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Guest Post: The Great Reset
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
The Great Reset
Since the Status Quo is unsustainable, there will be a Great Reset. The timing and nature of that Reset is up to us.
Yesterday I laid out why the Status Quo is financially unsustainable in The Promises That Cannot Be Kept. The unavoidable consequence of that is the the nation will experience a Great Reset in which the promises of the Savior State are relinquished, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
As I discussed in July 4, 2011: The Cycle of Dependency and the Atrophy of Self-Reliance, our reliance on the Savior State has sapped our will and confidence, and hollowed out communities that have become dependent on the Savior State and its quasi-private partners, the corporate cartels of banking, defense, healthcare and so on.
The Great Reset will thus be a great shock to everyone who has grown dependent on Big Government and global Corporate America.
An unprecedented array of interconnected trends are converging that will force a Reset not just in the economy but in the American society and culture.
1. Peak Government and Moral Hazard. When the Savior State promises to "fix" any and all problems in the nation, such as banks making bad bets and becoming insolvent, it introduces a pervasive moral hazard into the culture. The defining characteristic of moral hazard is that it insulates a person from risk. That person will behave much differently than someone who is not insulated from risk.
In the case of finance, the person insulated from the consequences of his gambles will have an insatiable appetite for risky bets that would be viewed as insanely foolhardy by a person exposed to the full, real risk.
In broad brush, the financial crisis was caused by the Savior State backstopping all "too big to fail" banks and Wall Street bets. These financial institutions are essentially free to make stupendously risky bets and keep the gains, if any, while passing the losses back to the Savior State's taxpayers. Imagine being given a stake at the roulette table where you get to keep your winnings but Uncle Sam makes good your losses.
Closer to home, the Savior State's promises to fund our retirement and healthcare via modest payroll deductions has introduced a moral hazard that is reflected in the nation's anemic savings rate: there is no need to save, because the heavy lifting of our retirement and healthcare will be done by the Savior State.
The numbers are something like this: the average Medicare recipient pays in $10,000 and extracts $250,000 in benefits. This kind of system is only sustainable if there are 25 workers for every retiree. Right now, there are roughly 2.5 workers for every retiree in the U.S., and if you consider only private-sector workers, it's more like 2 to 1.
We are at Peak Government and Peak Promises.
2. Demographics. "Pay as you go" systems like Social Security and Medicare only function sustainably if the retirees drawing benefits remain about 1/10th of the number of workers paying the taxes. Alternatively, the population must pyramid up every generation to maintain that 10-to-1 ratio.
The Baby Boom is roughly 76 million people, or about 25% of the population. There are about 139 million workers and about 310 million residents. The Baby Boom has started retiring en masse; all of my relatives and friends who work for state or local government are already retired well before the age of 60, and the first Boomers qualify for Medicare this year.
Once the Boomers are in the system, the worker-retiree ratio will be less than 2-to-1. This is completely unsustainable in a "pay as you go" system. Here are the charts:
I have addressed these issues many times:
End of Work, End of Affluence I: Cascading Job Losses (December 8, 2008)
End of Work, End of Affluence III: The Rise of Informal Businesses (December 10, 2008)
Endgame 3: The End of (Paying) Work (January 21, 2009)
The "End of Work" and the Coming Revolution in Education (June 7, 2011)
4. Peak Health. We're past Peak Health and well into a level of chronic lifestyle and diet diseases that is unprecedented in our history.
I have covered sickcare and the decline of health many times, for example, The American Diet: Manufacturing Ill Health (April 25, 2007)
As expected, developing nations like Egypt and Asian nations with low-fat, low protein cuisines like Japan have few obese adults. The surprise is that European nations with high-fat diets rich in chocolate and cheeses like France are relatively low. (Switzerland, though not shown, was just above Japan despite a very high per capita intake of chocolate.)
This suggests that fat alone (or sweets alone) cannot be singled out as the "cause" of obesity.
Now please don't take this entry personally if you are overweight. By the NIH standards of what constitutes "normal weight," some 2/3 of American adults are overweight or obese. Since this wasn't the case 40 years ago, we have to ask what's different now.
