I created this chart over a decade ago. I sourced the values from NutritionData (which is no more). While it may not be helpful if you’re looking for exact amounts, it’s a good approximation when comparing one food against another.

Here’s some data I gathered to generate this chart. It includes the omega-6/omega3 ratios (N6/N3 Ratio).

He pulled out some good studies here. Essentially, exercise increases appetite. We counter the calories used up by taking in more calories. Interestingly, even the THOUGHT of exercising can do this.

The Secret to Weight Loss Through Exercise, Michael Greger MD, 25 March 2024

Transcript:

Most overweight individuals evidently tend to choose exercise as their first approach to weight loss. When unrealistic hopes clash with reality, the disappointment may lead to an abandonment of weight-loss efforts altogether as an exercise in futility (no pun intended). Our false expectations may also give us license to overeat. Our pie-in-the-sky notions about the power of exercise may just be used to justify an extra slice of pie right here on earth. Some researchers warn that labeling menus with calorie equivalents of exercise could be counterproductive, backfiring if people rationalize their indulgences after a workout. This concern has actually been put to the test.

Exercise psychologists took a group of men and women, put them on stationary bikes, and had them cycle until they burned either 50 calories or more than 250 calories. Unbeknownst to them, the researchers manipulated the machines to give false readouts, such that in actuality both groups burned the same number of calories. They just thought they burned more or less. Then, they were offered a meal 10 minutes later, ostensibly to measure the “effects of exercise on taste perception,” but the real purpose was to covertly measure how much people ate. Those who falsely believed they had burned off more calories did seem to demonstrate a greater “license to eat,” ending up eating significantly more calories (mostly in the form of chocolate chip cookies).

After a workout, people may be tempted to treat themselves for their sweaty sacrifice. To prevent this knee-jerk reaction from undermining our efforts, we should strive to make exercise less of a chore. In a paper entitled “Is it fun or exercise? The framing of physical activity biases subsequent snacking,” a study is described in which individuals were randomized to the same amount of physical activity, but just described differently. Half were told they were going on a “scenic walk,” and the other half were told they were going on an “exercise walk.” Afterwards, researchers covertly measured how much dessert everyone took at a subsequent meal. Those in the movement-as-exercise group reportedly served themselves about 35 percent more chocolate pudding than the movement-as-fun group. This is all the more reason to choose activities that are enjoyable, such as walking with friends, while listening to music, or watching a video on the treadmill. Reframing exercise as play rather than work may not only make for a more sustainable regimen, but may make us less likely to consciously or unconsciously feel the need to later reward ourselves at the buffet line.

Even just thinking about exercise may compel people to eat more food. Those randomized to simply read about physical activity went on to serve themselves nearly 60 percent more M&Ms than those in the control group, adding up to hundreds of extra calories. The researchers concluded: “simply imagining exercising leads participants to serve themselves more food.”

Expending energy through exercise may not just psychologically predispose us to eat more, but may physiologically make us hungrier. We evolved in the context of scarcity; so, our body places great value on rapidly replenishing lost fat stores. This helps explain why the average weight loss with exercise training is only 30 percent of that predicted based on the number of extra calories burned. Calories in versus calories out can be complicated by the fact that changes on one side of the equation can affect the other side. In other words, we can work up an appetite.

Carefully controlled studies show that caloric intake tends to rise over time to match any increase in caloric expenditure, making significant weight loss through exercise alone remarkably difficult. This doesn’t happen over a day or two. After a workout, there may not be an immediate increase in hunger, but averaged over the week or weeks, our appetite does tend to increase to balance out most of the extra calories we’ve been burning. This calorie compensation isn’t perfect, though. So, we can end up with a net loss in body fat, particularly at higher exercise levels. So the secret to weight loss through exercise may be sheer volume––at least 300 minutes a week to achieve appreciable fat loss.

This regulation of our appetite through activity works in both directions. Just as there exists a higher level of exercise where we can start to outpace our appetite and lose weight, there’s a lower level of exercise where our body loses the ability to sufficiently downgrade our appetite, and we gain weight. This sedentary zone where our appetite becomes uncoupled from our activity level appears to start at around 7,100 steps a day.

