mirror at their chambray shirts, raw selvedge denim and moc toe boots and wondering what was next for their sartorial lives. It wasn’t long before they were trading in Yuketen for Yeezy, Ralph Lauren for Raf Simons, and A.P.C. for SLP. But swapping heritage gear for high-fashion looks put pressure on their wallets. Fast-fashion retailers like Zara and H&M were there to give them the trends they craved at a fraction of the cost (and often testing the boundary between “inspired by” and outright ripped off in the process). As menswear became more like womenswear—more driven by “it” items from season to season—guys started looking for new ways to keep up with the revolving door of trends. The times are changing once again. Interest in fast-fashion is, for the first time, waning. In the first quarter of this year, H&M had their first monthly sales drop in nearly four years, and Zara parent company Inditex SA saw profitability shrink to an eight-year low. They attribute these strains to divergent spending habits and the rise of competition, but it’s also coming from the ground up—via young, independent, hungry labels that have used social media to attract young, trend-hungry customers. These brands might not categorize themselves as fast-fashion, but despite their relatively modest sizes, they understand the importance of instant gratification to their style-savvy, cost-cognizant audience. And like their more corporate competition, brands like Represent, KNYEW, and MNML have gotten popular by flipping the hottest current trends into instantly-available items, while using social media and YouTube to reach new customers. But to the designers giving the inspiration, like Fear of God’s Jerry Lorenzo, some of these new-age fast-fashion brands are more like imitators than actual designers. Richard Sung, the co-founder of Las Vegas lifestyle brand KNYEW, knows what makes customers apprehensive about traditional fast-fashion retailers. “When I think of fast-fashion, I think of a massive tornado,” he says. “It sucks up everything in its path, feeding off other designers, destroying the environment we live in with absolutely no remorse for the devastation it leaves behind.” But labels like Sung’s are still taking a page out of the Zara playbook. Rather than revolutionize by inventing the next big trend, they’ve gotten ahead by hopping on current trends quicker than anyone else. Brothers George and Mike Heaton started Represent with a small collection of distressed and ripped denim. Since then, the line has evolved into outerwear, velour hoodies, mohair shirts and crepe sole boots—the kind of products that hit runways a few seasons ago but are just now trickling down to the masses. “Fast-fashion puts such a pressure on the high-end seasonal approach to retail,” George says. Represent has to keep up with trends just like any fast-fashion brand, but being small allows them to be nimble and selective about which trends they choose to hop on. They don’t have to make clothes in line with every trend. They just need the ones they bet on to be hits. Represent’s competitive prices—bomber jackets for $370 and jeans for $150 that resemble the $1,000-plus versions made by Fear Of God—are a product of striking while the trend iron is hot. “We’re able to exceed minimum quantities [for fabric orders], which in turn brings prices down, which helps us create a wholesale margin as well as a healthy retail profit,” George Heaton says. In that way, Represent isn’t much different than a traditional fast-fashion retailer. Sell a shit ton of a shirt or pants, and you can buy up the fabric to make them for less. Where they differ is in the amount of products they offer. Selling fewer total styles, which keeps the need to buy multiple different fabrics to a minimum. Like their customers, Represent pays close attention to social media. So do other brands. “We’re always keeping an eye on what’s going on in other industries as well—music, visual art, design—to make sure we’re developing upon other relevant areas to incorporate into our line,” says George. “With blogs and influencers, that product elevation allows [products] to be pushed hard to the masses, which in turn makes it a trend.” Parisian brand Nid de Guepes, too, points to a vague idea of “youth culture” as their inspiration, but they also have a pragmatic-veering-toward-cynical approach to the industry. “In the ready-to-wear industry and fast-fashion, everything has been invented, you cannot create something really revolutionary,” says Erwan Ferriere, the brand’s communications manager. “We don’t have the same market power Vetements, Gosha [Rubchinskiy] or Off-White has. It’s risky for a brand like us to release something that will be trendy before any high fashion brand releases it. So we must re-interpret what’s trendy—which is in the fashion world most of the time un-wearable—and make it wearable.” Courtesy of Represent Courtesy of Represent Other brands keep costs down in slightly less savory ways. The owner and founder of LA-based MNML, who prefers to go by “M” for what will be obvious reasons, admits that his designs do more than just pay homage. He works with factories overseas to make MNML’s line of jeans, primarily in India and China. He sends those factories examples of pieces to reproduce from popular brands like Fear of God and Saint Laurent. (He’s even had vintage Levi’s remade.) During our conversation, he says he’s wearing a pair of Saint Laurent jeans that served as the inspiration for MNML’s F36—though, in this case, “inspiration” isn’t entirely accurate. But he says his gear can hold its own. “The key to our success has just been partnering with amazing factories. We have probably the best wash house in China,” M says. “I see brands that make denim in LA or overseas. I walk into Barneys and I’m looking at $300 jeans and I’m like, ‘Your wash sucks.’ Our wash factory nails it.” He takes pride in the quality of his products because he’s done his due diligence in what he’s sourcing and who he works with. He knows he wouldn’t be able to keep costs so low if everything was sourced and manufactured in LA. “The minimums are absolutely insane. It takes forever,” he explains. “It’s the apparel business, so if you want to be successful, especially if you have a fast-fashion brand, you’re definitely producing overseas.” M. admits that, as someone who cares about fashion, he sometimes feels guilty about replicating the work of popular, trendsetting brands, but doesn’t get too bent out of shape. “At the end of the day,” he says, “it’s a wash and some holes in jeans. And it’s about giving people the look that they want for less.” Jerry Lorenzo couldn’t disagree more with MNML’s claim to being a sort of streetwear Robin Hood. “I don’t want to hear that they’re doing some service to people who can’t afford our product. If you want to do a service, go give some clothes to the homeless. Selling a pair of $100 jeans to a kid isn’t providing a service to him,” he says. In response, MNML’s designer M. sees things differently. “If a student can spend $64 for a pair of quality jeans as opposed to hundreds or even thousands of dollars to look good, I think that is a service to a degree. Even though we do donate to charity on a regular basis, MNML is obviously a business and we feel we are offering something of value to our customer.” Courtesy of MNML Courtesy of MNML To Lorenzo, what these upstart fast-fashion labels do is extremely damaging to his brand, especially when they’re able to knock off his designs before he can get the authentic product to customers. But he’s most frustrated by the idea that someone will mistake their gear for his. “It took us a lot of time and work to nail those proportions and details, and they’re stealing our designs and passing them off as their own,” he says. “No one knows that their track pants aren’t Fear of God, and so when they see it they might think, ‘That’s a $900 track pant?’ because their quality sucks, and that’s damaging to what we’re doing.” According to Lorenzo, MNML goes a step further than say a Zara or a Topman. The big brands might adopt his design language like side zippers and oversized fits, but not the whole design itself. “I take seeing pieces inspired by mine at, like, Topman or Zara as a sign we have influence,” he says. “But when you see a track pant or hoodie with the same seams, proportion, colors, and zipper placements, it’s just stealing. That brand built its entire brand off of our proposition. It’s like erasing our name off the homework assignment, putting yours on it and saying you did the work,” he says of MNML. But MNML isn’t willing to sell the farm on the fact that they are stealing designs, per se. “Our aim is to offer affordable fashion, and we are following the model that Zara, Topman, and H&M laid,” says M. “The only difference between them and us is those companies make poor quality clothes, billions of dollars and they don’t pay attention to the details.” He says his clothing is inspired by multiple sources, no different than any other designer or brand, and the number of styles of denim he’s producing, along with the positive customer feedback he receives, is proof that he’s doing right by the customer. MNML Track Pants Fear of God’s Fifth Collection Fear of God Track Pants Legally speaking, however, Lorenzo’s options may be limited, as his designs don’t rely on heavy branding or ornamentation—marks, like Adidas’s three stripes or Nike’s swoosh, that are easier to copyright. Still, Lorenzo says his legal team is currently working on how to address MNML and companies like it. Previously, Fear of God took legal action against Represent for a bomber jacket Lorenzo felt was too close to his own—an issue that he says has since been resolved. (For what it’s worth, Represent still sells a bomber jacket that is quite similar to the one Fear of God made back in 2014.) Micro-trends, Instagram marketing, aggressive litigation: the world of independent fast-fashion is in its Wild West period. And that’s all because these brands want to serve a much savvier consumer than the retail world has ever seen. They’re online, they know the trends, and they know how much they’re willing to spend to get them. In their pursuit of young, cool customers, these labels are not unlike their more profitable elders. And some of these independent labels can even stake a legitimate claim to delivering designer looks to the masses for less, without all of the negative connotations that come with fast-fashion mall shopping. For now, though, the line between counterfeit and inspiration remains blurry. And while a label like Represent can use its indie status as cover for trend-hopping, they want to expand: Represent plans to open its own store in 2018. And as indie fast-fashion jumps into the big leagues, a these companies will have to confront a challenge: they’ll run the risk of becoming the very thing they set out to disrupt.