What's different? Lifestyle and diet. Boiled down, here is the situation: unprocessed foods are healthy and unprofitable, processed foods are unhealthy and immensely profitable.
Here is a long-term study which supports the connection between lowering salt intake and lowering the risk of heart disease:
Scientists prove that salty diet costs lives; "Eating less salt reduces the chances of suffering a heart attack or stroke, the first long-term study of salt’s impact on health confirms today."The usual image of a high-salt diet is someone shaking loads of salt on their steak or veggies. Too bad it's not this simple. A careful study of standard American manufactured foods has led me to conclude that even if you don't add a single grain of salt to a single morsel of food, you are eating far more salt than is healthy.
And by manufactured foods I don't mean just frozen dinners; I mean canned beans, prepared salads, packaged noodles, sausage, snacks, etc. Everything which isn't fresh produce, bread. dairy/soy or fresh meat/fish, i.e. foods which require some preparation.
The "recommended salt intake per day" is about 2300 mg (milligrams), which in terms of limiting your risk of dying prematurely should be viewed as a maximum best avoided--about half that would be a better target. So let's "eat healthy"--low fat and low sugar--and see how we do:
Breakfast: Wheat Chex: 420 mg of salt and a low-fat Aidells sausage: 300 mg
Lunch: Trader Joe's mushroom rice noodle soup bowl: 700 mg
one bag of low-fat chips: 600 mg
dinner: organic garbanzo beans, 390 mg, salad with blue-cheese dressing with bacon bits (500 mg), frozen low-fat enchiladas (750 mg.)Total salt content of "low calorie, restricted fat" diet: 3660 mg. What can we say about this level of salt intake? It raises the risk of stroke and heart disease. Put simply: it will very likely take years off your life.
So next time you're in a fast food outlet or a supermarket, try to find something you can eat that won't kill you. It will be a challenge, I guarantee you.
Here's a short list of what I no longer eat:
- chips: out, too much salt
- fries: out, too much salt
- sausage: out, too much salt
- fast food in general: out, too much salt
- salted nuts: out, too much salt
- canned goods: out, too much salt
- most cereals: out, too much salt
- bottled salad dressings: out, too much salt
- sports drinks: out, too much salt
- pre-packaged salads: out, too much salt in the dressing
- frozen meals: out, too much salt
- packaged snacks: out, too much salt
- packaged noodles: out, too much salt
In other words, literally everything in the supermarket except the fresh produce and the meat counter (with rare exceptions like frozen blueberries, which are essentially produce anyway).
If you want to locate the cause of American obesity and poor health, look no further than the label on virtually every item in the American supermarket.
Demographically, the Savior State programs of healthcare are unsustainable, even as the costs of treating chronic lifestyle diseases with expensive medications is skyrocketing along with the population at risk of these chronic lifestyle diseases.
5. Peak Cheap Oil. Cheerleaders assure us the world has 40 years of oil, no problem, but these cheerleaders inevitably avoid the consequences of EROEI. It now takes more capital to extract a barrel of oil or process shale into liquid oil, a dynamic measured by EROEI, energy returned on energy invested (or EROI, energy returned on investment, which to the degree that money is a measure of energy is the same thing).
In the good old days, oil gushed out of the ground and the total recovery cost was $1 per barrel, or perhaps $5 if the well was deep. So what happens as the recovery cost rises to $50 per barrel? That is the cost for deep offshore wells, tar sands, shale oil and all the other so-called "unconventional" sources of oil.
We should recall here that relatively modest (in the long view) increases in the cost of energy in the 1970s sent the U.S. economy into a decade-long stagflation. Cheerleaders reassure us that energy is a much smaller part of the economy now, but that reassurance is hollow, for oil leverages everything from air travel to plastics to fertilizer to the cheap frozen foods in the supermarket.
The Great Reset won't just transform government, it will transform the economy and culture. Although it will be marketed as a great tragedy by those losing power and profits, the end of Savior State moral hazard will not be a tragedy, it will simply be a return to reality. Those exposed to risk behave differently than those insulated from risk. That is neither "good" nor "bad," it is an observation any of us can make.
