It’s like this. You leave work tired and hungry. You have to pick up a few things from the supermarket.
Have you noticed that you never go to the supermarket on a full stomach? And being a while since you had something to eat there’s always a bit of slack in your trousers.
Anyway, you push through the turnstile and blow me down, if there aren’t any baskets there. Every second time I go shopping I have to scrounge around the checkouts and bring a stack of baskets back to where they should be.
You do the right thing. You start in the fruit and vegetable section, move round to the fish, drop a bottle of peach tea into your basket, load up with a few groceries and then think ‘Hmmmm, I could do with something on the way home.’
You sneak back to the vegetables section and get a handful of cashews.
Now nuts are good for you. If you look at cashews, they possess herbal health benefits that include killing bacteria and germs, stopping diarrhea, drying secretions, increasing the libido, and reducing fever, blood sugar, blood pressure muscle spasms, migraine headaches, tension, soreness and fatigue. They help reduce gallstones, facilitate the utilization of iron and the elimination of free radicals.
The big problem is they pack a powerful energy punch. Cashews are around 2,400 kilojoules (kJ) per 100gms, which is about the size of the handful you scooped into the plastic bag. To put things in perspective, depending on your size and the amount of physical activity you get each day, you need between 7,000 or 8,000 a day.
Be that as it may, you’re as hungry as a horse and 100 grams doesn’t seem all that much as you navigate the lid on the box, and dip the shovel in. Two cashews fall on the floor. You look around. No-one’s watching. You stoop down, pick them up and stuff them into your mouth; can’t let good food go to waste.
You’ve cleaned the full 100gms up by the time you’re half way home and stick the empty bag under the seat to hide the evidence.
It’s your turn to cook tea. You’re still hungry. The smell of food in the supermarket and the thought of food at home has made you even hungrier. You could eat the crotch out of a low flying duck.
But first, before you get started, you need a few Ritz cracker biscuits just to tide you over. (They’re called Ritz because no-one ever had 1 Rit.) Now, whilst Ritz cracker biscuits have 2118 kJ /100gms, the redeeming feature is that each one is very small. But that only provides you with all the more reason to get through 20 of them while you’re cutting up the vegetables. There’s around 600kJ.
And they do taste better with some dip. Some of the dips contain 2000 kJ/100 grams. On this night you pull back and only have half the container, there’s 1000kJ, and all of which raises a thirst; and after all it’s been a long hard slog at the office. You’ve come home tired and depressed so the next thing you reach for is a central nervous system depressant. Duh!
The Heart Foundation reckons you’ll benefit by having a glass of wine a day; you interpret that as one’s good, two’s better and three’s best. Today it’s mid week so you decide to go easy, and restrict yourself to two glasses. A regular glass contains about 300kJ, your glasses contain 400 kJ. All up 800 kJ.
So if you want to know why your trousers are so tight they’re ring-barking you, let’s add up the kilojoules you’ve had before you’ve had your tea:
• cashews 2400
• cracker biscuits 600
• dip 1000
• wine 800
Total 4,800 kJ
On the track
Spent 30 minutes on the steppoer, 507 steps and 387 calories.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and eat and apple on your way home.
John Miller
http://www.fitandhealthyonline.com/
http://www.globalbackcare.com/
Epilogue. I forgot to tell you about the Cherry Ripe that someone put into the basket at the supermarket. That was an extra 1500kJ after tea.
Friday, May 21, 2010
GARVAN INSTITUTE ON THE BLUDGE - Wednesday 5th May
Went out to the letter box this morning and there's an unsolicited letter from the Garvan Medical Research Institute asking for a donation.
These people have a hide. Not satisfied with the funds they can prise out of the NH&MRC and wealthy dowagers from the leafy suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, they've now tuned their guns on the hoi polloi.
