inteja

Not sure about "big" but certainly weight training has been shown to be beneficial in strengthening bones and preventing potentially fatal fractures in old age etc, even if taken up for the first time in later life. I personally think that excessive muscular size probably is just a little detrimental to longevity but as long as you also keep your heart (and other organs) healthy with a good vegan diet and regular cardio, it shouldn't be much of an issue. It's probably a good trade-off. So far scientists have had the best age extension results from calorie restriction, so I think that if it's longeveity you're after, reducing calorie intake (rather than increasing it in order to gain lean muscle) may be a sound choice.

Here's an American Council on Exercise study on the effectiveness of various abdominal exercises. Personally I like: Bicycle Crunches Captain's Chair Leg Raise The Plank (Hover)

Just a banana

Something funny I read once: It's actually a really serious problem. NASA must do everything in both imperial and metric because of its international collaborations and has even lost spacecraft due to imperial/metric mistakes.

But the order of exercises will have some impact on results because the further down the order a given exercise is the less energy and strength you potentially have remaining to execute them, resulting in lower reps and/or load. If you were to do isolation exercises first up you may not get as much benefit from the all-important compound movements further down the order. It's not just about form and preventing injury. Using free weights works the stabilizing muscles more than using a machine. RE the OP's question, I have no idea sorry. HIIT works for me at the moment.

I got laid off last week due to the financial crisis I'm a bit worried about my ability to find new work as all my experience is in a very specialized area that is highly sought after in boom times but considered an expensive luxury in this current economic climate.

Haven't you heard? The fountain of youth is just around the corner ... a lot of money and research is being poured into life extension and anti-aging / age-reversal these days (See www.methuselahfoundation.org). Personally, I'm not sure I'd want to live for 1000 years. Not to mention that It'd only be for the mega-rich as the planet can't sustain the projected 9 billion people by 2050, let alone 9 billion who all want to live 1000 years AND still insist on having kids, a McMansion in the 'burbs, 2 cars, 10 TVs, an annual holiday to Disney World and ... a partridge in a pear tree. Best things we can do for the planet (and consequently the future of humanity): Adopt a vegan diet. Choose not to have kids (or have only 1 child per couple, which would lower the global population to 1 billion by the end of the century just through natural attrition - if everyone did it). Choose voluntary simplicity. Die young

No, I didn't do any stretching like that. Someone today suggested it could be "referred pain", which I hadn't heard of before now. It kinda makes sense that I may have twisted or pinched something in my back (my posture is terrible) but the actual pain is showing up on one or the other side of my lower rig cage (where there's been no trauma). It's a possibility I guess.

Yeah, the permaculture concept is great! It's a small but growing movement here in Australia (and around the world) and could go a long way to addressing many of the land degradation and food security issues the world currently faces (see www.transitionculture.org for some good info and a book). Last year I completed a PDC - Permaculture Design Certificate and also want to do the APT3 - Accredited Permaculture Training Certificate 3 which is more in-depth. I aim to tranform our yard into a permaculture food forest, so that we are as self-sufficient as possible Permaculture is not vegan as such. It does recommend the intelligent use of various insects and animals - for work (tilling, polination etc), organic fertilizer (manure), and human food. However that shouldn't put you off learning about it. It's possible use permaculture concepts without animals in the system at all or to just use animals without eating them. I think it's definitely possible for animals to coexist in a garden (if somewhat constrained, partly for their own safety) and for them to be happy and express their natural behaviour. There's another system also mentioned before in this forum called vegan organic gardening, which is well worth a look too.

Now that I have your attention, no we're not talking heart attack here, but someone might be able to give me some insights as to what might be going on. I've had a full heart checkup, blood tests and x-ray to rule out anything obvious or serious. About 8 weeks ago I was doing reverse-incline single (left) leg press with a personal trainer. I got tired (and lazy) and lowered the weight too quickly and too far, squashing my quadricep against my chest resulting in a sharp, stabbing pain in my lower-left rib cage. It felt at the time like my internal organs and mid-riff fat was being pushed into my rib cage. Anyway, I took myself off to my doctor, who (without any tests) figured I'd just "popped some rib cartilage" and he said to take some pain killers, give it some rest and it would be fine in 3-6 weeks. As he predicted, the pain subsided over that time. Now for the strange bit. Last week I got similar, strong-stabbing pains in my lower-right rib cage without having had pain in that area before and having had no exercise since the first incident. It got so bad that I couldn't cough, sneeze, hiccup or breath deeply without excruciating pain, so I took myself off to the ER. They ran a heap of tests and found nothing at all wrong. They had no idea. So, more pain killers and rest were prescribed and things are better (not perfect) now but I'm worried about it returning, especially when I get back to the gym. Has anyone had anything like this or know what it might be?

