Some years ago, the company I was working at signed up to the Vitality health/private medical scheme. Not just cheap gym membership and trainers (and lots of other stuff) but *rewards* for activity.
All the my-exercise-is-lifting-pints types started, at least, walking miles a day - if your family was all signed up to the private medical, you got a cinema ticket for everyone to see a film, each week, if you did enough steps. For example.
As I understand it, the fitness increases noticeably dropped claims on the health insurance, making it profitable for Prudential.
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
I eat what I like, moderating a little on things like biccies and crisps. I also exercise a lot.
I find dieting, or worrying about weight (e.g. entering everything you eat into some sodding online calculator) to be mentally exhausting. IMV some people do more harm to their mental health from constantly following whatever fad diet is new than their physical health is harmed by the food. Yoyo-ing weight falls and gains cannot do you much good, physically or mentally.
For that reason, I'd like to see much more emphasis put on exercise over diet. We may not all be able to run, but most of us can do *some* extra activity. And that can be mentally uplifting as well as physically helpful.
I don't measure anything (unless it is for a recipe) I just do my thing. It is quite good as I have found out that it is self-stabilising. I will probably lose half a stone during marathon training (I probably lose more fat than that, and put on muscle, I am already starting to look thin about the face). When I stop the heavy training, it will go back on. If I go on holiday, I will put on a few pounds, it drops off in a week or two when I get back. I eat what I want as I don't feel the need to eat unnutricious shit like biscuits or crisps. In fact, I no longer really crave food at all although I do enjoy what I eat.
There is an old runner's saying "you can't outrun a bad diet". While exercise is undoubtedly good, especially for mental health, and human beings evolved to run and walk long distances, if you start off overweight it won't really help. The problem is that a lot of people feel hungry after exercise, or follow nostrums like you need to eat immediate carbs (which is bollocks, most people run a marathon and can still walk and talk afterwards when they have probably depleted their glycogen to zero) and hence put more back in than they use. Or they allow themselves a "treat". You need to work to regulate diet before starting exercise.
While it's hard to outrun a bad diet, I think you can almost certainly outcycle one. Before I came to London, I was doing four or five 30 mile rides a week with 1,000+ vertical meters. My powermeter told me I was burning something like 1,800 calories on these rides (albeit I'd usually eat a banana and a nut bar on them), and I just ate what I wanted and still the weight came off. Indeed, the fitter I became, the easier shifting the weight became, as I'd cycle further and harder in my two hours on the bike.
Well, yes, if you are doing that many miles. Cycling has the benefit it is low-impact so you are not trying to make your muscles and joints take far too much impact (when they are not yet trained to do so). However, you see a lot of fat blokes wobbling along on Bromptons, although in that case their main goal is probably to save on station parking.
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
Humans are omnivores with adaptable metabolism that can cope with any diet from vegan to whale blubber. Either can be a healthy diet and we'll adapted to the environment.
A diet needs to be affordable, nutritious and enjoyable, so will vary with individual circumstances, but if someone is developing illness (that is where this conversation started) then they need to make adaptions.
Saturated fat and cured meats don't just affect blood lipids, but also are linked to other health problems such as bowel cancer. Humans only need 60g or so of protein a day, after that it is burnt off in a manner not dissimilar to carbohydrates, being metabolised into glucose and ketone. There is a certain amount of stress to the kidneys from this metabolic acidosis, which can be offset by eating alkali vegetables.
A high protien diet does increase the metabolic rate, and tends to promote saity via reduced endogenous insulin production alongside other gut hormones, but can be unhealthy in other ways.
The 60g of protein is often quoted, but surely that is just for maintenance. You also need protein to repair damaged muscle after exercise, and to grow new muscle - distance runners don't bulk up but they do create new fast- and medium-twitch fibres which increase muscle density (at least that's how understand it). However that doesn't usually seem to be taken into consideration. And, as you point out, it can be burnt or stored if not required.
And I am sceptical about the value of a lot of studies saying "x is linked to bowel cancer" those people eating lots of x have also been eating lots of y and z. It would be interesting to see a study of, for example, low-carbers who have been eating lots of saturated fat, but little carbohydrate, for the last 40 years.
What I didn't realise is that most people have a lot of sugar sloshing around in the system through digesting their last meal. When it runs out, you get hungry. Of course the normal mammalian response is to burn body fat, indeed this is why you can still walk and talk after running a marathon, and distance running training is partly about training the body to burn fat at higher intensity, as even a skinny person has an almost limitless supply. I suspect the carb-loaded nature of the standard diet means that people have effectively lost the ability to burn body fat when at rest or in moderate exercise. Certainly I used to find that a carby breakfast neccessitated a Snickers bar at around 11am.
I once tried to eat a couple of Snickers (well, for us oldies, Marathon...) bar whilst running a marathon-distance run.
It did not end well, for stomach or guts. I found it blooming hard to even swallow the chocolate whilst running.
(In my defence, I had hit a low-energy time and had forgotten my gels. And the best thing the small village shop had was choccie bars.)
I've not long started a Half Marathon programme, and have just started trialing gels.
Gels are bullshit and consuming one feels like a clown jizzing in your mouth.
Just chuck some sugar in your water if you're bonking.
You really had some interesting experiences in the navy.
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
I eat what I like, moderating a little on things like biccies and crisps. I also exercise a lot.
I find dieting, or worrying about weight (e.g. entering everything you eat into some sodding online calculator) to be mentally exhausting. IMV some people do more harm to their mental health from constantly following whatever fad diet is new than their physical health is harmed by the food. Yoyo-ing weight falls and gains cannot do you much good, physically or mentally.
For that reason, I'd like to see much more emphasis put on exercise over diet. We may not all be able to run, but most of us can do *some* extra activity. And that can be mentally uplifting as well as physically helpful.
I don't measure anything (unless it is for a recipe) I just do my thing. It is quite good as I have found out that it is self-stabilising. I will probably lose half a stone during marathon training (I probably lose more fat than that, and put on muscle, I am already starting to look thin about the face). When I stop the heavy training, it will go back on. If I go on holiday, I will put on a few pounds, it drops off in a week or two when I get back. I eat what I want as I don't feel the need to eat unnutricious shit like biscuits or crisps. In fact, I no longer really crave food at all although I do enjoy what I eat.
There is an old runner's saying "you can't outrun a bad diet". While exercise is undoubtedly good, especially for mental health, and human beings evolved to run and walk long distances, if you start off overweight it won't really help. The problem is that a lot of people feel hungry after exercise, or follow nostrums like you need to eat immediate carbs (which is bollocks, most people run a marathon and can still walk and talk afterwards when they have probably depleted their glycogen to zero) and hence put more back in than they use. Or they allow themselves a "treat". You need to work to regulate diet before starting exercise.
While it's hard to outrun a bad diet, I think you can almost certainly outcycle one. Before I came to London, I was doing four or five 30 mile rides a week with 1,000+ vertical meters. My powermeter told me I was burning something like 1,800 calories on these rides (albeit I'd usually eat a banana and a nut bar on them), and I just ate what I wanted and still the weight came off. Indeed, the fitter I became, the easier shifting the weight became, as I'd cycle further and harder in my two hours on the bike.
Well, yes, if you are doing that many miles. Cycling has the benefit it is low-impact so you are not trying to make your muscles and joints take far too much impact (when they are not yet trained to do so). However, you see a lot of fat blokes wobbling along on Bromptons, although in that case their main goal is probably to save on station parking.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
The Dutch are particularly interesting, as one of the few countries that rival us in terms of unhealthy traditional diet.
You can get away with it if you do enough cycling.
Dutch cycling culture is quite interesting. It is quite different from ours. It is almost all on knackered old bikes at speeds barely more than running pace. Which, in generalised journey cost terms - taking into account the cost of time, the cost of your bike, the faff time in getting it out and securing it (which is much lower in a bike which costs £100 than £1000, because you care about it less), the time taken to shower after cycling really fast, etc - works out rather better.
Old maids, mist, holy communion, isn't it? Quite a lot of cycling is like that, even in the UK. But it doesn't help the debate that the more visible manifestations are clad in lycra and aggressively going fast. (Because in too many places, aggression is the only way to survive.)
Huge numbers of people in the UK do not cycle or walk because they perceive the roads to be a dangerous environment, where they will be threatened, bullied and abused. The figures are startling.
In urban areas I think storage is at least as big an issue too. There are only 2,400 secure cycle storage spots in Edinburgh, for about 300,000 people living in flats.
You need one of these:
That doesn't work for a disabled person who uses a tricycle as a mobility aid.
They need equivalent facilities, as is their legal right and the legal duty of the LHA to provide.
Or just possibly, someone should engineer a folding trike in the style of a Brompton.... Hmmm... Could be an interesting challenge. Doable, I think.
Rather than starting with a regular Brompton as a template, start with a folding guitar stand and build it up to bike size.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
Active travel has been described, fairly convincingly, as a miracle pill for a range of physical and mental health problems. Social connection and all that.
As so often, we know roughly what to do- plan new communities by the maps of what communities looked like before mass car use. What's harder is selling that to electorates in advance, or getting commercial entities to deliver something a bit more expensive and complex than a standard new build estate. You need some kind of benevolent despot with a masterplan. And we don't like them. Even when they are called Charles Windsor, it's not always an easy sell.
Though when you get Poundburys, they are very popular. I have a hobbyhorse about a delivery model of public-sector-as-developer-of-private-housing. The public sector gets to specify what everything looks like, but sells units off to private householders. This makes sense to me, because the impact of development goes far beyond those who live in it. It should also enable slightly cheaper delivery of housing. The downside is that the public sector has a fairly chequered record as a developer. But I think it is worth a try.
Starmer and Rayner are planning Edwardian-style versions of Poundbury, in multiple parts of the country, which I thought the more right-leaning posters would be pleased about. Certainly like the look of their plans myself, much as I also sometimes like some more unconventional, and less obtrusive, modern architecture too.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
The Dutch are particularly interesting, as one of the few countries that rival us in terms of unhealthy traditional diet.
You can get away with it if you do enough cycling.
Dutch cycling culture is quite interesting. It is quite different from ours. It is almost all on knackered old bikes at speeds barely more than running pace. Which, in generalised journey cost terms - taking into account the cost of time, the cost of your bike, the faff time in getting it out and securing it (which is much lower in a bike which costs £100 than £1000, because you care about it less), the time taken to shower after cycling really fast, etc - works out rather better.
Old maids, mist, holy communion, isn't it? Quite a lot of cycling is like that, even in the UK. But it doesn't help the debate that the more visible manifestations are clad in lycra and aggressively going fast. (Because in too many places, aggression is the only way to survive.)
Huge numbers of people in the UK do not cycle or walk because they perceive the roads to be a dangerous environment, where they will be threatened, bullied and abused. The figures are startling.
In urban areas I think storage is at least as big an issue too. There are only 2,400 secure cycle storage spots in Edinburgh, for about 300,000 people living in flats.
You need one of these:
And how much is one of those, Robert?
Last time I looked it was closer to four grand than three.
Well, you don't actually *need* the titanium one. A used regular Brompton in good nick is about £600-800. And it will hold its value incredibly well, and need only modest maintenance.
I couldn't imagine living in London without a Brompton. I'd certainly give up my car before it, because I use it all the time.
When I briefly lived in East Dulwich in the mid 1980s, driving into Wigmore Street I would (genuinely) pass Scott Walker of the Walker Brothers cycling into town on his Brompton bike. He had No Regrets.
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
I eat what I like, moderating a little on things like biccies and crisps. I also exercise a lot.
I find dieting, or worrying about weight (e.g. entering everything you eat into some sodding online calculator) to be mentally exhausting. IMV some people do more harm to their mental health from constantly following whatever fad diet is new than their physical health is harmed by the food. Yoyo-ing weight falls and gains cannot do you much good, physically or mentally.
For that reason, I'd like to see much more emphasis put on exercise over diet. We may not all be able to run, but most of us can do *some* extra activity. And that can be mentally uplifting as well as physically helpful.