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Oh, goody. Gee, aren't you clever. Who cares....
What part will Nigel Farage play in the grand reset, do people think? Here in Israel, we're watching his antics with mounting anxiety. Didn't he have a near-miss plane crash recently?
He has survived one plane crash already, yes. For his family's sake, I hope he is well insured. The man is very courageous, and I salute him for it and his efforts.
http://www.king5.com/news/125105599.html Remind me to Never Ever Use Chase as my Bank :) WOW then
Auburn Police Commander Dave Colglazier said Chase could have done a lot more to let them know they’d locked up an innocent man.
“We do have a main line that comes into our front office,” he said. “There are ways to reach someone 24/7 at a police department.” For Njoku, going to jail for five days meant a lot more than just losing his freedom. He said the entire time he was “just stressed out…trying to figure out what was going on with my vehicle. I love my vehicle,” he said. yea he lost his car and Job and didn't do anything to fix problemLook don't sweat it we got a good alternative business model for the new economy: we'll do each other's laundry. Nice and tidy, now! And we can moonlight on weekends serving burgers to one another. Oh, sorry, serving low-sodium, gluten-free veggie burgers to one another. Fries will be taxed as a health hazard. Then they'll only be available from shady characters on the black market.
Regarding food - from how i understood him, he wasn't complaining that food with rather biased ingredients exists at all.... what he was complaining about, is that almost all pre-processed food is affected. THAT simply isn't necessary. Same goes for the lifestyle into which most serfs are forced - take a look at civilization around you, especially the lower class - and tell me if the way they live seems biologically and mentally healthy?
It not specifically a food issue..... but in general the way how culture and lifestyle is for the less fortunate.
well if the lower classes made good decisions, they wouldn't be the lower classes, would they?
if we all made good decisions then who would the parasites feed on?
Moreover, if everyone made "good decisions", then there would be no employees and no employers - only one-man companies.
But i doubt that's what trav meant...... what he probably meant, was that "good decisions" are actually rewarded in the current system...... that, or he has a really fucked up definition of "good".
yes, the people at the bottom are never victims, never...ever. History shows that clearly. So...when the people at the bottom finally revolt...is that a good decision? So money is the only measure of intelligence and morals. Cool.
Not the Great Reset, but the French Revolution, Version 2.0.
I'm glad I'm livin' in the USA and you know why, pal? Cuz we got hamburgers sizzlin' on open grills night and day.
Self-responsibility and self-reliability. That's the answer. We all determine, to a large degree and based on effort and choices, whether we achieve self-sustainabilty and beyond or not.
The U.S. government is the most most failed business in the history of the Earth. Add Keynesian falsehoods to the system and currency policy, fractional reserve lending, derivatives, get off a "gold backed" dollar, and here we are 40 years later. 14.5 trillion in debt and in "need" of raising taxes. (Not to mention SS liabilities.)
I suggest reliance on this possibly failing system is unwise. My SS witholding payments are gone. I'll never see that money and I do not plan for it.
The best way to deal with the government is to stay as far away as possible, and be as tax and asset savvy as possible.
Agreed.
This would still be a "relatively" great country. I f we can just eliminate waste in this society it would absorb a lot of pain from this reset. Waste of food (a lot of it during automated processing), Waste of water (eg. using water to clean ourselves than for massage under a shower), waste of electricity (learning to switch off), waste of plastic, paper, aluminum; I could go on an on...
I hope it doesn't reset before Septembers release of Apples IPhone5. That would be such a tease.
And Apple has given Rupert Murdoch's Foxtard News the exclusive contract to provide the "news" for those iPhones.....
What a country.......What a farce!
What else has changed in eating habits?
Bucket-sized cups filled with sugar-water, called Coke and the like.
No more walking, every move done by car, strong anti-sun-propaganda that leads to depression that gets cured with more sugar.
Compare people walking in the daylight, say in Toronto, to people driving everywhere in the countryside – the difference is obvious.
