Bodybuilders are killing themselves to look good in a mirror + Is your Personal Trainer Killing you?

It’s been widely known for decades, if not centuries Inuit Indians don’t tend to live long lives due to their restrictive food sources, the same with the Massai on the African plains. Too much meat is bad for one’s health, produces higher rates of cancers as well.

Little surprise therefore in the results of adopting a high protein diet from studies undertaken by University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre and University of Southern California.  

People on high-protein diets are likely to lose years of life along with the weight they shed, according to these two recent studies. 

The results of adopting a high-protein bodybuilding diet should send shivers down the spines of the personal training fraternity, gym bunnies.    

Those who consume just 20 per cent of their calories from protein were four times more likely to die of cancer or diabetes than other people. 

The risk of cancer adopting a high protein diet is as much as smoking 20 cigarettes a day!  

Surprise, surprise a balanced diet is a key to a long life. 

The bodybuilding, gym industry is massive and pervasive proponents of consuming excess protein – all because there’s a buck in it.  

They point to the market muscles as a positive sign of a person being healthy gulping down protein shakes when the ripped magazine model is just as liable to develop cancer as a result of their unbalanced diet as a person smoking a packet a day.     

Shamefully they are not telling consumers the detrimental effects of undertaking a bodybuilders diet e.g. increased risk of diabetes.      

Personal Trainers concept 'looking better, weighing less' with high protein diets is the key to good health has been shown not only to be a profit driven sham but dangerous advice.

Any gym that cared about their clients should strip the shelves of protein powders and encourage customers to eat more fruit and vegetables.   

Mums, middle-aged office workers etc wanting an extra push in an attempt to lose weight should avoid personal trainers who have bulked-up on protein, since clearly they have no interest in their own health, so why should they care about yours?  

Naïve eve fools that uses a personal trainer that is involved in bodybuilding events in the deluded belief they are fit when they are just the opposite may as well employ one that smokes for what it’s worth.  

 

Besides most bodybuilders are gay men and I wouldn't want one getting too close to me if I could avoid it.    

So gyms that employ bodybuilders as personal trainers, push sales of protein should be shunned since medical research says  they haven't a fucking clue what they are doing when it comes to people’s health.  

 

For someone to undertake a hard-core bodybuilding diet with the full knowledge they are harming themselves best exemplifies the narcissistic nature of bodybuilding. 

Systematically killing yourself to look good in a mirror, appeal to gay men is outright disturbing.   

 

Stop helping Pacific Islanders get even fatter and smoke themselves to death

I am sorry - poor people aren’t obese and they certainly can’t afford smokes.  

Let me re-phrase that statement to emphasis my following points. 

Truly poor people, like those up in Polynesia, shouldn’t be the fattest people on the planet, with an unhealthy perchance for smoking and still receive aid.     

Truly poor people in need of aid from countries like New Zealand don’t, for example, run symposiums focusing on the evils of soft-drink (google: Fizz, Auckland)   

 

 

Around 70 per cent of Western Samoans are obese. 

65 per cent of Tonga is obese. 

In basic terms you get fat by lack of exercise and eating/drinking too much.   

New Zealand gives both Samoa and Tonga close to NZD 20 million a year.  

Without this overseas aid all the countries of Polynesia would collapse.  

For example 40% of Samoa’s revenue comes from overseas donors.       

Governments like New Zealand like to point to tourism, education, infra-structure projects up in the islands being the core recipients of taxpayers money.   

What is conveniently left out of any sanitised Government report on aid are the crippling costs to the island economies having the fattest people, on the planet.

And stop blaming genetics.

Genetics doesn’t force a person to drink shitty soft drinks, eat canned corn beef in favour of more healthy traditional foods.  

Genetics doesn’t make you buy Pall Mall ciggies.    

Compare photos of Samoans, Fijians in the 1800’s with today.  

Since between 10 to 15 per cent (figures I found varied) of the Samoan population have  developed diabetes, these treatment costs alone are the largest part of Samoa’s health budget.   

Then add to this burden heart-attacks, strokes etc.   

Staggeringly only 16% of the Fijian population is aged more than 55 years due to premature preventable deaths.   

62% of Tongan men smoke. 

So much for Tonga ‘needing’ New Zealanders help. 

What for? 