I don't measure anything (unless it is for a recipe) I just do my thing. It is quite good as I have found out that it is self-stabilising. I will probably lose half a stone during marathon training (I probably lose more fat than that, and put on muscle, I am already starting to look thin about the face). When I stop the heavy training, it will go back on. If I go on holiday, I will put on a few pounds, it drops off in a week or two when I get back. I eat what I want as I don't feel the need to eat unnutricious shit like biscuits or crisps. In fact, I no longer really crave food at all although I do enjoy what I eat.
There is an old runner's saying "you can't outrun a bad diet". While exercise is undoubtedly good, especially for mental health, and human beings evolved to run and walk long distances, if you start off overweight it won't really help. The problem is that a lot of people feel hungry after exercise, or follow nostrums like you need to eat immediate carbs (which is bollocks, most people run a marathon and can still walk and talk afterwards when they have probably depleted their glycogen to zero) and hence put more back in than they use. Or they allow themselves a "treat". You need to work to regulate diet before starting exercise.
While it's hard to outrun a bad diet, I think you can almost certainly outcycle one. Before I came to London, I was doing four or five 30 mile rides a week with 1,000+ vertical meters. My powermeter told me I was burning something like 1,800 calories on these rides (albeit I'd usually eat a banana and a nut bar on them), and I just ate what I wanted and still the weight came off. Indeed, the fitter I became, the easier shifting the weight became, as I'd cycle further and harder in my two hours on the bike.
Well, yes, if you are doing that many miles. Cycling has the benefit it is low-impact so you are not trying to make your muscles and joints take far too much impact (when they are not yet trained to do so). However, you see a lot of fat blokes wobbling along on Bromptons, although in that case their main goal is probably to save on station parking.
Everyone starts somewhere.
At the start of lockdown there was a large lady wobbling along on a Boris Bike, as a local regular fixture. Every day.
Last time I saw her, was a while back. She was riding a very expensive piece of carbon fibre, had lost a lot of weight and was very, very good at riding her bike. She stopped completely for some pensioners walking along the river path without putting a foot down - did it with a kind of careless ease, as well.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
The Dutch are particularly interesting, as one of the few countries that rival us in terms of unhealthy traditional diet.
You can get away with it if you do enough cycling.
Dutch cycling culture is quite interesting. It is quite different from ours. It is almost all on knackered old bikes at speeds barely more than running pace. Which, in generalised journey cost terms - taking into account the cost of time, the cost of your bike, the faff time in getting it out and securing it (which is much lower in a bike which costs £100 than £1000, because you care about it less), the time taken to shower after cycling really fast, etc - works out rather better.
Old maids, mist, holy communion, isn't it? Quite a lot of cycling is like that, even in the UK. But it doesn't help the debate that the more visible manifestations are clad in lycra and aggressively going fast. (Because in too many places, aggression is the only way to survive.)
Huge numbers of people in the UK do not cycle or walk because they perceive the roads to be a dangerous environment, where they will be threatened, bullied and abused. The figures are startling.
In urban areas I think storage is at least as big an issue too. There are only 2,400 secure cycle storage spots in Edinburgh, for about 300,000 people living in flats.
You need one of these:
And how much is one of those, Robert?
Last time I looked it was closer to four grand than three.
You can get one for £1,500. Still very expensive for a bike, particularly compared to what the Dutch pay.
(But rather cheaper than a second car).
Robert has the electric one.
But he was making a point about storage. It's a good one, and to my eye there are loads more Bromptons whizzing about compared with 10 years ago.
Goodness, they are up to 90,000 a year, from 40,000 in 2013 and 6,000 in 2002.
I was with OGH this morning, and said that one of my few regrets was not getting a Brompton earlier. The ability to have a bike that rides reasonably well, and folds down small enough to be carried as airplane hand luggage is incredible.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
Active travel has been described, fairly convincingly, as a miracle pill for a range of physical and mental health problems. Social connection and all that.
As so often, we know roughly what to do- plan new communities by the maps of what communities looked like before mass car use. What's harder is selling that to electorates in advance, or getting commercial entities to deliver something a bit more expensive and complex than a standard new build estate. You need some kind of benevolent despot with a masterplan. And we don't like them. Even when they are called Charles Windsor, it's not always an easy sell.
Though when you get Poundburys, they are very popular. I have a hobbyhorse about a delivery model of public-sector-as-developer-of-private-housing. The public sector gets to specify what everything looks like, but sells units off to private householders. This makes sense to me, because the impact of development goes far beyond those who live in it. It should also enable slightly cheaper delivery of housing. The downside is that the public sector has a fairly chequered record as a developer. But I think it is worth a try.
Starmer and Rayner are planning Edwardian-style versions of Poundbury, in multiple parts of the country, which I thought the more right-leaning posters would be pleased about. Certainly like the look of their plans myself, much as I also sometimes like some more unconventional, and less obtrusive, modern architecture too.
Should I just have have gotten standard Shimano SPD pedals, and then used platform plugins if I needed to ride it without cycling shoes?
Shimano PD-EH500 have SPD on one side and are flat on the other. Take the pins out of the flat side unless you want to get skin grafts on your shins every fortnight.
E2A: CAREFULLY fill the threaded pin holes with bathroom sealant otherwise they will become full of compacted road shit that will be impossible to remove. Dissolve the sealant with meths if you ever want to put the pins in again.
The erstwhile minister for common sense and digging holes. How dare people suggest that (mis)quoting arguably the best known poem about the genesis of the Holocaust in response to a suggested smoking ban is in any way equating the Holocaust to suggesting a smoking ban. Ridiculous!
No, partly because one of my diminishing pleasures is a cigar and a drink on a warm summer evening, but also because I think it’s the worst kind of virtual signalling, ie fcking pointless.
However when the original smoking ban in pubs came in I was initially in favour of some sort of opt-in licenfor landlords but the incessant whining of the smoking lobby put me right off. The efforts of the fragrantly thick Esther might have a similar effect.
Well in the spirit of cutting down on incessant whining, why don't you just state your opinion, which I agree with, instead of resorting to silly equivocating and Tory bashing?
McVey's point may be clumsy, but it is nevertheless a point worth making that freedom is valueless if we are happy to disapply it to people, things, or habits that we find less than pleasant. And it is logical that we should be wary of binning the freedoms of others, lest things we actually do value get shitcanned based on the nanny-state precedents set. You love and appreciate a good single malt - what if someone (as arguably the SNP already has) decides to make that their whipping boy du jour?
Not very fond of whisky, malts or otherwise, as it happens.
Aesthetics are my starting point for most stuff, I find McVey’s gross, lumbering appropriation of the Holocaust to make a half-arsed point aesthetically unpleasing. I also think she doesn’t give a flying one for ‘freedom’.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
The Dutch are particularly interesting, as one of the few countries that rival us in terms of unhealthy traditional diet.
You can get away with it if you do enough cycling.
Dutch cycling culture is quite interesting. It is quite different from ours. It is almost all on knackered old bikes at speeds barely more than running pace. Which, in generalised journey cost terms - taking into account the cost of time, the cost of your bike, the faff time in getting it out and securing it (which is much lower in a bike which costs £100 than £1000, because you care about it less), the time taken to shower after cycling really fast, etc - works out rather better.
Old maids, mist, holy communion, isn't it? Quite a lot of cycling is like that, even in the UK. But it doesn't help the debate that the more visible manifestations are clad in lycra and aggressively going fast. (Because in too many places, aggression is the only way to survive.)
Huge numbers of people in the UK do not cycle or walk because they perceive the roads to be a dangerous environment, where they will be threatened, bullied and abused. The figures are startling.
In urban areas I think storage is at least as big an issue too. There are only 2,400 secure cycle storage spots in Edinburgh, for about 300,000 people living in flats.
You need one of these:
And how much is one of those, Robert?
Last time I looked it was closer to four grand than three.
Well, you don't actually *need* the titanium one. A used regular Brompton in good nick is about £600-800. And it will hold its value incredibly well, and need only modest maintenance.
I couldn't imagine living in London without a Brompton. I'd certainly give up my car before it, because I use it all the time.
When I briefly lived in East Dulwich in the mid 1980s, driving into Wigmore Street I would (genuinely) pass Scott Walker of the Walker Brothers cycling into town on his Brompton bike. He had No Regrets.
You don't make it easy on yourself, namedropping like that.
Should I just have have gotten standard Shimano SPD pedals, and then used platform plugins if I needed to ride it without cycling shoes?
Shimano PD-EH500 have SPD on one side and are flat on the other. Take the pins out of the flat side unless you want to get skin grafts on your shins every fortnight.
I have those on my gravel bike: but they're a bit big for the Brompton.
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
Humans are omnivores with adaptable metabolism that can cope with any diet from vegan to whale blubber. Either can be a healthy diet and we'll adapted to the environment.
A diet needs to be affordable, nutritious and enjoyable, so will vary with individual circumstances, but if someone is developing illness (that is where this conversation started) then they need to make adaptions.
Saturated fat and cured meats don't just affect blood lipids, but also are linked to other health problems such as bowel cancer. Humans only need 60g or so of protein a day, after that it is burnt off in a manner not dissimilar to carbohydrates, being metabolised into glucose and ketone. There is a certain amount of stress to the kidneys from this metabolic acidosis, which can be offset by eating alkali vegetables.
A high protien diet does increase the metabolic rate, and tends to promote saity via reduced endogenous insulin production alongside other gut hormones, but can be unhealthy in other ways.
The 60g of protein is often quoted, but surely that is just for maintenance. You also need protein to repair damaged muscle after exercise, and to grow new muscle - distance runners don't bulk up but they do create new fast- and medium-twitch fibres which increase muscle density (at least that's how understand it). However that doesn't usually seem to be taken into consideration. And, as you point out, it can be burnt or stored if not required.
And I am sceptical about the value of a lot of studies saying "x is linked to bowel cancer" those people eating lots of x have also been eating lots of y and z. It would be interesting to see a study of, for example, low-carbers who have been eating lots of saturated fat, but little carbohydrate, for the last 40 years.
What I didn't realise is that most people have a lot of sugar sloshing around in the system through digesting their last meal. When it runs out, you get hungry. Of course the normal mammalian response is to burn body fat, indeed this is why you can still walk and talk after running a marathon, and distance running training is partly about training the body to burn fat at higher intensity, as even a skinny person has an almost limitless supply. I suspect the carb-loaded nature of the standard diet means that people have effectively lost the ability to burn body fat when at rest or in moderate exercise. Certainly I used to find that a carby breakfast neccessitated a Snickers bar at around 11am.
I once tried to eat a couple of Snickers (well, for us oldies, Marathon...) bar whilst running a marathon-distance run.
It did not end well, for stomach or guts. I found it blooming hard to even swallow the chocolate whilst running.
(In my defence, I had hit a low-energy time and had forgotten my gels. And the best thing the small village shop had was choccie bars.)
I've not long started a Half Marathon programme, and have just started trialing gels. I bought a couple of Wiggle's own brand caffeine gels for pennies when they went bust to make up enough for free delivery and I'm not really that keen, horrible texture, and far too sweet for me now. SIS aren't much better in my opinion. Any recommendations? I've heard the Kendal Mintcake stuff is pretty good, but again probably too sweet.
I use SiS or High5. High5 probably have better flavours, and are thinner, but there is less carb per packet so I usually use SiS. Caffeine gels are great for when you are flagging and help you to ignore pain and fatigue, but I don't use them for training.
In fact, I try not to use gels for training as you are trying to train the body to burn fat at a higher intensity. I would say carry a gel or two on a long run but only take one if you feel you need it.
Gels can help you run longer, faster, however arguably you should be doing the long run at an easy pace and should be doing speedwork on shorter runs - a tempo run, or intervals - when you wouldn't normally take a gel anyway. Having said that, if you aim to use them during the race you do need to practice or you might just end up throwing up, which will spoil your day.
For the marathon I will be taking a gel every 40 minutes, alternating between standard and caffeine. (They often say every 30 minutes but that is too much for me and I just end up feeling sick)
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
Active travel has been described, fairly convincingly, as a miracle pill for a range of physical and mental health problems. Social connection and all that.