Nobody mentions those reasons and obvious cures.
Grandma and Grnadpa also loved 7-UP
Consume, bitchez!
He lost me at salt. Might as well say shit about my mother....I have but one mistress, and her name is salt.
mine is pepper...but don't tell trav
How many people on this site actually work for a living. when i say work i do not mean sit in front of a screen and trade things but actually produce a tangible product with thier 'labour' i love this site, but find the comment section usually filled with hopefull remarks about the forthcoming return to atavism by whom i suspect are folks that are not too good with thier hands. i hope i am wrong and hope you will prove me so. i am sure your gold stash and seed vault are impressive, but if this 'reset' takes place, are you planning on sitting at home with a bunch of gold coins in one hand and a 9 mil in the other, watching your tomatoes grow? Are you planning on rebuilding a society in a more just fashion, starting from your local community? Is my question to be answered with a snide comment ending with 'gold bitcheeez'? I really want to know who out there is promoting this downfall AND prepared to look forward.
thanks
Thankfully, the homo sapien is a migratory animal. No need to recreate what was lost, move to a place more hospital environment that needs no such efforts. You can never go back.
Five months, 24 days to my exit.....
The shit hasn't even hit the fan.......and the guilt peddlers are recruiting for Habitat for Humanity ? Puritanical, Socialist guilt peddler bitchez ! Monedas 2011 Space shuttle, Jimmy Carter, Larry King Alive.....just go away !
Thankfully, the homo sapien is a migratory animal. No need to recreate what was lost, move to a place more hospital environment that needs no such efforts. You can never go back.
Five months, 24 days to my exit.....
We aren't promoting this "downfall" ! This baloon full of fart gas is a product of evil or pathetically duped Socialists like yourself ! Too much government is the problem......and all you people can come up with as a solution is more government ! What did you do to prevent the collapse ? The road to ruin is paved with the "good intentions" of race pimping, envy peddling, demagoguing Socialist whores ! Well, I don't think their intentions are good ! Don't come near my porch with this stale bilge you're trying to pre-peddle ! I have a right to enjoy the fruits of my talents and it's none of your damn Socialist Snout business how I choose to do it ! Monedas 2011 Freedom is never having to say you're sorry !
You present a false dilemma. It's not "total doom and gloom" or "let's rebuild the Republic now." When TSHTF, there will be many weeks and months of complete chaos as the population literally rips itself apart over things like food, water and shelter. Those are the times you can bet I'll be "sitting at home with a bunch of [silver] coins in one hand and a 9 mil in the other, watching [my] tomatoes grow..."
The rebuilding starts after the heat dies down and the zombies have all starved or adapted. But you're right, complete individualism is not a foundation for a sustainable nation. I hope that the Great Reset does not completely sever the ties that bind us...
I for one plan on being part of the solution. I am a marine engineer by trade (actually turning wrenches for a living). I can fix darn near anything mechanical. I have stocked non-hybrid seed, arms, medical supplies, etc. enough for a small group. I want to be a leader in the coming reset, not a burden or parasite. While I'm not "promoting" anything I do feel the US is in for a very hard time that our government will not be able to fix or stop. I don't see any great conspiracy so much as a bunch of self promoting, greedy idiots that do not have a clue. I just want to mitigate the damage to myself, family and others as I am able.
Naaah....it's not that so much as they either fall into one of two groups:
The nihilists, or
Those super-rich who live in the enclaves atop either that mountain luxury village in Wyoming, or that enclave 6,000 feet above Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side, or that place in West Virginia, or ....
When is CHS brain reset? The guy can't see straight without talking points from the Pete Peterson Institute. Words such as "Saviour State" are meant to confuse: Saviour State does not exist. Let me illustrate in a few sentences how modern banker Socialism works.
When the state can longer borrow money from the elites, it imposes austerity measures by reneging on the social safety nets programs and allocates larger interest rate payments to elites. There is no Saviour State: the serfs support themselves and the elites.
Well said, well explained, and much appreciated, linrom.