For the first time, the event will also include a series of technology talks. Over day two and three, about 20 speakers including Zalora Group CEO Parker Gundersen and Goldman Sachs senior vice-president Andy Tai will speak on the business and technology of fashion.

The annual show has also been cut to three days this year, the first time in the show’s 11-year history.

“In this age of digital…

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junker-town · 7 years

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Which struggling NHL team should be more worried: the Rangers or Canadiens?

A look at the issues facing two teams in the Eastern Conference.

In a few days, the Rangers and Canadiens will meet at the Bell Centre for a game where, thankfully, one of them will win. The weekend summit between two NHL teams that have left their fans sweating early this season will surely come with a lot of handwringing over which is more likely to get back on track.

New York and Montreal are two of the biggest fan bases in hockey, and they’ve had a lot to say while their teams stumbled early this season. The Rangers and Habs were supposed to be potential contenders, but they’re currently last in their respective divisions. The pressure is building in those markets to start winning or make changes.

Saturday will be ground zero for that growing tension, and a victory would be a step in the right direction for either team. The good news, for both clubs, is that we’re still early enough in the season that things can change quickly. After all, last year’s Canadiens started 13-1-1, then went 34-25-8 afterwards. The first few weeks aren’t necessarily indicative of a team’s destiny.

But there are very real reasons for concern with the Rangers and Canadiens, who have two of the worst goal differentials in the league this season. With that in mind, let’s look at the pair of struggling Eastern Conference teams, and which one might be more likely to break out of its funk.

Rangers

The record: 2-6-2, -11 goal differential

What’s gone right: Not a whole lot, but it’s worth noting the Rangers are 12th in goals for and 12th in power play rate. Their offense has been respectable, and it might have room for further improvement, too.

For example, Mika Zibanejad has just one assist in 10 games, and he’s spent a lot of time with Chris Kreider and Pavel Buchnevich, who are shooting a combined 3.8 percent this season. That figure should go up, and Zibanejad’s point production with it. Over the past three seasons, Alain Vigneault’s teams shot between 9.6 and 10.4 percent. This season, the Rangers are at 7.7 percent, so there’s a good chance that won’t last.

The defense has had a lot more issues, but Ryan McDonagh has played relatively well as the top blue liner. The Rangers have posted a 54.3 percent 5-on-5 Corsi with him on the ice, and they’ve taken 61.9 percent of high-danger scoring chances, per Natural Stat Trick. He hasn’t gotten much of a chance with Kevin Shattenkirk yet, so it’s hard not to wonder whether that pairing could be the dominant one New York needs, even if it’s at the expense of spreading out talent a bit more.

The Rangers are also third in the NHL in penalty differential at plus-10, according to Corsica Hockey.

What’s gone wrong: Just about everything that wasn’t included above. A few forwards have played well, and McDonagh still looks like a good top-pairing defenseman, but the rest of the team has been a mess. They’re 22nd in penalty killing, 26th in save percentage, and 29th in venue- and score-adjusted 5-on-5 Corsi.

Over at Blueshirt Banter, SB Nation’s Rangers blog, a lot of blame has been directed at the coaching staff, which notably added former Stars coach Lindy Ruff over the summer, for a team that looks less than prepared.

Right now, we're watching five individuals play hockey at a time, and not a team. The Rangers might have some coherence if the coaching staff helped teach them, and the coaching staff might understand coherence if management led by example and showed them what that means. Right now, the New York Rangers need to decide what kind of team they are – one that’s rebuilding or one that’s contending, one that’s a collective unit playing high-speed hockey or just a group of guys who are each skating fast in different directions.

There’s also the matter of Henrik Lundqvist, the $8.5 million goalie, who hasn’t exactly signaled that he’s going to rebound from a down year. The 35-year-old has a .900 save percentage and 3.11 goals allowed average over nine starts. Both of those numbers would surpass the career-worst marks he set last season.

And no goaltender in the league has played more than Lundqvist after the Rangers traded backup Antti Raanta to the Coyotes over the summer. Ondrej Pavelec, with his .899 save percentage since the start of the 2015-16 season, doesn’t seem like much of a solution there. The Rangers will need to be careful not to overwork their aging star goalie this season considering he’s already waking up “with some discomfort.”