As so often, we know roughly what to do- plan new communities by the maps of what communities looked like before mass car use. What's harder is selling that to electorates in advance, or getting commercial entities to deliver something a bit more expensive and complex than a standard new build estate. You need some kind of benevolent despot with a masterplan. And we don't like them. Even when they are called Charles Windsor, it's not always an easy sell.
Though when you get Poundburys, they are very popular. I have a hobbyhorse about a delivery model of public-sector-as-developer-of-private-housing. The public sector gets to specify what everything looks like, but sells units off to private householders. This makes sense to me, because the impact of development goes far beyond those who live in it. It should also enable slightly cheaper delivery of housing. The downside is that the public sector has a fairly chequered record as a developer. But I think it is worth a try.
Starmer and Rayner are planning Edwardian-style versions of Poundbury, in multiple parts of the country, which I thought the more right-leaning posters would be pleased about. Certainly like the look of their plans myself, much as I also sometimes like some more unconventional, and less obtrusive, modern architecture too.
They may be *planning* that. We've seen grand plans from nearly every government for 30 years, and precious little seems to be done aside from the usual.
Let's see some action. Being slightly cynical, I expect Labour to either fail to build much more, or build a load of cr@p estates without any proper facilities. Because numbers matter more than liveability.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
The Dutch are particularly interesting, as one of the few countries that rival us in terms of unhealthy traditional diet.
You can get away with it if you do enough cycling.
Dutch cycling culture is quite interesting. It is quite different from ours. It is almost all on knackered old bikes at speeds barely more than running pace. Which, in generalised journey cost terms - taking into account the cost of time, the cost of your bike, the faff time in getting it out and securing it (which is much lower in a bike which costs £100 than £1000, because you care about it less), the time taken to shower after cycling really fast, etc - works out rather better.
Old maids, mist, holy communion, isn't it? Quite a lot of cycling is like that, even in the UK. But it doesn't help the debate that the more visible manifestations are clad in lycra and aggressively going fast. (Because in too many places, aggression is the only way to survive.)
Huge numbers of people in the UK do not cycle or walk because they perceive the roads to be a dangerous environment, where they will be threatened, bullied and abused. The figures are startling.
In urban areas I think storage is at least as big an issue too. There are only 2,400 secure cycle storage spots in Edinburgh, for about 300,000 people living in flats.
You need one of these:
And how much is one of those, Robert?
Last time I looked it was closer to four grand than three.
You can get one for £1,500. Still very expensive for a bike, particularly compared to what the Dutch pay.
(But rather cheaper than a second car).
Robert has the electric one.
But he was making a point about storage. It's a good one, and to my eye there are loads more Bromptons whizzing about compared with 10 years ago.
Goodness, they are up to 90,000 a year, from 40,000 in 2013 and 6,000 in 2002.
I was with OGH this morning, and said that one of my few regrets was not getting a Brompton earlier. The ability to have a bike that rides reasonably well, and folds down small enough to be carried as airplane hand luggage is incredible.
How is OGH? I hope he is bearing up ok.
He's doing OK; he has restricted mobility, but he's still lively of mind despite some short term memory issues.
Following the Morning Consult poll this morning, he sold Trump on Betfair, so he's still taking an interest in political bettng.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
The Dutch are particularly interesting, as one of the few countries that rival us in terms of unhealthy traditional diet.
You can get away with it if you do enough cycling.
Dutch cycling culture is quite interesting. It is quite different from ours. It is almost all on knackered old bikes at speeds barely more than running pace. Which, in generalised journey cost terms - taking into account the cost of time, the cost of your bike, the faff time in getting it out and securing it (which is much lower in a bike which costs £100 than £1000, because you care about it less), the time taken to shower after cycling really fast, etc - works out rather better.
Old maids, mist, holy communion, isn't it? Quite a lot of cycling is like that, even in the UK. But it doesn't help the debate that the more visible manifestations are clad in lycra and aggressively going fast. (Because in too many places, aggression is the only way to survive.)
Huge numbers of people in the UK do not cycle or walk because they perceive the roads to be a dangerous environment, where they will be threatened, bullied and abused. The figures are startling.
In urban areas I think storage is at least as big an issue too. There are only 2,400 secure cycle storage spots in Edinburgh, for about 300,000 people living in flats.
You need one of these:
And how much is one of those, Robert?
Last time I looked it was closer to four grand than three.
You can get one for £1,500. Still very expensive for a bike, particularly compared to what the Dutch pay.
(But rather cheaper than a second car).
Robert has the electric one.
But he was making a point about storage. It's a good one, and to my eye there are loads more Bromptons whizzing about compared with 10 years ago.
Goodness, they are up to 90,000 a year, from 40,000 in 2013 and 6,000 in 2002.
I was with OGH this morning, and said that one of my few regrets was not getting a Brompton earlier. The ability to have a bike that rides reasonably well, and folds down small enough to be carried as airplane hand luggage is incredible.
How is OGH? I hope he is bearing up ok.
He's doing OK; he has restricted mobility, but he's still lively of mind despite some short term memory issues.
Following the Morning Consult poll this morning, he sold Trump on Betfair, so he's still taking an interest in political bettng.
Should I just have have gotten standard Shimano SPD pedals, and then used platform plugins if I needed to ride it without cycling shoes?
Shimano PD-EH500 have SPD on one side and are flat on the other. Take the pins out of the flat side unless you want to get skin grafts on your shins every fortnight.
I have those on my gravel bike: but they're a bit big for the Brompton.
I experimented with milling down a set of XTR pedals to make them more Brompton friendly but the fucking left one snapped. The research continues.
Should I just have have gotten standard Shimano SPD pedals, and then used platform plugins if I needed to ride it without cycling shoes?
Shimano PD-EH500 have SPD on one side and are flat on the other. Take the pins out of the flat side unless you want to get skin grafts on your shins every fortnight.
E2A: CAREFULLY fill the threaded pin holes with bathroom sealant otherwise they will become full of compacted road shit that will be impossible to remove. Dissolve the sealant with meths if you ever want to put the pins in again.
I tried the Crankbrothers version on my mountain bike. I'm back on flats, and my shins have toughened up.
For the marathon I will be taking a gel every 40 minutes, alternating between standard and caffeine. (They often say every 30 minutes but that is too much for me and I just end up feeling sick)
Wow. That is a substantial volume of clown jizz. 🤡💦
I think getting and keeping that lot down is almost as impressive as doing the marathon.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
Active travel has been described, fairly convincingly, as a miracle pill for a range of physical and mental health problems. Social connection and all that.
As so often, we know roughly what to do- plan new communities by the maps of what communities looked like before mass car use. What's harder is selling that to electorates in advance, or getting commercial entities to deliver something a bit more expensive and complex than a standard new build estate. You need some kind of benevolent despot with a masterplan. And we don't like them. Even when they are called Charles Windsor, it's not always an easy sell.
Though when you get Poundburys, they are very popular. I have a hobbyhorse about a delivery model of public-sector-as-developer-of-private-housing. The public sector gets to specify what everything looks like, but sells units off to private householders. This makes sense to me, because the impact of development goes far beyond those who live in it. It should also enable slightly cheaper delivery of housing. The downside is that the public sector has a fairly chequered record as a developer. But I think it is worth a try.
Starmer and Rayner are planning Edwardian-style versions of Poundbury, in multiple parts of the country, which I thought the more right-leaning posters would be pleased about. Certainly like the look of their plans myself, much as I also sometimes like some more unconventional, and less obtrusive, modern architecture too.
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
Humans are omnivores with adaptable metabolism that can cope with any diet from vegan to whale blubber. Either can be a healthy diet and we'll adapted to the environment.
A diet needs to be affordable, nutritious and enjoyable, so will vary with individual circumstances, but if someone is developing illness (that is where this conversation started) then they need to make adaptions.
Saturated fat and cured meats don't just affect blood lipids, but also are linked to other health problems such as bowel cancer. Humans only need 60g or so of protein a day, after that it is burnt off in a manner not dissimilar to carbohydrates, being metabolised into glucose and ketone. There is a certain amount of stress to the kidneys from this metabolic acidosis, which can be offset by eating alkali vegetables.
A high protien diet does increase the metabolic rate, and tends to promote saity via reduced endogenous insulin production alongside other gut hormones, but can be unhealthy in other ways.
The 60g of protein is often quoted, but surely that is just for maintenance. You also need protein to repair damaged muscle after exercise, and to grow new muscle - distance runners don't bulk up but they do create new fast- and medium-twitch fibres which increase muscle density (at least that's how understand it). However that doesn't usually seem to be taken into consideration. And, as you point out, it can be burnt or stored if not required.
And I am sceptical about the value of a lot of studies saying "x is linked to bowel cancer" those people eating lots of x have also been eating lots of y and z. It would be interesting to see a study of, for example, low-carbers who have been eating lots of saturated fat, but little carbohydrate, for the last 40 years.
What I didn't realise is that most people have a lot of sugar sloshing around in the system through digesting their last meal. When it runs out, you get hungry. Of course the normal mammalian response is to burn body fat, indeed this is why you can still walk and talk after running a marathon, and distance running training is partly about training the body to burn fat at higher intensity, as even a skinny person has an almost limitless supply. I suspect the carb-loaded nature of the standard diet means that people have effectively lost the ability to burn body fat when at rest or in moderate exercise. Certainly I used to find that a carby breakfast neccessitated a Snickers bar at around 11am.
I once tried to eat a couple of Snickers (well, for us oldies, Marathon...) bar whilst running a marathon-distance run.
It did not end well, for stomach or guts. I found it blooming hard to even swallow the chocolate whilst running.
(In my defence, I had hit a low-energy time and had forgotten my gels. And the best thing the small village shop had was choccie bars.)
I've not long started a Half Marathon programme, and have just started trialing gels. I bought a couple of Wiggle's own brand caffeine gels for pennies when they went bust to make up enough for free delivery and I'm not really that keen, horrible texture, and far too sweet for me now. SIS aren't much better in my opinion. Any recommendations? I've heard the Kendal Mintcake stuff is pretty good, but again probably too sweet.
I use SiS or High5. High5 probably have better flavours, and are thinner, but there is less carb per packet so I usually use SiS. Caffeine gels are great for when you are flagging and help you to ignore pain and fatigue, but I don't use them for training.
In fact, I try not to use gels for training as you are trying to train the body to burn fat at a higher intensity. I would say carry a gel or two on a long run but only take one if you feel you need it.
Gels can help you run longer, faster, however arguably you should be doing the long run at an easy pace and should be doing speedwork on shorter runs - a tempo run, or intervals - when you wouldn't normally take a gel anyway. Having said that, if you aim to use them during the race you do need to practice or you might just end up throwing up, which will spoil your day.
For the marathon I will be taking a gel every 40 minutes, alternating between standard and caffeine. (They often say every 30 minutes but that is too much for me and I just end up feeling sick)
Just hydrate and run the damn thing. Jeez what a palaver.
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
Humans are omnivores with adaptable metabolism that can cope with any diet from vegan to whale blubber. Either can be a healthy diet and we'll adapted to the environment.
A diet needs to be affordable, nutritious and enjoyable, so will vary with individual circumstances, but if someone is developing illness (that is where this conversation started) then they need to make adaptions.
Saturated fat and cured meats don't just affect blood lipids, but also are linked to other health problems such as bowel cancer. Humans only need 60g or so of protein a day, after that it is burnt off in a manner not dissimilar to carbohydrates, being metabolised into glucose and ketone. There is a certain amount of stress to the kidneys from this metabolic acidosis, which can be offset by eating alkali vegetables.
A high protien diet does increase the metabolic rate, and tends to promote saity via reduced endogenous insulin production alongside other gut hormones, but can be unhealthy in other ways.
The 60g of protein is often quoted, but surely that is just for maintenance. You also need protein to repair damaged muscle after exercise, and to grow new muscle - distance runners don't bulk up but they do create new fast- and medium-twitch fibres which increase muscle density (at least that's how understand it). However that doesn't usually seem to be taken into consideration. And, as you point out, it can be burnt or stored if not required.
And I am sceptical about the value of a lot of studies saying "x is linked to bowel cancer" those people eating lots of x have also been eating lots of y and z. It would be interesting to see a study of, for example, low-carbers who have been eating lots of saturated fat, but little carbohydrate, for the last 40 years.