Let’s say you start out as a really active person, chowing down on nearly 2,900 calories a day, and, for whatever reason, have to cut back on exercise. You’d think you’d gain a lot of weight, but you’re surprised that you don’t. Basically, no increased odds of gaining significant body fat. What happened? With your drop in exercise came an inadvertent drop in appetite. But there’s a limit to how far your appetite can drop. Once you cross that threshold, once you dip below logging at least 7,100 steps or so a day on your pedometer, your appetite doesn’t slow much further to match, and the pounds can start to pile on. Your body tries to keep your weight steady by adjusting your appetite, but we just weren’t designed to handle such extreme low levels of movement that sadly characterizes most of the U.S. population.

From 2019:

I transcribed some parts of this interview that just blew me away.

Beginning around 19:25 Bush says that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, was originally designed as an antibiotic, not a weed killer. It was not originally patented as a weed killer, it was repatented later.

So, glyphosate is an antibiotic. It works by blocking the shikamate pathway in bacteria that, if functioning, produces folates and some amino acids. Without those, bacteria die. Plants also use this pathway and are also damaged by glyphosate’s action. Humans don’t. However, we get our essential amino acids from eating plants, or animals that ate those plants. That doesn’t mean that humans aren’t injured by glyphosate, as you’ll see in the last paragraph.

In this next part, he describes why he thinks glyphosate was not put on the market when it was discovered in 1958:

23:44 “One of the reasons I think that glyphosate was not put on the market in 1958 when it was discovered is because the Japanese inventor of that chemical recognized that that was a water-soluble toxin. You do not want to introduce a water-soluble toxin into the environment because you can never get it back. Where if you have a fat-soluble toxin it’ll actually be sequestered by mycelium in the soil, if it gets into a human or another mammal, it’ll be sequestered by fat cells so it never hits the brain, it’ll be protective. A water-soluble toxin on the other hand can’t be subtracted out of the ecosystem because everything on planet Earth including your human body is water.”

Glyphosate is now everywhere – in the air we breathe, the rain, the water we drink and put on crops. And we’re spreading 4 and a half billion pounds of this antibiotic around the world every year!

24:45 “The current statistics is that less than 1/10 of 1% of the Roundup used on the planet actually hits a weed. The other 99.99% gets into the soil and into the water system and washes off. And so we are now seeing the runoff from these farms, and in the water table itself. So we have fossil aquifers in the United States here that run from Canada all the way down to historically Mexico that is now dried up. We’ve turned over a thousand square miles of Texas into desert over the last 20 years from sucking water out of the ground. That fossil aquifer is now contaminated with Roundup that’s filtered down into this ancient freshwater source for us.”

25:29 “Then in the same moment you’ve got the Mississippi River which collects over 80% of all the Roundup in the country. And then it’s evaporating the whole time so it’s going into the air that you breathe and then it goes into the clouds and then it rains down on us. Recent studies in the air and rainfall in the southern United States is showing 75% of rain, 75% of air contaminated with Roundup. So before you even take a bite of food, you’re being hit with an antibiotic when you breathe, you’re getting hit with an antibiotic when you experience rainfall. And so you may be growing organic crops but they’re getting rained on. And so we have now locked this water-soluble toxin into our environment.”

In this next part he describes a side effect of glyphosate on the human body. This, to me, was shocking.

33:25 “The side effects of glyphosate that are outside of the shikamate pathway is direct injury to the protein structure that holds your gut lining together. This would be bad news if that was it. But it turns out that every macro membrane in your body – the blood vessels that fuel your entire body with oxygen nutrients are held together with the same tight junctions, the blood-brain barrier that protects your peripheral nervous system in your brain, same tight junctions, the kidney tubules that are held together to detox your body, same tight junctions. So what’s happened as we’ve introduced a chemical that’s directly toxic to this velcro-like protein is we turn into leaky sieves on the front-end – gut leak and nasal sinus leak and so every time we breathe, every time we eat, we’re starting to leak. Our immune system gets overwhelmed and then the blood vessels that are supposed to deliver either an immune response from peripheral or get nutrients to some distant space is also leaking and so we’re getting permeability of the blood vessels. Then you get to the blood-brain barrier this is supposed to be the Holy of Holies a peripheral nerve or the brain is supposed to be protected against everything in your blood because even glucose which is the main fuel for your brain should not get into the brain in an unregulated fashion. It will damage the nerves. And so Holy of Holies of the central and peripheral nervous system is being destroyed. And so if that’s true, if glyphosate was really damaging that, then we should see a massive explosion in neurologic injury to children and adults starting in about 1996. And that’s exactly when we see this steep increase happening in autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, neurodegenerative conditions like MS, autoimmune diseases, and all the rest.”