But what could you expect for an organisation set up by the Catholic Church and the University of New South Wales? Blend in the NH&MRC, Big Pharma and Madison Avenue in the form of a fund raising and PR department and they end up putting the bite on people like me. They must have spent a fortune sending out hundreds of thousands of letters, all in the hope of suckering 3% of people into sending them a donation. These are the sort of people that used to tug the heartstrings of my Mum and Dad.
A few years ago it was a cardiac charity setting up booths in shopping centres staffed by kids in suits.
Why do they want money from me?
When it comes to the Garvan Institute, it's not as though all those boffins are sitting on high stools peering down microscopes with the seat out of their pants and ladders in their panty hose.
Last year the Institute had an income of $64m. The spent $44m (of which $28,000,000 went on salaries) and trousered the rest. That's a cool $2o which no doubt has been added to the $100m in assets.
They want more. They obviously can't get any more from serial soft touch, Lady Fairfax or colourful Sydney businessman Trevor Kennedy and his wife, so they've written to the likes of me out in suburbia. Well sorry boffins, my charity dollars for this year have been allocated. It's gone to Somalia, or the Sudan or somewhere. You've called too late.
Pity the NSW Government. Despite going broke, last year they gave the Garvan $3.7m - which, no doubt got squirreled away into the hollow log that contains the $20m.
The flyer in the envelope with the letter begging for money extolled the virtues of the Institute and what jolly good, hard working fellows they all are. No mention that it's just another sheltered workshop for the academically gifted.
They're just one of many sheltered workshops up there in Sydney, research organisations run by the Sydney University and the University of NSW, spawned to suck on the NH&MRC tit and Big Pharma from cradle to grave.
Their 400 staff are in a perpetual drool as they hitch their wagons onto the latest gravy train passing through town.
Guess what they're researching at the moment?
- Obesity Research
- Osteoporosis Research
- Weight and Blood Pressure Medication
- Diabetes Risk Study
- Glutamine in Type 2 diabetes
- Pre-diabetes: early mechanisms in the development of type 2 diabetes.
You can put down the glasses the results are in. Eat less fat, flour and sugar. Exercise like buggery and get your acid/alkaline ratio back into the normal range. All fixed. These people are either very young or have short memories.
According to the bumpf on their website -
The Garvan Institute is a global leader in diabetes research and committed to finding new ways to understand, control and prevent the disease. Garvan researchers are tackling the problem of type 2 diabetes from many directions, including: investigating the role of genes in the development of type 2 diabetes; collaborating with scientists at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica to unlock the potential of traditional Chinese medicines for better treatments; and understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the disease.
These people don't have a clue about exercise not do they give a stuff about it. As the population becomes unfitter and fatter these people are peering down microscopes looking at the Islets of KD Langerhans. The reference to the Shanghai Institute means trips. They're trying to find out why Chinese medicine works. Hello! You don't have to find out why. It's been working vefry nicely thank you very much for a few thousand years. Modern medical research is about as arrogant as it gets.
World-wide collaborations have been set up. Maps have been Blue-tacked on walls and pins have been stuck into places all over the world. Pinz meenz tripz. They want me to pay for them. They're dreaming.
Simply put, this is a medical charity masquerading as a research centre that's turned academic bludging into an art form. Cop this -
You can create an online fund raising page for many different occasions that mark your life:
If you are having a birthday or wedding, why not ask people to make a donation to Garvan rather than give you unwanted presents?
If you have an anniversary or celebration, you can suggest that if people would like to honour this, they can do so through their donation to Garvan.
If a loved one has passed away, you can ask people to donate to Garvan in memory of your loved one instead of giving flowers.
If you are participating in an organised fundraising event such as a marathon, swim or triathlon, you can choose for proceeds to go to Garvan.
It's enough to make you want to ram your fingers down your throat and roll your eyes through to the back of your neck.
Like all these institutes it's run by boffins who spend a quarter of their life writing research grants and a quarter of their life sitting on review panels sniffing each others' bums and making sure they all get grants. The NH&MRC needs to bring Hercules in to muck out this stable.