What I didn't realise is that most people have a lot of sugar sloshing around in the system through digesting their last meal. When it runs out, you get hungry. Of course the normal mammalian response is to burn body fat, indeed this is why you can still walk and talk after running a marathon, and distance running training is partly about training the body to burn fat at higher intensity, as even a skinny person has an almost limitless supply. I suspect the carb-loaded nature of the standard diet means that people have effectively lost the ability to burn body fat when at rest or in moderate exercise. Certainly I used to find that a carby breakfast neccessitated a Snickers bar at around 11am.
I once tried to eat a couple of Snickers (well, for us oldies, Marathon...) bar whilst running a marathon-distance run.
It did not end well, for stomach or guts. I found it blooming hard to even swallow the chocolate whilst running.
(In my defence, I had hit a low-energy time and had forgotten my gels. And the best thing the small village shop had was choccie bars.)
I've not long started a Half Marathon programme, and have just started trialing gels. I bought a couple of Wiggle's own brand caffeine gels for pennies when they went bust to make up enough for free delivery and I'm not really that keen, horrible texture, and far too sweet for me now. SIS aren't much better in my opinion. Any recommendations? I've heard the Kendal Mintcake stuff is pretty good, but again probably too sweet.
I use SiS or High5. High5 probably have better flavours, and are thinner, but there is less carb per packet so I usually use SiS. Caffeine gels are great for when you are flagging and help you to ignore pain and fatigue, but I don't use them for training.
In fact, I try not to use gels for training as you are trying to train the body to burn fat at a higher intensity. I would say carry a gel or two on a long run but only take one if you feel you need it.
Gels can help you run longer, faster, however arguably you should be doing the long run at an easy pace and should be doing speedwork on shorter runs - a tempo run, or intervals - when you wouldn't normally take a gel anyway. Having said that, if you aim to use them during the race you do need to practice or you might just end up throwing up, which will spoil your day.
For the marathon I will be taking a gel every 40 minutes, alternating between standard and caffeine. (They often say every 30 minutes but that is too much for me and I just end up feeling sick)
Just hydrate and run the damn thing. Jeez what a palaver.
If that works for you; great. Others are mere mortal and need to take on some extra energy during the run.
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
Humans are omnivores with adaptable metabolism that can cope with any diet from vegan to whale blubber. Either can be a healthy diet and we'll adapted to the environment.
A diet needs to be affordable, nutritious and enjoyable, so will vary with individual circumstances, but if someone is developing illness (that is where this conversation started) then they need to make adaptions.
Saturated fat and cured meats don't just affect blood lipids, but also are linked to other health problems such as bowel cancer. Humans only need 60g or so of protein a day, after that it is burnt off in a manner not dissimilar to carbohydrates, being metabolised into glucose and ketone. There is a certain amount of stress to the kidneys from this metabolic acidosis, which can be offset by eating alkali vegetables.
A high protien diet does increase the metabolic rate, and tends to promote saity via reduced endogenous insulin production alongside other gut hormones, but can be unhealthy in other ways.
The 60g of protein is often quoted, but surely that is just for maintenance. You also need protein to repair damaged muscle after exercise, and to grow new muscle - distance runners don't bulk up but they do create new fast- and medium-twitch fibres which increase muscle density (at least that's how understand it). However that doesn't usually seem to be taken into consideration. And, as you point out, it can be burnt or stored if not required.
And I am sceptical about the value of a lot of studies saying "x is linked to bowel cancer" those people eating lots of x have also been eating lots of y and z. It would be interesting to see a study of, for example, low-carbers who have been eating lots of saturated fat, but little carbohydrate, for the last 40 years.
What I didn't realise is that most people have a lot of sugar sloshing around in the system through digesting their last meal. When it runs out, you get hungry. Of course the normal mammalian response is to burn body fat, indeed this is why you can still walk and talk after running a marathon, and distance running training is partly about training the body to burn fat at higher intensity, as even a skinny person has an almost limitless supply. I suspect the carb-loaded nature of the standard diet means that people have effectively lost the ability to burn body fat when at rest or in moderate exercise. Certainly I used to find that a carby breakfast neccessitated a Snickers bar at around 11am.
I once tried to eat a couple of Snickers (well, for us oldies, Marathon...) bar whilst running a marathon-distance run.
It did not end well, for stomach or guts. I found it blooming hard to even swallow the chocolate whilst running.
(In my defence, I had hit a low-energy time and had forgotten my gels. And the best thing the small village shop had was choccie bars.)
I've not long started a Half Marathon programme, and have just started trialing gels. I bought a couple of Wiggle's own brand caffeine gels for pennies when they went bust to make up enough for free delivery and I'm not really that keen, horrible texture, and far too sweet for me now. SIS aren't much better in my opinion. Any recommendations? I've heard the Kendal Mintcake stuff is pretty good, but again probably too sweet.
I use SiS or High5. High5 probably have better flavours, and are thinner, but there is less carb per packet so I usually use SiS. Caffeine gels are great for when you are flagging and help you to ignore pain and fatigue, but I don't use them for training.
In fact, I try not to use gels for training as you are trying to train the body to burn fat at a higher intensity. I would say carry a gel or two on a long run but only take one if you feel you need it.
Gels can help you run longer, faster, however arguably you should be doing the long run at an easy pace and should be doing speedwork on shorter runs - a tempo run, or intervals - when you wouldn't normally take a gel anyway. Having said that, if you aim to use them during the race you do need to practice or you might just end up throwing up, which will spoil your day.
For the marathon I will be taking a gel every 40 minutes, alternating between standard and caffeine. (They often say every 30 minutes but that is too much for me and I just end up feeling sick)
Just hydrate and run the damn thing. Jeez what a palaver.
If that works for you; great. Others are mere mortal and need to take on some extra energy during the run.
"Need"? Not really but fine I haven't run a marathon for some time so I will bow to your knowledge of current requirements.
The chart attached to this is remarkable. US/China trade has dropped massively (even adding all of the Mexico trade), as China/EU trade has increased.
🇪🇺🇨🇳 - Despite calls for de-risking, EU firms are not curbing trade ties to China • @PIIE data show Europe's reliance on Chinese imports has increased sharply since 2018 • US reliance on Chinese imports decreased in 2018-23, but flows could be partly rerouted through Mexico https://x.com/AgatheDemarais/status/1829187256202211456
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
Humans are omnivores with adaptable metabolism that can cope with any diet from vegan to whale blubber. Either can be a healthy diet and we'll adapted to the environment.
A diet needs to be affordable, nutritious and enjoyable, so will vary with individual circumstances, but if someone is developing illness (that is where this conversation started) then they need to make adaptions.
Saturated fat and cured meats don't just affect blood lipids, but also are linked to other health problems such as bowel cancer. Humans only need 60g or so of protein a day, after that it is burnt off in a manner not dissimilar to carbohydrates, being metabolised into glucose and ketone. There is a certain amount of stress to the kidneys from this metabolic acidosis, which can be offset by eating alkali vegetables.
A high protien diet does increase the metabolic rate, and tends to promote saity via reduced endogenous insulin production alongside other gut hormones, but can be unhealthy in other ways.
The 60g of protein is often quoted, but surely that is just for maintenance. You also need protein to repair damaged muscle after exercise, and to grow new muscle - distance runners don't bulk up but they do create new fast- and medium-twitch fibres which increase muscle density (at least that's how understand it). However that doesn't usually seem to be taken into consideration. And, as you point out, it can be burnt or stored if not required.
And I am sceptical about the value of a lot of studies saying "x is linked to bowel cancer" those people eating lots of x have also been eating lots of y and z. It would be interesting to see a study of, for example, low-carbers who have been eating lots of saturated fat, but little carbohydrate, for the last 40 years.
What I didn't realise is that most people have a lot of sugar sloshing around in the system through digesting their last meal. When it runs out, you get hungry. Of course the normal mammalian response is to burn body fat, indeed this is why you can still walk and talk after running a marathon, and distance running training is partly about training the body to burn fat at higher intensity, as even a skinny person has an almost limitless supply. I suspect the carb-loaded nature of the standard diet means that people have effectively lost the ability to burn body fat when at rest or in moderate exercise. Certainly I used to find that a carby breakfast neccessitated a Snickers bar at around 11am.
I once tried to eat a couple of Snickers (well, for us oldies, Marathon...) bar whilst running a marathon-distance run.
It did not end well, for stomach or guts. I found it blooming hard to even swallow the chocolate whilst running.
(In my defence, I had hit a low-energy time and had forgotten my gels. And the best thing the small village shop had was choccie bars.)
I've not long started a Half Marathon programme, and have just started trialing gels. I bought a couple of Wiggle's own brand caffeine gels for pennies when they went bust to make up enough for free delivery and I'm not really that keen, horrible texture, and far too sweet for me now. SIS aren't much better in my opinion. Any recommendations? I've heard the Kendal Mintcake stuff is pretty good, but again probably too sweet.
I use SiS or High5. High5 probably have better flavours, and are thinner, but there is less carb per packet so I usually use SiS. Caffeine gels are great for when you are flagging and help you to ignore pain and fatigue, but I don't use them for training.
In fact, I try not to use gels for training as you are trying to train the body to burn fat at a higher intensity. I would say carry a gel or two on a long run but only take one if you feel you need it.
Gels can help you run longer, faster, however arguably you should be doing the long run at an easy pace and should be doing speedwork on shorter runs - a tempo run, or intervals - when you wouldn't normally take a gel anyway. Having said that, if you aim to use them during the race you do need to practice or you might just end up throwing up, which will spoil your day.
For the marathon I will be taking a gel every 40 minutes, alternating between standard and caffeine. (They often say every 30 minutes but that is too much for me and I just end up feeling sick)
Just hydrate and run the damn thing. Jeez what a palaver.
If that works for you; great. Others are mere mortal and need to take on some extra energy during the run.
"Need"? Not really but fine I haven't run a marathon for some time so I will bow to your knowledge of current requirements.
Yeah, need. I mean, even the pro triathletes use an f-load of gels in a competition, because they're pushing their bodies to the limit. Heck, I usually need some extra food when *hiking* 26 miles (though that is over a longer time, obvs).
I'm nowhere near professional level (even the pro women are twice as fast as me...), but I am pushing myself to my own limit, and that requires extra during the run. I can just about manage without any on a sprint triathlon, but mt energy levels are really sagging towards the end of the run.
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
Humans are omnivores with adaptable metabolism that can cope with any diet from vegan to whale blubber. Either can be a healthy diet and we'll adapted to the environment.
A diet needs to be affordable, nutritious and enjoyable, so will vary with individual circumstances, but if someone is developing illness (that is where this conversation started) then they need to make adaptions.
Saturated fat and cured meats don't just affect blood lipids, but also are linked to other health problems such as bowel cancer. Humans only need 60g or so of protein a day, after that it is burnt off in a manner not dissimilar to carbohydrates, being metabolised into glucose and ketone. There is a certain amount of stress to the kidneys from this metabolic acidosis, which can be offset by eating alkali vegetables.
A high protien diet does increase the metabolic rate, and tends to promote saity via reduced endogenous insulin production alongside other gut hormones, but can be unhealthy in other ways.
The 60g of protein is often quoted, but surely that is just for maintenance. You also need protein to repair damaged muscle after exercise, and to grow new muscle - distance runners don't bulk up but they do create new fast- and medium-twitch fibres which increase muscle density (at least that's how understand it). However that doesn't usually seem to be taken into consideration. And, as you point out, it can be burnt or stored if not required.
And I am sceptical about the value of a lot of studies saying "x is linked to bowel cancer" those people eating lots of x have also been eating lots of y and z. It would be interesting to see a study of, for example, low-carbers who have been eating lots of saturated fat, but little carbohydrate, for the last 40 years.
What I didn't realise is that most people have a lot of sugar sloshing around in the system through digesting their last meal. When it runs out, you get hungry. Of course the normal mammalian response is to burn body fat, indeed this is why you can still walk and talk after running a marathon, and distance running training is partly about training the body to burn fat at higher intensity, as even a skinny person has an almost limitless supply. I suspect the carb-loaded nature of the standard diet means that people have effectively lost the ability to burn body fat when at rest or in moderate exercise. Certainly I used to find that a carby breakfast neccessitated a Snickers bar at around 11am.