Great article Tyler. I feel alot more personal empowerment since ditching sodium, sugar, processed foods and the MSM.
My faith in America was temporarily restored yesterday ! I went to a KFC in San Ysidro, CA ! A cute, and sweet, little Mex bitch took my order for two original breast to go $5.35 out da door ! Huge, hot and tasty ! The manager even threw in two crunchy, delicious pickled Jalapeño peppers ! They are pleased when a Gringo speaks their lingo and enjoys their tastes ! I took one home after inhaling one at their pic-nic table ! I nuked a corn on the cob with real butter and Walmart tabasco sauce ! The neat brown napkins reminded me of my Melita coffee filters ! I got the best of one big chicken ! Life is good for the Monedas 2011 This is how I plan to rebuild a more just Socialist pig state !
have patronized that particular establishment and concur the 'roof rabbits', as they call them in tj, are a sustainable delicacy
Interesting article but I hate to blow you out of the water on the "salt" issue. The Japanese have the saltiest diet in the world and seem to be pretty healthy (until Fukushima). If you want to point a finger at the source of chronic ills you can name: lack of exercise, trans-fats, high-fructose corn syrup, and nitrates.
Yeah, salt really isn't detrimental unless you already have hypertension. I love salt and eat an overabundance of it. I'm 58, eat a low carb diet, can do 100 push ups in a row, and my blood pressure is well within normal. Oh, I try like hell to cut out any and all high fructose corn syrup!
almost every processed food has corn or corn syrup in it. Not good. We are even feeding our animals, that we eat, corn and soy. Because it's cheap. Neither they nor we should be eating like this.
They also have inordinately high rates of hypertension, stomach cancer, and stroke --- all linked to high sodium intakes.
Try ruling genetic factors that make salt less problematic for Japanese people before you prescribe it for the entire world.
Salt is as necessary to purging our blood as it is to de-ionizing the resin beads in your water softener ! Reverse osmosis ! Monedas 2011 If your body can't rapidly get rid of excess salt.....you really are sick !
Exactly. Work hard and sweat the salt out.
Hey! Does this mean I won't get my social security, medicare and my gov't pension?
Shit.
Why all this negativity? Come on.....the Dow is up 900 points since June 23rd.....recession is over they say.
Obama is putting salt into the wound.
"What can we say about this level of salt intake? It raises the risk of stroke and heart disease. Put simply: it will very likely take years off your life."
While this may be true, the more important fallout from poor health decisions are the medical costs associated with dealing with all of the diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, and so forth. Life expectancy is rather high--ranging from 75 or so to 85 or so. The big problem is that for so many of those years, we are in poor health and require extraordinary medical care, which is not sustainable.
Medicare recipients average $250,000 in care because of poor health, not because of long life. Long life can result in zero Medicare costs if one is healthy. Even a rather abbreviated lifespan of 67 years can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicare costs if the recipient is unhealthy.
It is a certainty that Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid in the U.S. are unsustainable in present form. The lowest of the low in our country would admit that. So, why can't Congress or the President?
At least you properly placed our elected in the social strata
Someone better tell First lady Michelle Obama and her national campaign against childhood obesity. She never heard of BMI..
"The First Lady was surprised to learn that her daughters' BMI numbers were "creeping upwards." "I didn’t really know what BMI was," she writes. "And I certainly didn’t know that even a small increase in BMI can have serious consequences for a child’s health"
Obviously she was meant to work in government
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/high-bmi-what-it-means-for-your-child-and-what-you-can-do-about-it-2467662/
"Summer Dildorums" ! Hazy, lazy days of summer ! Don't forget to change your panty liners more often in sultry weather ! Monedas 2011 You admit it was a bad idea to short ? Don't forget to restock your stacker pantry !
And once again a prediction for the future that takes into account everything except for one thing: social unrest. Yes, it's just gonna go back to the gold ole days isn't it. No one will go crazy and start killing, etc. Please, if this shit transpires this place is going to be a fucking nuthouse!