Then they spend another quarter of their life doing some research, finishing off with the final quarter sprinting to the finish line writing papers referred by their mates for research journals no-one reads. Then it's off to international conferences to deliver the papers, sniff more bums, scratch more backs, quaff more Grange Hermitage supplied by drug companies and get their heads patted. It's a great big farce. Why? Because while all this is going on the population is getting fatter and unfitter by the day.
Papers that's what it's all about. You can look at some of them in the back of the Annual Report. These people don't produce anything except papers. They don't make anything, they don't sell anything. You'd think that after researching for the last 80 years the Garvan Institute would be rolling in income from patents.
And just who are these people? Most of them are second-raters who couldn't get a job out in the real world. Anyone who's smart as a tack gets out and makes their fortune producing something of value. Read the stories of Jobs, Ellison and Gates. These are stories of intelligence put to good use, that created value for themselves and their community.
The ones that stayed behind got a second class honors degree. If you've got one of them and you hang arouncampus long enough they'll take pity on you and slip you a few labouring jobs, running tutes for wet-behind-the-ears undergraduates and cleaning test tubes. If you can stick that out for a couple of years you're qualified start a doctorate. Once you've done that you can become a post.doc fellow and then you're on the academic equivalent of the dole for life.
After that it's busy work. It used to be vanity, now it's busy work.
Busy work, busy work, all is busy work - and cribbing a bit of work time to write letters to the papers telling the Government to spend more money on research so you can keep putting bread on the table. You sign your name 'Bill Nerd, PhD' just to let people know you're superior. To hell if what you're doing is useless.
Not only is it farce it's also tragedy that so much money can be spent on so many people with their heads down doing busy work. This is the academic equivalent of stimulating the economy by digging holes and filling them up again.
The great advances in health won't come out of a bloated, useless, self-serving Garvan Institute they'll come from people eating wisely and spending 40 minutes a day jogging round the block. Peering down microscopes and writing equations on white boards is the easy stuff. The hard stuff is getting people off their bums and out of the junk food eateries.
On the track
Out early with the boys, walking and running.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and if you've got type 2 diabetes go for a 40 minute run every day and eat more methylhydoxychalcone polymer. You'll find it in your kitchen cupboard. It's called cinnamon.
John Miller
http://www.globalbackcare.com/
http://www.fitandhealthyonline.com/
These people have a hide. Not satisfied with the funds they can prise out of the NH&MRC and wealthy dowagers from the leafy suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, they've now tuned their guns on the hoi polloi.
But what could you expect for an organisation set up by the Catholic Church and the University of New South Wales? Blend in the NH&MRC, Big Pharma and Madison Avenue in the form of a fund raising and PR department and they end up putting the bite on people like me. They must have spent a fortune sending out hundreds of thousands of letters, all in the hope of suckering 3% of people into sending them a donation. These are the sort of people that used to tug the heartstrings of my Mum and Dad.
A few years ago it was a cardiac charity setting up booths in shopping centres staffed by kids in suits.
Why do they want money from me?
When it comes to the Garvan Institute, it's not as though all those boffins are sitting on high stools peering down microscopes with the seat out of their pants and ladders in their panty hose.
Last year the Institute had an income of $64m. The spent $44m (of which $28,000,000 went on salaries) and trousered the rest. That's a cool $2o which no doubt has been added to the $100m in assets.
They want more. They obviously can't get any more from serial soft touch, Lady Fairfax or colourful Sydney businessman Trevor Kennedy and his wife, so they've written to the likes of me out in suburbia. Well sorry boffins, my charity dollars for this year have been allocated. It's gone to Somalia, or the Sudan or somewhere. You've called too late.
Pity the NSW Government. Despite going broke, last year they gave the Garvan $3.7m - which, no doubt got squirreled away into the hollow log that contains the $20m.