I once tried to eat a couple of Snickers (well, for us oldies, Marathon...) bar whilst running a marathon-distance run.
It did not end well, for stomach or guts. I found it blooming hard to even swallow the chocolate whilst running.
(In my defence, I had hit a low-energy time and had forgotten my gels. And the best thing the small village shop had was choccie bars.)
I've not long started a Half Marathon programme, and have just started trialing gels. I bought a couple of Wiggle's own brand caffeine gels for pennies when they went bust to make up enough for free delivery and I'm not really that keen, horrible texture, and far too sweet for me now. SIS aren't much better in my opinion. Any recommendations? I've heard the Kendal Mintcake stuff is pretty good, but again probably too sweet.
I use SiS or High5. High5 probably have better flavours, and are thinner, but there is less carb per packet so I usually use SiS. Caffeine gels are great for when you are flagging and help you to ignore pain and fatigue, but I don't use them for training.
In fact, I try not to use gels for training as you are trying to train the body to burn fat at a higher intensity. I would say carry a gel or two on a long run but only take one if you feel you need it.
Gels can help you run longer, faster, however arguably you should be doing the long run at an easy pace and should be doing speedwork on shorter runs - a tempo run, or intervals - when you wouldn't normally take a gel anyway. Having said that, if you aim to use them during the race you do need to practice or you might just end up throwing up, which will spoil your day.
For the marathon I will be taking a gel every 40 minutes, alternating between standard and caffeine. (They often say every 30 minutes but that is too much for me and I just end up feeling sick)
Just hydrate and run the damn thing. Jeez what a palaver.
Very much the attitude of a chum of mine, who stood on the marathon start line smoking a fag....
On my travels this year, I see that the Italians and Greeks eat a lot of sugary snacks, too, these days. However, they also still live longer than the UK, because of stronger communities and much healthier food in other parts of their diet, I think, largely.
More that the impact hasn't hit yet. An 80 year old Italian has years of healthy Mediterranean lifestyle under their belt, a 30 something hasn't.
We see the same here. When you go to a place with lots of sprites elderly people (like Rutland) you see people who have always lived healthily. It's a different story on Saffron Lane estate.
I think it is underappreciated how metabolism slows down when we age. A diet and drinking habit sustainable at 25 is just no longer possible at fifty without ballooning weight and BP.
It is very difficult. I'm 59, run 25 or so miles a week on average, eat low carb (no doubt you disapprove Foxy but it stops me both overeating and snacking) and have a BMI of 21. Got a sub-4 marathon last year and I'm in training for Amsterdam in October. I will keep it up as long as I can - but when I started running I still put on weight on a fairly healthy "standard" diet. And poor people can't afford to eat low carb, or even low GI
No, I don't disapprove of a low carbohydrate diet. Indeed my own diet is fairly low carb. Where I think the danger lies is in excessive saturated fat as a substitute, particularly red and cured meats.
Well I cook almost entirely in saturated fat. Plus some olive oil. I don't eat too much beef and lamb as it is expensive, but I do eat quite a bit of pork. Cured meat is bacon a couple of times a week and charcuterie about once a week as I sometimes have a Continental breakfast. I do try to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, especially in the winter, for the Vitamin D. I do eat a fair bit of green veg and salad. My main failing is probably too much protein - but I tell myself that as a runner I need it, especially when I am in training. It would be interesting to have a cholesterol test. I am fairly moderate though - when I cook for myself I aim for 10g per meal, but a couple of times a week I eat out and don't always avoid a moderate amount of carbs, and I do still drink beer (but wine or spirits at home). It seems to work for me without being too restrictive. I wouldn't do Keto - far too restrictive, and some of it seems too much like a religion (surely a few grams of wheat or pulses or rapeseed oil in mayo can't do me any harm?) unless of course I had a few stone to shift, which I don't. But it does seem to keep blood sugar fairly consistent and avoid the need to snack, my midweek bacon and egg breakfast is three rashers of streaky, a tomato and a fried egg, and I don't feel the need to eat before 1pm (and 150g of smoked mackerel will do the same job).
Humans are omnivores with adaptable metabolism that can cope with any diet from vegan to whale blubber. Either can be a healthy diet and we'll adapted to the environment.
A diet needs to be affordable, nutritious and enjoyable, so will vary with individual circumstances, but if someone is developing illness (that is where this conversation started) then they need to make adaptions.
Saturated fat and cured meats don't just affect blood lipids, but also are linked to other health problems such as bowel cancer. Humans only need 60g or so of protein a day, after that it is burnt off in a manner not dissimilar to carbohydrates, being metabolised into glucose and ketone. There is a certain amount of stress to the kidneys from this metabolic acidosis, which can be offset by eating alkali vegetables.
A high protien diet does increase the metabolic rate, and tends to promote saity via reduced endogenous insulin production alongside other gut hormones, but can be unhealthy in other ways.
The 60g of protein is often quoted, but surely that is just for maintenance. You also need protein to repair damaged muscle after exercise, and to grow new muscle - distance runners don't bulk up but they do create new fast- and medium-twitch fibres which increase muscle density (at least that's how understand it). However that doesn't usually seem to be taken into consideration. And, as you point out, it can be burnt or stored if not required.
And I am sceptical about the value of a lot of studies saying "x is linked to bowel cancer" those people eating lots of x have also been eating lots of y and z. It would be interesting to see a study of, for example, low-carbers who have been eating lots of saturated fat, but little carbohydrate, for the last 40 years.
What I didn't realise is that most people have a lot of sugar sloshing around in the system through digesting their last meal. When it runs out, you get hungry. Of course the normal mammalian response is to burn body fat, indeed this is why you can still walk and talk after running a marathon, and distance running training is partly about training the body to burn fat at higher intensity, as even a skinny person has an almost limitless supply. I suspect the carb-loaded nature of the standard diet means that people have effectively lost the ability to burn body fat when at rest or in moderate exercise. Certainly I used to find that a carby breakfast neccessitated a Snickers bar at around 11am.
I once tried to eat a couple of Snickers (well, for us oldies, Marathon...) bar whilst running a marathon-distance run.
It did not end well, for stomach or guts. I found it blooming hard to even swallow the chocolate whilst running.
(In my defence, I had hit a low-energy time and had forgotten my gels. And the best thing the small village shop had was choccie bars.)
I've not long started a Half Marathon programme, and have just started trialing gels. I bought a couple of Wiggle's own brand caffeine gels for pennies when they went bust to make up enough for free delivery and I'm not really that keen, horrible texture, and far too sweet for me now. SIS aren't much better in my opinion. Any recommendations? I've heard the Kendal Mintcake stuff is pretty good, but again probably too sweet.
I use SiS or High5. High5 probably have better flavours, and are thinner, but there is less carb per packet so I usually use SiS. Caffeine gels are great for when you are flagging and help you to ignore pain and fatigue, but I don't use them for training.
In fact, I try not to use gels for training as you are trying to train the body to burn fat at a higher intensity. I would say carry a gel or two on a long run but only take one if you feel you need it.
Gels can help you run longer, faster, however arguably you should be doing the long run at an easy pace and should be doing speedwork on shorter runs - a tempo run, or intervals - when you wouldn't normally take a gel anyway. Having said that, if you aim to use them during the race you do need to practice or you might just end up throwing up, which will spoil your day.
For the marathon I will be taking a gel every 40 minutes, alternating between standard and caffeine. (They often say every 30 minutes but that is too much for me and I just end up feeling sick)
Just hydrate and run the damn thing. Jeez what a palaver.
Very much the attitude of a chum of mine, who stood on the marathon start line smoking a fag....
I ran the things at a steady sub-4hrs for charity not like @JJ does as a sport in itself in which case I'm sure aids are important. Seems a bit doping-ish what with the caffeine and whatnot but as I said it's some time since I've run one.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
The Dutch are particularly interesting, as one of the few countries that rival us in terms of unhealthy traditional diet.
You can get away with it if you do enough cycling.
Dutch cycling culture is quite interesting. It is quite different from ours. It is almost all on knackered old bikes at speeds barely more than running pace. Which, in generalised journey cost terms - taking into account the cost of time, the cost of your bike, the faff time in getting it out and securing it (which is much lower in a bike which costs £100 than £1000, because you care about it less), the time taken to shower after cycling really fast, etc - works out rather better.
Old maids, mist, holy communion, isn't it? Quite a lot of cycling is like that, even in the UK. But it doesn't help the debate that the more visible manifestations are clad in lycra and aggressively going fast. (Because in too many places, aggression is the only way to survive.)
Huge numbers of people in the UK do not cycle or walk because they perceive the roads to be a dangerous environment, where they will be threatened, bullied and abused. The figures are startling.
In urban areas I think storage is at least as big an issue too. There are only 2,400 secure cycle storage spots in Edinburgh, for about 300,000 people living in flats.
You need one of these:
That doesn't work for a disabled person who uses a tricycle as a mobility aid.
They need equivalent facilities, as is their legal right and the legal duty of the LHA to provide.
Or just possibly, someone should engineer a folding trike in the style of a Brompton.... Hmmm... Could be an interesting challenge. Doable, I think.
Rather than starting with a regular Brompton as a template, start with a folding guitar stand and build it up to bike size.
You know I'd have gone into this . There are various effective folding trikes and e-trikes around, but there are further issues around weight, whether N with C disability can carry it etc. There are also things around mobility scooters which are very heavy - up to 200kg+, which also need consideration.
It seems a decent future project for Brompton. Should be viable as the industry is artisan still.
Part of the answer is accessible cycle / mobility aid hangars as a part of all Residents Parking Schemes where flats or terraces exist, and part of it is cycle / mobility aid stores as a permitted development item in front of houses. If you can park a Transit Van or a Range Rover there a secure cycle hangar should be as easy to do for equality reasons. To their credit the previous Govt were consulting on this, but had their maximum sizes all to pot.
Some years ago, the company I was working at signed up to the Vitality health/private medical scheme. Not just cheap gym membership and trainers (and lots of other stuff) but *rewards* for activity.
All the my-exercise-is-lifting-pints types started, at least, walking miles a day - if your family was all signed up to the private medical, you got a cinema ticket for everyone to see a film, each week, if you did enough steps. For example.
As I understand it, the fitness increases noticeably dropped claims on the health insurance, making it profitable for Prudential.
The place I work at does health initiatives and has one of those machines that does check stuff like blood pressure, weight and heart rate.
Problem is you have to create an account to use it and most people, myself included, just cannot be bothered. I just want to get on it and check my data. So it has been in the corner of the canteen doing nothing for a few months.
They also do other stuff like pairing with Durham County on smoking cessation activities and other things like providing fruit and encouraging healthy eating.
It is all hit and miss with people doing it around their day job. For example they organised a walk to the local park during lunch one day. No one went as most people were in a pensions presentation.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
Active travel has been described, fairly convincingly, as a miracle pill for a range of physical and mental health problems. Social connection and all that.
As so often, we know roughly what to do- plan new communities by the maps of what communities looked like before mass car use. What's harder is selling that to electorates in advance, or getting commercial entities to deliver something a bit more expensive and complex than a standard new build estate. You need some kind of benevolent despot with a masterplan. And we don't like them. Even when they are called Charles Windsor, it's not always an easy sell.
Though when you get Poundburys, they are very popular. I have a hobbyhorse about a delivery model of public-sector-as-developer-of-private-housing. The public sector gets to specify what everything looks like, but sells units off to private householders. This makes sense to me, because the impact of development goes far beyond those who live in it. It should also enable slightly cheaper delivery of housing. The downside is that the public sector has a fairly chequered record as a developer. But I think it is worth a try.
Starmer and Rayner are planning Edwardian-style versions of Poundbury, in multiple parts of the country, which I thought the more right-leaning posters would be pleased about. Certainly like the look of their plans myself, much as I also sometimes like some more unconventional, and less obtrusive, modern architecture too.