A free carton of Bensons and Hedges for every family?    

And if you are buying smokes it’s way better to grab them off the shelves in say Tonga and Samoa where they are half the price as N.Z because they both don't impose taxes at a level anywhere near  necessary to cover the adverse health effects. 

The Island governments know ‘muggins’ New Zealand will cover the shortfall in cigarette taxes when the smokers end up in their hospital beds.

Being overweight and smoking is a death wish.    

What’s necessary is for New Zealand and other benefactors to employ some ‘tough love’ when it comes to aid in the islands.

 

Give their respective Governments targets to address obesity, bad health decisions or lose funding.

Gambling is not a disease or illness

To a small proportion of society gambling is addictive.

The moment you place the word ‘addictive’ in any statement it is natural to think about heroin addicts, drunks and the like.

Can gambling seriously be compared to the addictiveness of ingesting chemicals in the form of drugs and alcohol?  

For starters it’s patently stupid to tell a gambler they have a disease and “it’s not your actions that are to blame but some misfortune with your make-up”.   

Labelling them diseased means the gambler believes they are somehow rendered powerless.

It places all the blame on this nefarious disease or illness of which medical science has not definitive grasp of and certainly no cure.

There is no definitive study to say “having this gene makes you a gambling addict”.

The only people who call gambling an illness or a disease are those with vested interests: doctors and psychiatrists.

I myself gamble, on the horses.

In fact I lose money on the horses, yet I weigh this up with the entertainment and excitement I get from the exercise.

 

If gambling is a disease - by rights casual punters like me also carry a 'Malaria' type infection and simply don't not know it. 

 

If the disease theory holds water punters like me must also have something in our systems that can resist this 'invader'?  

 

I have yet to meet anyone who wins at the races.

This includes large gamblers.

Everyone, including the problem gambler is fully aware they are losing - only way less so than your average punter.

One of the major differences is a problem gambler has a far greater expectancy to win. 

 

I want to win, I don't expect to in-fact I expect to lose.

 

Now reverse this mental state.  

A decade or so ago having a greater expectancy to take more of the pool would have been called greed, but no-one is allowed to be so blunt nowadays.    

Addictive gamblers hate others winning money they see as theirs.  

 

I love when my fellow punters win big - it gives you hope, it's nice seeing people happy.   

Couple this increased expectancy with an elevated ‘thrill of the win’ and you have addictive issues.   

The problem-gambler therefore places the pleasure they derive from gambling above most of the things going-on in their lives.  

Problem gamblers exhibit narcissistic traits placing their own ‘pleasure’ above the needs of even their children, love-ones, employers etc.   

The adverse results of their addiction are compatible with alcohol and drugs but that’s as far as the connection goes.

Anyone who says gambling is a disease has vested interests or wants to defer the blame away from the real cause.

Oxfam is Not a Good Cause

Wealthy elites have co-opted political power to rig the rules of the economic game, undermining democracy and creating a world (Oxfam NZ Site)  

I am directing this missive, not just to the Trail Walkers but to anyone who considers giving money to Oxfam.  

Don’t!   

Point One: Oxfam in New Zealand and globally is not an apolitical group.  

Don’t think for a moment Oxfam is a benign neutral charity.     

Oxfam N.Z was set-up by the current Labour Party spokesman on Housing, Phil Twyford.

To further prove Oxfam (NZ) non-neutral political stand-point, their last local Executive Director (Barry Coates) departed his role just before Christmas to run for The Green Party at the next election. 

At one stage Barry Coates was also chair of the Global Campaign for Climate Action.   

So Oxfam in New Zealand does not exist just to feed the poor, that’s just one of their guises.  

Oxfam is a political beast.   

Thinking the money raised by your walk, fundraising is going to a ‘good cause’……..think again!  

Oxfam in New Zealand is neck deep in left wing politics, exhibits an almost pathological hatred of rich people. 

 

The fact Oxfam in New Zealand policies mirrors those of The Green Party is no accident.    

Tax Havens for example are something this charity campaigns on.  

Ironically it’s mostly the middle class and rich Kiwi’s that support Trail Walker Oxfams cause, suckered into thinking their efforts will solely help the poor in The Pacific etc.