The flyer in the envelope with the letter begging for money extolled the virtues of the Institute and what jolly good, hard working fellows they all are. No mention that it's just another sheltered workshop for the academically gifted.
They're just one of many sheltered workshops up there in Sydney, research organisations run by the Sydney University and the University of NSW, spawned to suck on the NH&MRC tit and Big Pharma from cradle to grave.
Their 400 staff are in a perpetual drool as they hitch their wagons onto the latest gravy train passing through town.
Guess what they're researching at the moment?
- Obesity Research
- Osteoporosis Research
- Weight and Blood Pressure Medication
- Diabetes Risk Study
- Glutamine in Type 2 diabetes
- Pre-diabetes: early mechanisms in the development of type 2 diabetes.
You can put down the glasses the results are in. Eat less fat, flour and sugar. Exercise like buggery and get your acid/alkaline ratio back into the normal range. All fixed. These people are either very young or have short memories.
According to the bumpf on their website -
The Garvan Institute is a global leader in diabetes research and committed to finding new ways to understand, control and prevent the disease. Garvan researchers are tackling the problem of type 2 diabetes from many directions, including: investigating the role of genes in the development of type 2 diabetes; collaborating with scientists at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica to unlock the potential of traditional Chinese medicines for better treatments; and understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the disease.
These people don't have a clue about exercise not do they give a stuff about it. As the population becomes unfitter and fatter these people are peering down microscopes looking at the Islets of KD Langerhans. The reference to the Shanghai Institute means trips. They're trying to find out why Chinese medicine works. Hello! You don't have to find out why. It's been working vefry nicely thank you very much for a few thousand years. Modern medical research is about as arrogant as it gets.
World-wide collaborations have been set up. Maps have been Blue-tacked on walls and pins have been stuck into places all over the world. Pinz meenz tripz. They want me to pay for them. They're dreaming.
Simply put, this is a medical charity masquerading as a research centre that's turned academic bludging into an art form. Cop this -
You can create an online fund raising page for many different occasions that mark your life:
If you are having a birthday or wedding, why not ask people to make a donation to Garvan rather than give you unwanted presents?
If you have an anniversary or celebration, you can suggest that if people would like to honour this, they can do so through their donation to Garvan.
If a loved one has passed away, you can ask people to donate to Garvan in memory of your loved one instead of giving flowers.
If you are participating in an organised fundraising event such as a marathon, swim or triathlon, you can choose for proceeds to go to Garvan.
It's enough to make you want to ram your fingers down your throat and roll your eyes through to the back of your neck.
Like all these institutes it's run by boffins who spend a quarter of their life writing research grants and a quarter of their life sitting on review panels sniffing each others' bums and making sure they all get grants. The NH&MRC needs to bring Hercules in to muck out this stable.
Then they spend another quarter of their life doing some research, finishing off with the final quarter sprinting to the finish line writing papers referred by their mates for research journals no-one reads. Then it's off to international conferences to deliver the papers, sniff more bums, scratch more backs, quaff more Grange Hermitage supplied by drug companies and get their heads patted. It's a great big farce. Why? Because while all this is going on the population is getting fatter and unfitter by the day.
Papers that's what it's all about. You can look at some of them in the back of the Annual Report. These people don't produce anything except papers. They don't make anything, they don't sell anything. You'd think that after researching for the last 80 years the Garvan Institute would be rolling in income from patents.
And just who are these people? Most of them are second-raters who couldn't get a job out in the real world. Anyone who's smart as a tack gets out and makes their fortune producing something of value. Read the stories of Jobs, Ellison and Gates. These are stories of intelligence put to good use, that created value for themselves and their community.
The ones that stayed behind got a second class honors degree. If you've got one of them and you hang arouncampus long enough they'll take pity on you and slip you a few labouring jobs, running tutes for wet-behind-the-ears undergraduates and cleaning test tubes. If you can stick that out for a couple of years you're qualified start a doctorate. Once you've done that you can become a post.doc fellow and then you're on the academic equivalent of the dole for life.
