Idiotprogrammer: Texas Literary Blog

Category: Health & Nutrition

  • In Praise of Canned Fish (Some Kinds)

    Changing gears for a moment, I want to recommend a food source. Before I talk about that, I want to refer you to my long essay about breakfast. When I embarked on a plan to lose weight in 2008, I rethought my approach to food. I’ve since adopted the philosophy of eating breakfast like a…

  • Health care in Houston (2018)

    A month ago the HHS-commissioned Health of Houston Survey issued its 2018 report. Unfortunately the key information is locked up in a PDF. So I made screenshots of the most interesting charts:

  • “Perrycare” defined

    For better or worse, the Affordable Care Act (the new health care reform law) has been dubbed “Obamacare.” Here’s  another neologism: Perrycare.  It is  is defined as health care inside a state which has refused Medicaid expansion despite generous financial incentives to do so. It is characterized by skyrocketing health care premiums and overall costs…

  • Health Insurance Rate Hikes

    Ironic Postscript: Hours after I wrote this, I received a note from Aetna informing me of another price increase for health insurance.  Until January 2010 my total price for a $5000 deductible health insurance + dental plan  was $148. Starting January 2010, it bumped up to $184. Starting April 2010, the price is $207.  This…

  • Health care reform and medical bankruptcy: Answering the Libertarian Argument

    Nicholas Kristof on how a system based on private health insurance frequently results in spouse impoverishment, sometimes leading to fake divorces. Here are reader comments about the article which turn out to be more interesting than the original article. This argument has not frequently been cited, but it shows how the health care debate has…

  • Robert Ebert on AA

    Roger Ebert writes a long memoir about being an AA member: In those days I was on a 10 p.m. newscast on one of the local stations. The anchor was an A.A. member. So was one of the reporters. After we got off work, we went to the 11 p.m. meeting at the Mustard Seed.…

  • Note to a seriously obese woman

    A 530 pound  woman complains about being treated like a social pariah: It’s not just the super-obese like me who have to take this punishment: There are people out there who are literally no more than twenty or thirty pounds overweight, yet they have to put up much of the same crap that I do.…

  • Sustainable Seafood: Eat More Sardines!

    Jim Carrier writes a long piece on the shrimping industry: The industry acknowledges that 5 percent of the world’s mangroves, hundreds of thousands of acres, have been destroyed creating shrimp ponds. In some estuaries 80 percent of the mangroves are gone. A commons was privatized, ruining artisanal fishing and driving indigenous fishermen to work raising…

  • Fat Robert, Meet Skinnier Robert (How I lost 20 pounds in 6 months)

    On June 13, 2008 I weighed myself and was totally shocked. I weighed 220 pounds!  I had gained a lot of weight, most of it over the past year. Fat Robert, 2007 Skinnier Robert, Oct 2008 When I was in college I weighed about 170 pounds, and when I went to Peace Corps I weighed…

  • What’s for between-meal meal?

    Michael Pollan writes: But the biggest threat to the meal-as-we-knew-it is surely the snack, and snacking in recent years has colonized whole new parts of our day and places in our lives. Work, for example, used to be a more or less food-free stretch of time between meals, but no longer. Offices now typically have…

  • Minimum wage is now $6.55

    According to Tony Pugh, the federal minimal wage rose yesterday to $6.55 (It has been in the $5 range for over a decade). Robert Reich thinks the problem lies in depressed worker productivity: But there’s also a limit to how many hours Americans can put into work, so Americans turned to a third coping mechanism.…

  • Does Socializing Help the Elderly (or Does Reading)?

    Tara Parker-Pope on whether socializing helps elderly people healthwise. Actually the comments are much more interesting that the blog post itself: One Barbara writes: I am growing weary of these studies and how valid the results are. There is a huge bias in our society that being social is better than being a loner. I…

  • My Strange Campaign (Tips for Losing Weight)

    Started June 13. Goal is Jan 1, 2009=200.  That’s about a pound to lose every 7 days. I expect to get to 210 without major effort, but under that will be tough going. Google, curse you for archiving this for eternity! For those random surfers, this refers to the weight naked on my bathroom scale…

  • Larry King Saves the Heart

    Wow, I just watched 30 minutes of a great PBS documentary on heart disease. Here’s a discussion between cardio experts. It includes the transcripts so you don’t actually need to watch it. Here’s some transcripts with interviews.

  • 8 Nuts a Day for Good Health

    Medical research about the health benefits of eating nuts (specifically hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts). I’ve known about this research before (though not its depth apparently), and I’ve tried eating nuts on occasion. The main problem I’ve had is that the jars or bags I buy don’t seal or are in sizes so big they invite…

  • Reviews of Exercise Videos

    I’m going to keep a page detailing my reactions to various exercise videos. (See also my previous post about exercise ball workouts). You can also read reviews (and sample video clips) on collagevideos.com. I’ll update this over time. Vids without comments are things I’ve bought but haven’t used yet. They include vids which seem to…