Author: Henry Barnard

I am a voracious reader and also enjoy writing. I often have a very different point of view than the popular one. I do see value in debate, and thought it might add to the public debate on controversial issues if I were to express my contrarian opinions. I also started keeping my poems recently (I've written little pieces my whole adult life but never kept any); and I've been a photographer now for over 25 years. So I will be adding an occasional poem and hopefully interesting photograph to the blog along the way, just to spice things up.

Losing Weight

How many times have I read the exact same post in Facebook but with slightly different words: I’m doing everything right but am not losing any weight — why?  The body has its own timetable for weight loss.  For one thing, the metabolism tends to counter everything a person does.  So if you eat significantly fewer calories, for instance, the metabolism will slow down to counter that.  However, no matter what tricks the metabolism plays, if you have a sustained program for weight loss, the weight will come off at some point.  But if you give up in frustration, it won’t.

My Story

Sugar Model

The diabetes sugar model I have in my head goes something like this.  When a person eats refined sugar or simple carbs, this spikes glucose in the blood, which spikes the insulin level so that that sugar can be absorbed by the cells.  But if this happens often enough, the metabolism reacts to protect the cells from being flooded with so much sugar by creating insulin resistance — the insulin receptors in the cells stop functioning, that is, sugar gets stopped at the gate.  This means that the excess sugar remains in the blood vessels.   Now you have dangerously high levels of sugar in the blood.  Here comes diabetes 2, a self-induced disease.

My Story

Youth Suicide

Heart breaking story of a young woman living in the West Village who hanged herself. Left a note saying in effect that she always felt alone even when with friends.  I suppose that means we all need to have a real connection with someone else at some point or the soul spirals downhill.  Also in the note, she apologized to her mother for what she was about to do.

My Story

Fat

Twenty years or so ago, it was the low-fat craze — they demonized fat.  Then we discovered the body needs fat, and was especially low in Omega 3 fats, so the mantra was eat the right fats.  But now the pendulum has swung all the way over to the over consumption of fat — the Keto diet recommends that 70% of what you eat should be fat.  The Keto people are even now apologists for how “healthy” saturated fat is.  Crazy.

But don’t let it upset you.  Just wait another 20 years and fats will be all bad again.

My Story