I had to smile at an article from Natural News titled 'Health alert: Why you DON'T want ripped abs if you hope to survive the coming economic collapse'. Here's an excerpt.
You show me a guy with ripped abs, and I'll show you a guy very unlikely to survive the coming economic collapse. There are three scientific reasons for this:
- Having "ripped abs" is only achieved by shedding excess body fat and achieving a dangerously low body fat level (such as 5% for men).
- People with ripped abs (i.e. very low body fat) have virtually no excess calories to keep them alive if access to food is suddenly limited.
- People with ripped abs have no built-in insulation from the cold. A person with very low body fat is extremely vulnerable to hypothermia. This may be a life-or-death matter if an economic collapse arrives during the winter months and electricity or heating fuels are not available for extended periods of time.
There's more at the link. It makes interesting and worthwhile reading, particularly the author's assessment of how much weight bodybuilders gain after a show, when they apparently eat and drink like horses to reverse the temporary starvation they inflicted on themselves in order to look their best for the judges. I didn't know that.
Peter
3 comments:
The Rangers lost some folks years back in Florida do to hypothermia. They did not have enough body fat to keep their core temperature up when cold and wet.
The training cadre changed the diet intake to counter the loss of boddy fat in canidates.
Gerry
I suddenly feel much better about my waistline. :^)
When we used to go to the field, the people in the best physical condition always seemed to be the ones who had the roughest time. In agreement with the article, they had a harder tiime dealing with cold and wet, seemed to get sick more often, and had a real hard time with the change in diet. MRE's and trucked-out chow hall food aren't exactly rich in low-carb, high-protein, low-fat choices, and it did a number on their digestive systems.
There's a happy medium where you're not obese, but you're not so skinny that you have extra angles. More people need to find it. I'm more on the roundish side, so I guess I'm as guilty as the next guy.
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