Because of it's extreme left wing dogma, donations to Oxfam are but effective in the short term - never treat the root cause [refer: Point Two]

 

It's these middle classes and rich in countries like New Zealand who are the very same demographic Oxfam thinks don’t pay anywhere enough tax.   

Oxfam campaigns locally and globally to see an end to free trade agreements, like the one between China and New Zealand that has enriched all New Zealanders.   

 

China is New Zealand's biggest export market, yet Oxfam (N.Z) want the Government of the day to rip-up our FTA and say goodbye to 9 billion in revenue.  

 

Oxfam also want all New Zealand business’s to pay their employees the Rev Waldegrave formatted ‘living wage’ irrespective of the economics.    

NZD 22.90 an hour for McDonalds bun flippers.    

 

NZD 47,500 P.A for an unskilled worker first year out of school. 

 

Oxfam shamelessly wants to tax New Zealand businesses more. 

Oxfam a so-called charity into helping staving millions has just issued a report that amongst other policies desires more regulations for business’s under the banner of equity and sustainability.   

 

It could be cut and pasted straight from The Greens.    

In September last year Oxfam  slandered all New Zealanders with false statements accusing the (National) Government as effectively shirking on its contributions in in Syria.  

Oxfam’s figures were 4000% out!    

Nor is there anything on Oxfam's sites that addresses the real reasons behind poverty in the Pacific and beyond……

Point Two: Poor people have too many kids!

Using the Pacific as an example here’s the facts (births per 1,000 persons) 

34.3 Solomon Islands

31.1 Vanuatu

30.9 Papua New Guinea

29.7 Naru

26.5 Tonga

24.8 Samoa

 

New Zealand?

14.3!  

That’s right most of the families up in ‘the Islands’ are twice the size as here in N.Z. 

What’s more the average GDP of a New Zealander is USD 30,000. 

The average GDP of a Solomon Islander is a paltry USD 3, 000. 

Papua New Guinea is less!  

Kiwis are subsidising the irresponsible breeding habits of our Pacific neighbours and Oxfam tries to make us all feel guilty for it, prefers instead to blame successful businessmen for not being taxed enough, when there is far easy answer.  

Stop them breeding so much is the logical answer to poverty in the Pacific. 

Any other efforts are literally feeding the issue, in some cases making it worse!

 

Samoa has the fattest people on the planet. 

 

Tonga is a close second.    

 

Oxfam is heavily (pun intended) involved in both Samoa and Tonga.

Imagine suggesting 'interfering with birth control' is a solution to the pinkos at Oxfam?   

 

 

Smokers are simply manifesting their Suicidal Tendencies...Leave them to it

               "Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth" [David Bowie]

 

Back in 2008 the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich highlighted the link between young smokers and suicide.  Thoughts about suicide and attempts to commit suicide were four times more frequent for German teens aged 14-24 that smoked.  

In the U.S a year later Ronald Kessler and his fellow Harvard University colleagues provided data that smokers were about two or three times as likely to have thought about or attempted suicide in the past year than non-smokers. The more you smoked the more you thought about ending your life.  

This result backs-up a ‘mass’ study done involving 300,000 U.S smoking/non-smoking military employees over the period 1987 to 1996.   

Suicide and Smoking are unequivocally linked.  

These studies however concentrated exclusively on the act of killing oneself on the spot, rather than taking the long route via lung cancer etc.  

So what about smokers who don’t take overdoses of pills, place a gun to the forehead – are they too suicidal, just too ‘chicken’ to jump off a bridge?     

All smokers know they are deliberately ending their lives early, yet they are perfectly happy exchanging a shorter life for what they consider ‘a pleasure’.  

Most smokers dismiss outside advice to quit the habit with the quip “You have to die some-way”.

I’m sure you’ve heard the dismissive barb before, more than once.  

 

Is this simply a form of the philosophical doctrine of fatalism: death is inevitable so live your life to the fullest doing whatever spins your wheels? 

This could be the case were it not a fact smoking is strongly linked with suicide of the immediate kind.   

Repeat: the more you smoke the more you think about suicide.  

Similarly it’s a fact, smokers as a group end their lives earlier than non-smokers and they largely don’t care, remain almost defiantly proud of this sad stat.     

For all intents every smoker is manifesting suicidal tendencies, most opting to take the long-way out. 

For this demographic, if it wasn’t smokes it would be some other health impinging vice.

