Another Simple Food Weight Loss Experience

Whole Health Source reader Sarah Pugh recently went on a six-week simple food (low reward) diet to test its effectiveness as a weight loss strategy, and she was kind enough to describe her experience for me, and provide a link to her blog where she discussed it in more detail (1). 

Consistent with the scientific literature and a number of previous reader anecdotes (2), Sarah experienced a reduction in appetite on the simple food diet, losing 15 pounds in 6 weeks without hunger.  In contrast to her prior experiences with typical calorie restriction, her energy level and mood remained high over this period.  Here's a quote from her blog:

Well, it looks like the theory that in the absence of nice palatable food, the body will turn quite readily to fat stores and start munching them up, is holding up. At the moment, the majority of the energy I use is coming from my insides, and my body is using it without such quibbles as the increased hunger, low energy, crappy thermo-regulation or bitchiness normally associated with severe calorie restriction.

I can't promise that everyone will experience results like this, but this is basically what the food reward hypothesis suggests should be possible, and it seems to work this way for many people.  That's one of the reasons why this idea interests me so much.

Read more »

Boss Bagi Para Internet Marketing

Siapa bilang menjadi internet marketer itu tidak mempunyai boss? Padahal menjadi berkerja dibidang internet marketing justru jauh lebih susah karena kita menjadi pegawai dan boss bagi diri kita sendiri. Adapun susahnya kita harus melawan nafsu diri sendiri tuk terus bersemangat mengeruk dollar dengan penuh ketidakpastian padahal di dunia internet banyak sekali cobaan-cobaan hehehe...

Mungkin kalo jenuh kok earning ga naik-naik... trus traffic koq menurun... trus ada situs yang masuk sandbox ga tertutup kemungkinan rasa jenuh bakalan menyelimuti diri trus mencari pelampiasan entah main game online, berlama-lama chatting atau lebih parah lagi buka situs yang engga-engga... Huuuh.... Naudzubillah min dzalik...

Mangkanya selalu niati diri kita dengan niat yang baik. Mulai sebuah hari dengan yang baik... contoh pas pagi hari selalu menghijibkan (membiasakan) Sholat Dhuha bagi yang muslim (tentunya sudah Sholat Subuh dong... en syukur-syukur sudah membaca Alquran). Setelah melakukan semua itu niati bahwa kita berkerja, berwirausaha semata-mata untuk mencari rizki untuk bisa menafkahkan baik itu diri sendiri dan keluarga. Yakin dengan mengawali seperti itu akan tercipta pribadi pegawai dan boss yang baik.

Will the Citigroup Ruling Challenge Health Care Leaders' Impunity?

A federal judge's refusal to approve yet another cozy settlement that was supposed to resolve allegations of wrong-doing by a giant corporation has left the financial world atwitter.  It may be that this ruling will also affect the coziness between giant health care corporations and government regulators. 

Summary of the Citigroup Case

We first discussed this case twp weeks ago here.  Here is a summary of the government's (in this case, the Securities and Exchange Commision's) original allegations from the New York Times.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Citigroup stuffed a $1 billion mortgage fund that it sold to investors in 2007 with securities that it believed would fail so that it could bet against its customers and profit when values declined. The fraud, the agency said, was in Citigroup’s falsely telling investors that an independent party was choosing the portfolio’s investments. Citigroup made $160 million from the deal and investors lost $700 million.

The Problems with the Proposed Settlement
Judge Jed Rakoff refused to approve the settlement because of a series of problems, listed below as summarized by the Schumpeter columnist in the Economist.

Mr Rakoff faulted the SEC for prosecuting Citigroup for negligence when a fraud prosecution was warranted; for failing to provide the court with 'any proven or admitted facts upon which to exercise even a modest degree of independent judgment'; for erroneously contending that 'public interest…is not part of [the] applicable standard of judicial review'; and for wrongly arguing that 'if the public interest must be taken into account, the SEC is the sole determiner'.

Furthermore,

Mr Rakoff also attacked a second condition of the settlement. Citigroup had agreed to operate under a court injunction if it ever violated the deal, which could lead to contempt charges. Whatever threat this carried, Mr Rackoff wrote, it was mitigated because Citigroup, as other financial firms, had been cited similarly over the past decade—and never faced any consequences.