So, glyphosate destroys the integrity of our linings … the gut lining, nasal lining, kidney tubules, blood vessels, blood-brain barrier. Tissues and organs become leaky which turns on the immune system and leaves us in a chronic state of inflammation. No wonder Monsanto just sold itself to Bayer.

There is so much more in this interview. I’m going to read up about Dr. Bush. Here’s his website: https://zachbushmd.com/

Sometimes you wake up with a song in your head. This was today’s. I posted this a couple years ago. Today I appended the two versions at the bottom. I like Peters’ version because it gives the song an atmosphere that fits. And, I mean, her voice!

________
Here is Bernadette Peters singing Hank Williams’ song, I’m So Lonesome I could Cry. (The singing starts around 2:20.)

That was a remarkable performance. Live. Just a piano as accompaniment.

Here’s Hank Williams singing his song:

“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”
Hank Williams, 1949

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I’m so lonesome, I could cry

I’ve never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind the clouds
To hide its face and cry

Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die?
Like me, he’s lost the will to live
I’m so lonesome, I could cry

The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I’m so lonesome, I could cry

Rolling Stone ranked it number 111 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the oldest song on the list, and number three on its 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time.
…
In his autobiography, Bob Dylan recalled, “Even at a young age, I identified with him. I didn’t have to experience anything that Hank did to know what he was singing about. I’d never heard a robin weep, but could imagine it and it made me sad.”
– Wikipedia

I like this version too. I don’t know the band but I like the lead singer:

And Norah Jones, just playing in her living room:

What Percentage of Americans Smoke Marijuana?, Gallup, 5 February 2024

Seventeen percent of Americans in 2023 reported they smoke marijuana, similar to the 16% found in 2022 but higher than the 11% to 13% range recorded from 2015 to 2021.

Americans’ reported marijuana smoking has more than doubled since 2013, when Gallup first added the question in its annual Consumption Habits survey.

A Plant-Based Diet For The Prevention And Treatment Of Type 2 Diabetes, Journal of Geriatric Cardiology, May 2017

Abstract
The prevalence of type 2 diabetes is rising worldwide, especially in older adults. Diet and lifestyle, particularly plant-based diets, are effective tools for type 2 diabetes prevention and management. Plant-based diets are eating patterns that emphasize legumes, whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds and discourage most or all animal products. Cohort studies strongly support the role of plant-based diets, and food and nutrient components of plant-based diets, in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes. Evidence from observational and interventional studies demonstrates the benefits of plant-based diets in treating type 2 diabetes and reducing key diabetes-related macrovascular and microvascular complications. Optimal macronutrient ratios for preventing and treating type 2 diabetes are controversial; the focus should instead be on eating patterns and actual foods. However, the evidence does suggest that the type and source of carbohydrate (unrefined versus refined), fats (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated versus saturated and trans), and protein (plant versus animal) play a major role in the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes. Multiple potential mechanisms underlie the benefits of a plant-based diet in ameliorating insulin resistance, including promotion of a healthy body weight, increases in fiber and phytonutrients, food-microbiome interactions, and decreases in saturated fat, advanced glycation endproducts, nitrosamines, and heme iron.

Conclusions
There is a general consensus that the elements of a whole-foods plant-based diet—legumes, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and nuts, with limited or no intake of refined foods and animal products—are highly beneficial for preventing and treating type 2 diabetes. Equally important, plant-based diets address the bigger picture for patients with diabetes by simultaneously treating cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, and its risk factors such as obesity, hypertension, hyper-lipidemia, and inflammation. The advantages of a plant-based diet also extend to reduction in risk of cancer, the second leading cause of death in the United States; the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research recommend eating mostly foods of plant origin, avoiding all processed meats and sugary drinks, and limiting intake of red meats, energy dense foods, salt, and alcohol for cancer prevention.[149] Large healthcare organizations such as Kaiser Permanente are promoting plant-based diets for all of their patients because it is a cost effective, low-risk intervention that treats numerous chronic illnesses simultaneously and is seen as an important tool to address the rising cost of health care.[147] Plant-based eating patterns also carry significant environmental benefits. The World Health Organization and the United Nations have promoted diets higher in plant foods as not only effective for preventing chronic diseases and obesity, but also more environmentally sustainable than diets rich in animal products,[150] a position also supported in the scientific report of the 2015 United States Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.[151] While larger interventional studies on plant-based diets carried out for longer periods of time would add even more weight to the already mounting evidence, the case for using a plant-based diet to reduce the burden of diabetes and improve overall health has never been stronger.