That's just a language they are using, and they could equally be talking about Scottish tenements or London County Council 1930s to 1950s, or Camden Council 1970s, or 1950s Roehampton, or Medium Rise Timber frame. It can all be done attractively, and the Murdoch Press, the Daily Mail, and the Telegrunt Caucus will all start ranting along anyway because that's what they do for genetic reasons and they have a political need to express opposition to this Govt.
The priority for this Govt is to press ahead with what they intend to do, and remember that anything from that sort of lobby is pure displacement activity for the next X years.
A Labour MP rents out flats with black mould and ant infestations, the BBC has discovered.
Jas Athwal, the newly-elected MP for Ilford South, owns 15 rental flats, making him Parliament's biggest landlord.
In one block of seven flats owned by Mr Athwal nearly half the tenants said they had to regularly clean their bathroom ceilings to remove mould.
The BBC also saw evidence of ant infestations in a number of the seven properties.
"The ants are everywhere," one resident said, pointing to insects climbing up a door frame. "They are on my kid’s body and on their clothes."
Another resident said they had been threatened with eviction by the letting agent if they complained about problems in their flat or started claiming benefits.
4th day ticket holders at Lords are starting to get worried.
Lord’s were complaining last week that Day 4 hadn’t sold out, for the first time in years. Many fans not wanting to tie up their cash and make expensive travel plans months ago, for something likely to be either cancelled or severely curtailed.
The chart attached to this is remarkable. US/China trade has dropped massively (even adding all of the Mexico trade), as China/EU trade has increased.
🇪🇺🇨🇳 - Despite calls for de-risking, EU firms are not curbing trade ties to China • @PIIE data show Europe's reliance on Chinese imports has increased sharply since 2018 • US reliance on Chinese imports decreased in 2018-23, but flows could be partly rerouted through Mexico https://x.com/AgatheDemarais/status/1829187256202211456
If other US corporations are like the one I am attached to then the policy for the last few years, and more since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the perceived risk of China in Taiwan than any Trumpian nonsense, was to move from China to other LCCS's.
Be interesting to see where alot of the stuff moved from China has gone. In our case the focus was on Middle East, Eastern Europe and North Africa.
A Labour MP rents out flats with black mould and ant infestations, the BBC has discovered.
Jas Athwal, the newly-elected MP for Ilford South, owns 15 rental flats, making him Parliament's biggest landlord.
In one block of seven flats owned by Mr Athwal nearly half the tenants said they had to regularly clean their bathroom ceilings to remove mould.
The BBC also saw evidence of ant infestations in a number of the seven properties.
"The ants are everywhere," one resident said, pointing to insects climbing up a door frame. "They are on my kid’s body and on their clothes."
Another resident said they had been threatened with eviction by the letting agent if they complained about problems in their flat or started claiming benefits.
So does the bathroom have adequate ventilation and it is down to the tenant and lifestyle or is it, like the case of the poor little lad in Rochdale, the bathroom has inadequate ventilation.
Most cases of excess moisture are simply down to occupant lifestyle.
That's quite a story, and one that Ms Phillips should perhaps ponder on a little more.
Surprising that it hasn't generated more comment/publicity.
If she did, it's unprofessional by both her and the medics. She should have refused anything preferential, and they should have refused to provide it.
If true, the doctor(s) in question would/could be in trouble.
It's a long way from the pride we felt in the chief medic in the Falklands War, who promulgated medical treatment on strict priority - whether Argentine or British.
A Labour MP rents out flats with black mould and ant infestations, the BBC has discovered.
Jas Athwal, the newly-elected MP for Ilford South, owns 15 rental flats, making him Parliament's biggest landlord.
In one block of seven flats owned by Mr Athwal nearly half the tenants said they had to regularly clean their bathroom ceilings to remove mould.
The BBC also saw evidence of ant infestations in a number of the seven properties.
"The ants are everywhere," one resident said, pointing to insects climbing up a door frame. "They are on my kid’s body and on their clothes."
Another resident said they had been threatened with eviction by the letting agent if they complained about problems in their flat or started claiming benefits.
Excellent, But despite the vibes and the polls and the smart money (now inc Mike Smithson) going against him the Rancid Old Orange is as we speak a slight fav on betfair.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
The Dutch are particularly interesting, as one of the few countries that rival us in terms of unhealthy traditional diet.
You can get away with it if you do enough cycling.
Dutch cycling culture is quite interesting. It is quite different from ours. It is almost all on knackered old bikes at speeds barely more than running pace. Which, in generalised journey cost terms - taking into account the cost of time, the cost of your bike, the faff time in getting it out and securing it (which is much lower in a bike which costs £100 than £1000, because you care about it less), the time taken to shower after cycling really fast, etc - works out rather better.
Old maids, mist, holy communion, isn't it? Quite a lot of cycling is like that, even in the UK. But it doesn't help the debate that the more visible manifestations are clad in lycra and aggressively going fast. (Because in too many places, aggression is the only way to survive.)
Huge numbers of people in the UK do not cycle or walk because they perceive the roads to be a dangerous environment, where they will be threatened, bullied and abused. The figures are startling.
In urban areas I think storage is at least as big an issue too. There are only 2,400 secure cycle storage spots in Edinburgh, for about 300,000 people living in flats.
You need one of these:
And how much is one of those, Robert?
Last time I looked it was closer to four grand than three.
You can get one for £1,500. Still very expensive for a bike, particularly compared to what the Dutch pay.
(But rather cheaper than a second car).
Robert has the electric one.
Assuming the quotes don't bork, I'm sure that no one on PB ever pays RRP for anything. On E-Bromptons:
1 - Cycles including these are essentially tax deductible under the cycle2work scheme, which cuts 20-40%.
2 - I'm not an employee, so I pay full whack, which to get a Brompton quality e-folder can be done for £1000-£1500. Either as a £1000 low end Brompton plus something like a Swytch kit, which is from under £500.
3 - Or as Bromptons last basically forever, can be a second hand one. My two e-folder - one is a £750 nearly new 6-speed Brommie plus a Swytch Kit - better for having two batteries. The other is an equally good more comfortable equivalent slightly less compact £900, single speed thing with single-sided forks. Both fold into a shopping trolley.
In any case it's under 12 month running cost for most vehicles or pet dogs.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
NHS guidelines are 30 grams per day of sugar. Thats about 10.5kg per year. As the Poles consume over 4 times that amount and the Belgians nearly 5 times, it would be good to know if their populations are all dropping down dead at 40 etc so that we can evaluate the wisdom of the NHS guidance.
Belgian life expectantancy is just over the EU average at nearly 82 years, and about a year ahead of the UK. Could it be that Belgian chocolate has life extending powers, and should we not be told. 'Eat lots of Belgian (and Swiss) Cholcolate and Live for Ever' would be an extremely attactive slogan for me.
Are we to believe Belgium's sugar consumption is nearly 5x Luxembourg's? Or double the UK's for that matter?
I suspect that the simplest explanation is the numbers in the map are just wrong.
Or maybe an artefact from food manufacturing, all that chocolate etc.
The map does show that sugar isn't the only concern, and of course lots of other countries are also struggling with obesity pandemics too, even middle income countries and urban areas in low income countries. There are a few exceptions like Vietnam, but I think even there the move to Uas style fried fast food is becoming an issue.
I have hear good things about Bromptons, doesn't RCS have one for zooming around London when he is in town ?
Swytch I have read alot of negative commentary on Swytch on social Media. I will need to go Pedal assist in the next few years, not getting any younger, Swytch puts me off.
On obesity - the current govt has a massive opportunity.
New treatments like Ozempic alongside lifestyle changes and traditional public health interventions mean we have a much better chance of helping people lose weight and stay healthy.
A Labour MP rents out flats with black mould and ant infestations, the BBC has discovered.
Jas Athwal, the newly-elected MP for Ilford South, owns 15 rental flats, making him Parliament's biggest landlord.
In one block of seven flats owned by Mr Athwal nearly half the tenants said they had to regularly clean their bathroom ceilings to remove mould.
The BBC also saw evidence of ant infestations in a number of the seven properties.
"The ants are everywhere," one resident said, pointing to insects climbing up a door frame. "They are on my kid’s body and on their clothes."
Another resident said they had been threatened with eviction by the letting agent if they complained about problems in their flat or started claiming benefits.
So does the bathroom have adequate ventilation and it is down to the tenant and lifestyle or is it, like the case of the poor little lad in Rochdale, the bathroom has inadequate ventilation.
Most cases of excess moisture are simply down to occupant lifestyle.
That sounds like a bit of a potential political time bomb anyway, regardless of how many HoL members, and other MPs, say Hi, and whether "biggest" it is even true.
It needs to be under professional, ideally arms-length, management, and the disclosure requirements are rather limited.
A director of a prison rehabilitation company has been remanded into custody after being charged with an attack near the Notting Hill Carnival on a Swedish chef who was visiting London.
Omar Wilson, 31, was arrested on Wednesday morning on suspicion of attempted murder after the assault on Mussie Imnetu, 41, who has worked under celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing.
"Germany deported 28 hardened criminals to Afghanistan on Friday morning after months of secret talks with the Taliban.
A chartered jet took off from Leipzig airport shortly before 7am local time on Friday, headed directly to Kabul. The decision came three months after Olaf Scholz promised to start sending migrants back, despite safety concerns in their home countries. All the deportees were convicted criminals. Among them was a man found guilty of raping an eleven year old girl and another convicted in a high-profile gang rape case, in which the victim was 14 years old. Confirming the move, which took many in Germany by surprise, Nancy Faeser, the interior minister, said that “our security is what matters”, adding: “Our state has shown that it can act.” The men have each been given €1,000 in cash, a step understood to have been taken in order to comply with legal requirements that the men do not suffer extreme deprivation on arrival."
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
Quite possibly.
But given that the alternative was ongoing strikes and recruitment problems, biting the bullet, however unpleasant, might still have been the least bad option.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
Quite possibly.
But given that the alternative was ongoing strikes and recruitment problems, biting the bullet, however unpleasant, might still have been the least bad option.
The public sector has increased by 800k in the last 5 years. There is no recruitment crisis. It's a myth. The public sector is able to recruit, it just recruits in the wrong roles. The state now accounts for 1/5 people who work, up from 1/6. You can bang on about this as much as you like, reality as told by the ONS is hugely different. We need to get rid of at least 0.5m employees from the public payroll, not increase it further.
Labour are sending this nation towards bankruptcy and an IMF bailout in 2028. The economy is going to bleed out from a thousand tax rises and spending rises and by the time we get to 2028 the market appetite for UK debt will be very poor indeed.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
She's not just an MP but the deputy PM of a "government of service". Taking a holiday less than two months into the job suggests either that she isn't taking it seriously, or that she isn't taken seriously.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
She's not just an MP but the deputy PM of a "government of service". Taking a holiday less than two months into the job suggests either that she isn't taking it seriously, or that she isn't taken seriously.
PM removes painting from workplace, and minister goes on holiday. That all you got?
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Agreed.
I am rapidly tiring of people on twitter declaring Starmer the ‘worst PM ever’ when he’s only been in situ a few weeks. Truss had a shambolic start due to her mini budget. Starmer has had a poor start too but nowhere near as bad and still has some good will.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
She's not just an MP but the deputy PM of a "government of service". Taking a holiday less than two months into the job suggests either that she isn't taking it seriously, or that she isn't taken seriously.
Better see if she's breached the ministerial code, then...
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
She's not just an MP but the deputy PM of a "government of service". Taking a holiday less than two months into the job suggests either that she isn't taking it seriously, or that she isn't taken seriously.
Better see if she's breached the ministerial code, then...
Let’s see if she declares the hospitality.
She wasn’t just at a nightclub, she was the VIP standing next to the DJ.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
She's not just an MP but the deputy PM of a "government of service". Taking a holiday less than two months into the job suggests either that she isn't taking it seriously, or that she isn't taken seriously.
I am reminded of a World beating Prime Minister who couldn't be arsed to turn up to a shit load of Cobra meetings in 2020 just after he won a landslide in December 2019. I believe he hunkered down in Chequers to write a book no one would read.
I also remember a World beating Foreign Secretary who shook off his minders to attend a KGB Officer hosted bun fight in Italy.