Adding to DV's posted links, this seems somewhat relevant: Here Be Dragons: An Introduction to Critical Thinking http://herebedragonsmovie.com/ Essential viewing IMHO ...

I don't know if they're deceptive or not but here in Australia we have a series of 'celebrity endorsement' TV ads for 'red meat' that annoy me. See here: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_9SuABGeeb8 Sam Neil is probably best known internationally for his role as paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. The ads are presented as a parody of a David Attenborough natural science documentary, but despite the humour this format could lend a certain amount of scientific credibility to the ad's claims about eating meat i.e. "Red meat, we were meant to eat it".

I recently had my blood tested and was surprised to learn the following: Calcium - low B12 - low / normal Iron - low / normal Vitamin D - very low The doctor didn't give me any printed results or anything. Just wrote the above on some note paper. Presumably these are changes from my previous blood test (about 8-12 months ago), unless of course they've redefined what is 'normal'. I've been vegan for 2 years now. So, I bought some vitamin and mineral supplements and will look at getting out of my dark cave-like office and into the scorching Australian sun a little more. I should be eating more leafy greens too.

6'4" (193cm)

Regarding the vaccination debate, here's a recent interesting story: Bad Science: It's not what the papers say, it's what they don't

Tasmania or New Zealand Natural environments are amazing and I get the feeling that attitudes are a bit more liberal / western-European than those of mainland Australia (but I am likely to be wroong on that last statement). I don't think I'll ever move from Brisbane though. I've lived overseas and in other Australian state capitals and although Brisbane can get a little too warm, the city isn't too bad as cities go and family is relatively close by.

I find this hard to believe. From what little I understand, cancer is basically mutated cells (which everyone gets) that for whatever reason are multiplying out of control. If cancerous tumours get too big and/or are a sensitive location they will limit or halt the normal functioning of critical bodily systems, thereby eventually leading to death. I'm not saying that factors such as fear, pessimism, fatigue and toxic treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy don't also affect prognosis but the cancer alone does kill fit, healthy, young, positive, happy and good people too.

In addition to taking B12 to supplement a vegan diet there was a story on a national science show a while back that described new research suggesting that taking folate + B12 can reduce the rate of DNA damage caused by ageing. But please also take note of the folate warning based on subsequent research.

I've never seen a UFO and my opinion on the subject becomes less clear with time. Of interest to me is the research of the late Harvard psychiatrist John Mack. He studied "experiencers" as he termed the people who identified as alien abductees. Slightly off topic, but the following article is also a good read. It explores the possibility of a "great filter", a probability barrier that works to halt the evolution of intelligent, technologically advanced beings - a barrier which humanity may be bumping up against right now or likely to encounter in the future. Where Are They? Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing.

OK, I'll respond then. When I was overseas and didn't have access to a gym or my home free weight setup so I resorted to resistance bands. I think they were beneficial, up to a point. Certainly better than nothing at all, and good for muscle groups where body weight alone didn't well. However, I don't know if you could do serious muscle building using resistance bands alone. They might be OK for muscle maintenance though. When I finally returned home, I thought I'd try to use heavy resistance bands for lat pulldown (as I had no chin up bar at the time). So I bought some Everlast bands (pack of three bands plus plastic handles). After a few weeks, I'd snapped the heavy black band twice. "Everlast" it certainly wasn't

I used to give blood but I had a clot (that damaged one eye) over 10 years ago and now they won't take my blood anymore.

I think it's hard-wired in the brain to prefer one's own race/culture and be cautious/suspect/fearful of strangers from other races and cultures. It's the same in the animal kingdom. Safety in numbers. Safety in identifying predominantly with one's own tribe. Many animals are tribal. Humans are too. On the other hand, inter-tribal and interracial breading promotes genetic diversity, so from a purely evolutionary point of view, at least some people would need to be attracted to different races to improve the survival chances of the species as a whole. Either way, I think we're intelligent (albeit far from "enlightened") enough and have more than enough information of and exposure to other cultures to overcome this hard-wired suspicion in most cases. Of interest is the work of Dr. Stephen Marquardt showing that (facial) beauty is about symmetry and proportion, irrespective of race. For me, I can't honestly say that I've had a great deal of close exposure to non-caucasion people (not close enough to ever be in a position to pluck up the courage to ask someone out anyway - I'm shy, whatever the colour or creed ). My first ever "date" was with a mixed heritage, dark skinned girl, but she asked me out so maybe that doesn't count. Growing up I guess I've gone through phases of being physically attracted to different races. I know I had a thing for Japanese girls for a long while, but maybe that's because I really like long, dark flowing hair (on any girl).

If you're limited for space you can grow in pots, get dwarf varieties, multi-grafts (single plant with multiple varieties grafted onto one root stock) and the previously mentioned espalier technique. Take a serous look at permaculture.

Chia seeds

Sorry, no. I work almost exclusively with AI, PDF and SVG files.