The Parallels with Legal Settlements Made by Health Care Organizations

Several of the features of the settlement that the Judge found so objectionable are commonly also features of the settlements we have seen involving health care organizations. Government regulators often seem to make much milder charges that were warranted by the apparent facts. They make the organizations party to corporate integrity or deferred prosecution agreements, even though sometimes the same corporations were already subject to such agreements when they appeared to misbehave again. The agreements often allow the organizations to neither admit to or deny any charges, leaving the facts of the case forever in doubt.

Matt Taibi in the Rolling Stone provided some pithy comments on these commonly seen features of legal settlements.

By accepting hundred-million-dollar fines without a full public venting of the facts, the SEC is leveling seemingly significant punishments without telling the public what the defendant is being punished for. This has essentially created a parallel or secret criminal justice system, in which both crime and punishment are adjudicated behind closed doors.

This system allows for ugly consequences in both directions. Imagine if normal criminal defendants were treated this way. Say a prosecutor and street criminal come into a judge’s chamber and explain they’ve cooked up a deal, that the criminal doesn’t have to admit to anything or plead to any crime, but has to spend 18 months in house arrest nonetheless.

What sane judge would sign off on a deal like that without knowing exactly what the facts are? Did the criminal shoot up a nightclub and paralyze someone, or did he just sell a dimebag on the street? Is 18 months a tough sentence or a slap on the wrist? And how is it legally possible for someone to deserve an 18-month sentence without being guilty of anything?

Such deals are logical and legal absurdities, but judges have been signing off on settlements like this with Wall Street defendants for years.

As we have said numerous times before, (starting here in 2008) the current manner of regulation, in which organizations pay fines (and sometimes submit to corporate integrity or deferred prosecution agreements), rarely admit any guilt, but in which individuals who directed, authorized or implemented the alleged misbehavior almost never suffer any negative consequences, fails to deter future bad behavior. We have noted that the costs of the settlements are paid by the organization as a whole, and thus simply regarded as costs of doing business by executives. The leaders' impunity will allow the bad behavior to be repeated again and again.

Here is how Taibbi and Rakoff put it:

these crappy settlements have evolved into a kind of cheap payoff system, in which crimes may be committed over and over again, and the SEC’s only role is to take a bribe each time the offenders slip up and get caught.

If you never have to worry about serious punishments, or court findings of criminal guilt (which would leave you exposed to crippling lawsuits), then there’s simply no incentive to stop committing fraud. These SEC settlements simply become part of the cost of doing business, as Rakoff notes:

As for common experience, a consent judgment that does not involve any admissions and that results in only very modest penalties is just as frequently viewed, particularly in the business community, as a cost of doing business imposed by having to maintain a working relationship with a regulatory agency, rather than as any indication of where the real truth lies. This, indeed, is Citigroup's position in this very case.

That line, 'a cost of doing business imposed by having to maintain a working relationship with a regulatory agency,' is one of the more brutally damning things you’ll ever see a judge write. Rakoff is essentially saying that these fines are payoffs to keep the SEC off the banks’ backs. They’re like the pad that numbers-runners or drug dealers pay to urban precinct-houses every month to keep cops from making real arrests. That's what he means when he refers to 'maintaning a working relationship.' It's heavy stuff.

What the Judge appears to be saying is that the whole system stinks of regulatory capture, and that the settlements paid by the organizations are the moral equivalent of bribes paid to government officials. That is indeed "heavy stuff."

Now that Occupy Wall Street has made it socially acceptable to discuss the economic dysfunction that lead to the great recession or global financial collapse, I can only hope that this discussion will lead to a parallel discussion about health care dysfunction. It certainly seems that the regulatory capture that seems to be part of the dismantling of regulation of finance is similar to regulatory capture affecting health care. But I await someone beyond us few lonely bloggers to take up this topic.

I might as well end with this sentiment from 2009 regarding another case over which Judge Rakoff presided:
Again, in my humble opinion, until the people responsible for the bad behavior experience negative consequences from that behavior, they will continue to perform, direct, and condone bad behavior. We will not achieve real health care reform in the US until we effectively deter unethical, self-serving behavior by leaders of health care organizations.

Sarah's Kenya blog - day 2

AFRICAN ADVENTURE DAY 2: MONDAY 28^TH NOVEMBER   19.49 GMT (22.49 Kenya time)

Jambo (as they say in Kenyan Swahili) or hi…..