I can't remember if you being exercised by such events.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
Quite possibly.
But given that the alternative was ongoing strikes and recruitment problems, biting the bullet, however unpleasant, might still have been the least bad option.
The public sector has increased by 800k in the last 5 years. There is no recruitment crisis. It's a myth. The public sector is able to recruit, it just recruits in the wrong roles. The state now accounts for 1/5 people who work, up from 1/6. You can bang on about this as much as you like, reality as told by the ONS is hugely different. We need to get rid of at least 0.5m employees from the public payroll, not increase it further.
Labour are sending this nation towards bankruptcy and an IMF bailout in 2028. The economy is going to bleed out from a thousand tax rises and spending rises and by the time we get to 2028 the market appetite for UK debt will be very poor indeed.
And what has the total number of employees got to do with recruitment into individual roles? Unless you really think that people are interchangable bodies, a pile of Lego Minifigures who can just be placed wherever, it's utterly irrelevant.
There are things that the nation wants done. Not just the fluffy ones, but unpleasant necessary ones- inspecting building plans, running computer networks, doing criminal trials. Either we all accept that people with skills to do those need to be paid something near the going rate and have other options, or those roles won't get filled.
Two bits of what I thought were right wing wisdom.
1. Things cost what they cost, not what you think they ought to cost.
2. If you can't afford it, put it back on the shelf.
If there are ways of working more efficiently (that don't boil down to shouting "work harder!"), great. Bear in mind that Hunt and Sunak expected them, and banked the proceeds of them, without really specifying them.
If there are things the state should simply stop doing, so be it, but once again- you need to specify them.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
Quite possibly.
But given that the alternative was ongoing strikes and recruitment problems, biting the bullet, however unpleasant, might still have been the least bad option.
The public sector has increased by 800k in the last 5 years. There is no recruitment crisis. It's a myth. The public sector is able to recruit, it just recruits in the wrong roles. The state now accounts for 1/5 people who work, up from 1/6. You can bang on about this as much as you like, reality as told by the ONS is hugely different. We need to get rid of at least 0.5m employees from the public payroll, not increase it further.
Labour are sending this nation towards bankruptcy and an IMF bailout in 2028. The economy is going to bleed out from a thousand tax rises and spending rises and by the time we get to 2028 the market appetite for UK debt will be very poor indeed.
Another round of lazy public sector bashing.
These jobs didn't get created since July 5th - they were created by successive Conservative administrations since the 2019 election and somehow it is "all Labour's fault".
I don't hear many Conservative supporters openly criticising their Government for the growth in parts of the public sector (and again more lazy thinking as the local Government work force fell by nearly a million from 2010 to 2019 and has barely changed since.
From where then have all these new public sector jobs originated? The NHS. civil service, armed forces, police? From where would you dismiss these 500,000 people, at which level, in what part of the sector? It's easy to throw numbers around but would be much more helpful if some proper context were provided.
As for problems recruiting, the public sector hasd the same problems recruiting as other sectors - County Councils, for example, carry 15-20% vacancies and gaps in such areas as qualified SEN teachers and social care workers are compounded by shortages in other key professional areas.
What would be your panacea to all this as if I couldn't guess - big spending cuts and big tax cuts? Wasn't that proposed by someone not long ago and remind me how well that went?
Thatcher is properly scary in the portrait. I wouldn't want her in my study either.
Starmer is a pretty vindictive person.
This is already becoming quite clear.
Re-arranging the office decor when you move in is hardly a sign of great vindictiveness. Maybe spare your outrage for stuff that matters?
The outrage does matter.
The tories are still in a very dangerous position. Not quite as existential as it was several months ago, but they're nowhere near out of the woods. The last thing the party needs are members like casino & hyufd shrugging their shoulders and quietly walking away. They've got to rebuild from something. Anything.
He's doing the tory party a great service, here.
As usual sks has his opponents opposite him in HoC and his enemies behind him. This is about the labour left and the optics of the Kid Starver sitting under a portrait of the Milk Snatcher.
If you take a step back, Labour are behaving like a competent Conservative government. Fiscally responsible, no increases in taxes (so far...), cuts to universal benefits, neutral position on Gaza, big on law and order.
They have to give the left something.
They've given massive pay increases to union members, whilst taking money from poor pensioners.
What's not for the leftists to like?
Those pay increases don't even bring the public sector in line with the private sector since the Great Recession, and the whole point of WFP is that it's now means-tested.
That means-testing is a little too tight, in my view, but you can hardly argue that universal benefits is a what is important to Conservatives. Politically, you're right about public sector pay, but we know from the polling that public services are important to people and a series of strikes into the winter would have sunk any government.
unbiased view from the public sector, stop laughing at the back.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive. British diets are shit and we don’t do enough exercise. If people are fat they should be told so.
Yet there seems to be more fear of eating disorders than of the epochal health challenge that is obesity.
I think my own hospital could do with a visit by the fat inspectors. Indeed my own diabetes team is alarmingly plump.
exactly , more fat nurses than fatties in the public , they are hardly being worked to the bone for sure.
Considering that ultra processed foods make up about 60% of calories consumed in this country and that percentage increases for children and people in poorer areas, the UK government has to do something to make the population aware that their food choices are killing them. The "food" industry bears full responsibility for the obesity epidemic, and are as evil as the tobacco companies. Sadly, we're too far down the hole to make healthy eating affordable for the masses, so we're fucked.
I understand the book about UPF is very good, but I think oversimplifying the concept misses the point. It is not the case that the less processing you do to something the better it is for you. Vegetables' goodness is often better absorbed when the vegetable is cooked. The fat soluble vitamins in many vegetables needs to be accompanied by fat - hence we put butter on our carrots and dressing on our salad. Cabbage is better for you when fermented. These are all food processes.
I absolutely agree with you. Processed food is more than acceptable. Humans have Processed food for thousands of years and without it, humans wouldn't be at the top of the tree now. All food is Processed in some way. What I'm arguing against is the industrial manufacture of food using unheard of and often poorly regulated chemicals and fats, gums and sweeteners. Those are the ones that suppress and overide the body's natural systems.
I saw an interesting map recently: the UK consumption of sugar is on the low side compared to European averages. Clearly this is just one measure, but I'd always thought this quite a good proxy for quality of diet.
My guess is that a big part of our problem is lifestyle, and car-dependency. You don't see many fatties in Denmark or the Netherlands. But it's only a guess, and no doubt the answer is complex.
The Dutch are particularly interesting, as one of the few countries that rival us in terms of unhealthy traditional diet.
You can get away with it if you do enough cycling.
Dutch cycling culture is quite interesting. It is quite different from ours. It is almost all on knackered old bikes at speeds barely more than running pace. Which, in generalised journey cost terms - taking into account the cost of time, the cost of your bike, the faff time in getting it out and securing it (which is much lower in a bike which costs £100 than £1000, because you care about it less), the time taken to shower after cycling really fast, etc - works out rather better.
Old maids, mist, holy communion, isn't it? Quite a lot of cycling is like that, even in the UK. But it doesn't help the debate that the more visible manifestations are clad in lycra and aggressively going fast. (Because in too many places, aggression is the only way to survive.)
Huge numbers of people in the UK do not cycle or walk because they perceive the roads to be a dangerous environment, where they will be threatened, bullied and abused. The figures are startling.
In urban areas I think storage is at least as big an issue too. There are only 2,400 secure cycle storage spots in Edinburgh, for about 300,000 people living in flats.
You need one of these:
Typical cyclist. Blocking the train doorway! 😉
Just do what sensible people do....;.train doors open chuck it onto the platform
Al Sharpton has a solution for obesity: aource$:https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/14/medicare-obesity-drugs-black-americans/ "The good news is that today, a new class of weight-loss drugs is finally making inroads in the fight against obesity. The bad news is that Medicare and some Medicaid programs do not cover anti-obesity medications. And this news is worst of all for Black Americans.
It’s fair to say that if obesity has a stranglehold on America, it has a death grip on Black America. Nearly half of Black Americans — including almost 60 percent of Black women — are living with obesity, which kicks the door wide open to hundreds of other related conditions, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and high blood pressure."
We don't have much historical guidance on what to do about the problem of fat poor people.
The Times headline seems to imply its forced on workers and that they’ll be fat shamed in front of their colleagues.
It’s voluntary . The Times I’ve found over the last year seems to do a lot headlines which seek to mislead .
"Employers to have signed up include Jaguar Land Rover, where 4,500 staff from the boardroom to the factory floor will get the checks within months at its Solihull base."
I read that as voluntary at the employer level. Kid Starver teams up with the head capitalists to fat shame The Workers. He really is hilariously useless.
"More than 16 million people are eligible for an NHS health check, but data shows that only about 40% of those invited complete one."
Reaching people via their workplace - inviting them to complete a voluntary health questionnaire on company time - might be a way of improving that sort of response rate, and help to head off health problems at an earlier stage.
It's not going to be forcing people up on stage to face the calipers in front of all their colleagues. Some of the reactions to this very modest trial scheme are completely unhinged.
In my experience, people who are fat know they are fat, and being told yet again that they need to lose weight won't help.
If I were to get a letter inviting me for "an NHS health check", I'd probably just bin it because it strikes me as a waste of time when I know it takes literally months to get an appointment when I want one.
I would just say that it could be the most important thing you do
I had my dvt in October last year and was admitted to hospital as a medical emergency and underwent an immediate ultra sound
That ultrasound found a massive dvt in my left thigh but also an undetected aneurysm that can often be fatal
As a result my aneurysm is monitored yearly and if necessary the surgeon will operate
Blood pressure, pulse and oxygen tests can be lifesavers and to be honest there is no need to fat shame anyone
But that last is all that will happen - people will be told to lose weight/drink less/give up smoking, as appropriate, and not a jot more.
Fatness has become such a ridiculous taboo in this country. Mentioning it is almost up there with racial slurs.
The fact is the country is way too obese and it’s making the population unhealthy and unproductive.
There are fat fucks everywhere and it must be costing the country a fortune. I doubt anything Starmer does will change that but at least he's having a go.
I have to say I'm enjoying the new atmos of steely, buttoned-down efficiency. Not a joke in sight, everything clipped to size, nothing lax or loose or (oh god) 'quirky', no self-indulgence, no straining for adulation, no 'look at me' neediness, no attempt to amuse or excite or entertain, no flaky ideology, no pretentious intellectual fetishes. A complete absence of the shit we've become accustomed to in recent years. Instead what we have is what we see. A serious white collar professional with a nice big parliamentary majority looking to fix some problems.
Two out of three ain't bad...
And don't be sad because it's too early to judge on that 3rd one. Yes the vibes are good but we'll have to see.
The vibes are fiddling around the edges with picayune nonsense...
There's been a few meaningful actions. Taking the heat out of public sector pay, the start of planning changes, approval of some stalled green energy projects, cancellation of Rwanda. You may disagree with those policies, but they're not meaningless. Oh, and squashing the riots reasonably quickly.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
Having spoken to quite a few private sector workers already regretting voting Labour, caving to the Unions has probably lost Labour more voters than it has gained....
It’s not been a sure-footed start by any means. Clearly it hasn’t been quite as disastrous as a post-2016 Tory government, and long may that continue, but post-2016 Tory government was uniquely bad.
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
Could Angela Rayner become a liability rather than an asset?
She's not just an MP but the deputy PM of a "government of service". Taking a holiday less than two months into the job suggests either that she isn't taking it seriously, or that she isn't taken seriously.
Comments
Some years ago, the company I was working at signed up to the Vitality health/private medical scheme. Not just cheap gym membership and trainers (and lots of other stuff) but *rewards* for activity.
All the my-exercise-is-lifting-pints types started, at least, walking miles a day - if your family was all signed up to the private medical, you got a cinema ticket for everyone to see a film, each week, if you did enough steps. For example.
As I understand it, the fitness increases noticeably dropped claims on the health insurance, making it profitable for Prudential.