After that it's busy work. It used to be vanity, now it's busy work.
Busy work, busy work, all is busy work - and cribbing a bit of work time to write letters to the papers telling the Government to spend more money on research so you can keep putting bread on the table. You sign your name 'Bill Nerd, PhD' just to let people know you're superior. To hell if what you're doing is useless.
Not only is it farce it's also tragedy that so much money can be spent on so many people with their heads down doing busy work. This is the academic equivalent of stimulating the economy by digging holes and filling them up again.
The great advances in health won't come out of a bloated, useless, self-serving Garvan Institute they'll come from people eating wisely and spending 40 minutes a day jogging round the block. Peering down microscopes and writing equations on white boards is the easy stuff. The hard stuff is getting people off their bums and out of the junk food eateries.
On the track
Out early with the boys, walking and running.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and if you've got type 2 diabetes go for a 40 minute run every day and eat more methylhydoxychalcone polymer. You'll find it in your kitchen cupboard. It's called cinnamon.
John Miller
http://www.globalbackcare.com/
http://www.fitandhealthyonline.com/
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
SECONDARY HEALTH CARE - Tuesday 4th of May 2010
Secondary health care is the health care you can get for free by talking to other people, reading, searching the internet ...
It doesn't cost much.
Don't know what to do to get yourself back into good nick? Ask someone who's in good nick or look it up on the internet. Just keep in mind you're probably best to avoid the sites that suggest you take a tablet, creme or suppository to mask the symptoms, rather than actually doing something to fix the cause of the dysfunction.
And steer clear of the Cochrane Collaboration. It's a completely vapid and useless site if you're looking for straight forward information. If you've got a crook back go there and see if you can get a good set of exercises to fix yourself up. Not there! A waste of time, just an academic wank.
Go to your doctor’s own website and see what information is there to help you over a rough spot. (I bet your doctor doesn't have such a website, that's why the surgery is always full.)
A lot of the advice on the internet is basic health stuff put there by people who collectively have had thousands of dealings with the same problem as you have now. If you go to www.wddty.com you can ask questions and you'll get responses from all manner of people who've dealt with the same problem(s) you have.
Another good site I use is www.hsibaltimore.com
In this day and age we tend to downgrade the learning that comes from observation as opposed to scientific research. Keeping your eyes and ears open doesn't seem to be a highly valued scientific skill these days.
Keep in mind that most of the people making observations based on experience and dealing with real people are too busy to go to the trouble of writing an article for a journal.
The other thing you have to keep in mind is most of the the scientific researchers are working out of the pockets of drug companies. If their research isn't tainted it will be diverted away from working out what needs to be done to stimulate the body's own recuperative powers.
In this day and age the people who are fair dinkum about helping you either write a book or set up a website. They don't swan around the world scratching each others' backs and grovelling in front of drug company stands at international conferences.
No-one ever said that a treatment has to have been written up in refereed journal for it to be work. In fact most of it never is. Some of the ancient remedies and remedies your grandmother and her doctor used will do as much good for you as the latest pill. Pity that people are either too young to know about them or have short memories.
The advice you’re likely to get from any source will vary in quality, but if you’re an internet surfer you’ll have already developed skills of discernment. Keep in mind that high tech advice and advice from the blue chip medical fraternities is often no better than low tech advice, so don’t over look the advice that a good fitness leader, naturopath, yoga teacher and life coach can give you to sort out your problems.
When searching on the internet you'll soon get a feel for sites that look genuine. It's likely that you'll soon start steering clear of squeeze pages with lots of bumpf and hype, though you never can tell.
On the track
On the stepper, 30 minutes, nice and easy.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and ask around for advice on what you can do to fix your health problems.
John Miller
www.fitandheakthyonline.com
www.globalbackcare.com
It doesn't cost much.