And once again a prediction for the future that takes into account everything except for one thing: social unrest. Yes, it's just gonna go back to the gold ole days isn't it. No one will go crazy and start killing, etc. Please, if this shit transpires this place is going to be a fucking nuthouse!
Ever read the book, "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse" by James Wesley Rawles? If not it's time to check it out.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/156975599X/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_...
Ever read the book, "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse" by James Wesley Rawles? If not it's time to check it out.
Anyone have citations for the $10k in $250k out statement? Not doubting it at all, just want to have some proof for some friends who don't believe what CHS has to say.
BTW, I'm still not convinced a pile of shiny rocks is the answer here. I mean really, if the value of gold keeps going up because it's related to the bs rally in equities, why exactly would gold be worth 1000's per ounce at DOW 2K?
I don't think it will be, regardless of all the analysis out there, and that's how im going to play it.
It's the printing of money to support an ongoing equities rally, to avoid Dow 2k, that has folks buying gold.
If you feel the markets will crash, then find out who the insiders are. The insiders will get out with their profits intact and leave the greater fools holding the bag. Find out who they are and how they are going to store their wealth and front run them. If you think they will buy gold then buy gold. If you think they will buy real estate then buy it also. If they are going to hold cash into a deflationary depression then you'd better cash out first.
On the obesity, poor health and food, I believe the additives are the main cause. My daughter was diagnosed with a long list of food allergies a year ago. The list was such that I couldn't feed her any premade foods, and had to prepare all our foods. I did not think our families health problems were related to our diet before this, but it's obvious they were in hindsight. We all got so much healthier with the change in eating. I lost 18 pounds and lost many of my body aches. My husbands gout improved dramatically. My autistic daughter improved dramatically. My daughter with the allergies got over all her allergies and lost her chronic body aches. The conclusion is easy to make now; the food processers are poisoning America.
We all felt so much better, that when my daughters allergies all magically went away only several months into giving up processed foods, we still wouldn't go back to eating them. It's easy to avoid all the additives when you start thinking of them as poison.
I also suspect that the reason that the US has not risen up yet is that they all feel too crappy from eating too much poison. I believe the massive amounts of added glutamate in the diet (like MSG but called many different names in the food labels) has many feeling too stressed out to want to rise up.
I also want to point out that we did not give up sweets, starches and fat. We still eat plenty of treats. The only difference is we no longer eat the non-foods.
Without the crap the Agricultural Conglomerates infuse into the food supply that poisons us (pesticides, growth hormones, genetic modifications), Big Pharma wouldn't be so big and Amerika's health care costs would be less than 2% of GDP.
"then people will respond by saving more as they are exposed to the real-world risks of having no savings"
But they may not have anything to "save". Hmmm, I don't see any real solutions here. Sound like a subtle culling operation?
Just exactly who are those that will be ready for this kind of scenario? (which I actually believe is possible and even inevitable)
Has humanity been so well pitted against each other, that we cannot find a solution to save ALL people? Is it not possible for 7 billion people to live upon this planet together?
That seems to be where all this is going...
the only thing I see worthwhile in investing in is a funeral plan, at least don't end up in some huge mass grave.
The pitting is always a one way street ! The needy and stupid and lazy are taught to hate the generous, intelligent, industrious by the race baiting pimps of preposterous pomposity.....the Barney Franks, pues ! Monedas 2011 Freedom is jettisoning the useless baggage of the guilt pimp corps ! That's the ticket: "Freedom is having nothing left to feel guilty about!".....Manis Moplin 2011
Well, I guess your number is, at minimum, the 60,000,000 currently on Social Security, then...
Agreed. This IS a massive culling operation, and the only question is whether (in the US) it will be a 20-40% culling or a NWO-esque 70-80% culling.
No one wants to talk about it, because no one wants to accept the inevitable consequences of even discussing it, but the fact is that so many people are on the teat (and more than a few of them are on the teat for the sole purpose (and recognized by the providers!) of keeping them quiet!) that any real fiscal reform kills a significant number of millions of people.
Basically, you'd need population reform before you could get fiscal reform, and take a look at the growing number of flash-mob attacks the last few months to see where that has to lead.