Canadiens

The record: 1-6-1, -20 goal differential

What’s gone right: Surely you’ve heard it already. The Canadiens’ success at generating shot attempts and limiting opposing shot attempts stands out for a team that’s struggled so badly. They’re seventh in 5-on-5 Corsi (53.8 percent) and ninth when adjusted for venue and score (51.6 percent), per Natural Stat Trick.

Those are usually indicators of a team that’s going to have success at 5-on-5, yet Montreal is dead last with a goal differential of minus-16. It’s indicative of the fact that offense in hockey is usually a product of both shot volume and shot quality. The Habs may have success in the former, but they’re clearly struggling in the latter. Still, history shows teams that that unusual shoot low percentages in October always see some improvement.

The reality is that Montreal is neither as bad as its raw goal production, nor as good as its shot attempt differential. According to Corsica Hockey, the Canadiens are actually 15th in the NHL with an expected goal percentage, which adjusts for shot location, type, etc., at 49.96 percent. At least in that statistic, the indication is that Montreal is closer to an average team than what we’ve seen so far.

What’s gone wrong: Well ... literally everything other than shot attempt distribution? Montreal is 31st in shooting percentage, 29th in save percentage, 28th on the power play, and 24th on the penalty kill. Jonathan Drouin leads the team with five points. The Blackhawks’ Ryan Hartman had that many in his first game.

Alex Galchenyuk, Tomas Plekanec, Andrew Shaw, and Max Pacioretty, four of their top scorers last season, have combined for three goals. Whatever adjustments Claude Julien has made so far this season, they haven’t worked yet. On Monday, Galchenyuk, a former 30-goal scorer and top-three draft pick, was skating on the fourth line in practice.

The Canadiens have been better than their paltry offensive production would suggest, but that’s not going to fix the issue of goaltending. Like with New York and Lundqvist, Montreal will be waiting anxiously for the old Carey Price to return. He’s posted a .881 save percentage in seven games, which hasn’t helped anyone.

Which team should be more worried?

It might be too early in the season to definitively make a statement about either team, but the Rangers and Canadiens have given their fans reasons to be worried early on. In both cases, it’s fair to say that these teams have a long way to go before they stand any chance of making a run for the Stanley Cup.

But if we’re talking about which team is more likely to turn around and at least get to the playoffs, the Canadiens may have an easier path. Their star goalie is more likely to rebound given his age and recent performance, and their superior 5-on-5 shot attempt numbers should give them more room to improve. Nobody shoots below four percent all season.

GM Marc Bergevin also has nearly $7 million in cap space to work with, per Cap Friendly, which gives the team flexibility to make a major acquisition before the trade deadline if the price is right. The Rangers have less than $2 million in cap space, so major reinforcements aren’t as likely to arrive.

Both Montreal and New York, not to mention their fans, didn’t expect to be here when the season began. But as we await the primetime meeting between these two teams on Saturday night, it’ll be interesting to see which one can take another step toward getting back on the rails.

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lenaglittleus · 7 years

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Eating One Meal a Day: Is it Really That Bad?

If you’re someone who loves to eat and cook, it’s probably never crossed your mind to even consider eating one meal a day.

But if you can’t cook or loathe doing the dishes — or you frequently find yourself too busy to eat a meal — you’ve probably wondered whether it was really that bad to eat just one meal a day.

Practically speaking, you could save an hour or more on cooking, shopping, and doing the dishes if you ate only one daily meal instead of three. But what does eating once a day do to your body? And is it something you should consider?

Newsflash: It’s not something you should consider — and here’s why eating just one meal a day could sabotage your weight loss. Let’s look at how this habit fell out of favor among humans — and why it’s one you can let go extinct.

Is Eating Less Frequently a Paleo Habit?

A lot of things separate our species from other mammals: opposable thumbs, large brains, pants, and, for the past 10,000 years or so (right up to the end of the Paleo age), a fairly predictable food supply. Before that, humans ate less often — but eating less frequently is a Paleo habit we don’t need to resurrect.

For the vast majority of human history, people ate when they were lucky enough to get a spear into a warthog, stumble across some honeycomb, gather a few nuts, or dig up a tuber. In other words, before the domestication of plants and animals, we ate when there was food available to us and fasted when there wasn’t.

It’s tempting then to imagine that we’re still suited to eat our calories outside of a breakfast, lunch, and dinner paradigm, but Jim White, R.D., a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, casts some doubt on whether we still have the necessary physiology to eat so sporadically.

