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So you started drinking bottled water, turned off the Wifi, eating sushi and going commando? Doesn't sound so bad, really.
by VectorLock 6y ago
So you started drinking bottled water, turned off the Wifi, eating sushi and going commando? Doesn't sound so bad, really.
- jonplackett 6y agoHaha. I unfortunately did take it a bit more seriously. There was a point where if someone offered me a biscuit with my decaf tea my inner monologue would say “if you eat that biscuit you might never have children”. It was at least in that way the easiest diet I ever went on. 100% motivation!
- ilyaeck 6y agoWhat's so wrong with a biscuit?
- will_pseudonym 6y agothe ingredients.
- jonplackett 6y agoLike I said, I was going for the nuclear option and biscuits have sugar in. Sugar makes you fat. Fat belly means less testosterone. This is part of the anti-western diet thing.
- dalbasal 6y agoAlso.. it's probably made of whichever processed grain/seed is worst and dosed with additives: preservatives, flavour, colour, texture. If something in food is bad for whatever reason, it's probably in the biscuit. I find it quite poetic that modern man needs to go live by a lake, foraging naked for a few months to regain our reproductive viability.
- jules 6y agoWhat were the things you did? Did it improve testosterone levels too? If that is the mechanism, could you raise sperm count with artificial testosterone? Or would that be counterproductive?
- VectorLock 6y agoYou'd probably hit diminishing returns when testicle shrinkage starts.
- noahatwi 6y agoIf you take testosterone, your pituitary will tell your testicles that there is enough testosterone, and that they can chill out, so the testicles will produce less testosterone and less sperm. This is why anabolic steroid users can develop shrunken (atrophied) testicles. In addition, through enzymatic equilibrium, you will also produce more estrogen (excess testosterone is converted to estrogen and vice versa), which will further decrease male reproductive ability, and in sufficient quantities will stimulate breast gland growth. In short, administering exogenous testosterone will have counterproductive reproductive consequences.
- jules 6y agoInteresting! Thanks for the explanation.
- driverdan 6y ago> Sugar makes you fat. Nonsense. Overeating makes you fat, not a specific carb. Having a biscuit with a few grams of sugar is not going to impact your health in a meaningful way if you're not overeating.
- kodt 6y agoOne biscuit no, but perhaps it was easier for him to always say no instead of occasionally saying yes, which could easily turn into saying yes too often.
- jonplackett 6y agoThat was exactly it. The difficulty of dieting (and life in general!) is decisions. By being so absolutist it made it easier to just do it automatically rather than constantly weight up whether I should eat well. That’s in hindsight. At the time in my mind I was really convinced that that one biscuit might make the difference.
- wonder_er 6y ago> Overeating makes you fat, not a specific carb. Eating sugar creates a cascade of hormonal knock-on effects that can make you fat. I beg of you (especially if you're struggling with your weight!) to consider the alternatives to Calories-In/Calories-Out eating. My dad is a doctor, he's _convinced_ it's all CICO (which is what was taught to physicians in the 70s, and today), he struggles with his weight, constantly, and is super unhealthy. He eats low-fat everything, and is in miserable physical shape. He's blind to alternatives. It is unbecoming of a man of science to be so tied to a possibly-incorrect view of such an important topic. Consider: https://josh.works/notes-gary-taubes-case-against-sugar https://josh.works/notes-gary-taubes-case-against-sugar
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- driverdan 6y agoI'm well aware of Gary Taube. His over emphasis of the effects of simple carbs is not entirely supported by science. There is an effect but it's not as strong as he presents it. If you find avoiding sugar helps you maintain a healthy diet than great, go for it. Do whatever works for you. But if your overall diet is a healthy balance then having a biscuit with tea is not going to negatively impact your health.
- willismichael 6y ago> less testosterone That's it, no more donuts for me.
- war1025 6y agoI may be off here, but I'm guessing based on the tea comment, that he may be British, which means a biscuit is actually a cookie in American terms.
- jonplackett 6y agoCorrect! What the hell is an American biscuit then?
- dragonwriter 6y ago> What the hell is an American biscuit then? Basically, a chemically (as opposed to yeast) leavened bread roll.
- dllthomas 6y agoTypically richer and flakier than a soda bread, though.
- war1025 6y agoVia Wikipedia [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit_(bread) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit_(bread)
- Razengan 6y agoWhat's so wrong with never having children?
- fuzzer37 6y agoThis is what I keep getting caught up on. I, for one, don't mind that my sperm count may be lower than my ancestors, or that my partners egg quality may be lower. I don't ever want to have children, so this honestly seems like a good thing to me. I know this isn't true for everyone (I'd say the majority of people _do_ want to reproduce), but for me personally, this kind of thing seems positive to indifferent at best.
- leetcrew 6y agothis situation seems like an unhappy midpoint though. the chance of conception is still uncomfortably high for people who don't want children, while frustratingly low for those who do.
- fuzzer37 6y agoHmm... I hadn't thought about it that way before. When you put it that way it makes more sense.
- astrea 6y agoWell, they were actively deciding to and attempting to have children, for one.
- tuckerpo 6y agoHaving children and passing on your genes is literally the entire reason you exist as a living breathing organism.
- 0134340 6y agoI wouldn't go so far as self-righteously telling someone what their purpose in life is. Besides that, if you want to go down that road, being in a support class and being a productive, supporting member of society in other ways is an evolutionarily valid position. Perhaps someone views their life's purpose to support close family, even if they can't have any kids, or their definition of family may be much more abstract and inclusive to a larger community. Perhaps they do what they do for humanity rather than for themselves alone.
- VectorLock 6y agoSounds like the biggest life change you made was dieting then?
- collyw 6y agoWon't bottled water be more likely to contain plastic traces?
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoAt least you know what's in bottled water, the water supply and its contents can vary wildly. In some places they still use lead pipes iirc.
- klmadfejno 6y agoIn many American locales, especially in areas with access to large clean aquifers, tap water will be cleaner than bottled water. Don't go assuming bottled is better. If you can afford to put a filter on your tap (this is expensive), I would on tap water being much cleaner.
- tsdlts 6y agoI'd generally recommend avoiding tap water altogether in the U.S. and making sure you're not drinking fluoridated water. It's been show to decrease a child's IQ by up to 4 points when used by pregnant moms[1]. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31424532/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31424532/
- manmal 6y agoThere are reusable glass bottles, at least where I live.
- collyw 6y agoThere are here as well, but I can only think of one brand in an aisle of water that uses glass.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]