Don't know what to do to get yourself back into good nick? Ask someone who's in good nick or look it up on the internet. Just keep in mind you're probably best to avoid the sites that suggest you take a tablet, creme or suppository to mask the symptoms, rather than actually doing something to fix the cause of the dysfunction.
And steer clear of the Cochrane Collaboration. It's a completely vapid and useless site if you're looking for straight forward information. If you've got a crook back go there and see if you can get a good set of exercises to fix yourself up. Not there! A waste of time, just an academic wank.
Go to your doctor’s own website and see what information is there to help you over a rough spot. (I bet your doctor doesn't have such a website, that's why the surgery is always full.)
A lot of the advice on the internet is basic health stuff put there by people who collectively have had thousands of dealings with the same problem as you have now. If you go to www.wddty.com you can ask questions and you'll get responses from all manner of people who've dealt with the same problem(s) you have.
Another good site I use is www.hsibaltimore.com
In this day and age we tend to downgrade the learning that comes from observation as opposed to scientific research. Keeping your eyes and ears open doesn't seem to be a highly valued scientific skill these days.
Keep in mind that most of the people making observations based on experience and dealing with real people are too busy to go to the trouble of writing an article for a journal.
The other thing you have to keep in mind is most of the the scientific researchers are working out of the pockets of drug companies. If their research isn't tainted it will be diverted away from working out what needs to be done to stimulate the body's own recuperative powers.
In this day and age the people who are fair dinkum about helping you either write a book or set up a website. They don't swan around the world scratching each others' backs and grovelling in front of drug company stands at international conferences.
No-one ever said that a treatment has to have been written up in refereed journal for it to be work. In fact most of it never is. Some of the ancient remedies and remedies your grandmother and her doctor used will do as much good for you as the latest pill. Pity that people are either too young to know about them or have short memories.
The advice you’re likely to get from any source will vary in quality, but if you’re an internet surfer you’ll have already developed skills of discernment. Keep in mind that high tech advice and advice from the blue chip medical fraternities is often no better than low tech advice, so don’t over look the advice that a good fitness leader, naturopath, yoga teacher and life coach can give you to sort out your problems.
When searching on the internet you'll soon get a feel for sites that look genuine. It's likely that you'll soon start steering clear of squeeze pages with lots of bumpf and hype, though you never can tell.
On the track
On the stepper, 30 minutes, nice and easy.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and ask around for advice on what you can do to fix your health problems.
John Miller
www.fitandheakthyonline.com
www.globalbackcare.com
THE NEW PRIMARY HEALTH CARE - Monday 3rd May 2010
The new primary health care is the health care you give to yourself, which speeds up the rehab process and stimulates the recuperative power within your own body.
You don't need to go to a doctor for this type of primary health care. You already know what to do:
- exercise regularly with vigor
- eat wisely
- get enough sleep
- meditate
- distract yourself from being busy and miserable
- take decent holidays.
and all the rest of that stuff that you know you need to do.
Maybe you've forgotten what to do? As a species we seem to be mighty forgetful.
When we're crook out initial reaction is to reach for the bottle for our medication of choice. We forget that there are other things we could do which are more effective.
I'll give you and example. A lot of people I see get headaches. They're not caused by a lack of Panadeine.
So why do we persist in taking the palliative route instead of thinking, 'What's caused this headache and what do I need to do to firstly get rid of it, and secondly not have it happen again?'
I'll leave it to you to work that one out. I hope you can remember.
On the track
Running with the boys.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and remember what you need to do to keep yourself in good shape.
John Miller
http://www.fitandhealthyonline.com/
http://www.globalbackcare.com/
You don't need to go to a doctor for this type of primary health care. You already know what to do:
- exercise regularly with vigor
- eat wisely
- get enough sleep
- meditate
- distract yourself from being busy and miserable
- take decent holidays.
and all the rest of that stuff that you know you need to do.
Maybe you've forgotten what to do? As a species we seem to be mighty forgetful.