Day 2 started with Breakfast at 7.30am and just a plate of fruit for me!

8am we met Mary from the British Council in Kenya who took us to meet her colleagues in the British Council offices just down the road from our Hotel. Lots of London 2012 posters and banners on display!!

After a meeting with British Council staff  to finalise the programme it was a short walk across to The Upper Hill School to meet the delegates on the training. The Upper Hills school is a Government funded school that happens to be a boarding school in the business district of Nairobi (which does have boarders – whom are on school holidays at the moment, however staff are in marking exams!!)

At 10am we started to meet the 25 course delegates who were more than welcoming. At 11am we started the course (having had to adapt our plan straight away as our equipment was “STILL” in customs.

Our day covered, “getting to know you and what you’d like from the training sessions” which I led, followed by how to organise leagues, festivals and competitions. We then covered a session on the Cardiff City Supporters Trust followed by a football match!

The football match was amazing! We played on a VERY VERY wet, boggy and marshland rugby pitch (with no cones or equipment available to mark out a playing area) and no bibs available to determine the teams. It was soon sorted out that those in black and blue shirts would play those in bright colours. A lady delegate on the course - who happens to be a referee - took to the field, donning a lovely pink skirt. She managed the game very well – even if she did call me off side a number of times!

The match was hilarious, especially as people hadn’t brought practical kit or clothing so were playing in their trousers and shoes! It was like playing on a skating rink, so slippy and slidy. It really was just what was needed after a heavy day in the classroom! The mud wouldn’t even come off with a good scrub in the shower!

It’s been a good day, the delegates on the course are very welcoming and engaging and it really does feel like I have known them for more than a day already! I am looking forward to tomorrow.

It’s now 11pm so I am off to bed ready for my 7am breakfast and our meeting with one of the Ministry departments tomorrow at 8am.

SPORT WALES SUPPORTS KENYA'S NEW GENERATION OF COMMUNITY LEADERS

Blog by Sport Wales' Sarah Roberts...

Countdown = 1 day to go:

When our Chief Executive Huw Jones initially sent round the email late in September asking if any staff would be interested in supporting the British Council on a project in Kenya, I immediately jumped at the chance and put my name forward. A week later I was asked by Huw if “I had a minute? And could I see him in his office?” after my initial fear of “oh my god, what have I done wrong!” I walked out chuffed that I’d been given such an opportunity to embark on.

Now with only 1 day to go, I am both excited and apprehensive and desperately trying to sort out what clothes to take!! Typical girl thing I know!! Who will we be meeting? What will the weather be like? Will we join in with any sporting activity? Do I need to be smart and formal or relaxed and casual? Oh the dilemma!

Whilst in Nairobi, we will launch a “Football for All” project which has been developed by the British Council in partnership with Cardiff City Supporters Trust and is supported by the Welsh Football Trust, Urdd Gobaith Cymru, Cardiff City Football in the Community & Sport Wales.

The partnership is looking to achieve:

·         A more cohesive, peaceful Kenya that will in turn translate to improved quality of life for communities involved

·         Greater appreciation of sustainable development and interdependency of people and communities

·         Increased power and decision making in the hands of the people

·         And gender mainstreaming from grass roots levels.

All of which are fairly similar to what we are also trying to achieve in Wales!

The partners involved in the programme are:

·         British Council – (organising party) creating international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries.

·         Kenyan National Steering Committee – with a mandate to co-ordinate all peace initiatives in the country and across borders.

·         Kenyan National Cohesion & integration Commission who promote the elimination of all forms of discrimination and promote tolerance and understanding amongst Kenyans.

·         Kenyan Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport who work on Youth empowerment and engagement.

·         Grassroots community based organisations – Active Citizen Programme.

There are 21 delegates that will be taking part in the week-long programme (7 female and 14 male) with ages ranging from 21 to 48, and roles ranging from Community Volunteers, sports liaison officers, Civic Educators, Community mobilizers / peace builders,  football coaches and referees.

Central to the success of the project will be training young Kenyans in how to communicate with their own communities and how to influence local and national authorities to ensure sustainable, positive change, eventually establishing their first youth Parliament in Kenya, thus making their voice heard in decision making not just locally but on a country wide level. I am sure they will be very interested in the work that we are doing with Young Ambassadors in Wales.