So, again, how many die and in what period of time?
did england have a great reset after the loss of its empire or rather a slow dragged out demise where the bankers continue to loot the country at the expense at an eer greater portion of the population while . why is the u.s. so different?
Errr..salt?
Son, you have to stop believing everything you read. Salt is natural, and it's balanced by something called water. Too much salt? You get thirsty.
Now, before you run off and get all angry like. Consider that most of the stuff people put in their mouths is processed food, and that contains all sorts of stuff that is not healthy at all. This unhealthy stuff is, of course, not harmful enough fail testing, but do we really have all that much faith in the testing. What's more, does the testing account for how all this marginally unhealthy stuff interacts with each other? Clearly, it does not.
We are exposed to all sorts of toxins every day, and you are worried about salt. I agree with you, too much salt is probably not a good thing, but I disagree that it should be anywhere near the top of my list of problems.
Smiddy's recipe for a fit body:
I weigh what I weighed in 1978 and I don't exercise or diet that much. I am definitely not a health food nut. I have studied this and it works for me.
Limit starches as much as possible. Eat a lot of protein, veggies, fruits, and dairy. I completely avoid sugar, especially refined sugar, which is not a natural food. Sugar from fruit is ok, but fruitcrose as an additive, honey, and most especially high fruitcrose corn syrup is out of the diet. HFCS is high in calories, and does not register with the brain to make you feel full.
Eat slowly, the chemicals that make you feel full take time to reach the brain. Also, never gorge yourself. Eat as often as you can, but don't be afraid to go hungry for a time. If you are eating right, you will have to go hungry once in a while because good food isn't always available. On the other hand, don't starve yourself or your body, which is geared to survive, will slow your metabolism.
Start your exercise regiem slow. This is going to take 8 months. The goal of the first 2 months is to just show up. Easy jogging 3 times a week and light weights three times a week are all you need. More is not better.
OK, it is the end of month two and you haven't lost a single pound. We are right on track for success. Change your weight lifting to twice a week. Lift progressively heavier weights. Muscles eat calories all day long. You are not going to lose any weight unless you convince your body you need the strength to survive. Ditto for the running. You will now switch from a distance run to a timed run. You must run faster for whatever you consider a taxing workout. Add six more weeks, and voila, you will weigh what you weighed in high school.
How this works: Think of the parts of your body that regulate weight as deaf, dumb, and blind. The body doesn't know if you are running from a tiger or for fun, so it will always take the path of holding onto as much fat as possible, because survival has always been a fat calories vs. demand issue. That's why you lose muscle mass so quickly and gain fat so quickly. Make your body see that you are going to get eaten unless you run faster and it will part with some fat to facilitate survival. The same goes for weights. If you show your body you need the strength, and continue to need it, it will adapt, otherwise it will be unwilling to part with the fat it knows you need to survive.
You need to trick, and lead, 1 million years of evolution that is programmed into the checks and balances that determine your fat levels. Running won't do the job. Your body is very good at retaining fat and keeping up with your jogging. How many fat joggers have you seen? I've noticed plenty. Without the weight lifting, it won't work.
What also won't work is if you don't show your body, clearly and convincingly, that it doesn't need to store food as fat, because you live in an abundant environment. Eat constantly. Your body will notice and ease up on fat retention. Another point I'd add as a PS is I am constantly disgusted by people who complain about their weight, but don't do anything about their sloth. They walk slow, they won't trot when crossing the street, and they drag their feet when walking. Do this, and your body will notice. In all things you do, let your body think you are on the alert and in a dangerous environment. Just because this part of your brain is on auto pilot, doesn't mean it is stupid.
Yeah, you can watch that salt too if you want, but making your own food is the best thing you can do to ensure your success.
PS: No sugar, low carbs, low booze, lots of water, lots of sleep, rest when you are tired, and be very patient. This takes 8 months
Thank you Smiddy ... this is one of the best pieces of advice I have seen on ZH
Thank you Bear, I appreciate that.