When we're crook out initial reaction is to reach for the bottle for our medication of choice. We forget that there are other things we could do which are more effective.
I'll give you and example. A lot of people I see get headaches. They're not caused by a lack of Panadeine.
So why do we persist in taking the palliative route instead of thinking, 'What's caused this headache and what do I need to do to firstly get rid of it, and secondly not have it happen again?'
I'll leave it to you to work that one out. I hope you can remember.
On the track
Running with the boys.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and remember what you need to do to keep yourself in good shape.
John Miller
http://www.fitandhealthyonline.com/
http://www.globalbackcare.com/
THE PARABLE OF THE BUTTERFLY - Sunday 2nd May 2010
A man found a butterfly cocoon.
One day a small opening appeared and the man watched the butterfly as it struggled to force its body through the small hole. It appeared that it had gotten as far as it could and could go no farther.
The man decided to help the butterfly, so he got a pair of scissors and snipped off the remanding bit of the cocoon.The butterfly then emerged easily, but with a swollen body and tiny, shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the butterfly, expecting that at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.
Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shivered wings, never able to fly.
What the man had not understood was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved freedom from the cocoon.
Some struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If nature allowed us to go through life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we might otherwise be.
And we could never fly...
-Author unknown
On the track
On the stepper, 40 minutes all over level 8. Now that's a good workout, expending 643 calories.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and spread your wings and fly.
John Miller
www.fitandhealthyonline.com
www.globalbackcare.com
One day a small opening appeared and the man watched the butterfly as it struggled to force its body through the small hole. It appeared that it had gotten as far as it could and could go no farther.
The man decided to help the butterfly, so he got a pair of scissors and snipped off the remanding bit of the cocoon.The butterfly then emerged easily, but with a swollen body and tiny, shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the butterfly, expecting that at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.
Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shivered wings, never able to fly.
What the man had not understood was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved freedom from the cocoon.
Some struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If nature allowed us to go through life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we might otherwise be.
And we could never fly...
-Author unknown
On the track
On the stepper, 40 minutes all over level 8. Now that's a good workout, expending 643 calories.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and spread your wings and fly.
John Miller
www.fitandhealthyonline.com
www.globalbackcare.com
WORKCOVER SA PRODUCES A VAPID REPORT ON BACK PAIN - Saturday 1st May 2010
Workcover in South Australia have produced a vapid report on back injuries. They got a team from Adelaide Health Technology Assessment (AHTA) a money-making venture of the Discipline of Public Health, School of Population Health and Clinical Practice at the University of Adelaide to prepare the documentation.
It's the usual useless literature review stuff, the same old rehash of the same old stuff the NH&MRC produces.
Cop this:
Draft recommendation 4. 1. 1
In the majority of cases of acute low back pain (approximately 95%), no specific diagnosis can be made nor needs to be made.
This is just bunkum.
6.7 Specific exercise programs
Draft recommendation 6. 7. 1
There is insufficient evidence to recommend specific exercise programs (e.g. stretching, strengthening, side bends, flexibility/mobilising exercise, or aerobics) over no treatment for workers with acute low back pain. The McKenzie exercise, however, may have some benefits over no treatment for workers with subacute low back pain (Grade C).
More bunkum. When you see the McKenzie exercise prescription you know the report has been written by physiotherapists.
Draft recommendation 6. 7. 2
There is insufficient evidence to recommend that specific exercise programs (e.g. graded activity, strengthening, stretching, aerobics, extension and flexion exercise) are superior to other conservative treatments or usual care (Grade A).
More bunkum. Surely this is evidence of a parallel universe. This is selective evidence at it's best, or is that worse? These people would have got more and better information about the treatment of back pain from a form guide.
Draft recommendation 7. 3. 2
There is some evidence that advice to maintain usual activities, provision of an education booklet and community-based group exercise* appears to be cost-effective first line interventions for acute low back pain.