Plant-based diets tend to be high in carbohydrates. It’s a good idea, as they stated, to choose carbohydrates that are less refined. That increases fiber, slows absorption, and often provides more nutrients.

After writing about this for years, it’s gratifying to see it move into the mainstream.

I liked this explanation of insulin resistance by Dr. Greger:

What if there’s enough insulin, but the insulin doesn’t work? The key is there, but something’s gummed up the lock. This is called insulin resistance. Our muscle cells become resistant to the effect of insulin. What’s gumming up the door locks on our muscle cells, preventing insulin from letting sugar in? Fat. What’s called intramyocellular lipid, or fat inside our muscle cells.

Fat in the bloodstream can build up inside the muscle cells, create toxic fatty breakdown products and free radicals that can block the signaling pathway process. So, no matter how much insulin we have out in our blood, it’s not able to open the glucose gates, and blood sugar levels build up in the blood.

Here’s a graphical representation of that, about mid-way:

He goes on to explain:

This mechanism, by which fat (specifically saturated fat) induces insulin resistance, wasn’t known until fancy MRI techniques were developed to see what was happening inside people’s muscles as fat was infused into their bloodstream. And, that’s how scientists found that elevation of fat levels in the blood “causes insulin resistance by inhibition of glucose transport” into the muscles.

And, this can happen within just three hours. One hit of fat can start causing insulin resistance, inhibiting glucose uptake after just 160 minutes.

Same thing happens to adolescents. You infuse fat into their bloodstream. It builds up in their muscles, and decreases their insulin sensitivity—showing that increased fat in the blood can be an important contributor to insulin resistance.

Then, you can do the opposite experiment. Lower the level of fat in people’s blood, and the insulin resistance comes right down. Clear the fat out of the blood, and you can clear the sugar out of the blood. So, that explains this finding. On the high-fat diet, the ketogenic diet, insulin doesn’t work as well. Our bodies are insulin-resistant.

But, as the amount of fat in our diet gets lower and lower, insulin works better and better. This is a clear demonstration that the sugar tolerance of even healthy individuals can be “impaired by administering a low-carb, high-fat diet.” But, we can decrease insulin resistance—the cause of prediabetes, the cause of type 2 diabetes—by decreasing saturated fat intake.

This photo is from a Bon Appetite article  that describes uses for various vinegars. I don’t see a particular vinegar being used across studies, so maybe any of these will do.

It looks like vinegar’s ability to lower blood glucose isn’t new:

Examination Of The Antiglycemic Properties Of Vinegar In Healthy Adults, Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, 2010

Results: Two teaspoons of vinegar ( 10 g) effectively reduced postprandial glycemia (PPG), and this effect was most pronounced when vinegar was ingested during mealtime as compared to 5 h before the meal. Vinegar did not alter PPG when ingested with monosaccharides, suggesting that the antiglycemic action of vinegar is related to the digestion of carbohydrates.

Conclusions: The antiglycemic properties of vinegar are evident when small amounts of vinegar are ingested with meals composed of complex carbohydrates. In these situations, vinegar attenuated PPG by 20% compared to placebo.

But how does it do it? One way: It may improve insulin resistance:

The Role Of Acetic Acid On Glucose Uptake And Blood Flow Rates In The Skeletal Muscle In Humans With Impaired Glucose Tolerance, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2015

Conclusions: In individuals with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), vinegar ingestion before a mixed meal results in an enhancement of muscle blood flow, an improvement of glucose uptake by the forearm muscle and a reduction of postprandial hyperinsulinaemia and hypertriglyceridaemia. From this point of view, vinegar may be considered beneficial for improving insulin resistance and metabolic abnormalities in the atherogenic prediabetic state.

Vinegar Consumption Increases Insulin-Stimulated Glucose Uptake By The Forearm Muscle In Humans With Type 2 Diabetes, Journal of Diabetes Research, 2015

Conclusions: In type 2 diabetes vinegar reduces postprandial hyperglycaemia, hyperinsulinaemia, and hypertriglyceridaemia without affecting lipolysis. Vinegar’s effect on carbohydrate metabolism may be partly accounted for by an increase in glucose uptake, demonstrating an improvement in insulin action in skeletal muscle.

These are all small studies. But the signal is there.