I am 50. I have been fat, and yet, I don't have to work that hard to stay at my high school weight because I finally learned what worked, and what didn't.
The first core concept came from Muscle and Fitness magazine 20 years ago. A woman told a story about how she had tried every diet under the sun and failed, then she found weight lifting.
The second core concept came from the Atkins approach.
The final core concept came from logic, but I later found similar ideas in The Black Swan, and in The End of Food. Taleb uses a work out based on early man. He takes habitually long walks, and shocks his body with hard weight lifting and occassional quick runs.
Oh, I forgot. You do the most damage to your body during the last mile, not the first mile. That's when your muscles are slack and fail in their job to support the ligaments and joints. The older I get the faster I run, I just don't run as far. I get injured less today than when I did a traditional 4-5 mile "run" (slouching gait).
I know it is heresy to say you should avoid a routine, because that sells books, but routines are boring and don't work. The part of your brain that regulates fat is a pattern recognition system too (the master, in my opinion). As soon as it spots the pattern, it will cut corners, cheat your work out system, and hold onto that fat. Have you ever noticed that weight loss routines hits a plateau where you can't lose any more weight? If routines worked, that wouldn't happen. Now we know why.
The key is patience, both in trading and in training. If you chase returns and work out too hard, you will get injured and fail.
One of the best bits of dietary advice I've received is simply to eat breakfast. If you go from 6:00 PM to 11:30 AM without a decent meal, your body tends to store fat for the very reason you mentioned.
Your advice is good Smiddy. At the tender age of 62 I am as fit as I've ever been. I've lifted weights, on and off, since my Air Force days back in the 1960s-70s. I was a skinny runt then, now I'm a trim runt. I gave up work-outs during the 1980s to focus on some serious business ventures, but started back up in the early 1990s. The muscles came back to their former bulk within 3 months! They remember quite well what to do. That absolutely amazed me and gave me the impetus to continue.
Your advice is not a one-time endeavor. It is a life style, and lest anyone forget it, DIET means a way of living -- look it up. Muscle mass burns calories even while you are asleep, and shocking the muscles gets the best gain. Routines are good, as you point out, to fool the body into giving up the fat instead of losing muscle. Making the whole thing a normal part of living, not just a "weight loss plan" is the key.
Beware the "reward" mentality. "After this workout I'll reward myself with [insert unhealthy crap here]." I see sweaty folks who've been jogging coming into Whole Foods and picking out a muffin and a bottle of juice. JFC! You don't get rewards for doing what is right.
Drag a gallon of corn syrup through a concentration camp and you'll make some friends ! Starvation is highly underated as a killer......although it's laboratory proven 100% effective ! Monedas 2011 Maple syrup, corn syrup, bee syrup......it's all syrup !
Reset won't work. Why? Because nobody will break their butt to create or operate a new/small business as long as the predators in government and corporations mandate massive artificial advantages for the large corporations.
Forget it. No way. I will not feed the predators or the parasites, and I am far from alone. Screw them. Up theirs. No way, no how, no.
There are exactly two effective ways to deal with predators: cage-them or kill-them. This is true for human predators too. NO conversation is of any value, except to reveal to the predators who and where you are, so they can have their hired thugs take you out.
Reset only works if predators are eliminated.
IMO at first during the rock bottom stages hell no it won't work. Then you'll have a choice: do or die. Good times just around the corner.
IMHO, there needs to be a forward-thinking policy crafted for organizing and governing a sustainable future and a government-in-waiting prepared to responsibly present and gain support for that policy at the right moment. It might even include some punky fun ideas. Is anybody working on that?
Already been done, it is called Agenda 21.
Spot on, spot on.
Again, the real question no one chooses to have asked and answered is:
How many people die, and how soon?
Because I'm afraid, especially as shutdowns start and checks stop, it's apparent that many millions are about to be physically sacrificed to save the nation for the rest.
What stops more than a few of them from rampaging like that guy in Michigan is?
The only real answer to the deficit and debt is, in effect, civil war against the poor. THAT is where the default comes in, because the costs of such a war will overwhelm all remaining programs after the checks stop.