“Our hunter-gatherer ancestors’ bodies were well-adapted to times of feast or famine,” he says. “Anthropologists have found that one adaptation to the limited availability of food was in the lengths of their small and large intestines, allowing them to survive on less. What we can learn from our ancestors, however, is that we are probably better off eating fewer processed foods and getting more exercise.”

Why Do We Eat Three Meals a Day?

Old habits die hard, and even the digestion-obsessed ancient Romans believed that eating once per day was the healthiest option.

So when did we start eating three meals a day, and do we need three meals a day? This three-a-day eating routine started during the 1500s, but whether three is the magic number is debatable.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner settled in the time slots we know today after the relatively recent advent of artificial light, the industrial revolution, and the standardization of the working day. But is this daily trio of meals four or five hours apart doing us right? Maybe not.

“I’m not an advocate of people eating according to a clock,” says Krista Haynes, R.D., C.S.S.D., and nutrition manager at Beachbody. “Just because it’s noon doesn’t mean you need to eat lunch because that’s lunchtime.”

Haynes encourages what she calls intuitive eating — focusing on hunger and satiety signals and fueling your body so that it can perform at its best. “That means that you eat enough food to meet your energy and nutrient requirements,” she says, rather than eating certain amounts as dictated by social norms.

Is Eating One Meal a Day Intermittent Fasting?

Eating once per day may seem like a form of intermittent fasting, but there are crucial differences between the two. While proponents say that intermittent fasting helps burn fat, build muscle, and perhaps boost longevity, the fasting studies that showed promise didn’t have people eating once a day as a regular habit but rather during certain hours.

A 2016 rodent study in the journal Endocrinology found that various intermittent fasting techniques can be more effective than reduced-calorie diets at lowering body fat while preserving lean mass.

But the fasting intervals are much shorter than the 23 hours per day that eating just one meal a day would entail. Studies have examined what happens to people should they eat all of their calories in one sitting, and it wasn’t a glowing recommendation.

A 2007 paper published in the journal Metabolism found that subjects who had all of their daily calories in one meal had elevated levels of blood glucose and ghrelin, a hormone that controls appetite (not to be confused with leptin, the one that suppresses food intake). Researchers warned against eating once a day.

In short, if you’re interpreting intermittent fasting as eating once a day, you’re doing it wrong!

What Happens to Your Body If You Eat Once a Day?

Though Haynes encourages less rigidity around meal timing, she’s far from being supportive of the once-per-day meal plan. Though skipping a meal or two is sometimes beyond our control, eating at regular intervals matters, she says. After you find out what happens to your body when you eat once a day, you’ll likely find time to eat.

“If it happens on occasion, I wouldn’t call it ‘bad,'” she says. “However, eating just one meal a day on a consistent basis has some pitfalls. First and foremost, it’d be very difficult to get your daily recommended calories, macronutrients, and micronutrients(vitamins and minerals) in just one meal, and if you even tried, then you’d be overly full, which in itself isn’t such a good idea.”

That feeling of being too full is what’s sometimes called digestive pressure. Think of it as giving your gut far more work than it can handle. But it’s not just your stomach and intestines that will be put through the wringer should you choose to eat like an anaconda.

Your heart has to work harder to pump more blood to your GI tract, too. What’s more, eating a giant meal may also cause occasional digestive upset (think of it like a rush-hour traffic jam in your gut).

Why Do I Get “Hangry”?

If you’ve ever skipped a meal (or two), you probably know what it’s like to be “hangry.” That is, the combination of hunger and anger that sends those around you running for the hills.

Eating once per day or going too long between meals can cause hanger, and once you’ve experienced it, you’ll know you want to avoid that feeling.

If you think eating once per day will help you meet your health and fitness goals, think again, says White. That plan will backfire, and it can interfere with your ability to have a good workout.

He explains that when we sleep, our metabolism enters a slowed-down fasting state, and if we don’t break out of that fast in the morning, our metabolism continues to run slowly until we do eat again.

“Maintaining that fasting state into the day can also leave us feeling low in energy, unable to concentrate, and irritable,” he says adding that skipping meals sets us up for overeating or making poor food choices when we do finally eat.

Science has White’s back on this one. In a study published in 2012 in the Journal of Circadian Rhythms (aka our sleep-wake cycle), it was found that mice that ate just one large meal per day gained more weight than mice that ate the same total amount of food in two sittings.

