Autocorrections

I read about science, and recent reports in the scientific journals, because I effing love science, even if I don't subscribe to science Facebook pages, and also because I feel obligated to keep current, at least in areas of science related to what I teach in my job. Today I read about studies that corrected beliefs, sometimes from science, sometimes just from expectations. Science is supposed to be auto-correcting, so when mistakes are made, later studies should reveal the errors. I read about some of that today.

One article was about medical beliefs that studies had debunked. For example, fish oil does not decrease risk of heart attacks. Lots of people hoped it would, but no benefit showed up in a big study.

Another was about pedometers. A study shows that having a pedometer correlates with weight gain more than weight loss. Yeah, knowing how many steps I take makes me fatter. Not directly. But statistically. One thing owning a pedometer does is get me thinking about steps, and sometimes I take extra steps because I have one. I don't know what effect that has on my energy balance, overall, and I know that appetite is regulated by hormones, with a complex interactive system and lots of different types of receptors involved, and whether I know how many steps I take or don't know is unlikely to affects any of that system directly. But a study has shown, in a related area, that people who begin to exercise tend to gain a bit of weight, possibly due to increased muscle mass, but also because the increased calorie expenditure stimulates appetite, and they eat more. Maybe not a lot more, but still, more. So more gain weight than lose weight.

I know from experience that changes in my weight are more related to what I eat than to my level of activity. I don't do a lot of intense exercise. I go for walks. But I haven't gone running in a long time, and what other exercises I do are only in small sets, like a few pushups or something. But if I control my portions when I eat, I can keep my weight steady, or lose a few pounds, but I have to maintain discipline, and it is really easy to eat more sometimes. Yesterday, for example, I had a muffin Liz gave me, and a slice of the fruit tart from the French bakery after dinner. I also had a chocolate chip cookie in the morning after breakfast. Those were all outside my meals. The meals weren't particularly large, but the treats were. That can happen, and is why I continue in the range of BMI that says I'm overweight.

I don't care enough about my weight to make long-term effort to get the weight off, I guess. So I fit the profiles of the latest research. I don't intend to quit using the pedometer, though, because I still see the results of that study as correlational, and not causal. Maybe I'll activate my stubborn streak and prove one can lose weight while owning a pedometer. Maybe I am smarter and more powerful than the algorithms.