Usual activities: I bet they don't include strength and flexibility exercises. And the booklet. I don't think many people became stronger or looser reading pamphlet.
If this is the best Workcover can do, no wonder the South Australian Government is going broke.
On the track
Took it easy.
In the meantime stay tuned highly tuned and steer clear of reports on back care produced by academics.
John Miller
www.globalbackcare.com
www.fitandhealthyonline.com
It's the usual useless literature review stuff, the same old rehash of the same old stuff the NH&MRC produces.
Cop this:
Draft recommendation 4. 1. 1
In the majority of cases of acute low back pain (approximately 95%), no specific diagnosis can be made nor needs to be made.
This is just bunkum.
6.7 Specific exercise programs
Draft recommendation 6. 7. 1
There is insufficient evidence to recommend specific exercise programs (e.g. stretching, strengthening, side bends, flexibility/mobilising exercise, or aerobics) over no treatment for workers with acute low back pain. The McKenzie exercise, however, may have some benefits over no treatment for workers with subacute low back pain (Grade C).
More bunkum. When you see the McKenzie exercise prescription you know the report has been written by physiotherapists.
Draft recommendation 6. 7. 2
There is insufficient evidence to recommend that specific exercise programs (e.g. graded activity, strengthening, stretching, aerobics, extension and flexion exercise) are superior to other conservative treatments or usual care (Grade A).
More bunkum. Surely this is evidence of a parallel universe. This is selective evidence at it's best, or is that worse? These people would have got more and better information about the treatment of back pain from a form guide.
Draft recommendation 7. 3. 2
There is some evidence that advice to maintain usual activities, provision of an education booklet and community-based group exercise* appears to be cost-effective first line interventions for acute low back pain.
Usual activities: I bet they don't include strength and flexibility exercises. And the booklet. I don't think many people became stronger or looser reading pamphlet.
If this is the best Workcover can do, no wonder the South Australian Government is going broke.
On the track
Took it easy.
In the meantime stay tuned highly tuned and steer clear of reports on back care produced by academics.
John Miller
www.globalbackcare.com
www.fitandhealthyonline.com
DON'T SMOKE, YOU'LL BE RIPPED OFF Friday 30th May 2010
Yesterday I wrote about the Government's proposed ripping $5b out of smokers' pockets supposedly to stop them from smoking.
On one count it's a good thing to put up the price of cigarettes. A few less people will smoke and a few more people may smoke less. Give it a tick.
However, this price rise is a blatant tax grab, ripping money off the working class to put into the pockets of doctors. When the workers wake up to the fact that Kevin Rudd and Nicola Roxon have pulled a swiftie on them they'll be pulling on their red shirts and storming the barricades around Parliament House.
If ever there was a good reason to stop smoking it would be to prevent the feeding of the insatiable appetite of a greedy, inefficient and bloated medical industry for public money.
This is yet another bad policy solution to a bad policy problem. The more money poured down the medical black hole the worse the health of the population.
On the track
Running with the boys. A good steady pace.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and if ever you needed a good reason to stop smoking this is it.
John Miller
www.globalbackcare.com
www.fitandheathyonline.com
On one count it's a good thing to put up the price of cigarettes. A few less people will smoke and a few more people may smoke less. Give it a tick.
However, this price rise is a blatant tax grab, ripping money off the working class to put into the pockets of doctors. When the workers wake up to the fact that Kevin Rudd and Nicola Roxon have pulled a swiftie on them they'll be pulling on their red shirts and storming the barricades around Parliament House.
If ever there was a good reason to stop smoking it would be to prevent the feeding of the insatiable appetite of a greedy, inefficient and bloated medical industry for public money.
This is yet another bad policy solution to a bad policy problem. The more money poured down the medical black hole the worse the health of the population.
On the track
Running with the boys. A good steady pace.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and if ever you needed a good reason to stop smoking this is it.
John Miller
www.globalbackcare.com
www.fitandheathyonline.com
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