Is There Any Benefit to Eating One Meal a Day?

Is there anything positive to say about this habit? In a word, no. There is no benefit to eating once a day. A 12-hour fast (from, say, 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.) is fine, Haynes says, adding that the body will go through several physiological adaptations, including a metabolic shift to the breakdown of fat for fuel.

But then it’s time to break the fast. “If your body reaches starvation conditions, then it becomes more harmful than helpful,” she says. Eating once a day is definitely not one of the best strategies to lose weight. (Find out how to eat more and lose weight.)

The Bottom Line

Eating once a day might have been a reality for our ancestors, but regular meals and snacks help keep our metabolism running smoothly and energy levels steady. Eating one big meal a day can tax your digestive system and lead to “hanger.” Make time to eat when you’re hungry, even if you need to find some simple, no-cook snacks.

from News About Health https://www.beachbodyondemand.com/blog/one-meal-a-day

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sportsandfitnessinfo · 7 years

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New Post has been published on http://fitnessandhealthpros.com/fitness/when-is-the-best-time-of-day-to-strength-train/

When is the Best Time of Day to Strength Train?

Do you work out as soon as you awaken in the morning? No doubt about it, a sweat session is invigorating and gets you prepared for the upcoming day. Plus, it energizes you mentally and physically so you can tackle the daily challenges that lie ahead. Yet, there are advantages to exercising later in the day as well. Working out after work helps clear your mind and relieve the stress and tension that inevitably builds up over the course of the day. Even if you feel too tired to do it, once you start you feel that magical surge of energy. But what about strength training? Will you get better results if you strength train at a certain time of day? Morning or evening – does it matter?

Building Strength – Does Time of Day Matter?

Although few studies have looked at whether you gain more strength if you work out at a particular time of day, we can get insights by looking at how your body functions. You have an internal biological clock that determines your body’s circadian rhythms, the natural ebb and flow of hormone release, blood pressure regulation, and other physiological processes that your body carries out on a 24-hour basis. There’s even a portion of your brain dedicated to setting your biological clock – it’s called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.

How does this essential clock function? The suprachiasmatic nucleus is sensitive to environmental cues such as light coming into your eyes. The rays then strike the light-sensitive tissue in the back of your eyes called the retina. It uses light to set your clock so you’re in sync with the outside world. Not getting enough sleep or sleep at irregular hours can alter your biological clock and your body’s natural rhythms. Unfortunately, disruption of these rhythms is linked with health issues, such as a higher risk of type 2 diabetes and even cancer.

What does this have to do with strength training? Based on the rhythms set by your biological clock, physiological functions vary depending on the time of day. For example, your body temperature is lowest at around 4:30 A.M. when you’re probably still sleeping. Your body temperature gradually rises upon arising and throughout the day and typically reaches a peak at around 7:00 P.M.

Based strictly on body temperature, strength training first thing in the morning would not be optimal. Just after awakening, your body temperature is close to its lowest point. How supple can you expect your muscles to be when you first get out of bed? Muscle flexibility is at an all-time low when you first awaken. Low body temperature and less supple muscles also increase the risk of injury.

Muscle Protein Synthesis

Does muscle protein synthesis vary by time of day? To build muscle, you need to repair damaged muscle fibers sustained during a workout and enhance the size of the existing muscle fibers by building new contractile elements. According to some research, muscle recovery and the rate of muscle protein synthesis is greatest in the late afternoon and early evening. Will training at this time translate into greater gains in muscle or strength?

A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found no significant difference in muscle hypertrophy gains when healthy men trained in the morning and opposed to the afternoon over a 20-week period. But, another study involving healthy, strength trained guys found that those who trained in the evening (after 6:00 P.M.) gained 3% muscle size and lost 4% body fat, while the guys that worked out before 6:00 A.M, lost no body fat and gained only a small amount of muscle.

What about hormonal variations? We know that certain hormones, particularly testosterone, are anabolic and promote muscle hypertrophy. Testosterone reaches its peak in the morning. This might suggest that strength training in the morning would be advantageous due to the favorable anabolic effects. However, the stress hormone cortisol also peaks after your first wake up Cortisol is a catabolic hormone that opposes the action of testosterone by stimulating the breakdown of muscle tissue. So, you have two opposing forces, one anabolic and one catabolic. Do they cancel out? It would seem likely.