 

 

Stop this ‘Loud Pipes Save Lives’ Bullshit

I got invited to a BBQ the other day. 

Technically it was my wife’s do. 

So apart from the hosts I didn’t know another soul. 

One of the other couples arrived on their Harley so I started to make idle chatter with the bloke and the subject of mufflers arose.

I got to hear the argument ‘loud mufflers save lives’.  

The premise has a certain logic to it. 

But it’s simply wrong, not born-out in any independent study I could locate and ignores the fact bad drivers crash into other cars at the same rate as they crash into motorbikes.

Ignores physics: sound travels behind a bike not in front of it.  

How many accidents happen when a vehicle driving on an open highway drives up the arse of another one moving at speed?  

Then there’s the ‘herd of elephants in the room’ if you are in-fact a safety conscious motorcyclist?

 

Not an attention seeking one, driven by fashion and the desire to be a weekend rebel.    

Daytime running lights will make you more visible to other motorists.  

There are studies (Scandinavia, Denmark etc) that prove this.   

Similarly donning a hi-vis jacket as opposed to dark leathers will also increase visibility. 

So if you want to put loud pipes on your bike for safety reasons and not just exhibiting a form of attention deficit syndrome – then by rights it follows you will ride the roads in a fluro yellow vest or similar with headlights blazing day and night, eh?   

As we all know Harley Davidson owners see themselves as ‘real men’ and wouldn’t be seen dead in poofy fluro, nor adopting the effeminate habit of riding with lights on during the day.     

Yet these very same Harley owners are perfectly happy creating noise pollution under the guise of personal safety!  

Last but not least as a safety conscious motorcycle owner what about buying a motorbike that has the most favourable specs for handling, suspension and brakes etc?     

Get say a sports bike like a Ducati or Kawasaki which would ‘kill’ a heavy Harley in any performance, handling comparison.  

More importantly the likes of a Ducati, Yamaha, BMW make safer motorcycles better suited to N.Z roads.    

 

That’s probably why the owners of these motorbikes don’t see it as necessary to employ noisy exhausts.     

 

Mid-Life Motorcyclists Keeping New Zealand Funeral Directors Busy

I actually like motorcycles, prefer motorbike racing to car racing.  

I once owned a Honda C125 and CB350.      

Great machines.  

Then I had a ‘life changing event’ in my early twenties when I thought I was going to die on the CB350. 

But god (tongue firmly in cheek) intervened, prevented my premature demise, but from that day forward I was sworn-off motorbikes.   

On a good-day and the right road it’s hard to beat that ‘alive’ feeling you get on a motorbike.   

The fact still remains (Transport NZ Crash Facts 2012) you are 22 times more likely to be involved in a fatal or injury crash on a motor bike than in a car over the same distance.  

Take some time to count to 22.  

Sure some of the disproportionate risk hopping on a bike can be put down to other motorists crashing into innocent riders.  

The stats say approx. one third.  

Regardless of who is to blame that doesn’t diminish the relative danger riding a motorbike nor those stark stats.  

Bad drivers crash into other cars as well.  

What is apparent from the accident figures are the high number of number + 40 y.o’s involved in accidents.  

More than the entire age group 15 to 30 who, let’s not forget are notorious for their dangerous driving habits behind the wheel.    

In the two years 2011-12 just one Kiwi motorcyclist aged 15 to 20 died on our roads compared to 52 aged 40 and above.  

This difference is probably down to the type of bikes both demographics were adopting.   

Teens and twenties come off their scooters, low cc bikes during the week and the ‘mid-life crisis’ rider their 750 plus bikes over weekends.    

The difference between predominately low speed accidents in urban environments for junior versus high speed ones for ‘the old man’ blatting around the countryside.  

Regardless of engine size, demographics there’s no escaping a staggering 27 per cent of motorbike riders involved in accidents were either drunk or drugged!  

36 per cent of motorcyclist crashes involve a bike with a cc rating over 750cc. 

That’s way disproportionate to the numbers.  

When you ‘crunch’ these stats it’s obvious the mid-life weekend warriors Harley owner has a risk-factor versus driving a car the same distance well above that 22 times average.  

By my maths it’s 40 times or more, but it’s fair to say I failed school cert mathematics.      

Freedom comes at a price.  

One I’m not willing to pay.