I would not have been a minister under Tories, says Labour’s Patrick Vallance
Exclusive: Former chief scientific adviser makes remark as DSIT announces reopening of recruitment for key role
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/30/labour-patrick-vallance-science-minister-tories
Though it does explain why Zuckerberg has gone all Trump friendly, recently.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/28/trump-zuckerberg-election-book-00176639?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=0000014e-f112-dd93-ad7f-f9178bf80001&nlid=630318
..Former President Donald Trump writes in a new book set to be published next week that Mark Zuckerberg plotted against him during the 2020 election and said the Meta chief executive would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he did it again...
At the start of lockdown there was a large lady wobbling along on a Boris Bike, as a local regular fixture. Every day.
Last time I saw her, was a while back. She was riding a very expensive piece of carbon fibre, had lost a lot of weight and was very, very good at riding her bike. She stopped completely for some pensioners walking along the river path without putting a foot down - did it with a kind of careless ease, as well.
Meanwhile, by this stage, Truss's Ministry had collapsed, and Johnson was either off writing a terrible book or preparing that reshuffle where Saj and Smith were thrown under the bus.
All we can say is that it isn't a disaster yet. That shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
E2A: CAREFULLY fill the threaded pin holes with bathroom sealant otherwise they will become full of compacted road shit that will be impossible to remove. Dissolve the sealant with meths if you ever want to put the pins in again.
Aesthetics are my starting point for most stuff, I find McVey’s gross, lumbering appropriation of the Holocaust to make a half-arsed point aesthetically unpleasing. I also think she doesn’t give a flying one for ‘freedom’.
In fact, I try not to use gels for training as you are trying to train the body to burn fat at a higher intensity. I would say carry a gel or two on a long run but only take one if you feel you need it.
Gels can help you run longer, faster, however arguably you should be doing the long run at an easy pace and should be doing speedwork on shorter runs - a tempo run, or intervals - when you wouldn't normally take a gel anyway. Having said that, if you aim to use them during the race you do need to practice or you might just end up throwing up, which will spoil your day.
For the marathon I will be taking a gel every 40 minutes, alternating between standard and caffeine. (They often say every 30 minutes but that is too much for me and I just end up feeling sick)
Let's see some action. Being slightly cynical, I expect Labour to either fail to build much more, or build a load of cr@p estates without any proper facilities. Because numbers matter more than liveability.
Following the Morning Consult poll this morning, he sold Trump on Betfair, so he's still taking an interest in political bettng.
I think getting and keeping that lot down is almost as impressive as doing the marathon.
I'm afraid that interested people will need to googke Starmer, Rayner, Edwardian, and Times, together, and then the article should come up.
US/China trade has dropped massively (even adding all of the Mexico trade), as China/EU trade has increased.
🇪🇺🇨🇳 - Despite calls for de-risking, EU firms are not curbing trade ties to China
• @PIIE data show Europe's reliance on Chinese imports has increased sharply since 2018
• US reliance on Chinese imports decreased in 2018-23, but flows could be partly rerouted through Mexico
https://x.com/AgatheDemarais/status/1829187256202211456
I'm nowhere near professional level (even the pro women are twice as fast as me...), but I am pushing myself to my own limit, and that requires extra during the run. I can just about manage without any on a sprint triathlon, but mt energy levels are really sagging towards the end of the run.
It seems a decent future project for Brompton. Should be viable as the industry is artisan still.
Part of the answer is accessible cycle / mobility aid hangars as a part of all Residents Parking Schemes where flats or terraces exist, and part of it is cycle / mobility aid stores as a permitted development item in front of houses. If you can park a Transit Van or a Range Rover there a secure cycle hangar should be as easy to do for equality reasons. To their credit the previous Govt were consulting on this, but had their maximum sizes all to pot.
I still think Stride is a value loser at these prices...
"Union leaders have warned council leaders must “wake up and be aware they are facing an autumn of strikes”."
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/binmen-to-vote-on-strike-action-after-rejecting-pay-offer/ar-AA1pHZzF?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=904fbfa7735c4d0c8c1e639334819e11&ei=16
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/pennsylvania/trump-vs-harris
"The painting of Margaret Thatcher has been moved to the kitchen which is a problem as my milk keeps disappearing..."
https://x.com/Number10cat/status/1829486947368378503
Problem is you have to create an account to use it and most people, myself included, just cannot be bothered. I just want to get on it and check my data. So it has been in the corner of the canteen doing nothing for a few months.
They also do other stuff like pairing with Durham County on smoking cessation activities and other things like providing fruit and encouraging healthy eating.
It is all hit and miss with people doing it around their day job. For example they organised a walk to the local park during lunch one day. No one went as most people were in a pensions presentation.
That's just a language they are using, and they could equally be talking about Scottish tenements or London County Council 1930s to 1950s, or Camden Council 1970s, or 1950s Roehampton, or Medium Rise Timber frame. It can all be done attractively, and the Murdoch Press, the Daily Mail, and the Telegrunt Caucus will all start ranting along anyway because that's what they do for genetic reasons and they have a political need to express opposition to this Govt.
The priority for this Govt is to press ahead with what they intend to do, and remember that anything from that sort of lobby is pure displacement activity for the next X years.
Jenrick 3.1
Badenoch 3.15
Cleverly 7.4
Tugendhat 9
Patel 30
Stride 60
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.205526560
A Labour MP rents out flats with black mould and ant infestations, the BBC has discovered.
Jas Athwal, the newly-elected MP for Ilford South, owns 15 rental flats, making him Parliament's biggest landlord.
In one block of seven flats owned by Mr Athwal nearly half the tenants said they had to regularly clean their bathroom ceilings to remove mould.
The BBC also saw evidence of ant infestations in a number of the seven properties.
"The ants are everywhere," one resident said, pointing to insects climbing up a door frame. "They are on my kid’s body and on their clothes."
Another resident said they had been threatened with eviction by the letting agent if they complained about problems in their flat or started claiming benefits.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyg1j0lv1go
Be interesting to see where alot of the stuff moved from China has gone. In our case the focus was on Middle East, Eastern Europe and North Africa.
Most cases of excess moisture are simply down to occupant lifestyle.
It's a long way from the pride we felt in the chief medic in the Falklands War, who promulgated medical treatment on strict priority - whether Argentine or British.
1 - Cycles including these are essentially tax deductible under the cycle2work scheme, which cuts 20-40%.
2 - I'm not an employee, so I pay full whack, which to get a Brompton quality e-folder can be done for £1000-£1500. Either as a £1000 low end Brompton plus something like a Swytch kit, which is from under £500.
3 - Or as Bromptons last basically forever, can be a second hand one. My two e-folder - one is a £750 nearly new 6-speed Brommie plus a Swytch Kit - better for having two batteries. The other is an equally good more comfortable equivalent slightly less compact £900, single speed thing with single-sided forks. Both fold into a shopping trolley.
In any case it's under 12 month running cost for most vehicles or pet dogs.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/sugar-consumption-by-country
Not much difference between Uk and Belgium, but Luxembourg is much HIGHER than anyone else
I have hear good things about Bromptons, doesn't RCS have one for zooming around London when he is in town ?
Swytch I have read alot of negative commentary on Swytch on social Media. I will need to go Pedal assist in the next few years, not getting any younger, Swytch puts me off.
New treatments like Ozempic alongside lifestyle changes and traditional public health interventions mean we have a much better chance of helping people lose weight and stay healthy.
It needs to be under professional, ideally arms-length, management, and the disclosure requirements are rather limited.
A director of a prison rehabilitation company has been remanded into custody after being charged with an attack near the Notting Hill Carnival on a Swedish chef who was visiting London.
Omar Wilson, 31, was arrested on Wednesday morning on suspicion of attempted murder after the assault on Mussie Imnetu, 41, who has worked under celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing.
A chartered jet took off from Leipzig airport shortly before 7am local time on Friday, headed directly to Kabul. The decision came three months after Olaf Scholz promised to start sending migrants back, despite safety concerns in their home countries. All the deportees were convicted criminals. Among them was a man found guilty of raping an eleven year old girl and another convicted in a high-profile gang rape case, in which the victim was 14 years old. Confirming the move, which took many in Germany by surprise, Nancy Faeser, the interior minister, said that “our security is what matters”, adding: “Our state has shown that it can act.” The men have each been given €1,000 in cash, a step understood to have been taken in order to comply with legal requirements that the men do not suffer extreme deprivation on arrival."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/30/germany-deports-afghan-illegal-migrants-taliban-secret-talk/
It’s still far too early to start writing this government off though. Plenty left to run.
https://news.sky.com/story/deputy-pm-angela-rayner-spotted-raving-in-ibiza-superclub-with-dj-fisher-13205971
But given that the alternative was ongoing strikes and recruitment problems, biting the bullet, however unpleasant, might still have been the least bad option.
Can’t say I like her. But she’s enjoying a holiday. Good for her. Why not. We all need to let off steam. She’s not hurting anyone.
Happy (or not, as the case may be) Gabriel Bell Day.
https://x.com/steve_vladeck/status/1829515382287405199
Labour are sending this nation towards bankruptcy and an IMF bailout in 2028. The economy is going to bleed out from a thousand tax rises and spending rises and by the time we get to 2028 the market appetite for UK debt will be very poor indeed.
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2024/0830/1467524-french-rape-trial/
Agreed.
I am rapidly tiring of people on twitter declaring Starmer the ‘worst PM ever’ when he’s only been in situ a few weeks. Truss had a shambolic start due to her mini budget. Starmer has had a poor start too but nowhere near as bad and still has some good will.
You think it can’t get any worse but the more you read the worse it gets.
Horrendous.
She wasn’t just at a nightclub, she was the VIP standing next to the DJ.
I saw someone wearing a "F*ck Two Tier Keir" T-shirt this afternoon. First spotting for me. Are they common elsewhere?
Massive blackboard sign on the main road outside. It reads: "Watch out, the fun police are out to get you."
Cut-through. This government might plumb new depths of unpopularity. And rapidly.
NEW THREAD
I also remember a World beating Foreign Secretary who shook off his minders to attend a KGB Officer hosted bun fight in Italy.
I can't remember if you being exercised by such events.
There are things that the nation wants done. Not just the fluffy ones, but unpleasant necessary ones- inspecting building plans, running computer networks, doing criminal trials. Either we all accept that people with skills to do those need to be paid something near the going rate and have other options, or those roles won't get filled.
Two bits of what I thought were right wing wisdom.
1. Things cost what they cost, not what you think they ought to cost.
2. If you can't afford it, put it back on the shelf.
If there are ways of working more efficiently (that don't boil down to shouting "work harder!"), great. Bear in mind that Hunt and Sunak expected them, and banked the proceeds of them, without really specifying them.
If there are things the state should simply stop doing, so be it, but once again- you need to specify them.
But quibbling over the price isn't dignified.
These jobs didn't get created since July 5th - they were created by successive Conservative administrations since the 2019 election and somehow it is "all Labour's fault".
I don't hear many Conservative supporters openly criticising their Government for the growth in parts of the public sector (and again more lazy thinking as the local Government work force fell by nearly a million from 2010 to 2019 and has barely changed since.
From where then have all these new public sector jobs originated? The NHS. civil service, armed forces, police? From where would you dismiss these 500,000 people, at which level, in what part of the sector? It's easy to throw numbers around but would be much more helpful if some proper context were provided.
As for problems recruiting, the public sector hasd the same problems recruiting as other sectors - County Councils, for example, carry 15-20% vacancies and gaps in such areas as qualified SEN teachers and social care workers are compounded by shortages in other key professional areas.
What would be your panacea to all this as if I couldn't guess - big spending cuts and big tax cuts? Wasn't that proposed by someone not long ago and remind me how well that went?
"The good news is that today, a new class of weight-loss drugs is finally making inroads in the fight against obesity. The bad news is that Medicare and some Medicaid programs do not cover anti-obesity medications. And this news is worst of all for Black Americans.
It’s fair to say that if obesity has a stranglehold on America, it has a death grip on Black America. Nearly half of Black Americans — including almost 60 percent of Black women — are living with obesity, which kicks the door wide open to hundreds of other related conditions, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and high blood pressure."
We don't have much historical guidance on what to do about the problem of fat poor people.
It may be tempting to medicate it away but the real solution is targeted carbon taxes.