You’re Stronger Later in the Day

How strong do you feel when you wake up in the morning? If you’re like most people, you don’t feel like grabbing a heavy dumbbell when you first wake up and you may even feel a bit stiff. It’s not your imagination. Not only are you less flexible in the morning but your strength is at a nadir. Strength typically reaches a peak in the early evening. If you work out in the morning, you may not push as hard as in the evening when your muscles are warm, supple, and at your strength is peaking.

Coordination and reaction time are also greater in the afternoon as opposed to the morning. Plus, pain tolerance is higher in the late afternoon and early evening relative to the morning. With strength being high and pain tolerance also being high, you might be able to push more weight if you train later in the day. As a general rule, athletes perform best in the late afternoon and early evening.

One downside to lifting late in the day is the fatigue and motivation factor. After a long day at work, your motivation to push yourself may be lower. Therefore, a workout after work may be less productive. Of course, this depends on the hours you work and the type of job you have. If you sit all day, a weight training workout might be just what you need to perk up.

The Bottom Line

Although the time that’s best for weight training varies with the individual, based on time alone, weight training in the afternoon seems to offer the best balance. Your muscles are stronger and more flexible than they are first thing in the morning and your energy and motivation will likely be higher. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exercise in the morning. A circuit workout using lighter weights and cardiovascular drills can boost your energy level so you can better take on the day. However, when you’re doing serious strength training with heavy weights, afternoon or early evening training has advantages. Ultimately, you might be forced to decide based on your schedule. Whichever you choose, warm up thoroughly beforehand.

References:

J Nutr. 2016 Jul;146(7):1307-14. doi: 10.3945/jn.116.230086. Epub 2016 Jun 8. Bodybuilding.com. “What Is The Best Time Of Day To Weight Train?” J Strength Cond Res. 2009 Dec;23(9):2451-7. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181bb7388. Prozis.com. “What’s the best time of the day to work out?”

Originally at :Blog – Cathe Friedrich Written By : Cathe Friedrich

#Best, #Strength, #Time, #Train #Fitness

#Best #Strength #Time #Train #Fitness

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a1ign-blog · 7 years

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Trial & Error

Such is life.

I decided to start up my own Tumblr account for a couple reasons. But first, I want to talk about why it took me took me so long, thus jumped on the bandwagon.

Prominently known for its arty-farty-ness, Tumblr was another one of the social networking sites (in the Kpop world, it’s commonly mentioned as ‘SNS’) I strayed away from, for fear of not living up to standards of creativity. Instagram became more intimidating with posts of pictures, of which Illustrator or Photoshop and many other additional programs were utilized just to upgrade the overall aesthetic and reputation of the user. Facebook posts were just as scary particularly when key political events caused tension and rise to opposing voices. Snapchat seemed too invasive, putting pressure to make witty tag lines or to be in unique places. The same can be said for Twitter, to spit “hot fire” with some 400, 500 characters. YouTube takes a step further matching the words and profile to an actual human face or person - a different level of connection to the audience than that of the other SNS listed.

As I’m writing this, there’s some irony. 1) I am feeling obligated to use more elevated language. 2) I’m using Tumblr and not YouTube or a more direct platform of communication. 3) I’m using Tumblr for some of the reasons I already listed as my fears in the previous.

If you can see it, fear encompasses my reasons for straying from the listed SNS. Fear of how I am or would be received by people. Fear of disappointing people. Fear of not meeting expectations of above average performance or results. Fear of dealing with the reality of my faults, weaknesses, and blind spots. Fear of falling into difficult seasons of life and even possibly into depression or suicidal thoughts.

In a future post, I most likely will come back to talking about these fears and about how I believe they took root from my past and life experiences. Thankfully, by the grace of God I haven’t experienced episodes of suicidal thoughts… scratch that, I haven’t converted those thoughts into actions. To say the former isn’t being truthful since out of natural curiosity, I have entertained the thoughts of what would result from taking my own life.

I’ve gone on a tangent.

I want to use Tumblr for a couple of reasons. I was on a little study tour with FIDM recently and one buzzword that kept being repeated at every company/brand we visited was “omni channel.” The current state of the fashion industry is competing to stay relevant and ahead in its game against - get this - Amazon. With its low quality aesthetics, customers highly prefer its services over going into brick-and-mortar stores to get what they need. And social media plays a part in this competition as brands vie for customers. Tumblr came up in a panel at one of these visits. And I got to thinking about why not start using Tumblr myself.

Its reputation is mainly built around the creative juices of its users. I myself as a student at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising would like to exercise some of my own here as well. Along with my fashion projects, personal journaling is also a big outlet I use to express myself.

Now I’m not putting on display my works and opinions to build my own reputation and to receive recognition. I am using this platform to work on sharpening my sense of creativity, my vocabulary, and my ability to communicate. But more importantly, I want to use this platform as a step in my life to represent God well.

I wouldn’t be able to use YouTube. Not only is there more work that goes into making videos, compared to blogging/journaling. One immediately receives feedback which indefinitely and inevitably includes backlash the minute a video is out for public viewing. And that, I wouldn’t be able to handle as of now. Still, there is no guarantee I would not receive backlash here either. And don’t bring up the question, “Why not just block ‘em all?” That’s not gonna solve anything but only limit the hate that’s received. It’s not gonna bring that number to zero.

And you may be thinking, “Why are you even making these posts for the public to see when you’re already so fearful of posting in the first place?” I see this as a step forward in not just combatting the fears I have, but to build courage and the confidence I only have in Jesus Christ. God created me with these abilities to communicate and to also create. God as well graced me with the merit of righteousness and life to live when I did nothing to deserve that privilege. As a matter of fact, I deserved a sentence to hell for eternity because I was a product of sin, taking matters into my own hands, and utilizing that freedom to live the way I wanted and thought was best for myself.

I want to represent God well. As so little do I see that representation held up in this age and especially on SNS platforms.

So my dear readers, you’re welcomed to this community. I’m not talking about that of Tumblr. I’m talking about the family of God. My hope in posting thoughts, projects, even other people’s projects is to encourage you. Not to uplift you, to pass on “positive vibes,” but point you to someone better, Jesus. There is no guarantee that I won’t offend you. The message Jesus preachES (note the present tense, not past) is not meant to sit well with any of us. It makes us think about what kind of bad people we are, and how much greater and better God is, and not ourselves.

I was just catching up on some of KevJumba’s (Kevin Wu) YouTube videos as he is seemingly making a long awaited comeback. His message about the youth or millennial generation having the upper hand in making real changes in this world and about love having real power… really makes me cringe. You don’t know how much I cringe whenever I hear “This generation has the power to make a difference that really matters,” “love trumps hate,” “we are huge strides in progress during this day and age,” etc. etc. I can only think of how much more blind we all are getting.

Aside from making little grammar errors or even big mistakes as being theologically wrong in my Christian doctrines, I’ll own up to it.

As for being honest about myself and what may go on particularly in times of difficulty in my life, do forgive me if I just want to hide and even lie. My main intention for doing so wouldn’t be to deceive you, I hope. All the more would that prove how my life is an example of trial and error, how God redeems me from my mistakes and sins and gives me even greater power to move forward from them, understanding more clearly how powerful God is and how He desires for me to be like Him, to live a life like Jesus did.

Some of you may not understand what the heck I was talking about. I hope that I will be able to communicate those messages even more clearly as I continue to work on understanding them more clearly myself. And know that whether you are a committed reader, a time-to-time one, or even just a one-time reader, I’m not relying on numbers of likes, reposts, or even direct messages

Also, forgive me for using out-of-date or even out-of-place words/phrases. Though I’m still relatively young, I wouldn’t consider my language “current” with those of the youngin’s. As much as I try to update my knowledge, I am skeptical and loathe using slang that is out of the context in how familiar terms may have been used before, or are just fad words, they come and go, not as important or essential to use in everyday language.

One last thing to note, you may notice that I haven’t used any emoji’s. This is going to be challenge for me to just work on communicating to you like you would read a regular book or article.

Having to preface almost everything is gonna be a challenge to me too. I understand there isn’t a need to have to preface everything, every time I say something. You as my reader may just be able to get what I would say.

The other challenge, clicking that “Post now” button… you may very well understand why I’d be hesitant and instead keep editing and re-drafting until I think my post is “good enough” to go live.

Let me just reiterate myself. I’m not doing this for the numbers, viewers, likes, recognition, or reputation. I'm not promoting myself. Now revealing who I am is a whole other topic, of which I am hesitating to do. Partly it does have to do with protecting myself, but it also has to do with how I'd be received by those who do know me on a personal basis. I'll talk about that another time. Getting to the bottom line, my hope as I post is to encourage you by representing Christ well to you, SO that you would not only entertain your curiosity but your greatest need to know and have this Jesus in your journey through life.

Let the journey begin… or rather continue.

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