The Journey

JPB, how about one of these small pedal exercisers? You could sit at home
in a chair doing it or while watching Fox News

Dad's Knee Replacement Rehab Verified Purchaser

Pros:
Stable. Easy To Adjust. Easy To Setup. Easy To Use. Quiet Operation. Smooth Operation. Comfortable.
Best Uses: Physical Therapy. General Fitness.

Bought this for Dad to use after knee replacement surgery. Was using one at the rehab center and the therapist gave me a printout from AllegroMedical. Ordered it and had it before Dad got home from rehab. Using it all the time while watching ballgames. When he is not using it I will be using it. GREAT, GREAT, GREAT Item

The brain, like the rest of the body, derives energy from glucose, the simple sugar manufactured from all kinds of foods. To establish cause and effect, researchers at Baumeister’s lab tried refueling the brain in a series of experiments involving lemonade mixed either with sugar or with a diet sweetener. The sugary lemonade provided a burst of glucose, the effects of which could be observed right away in the lab; the sugarless variety tasted quite similar without providing the same burst of glucose. Again and again, the sugar restored willpower, but the artificial sweetener had no effect. The glucose would at least mitigate the ego depletion and sometimes completely reverse it. The restored willpower improved people’s self-control as well as the quality of their decisions: they resisted irrational bias when making choices, and when asked to make financial decisions, they were more likely to choose the better long-term strategy instead of going for a quick payoff. The ego-depletion effect was even demonstrated with dogs in two studies by Holly Miller and Nathan DeWall at the University of Kentucky. After obeying sit and stay commands for 10 minutes, the dogs performed worse on self-control tests and were also more likely to make the dangerous decision to challenge another dog’s turf. But a dose of glucose restored their willpower.

[...some skeptics, new study, unexpected findings...]

Heatherton reported that administering glucose completely reversed the brain changes wrought by depletion — a finding, he said, that thoroughly surprised him. Heatherton’s results did much more than provide additional confirmation that glucose is a vital part of willpower; they helped solve the puzzle over how glucose could work without global changes in the brain’s total energy use. Apparently ego depletion causes activity to rise in some parts of the brain and to decline in others. Your brain does not stop working when glucose is low. It stops doing some things and starts doing others. It responds more strongly to immediate rewards and pays less attention to long-term prospects.

The discoveries about glucose help explain why dieting is a uniquely difficult test of self-control — and why even people with phenomenally strong willpower in the rest of their lives can have such a hard time losing weight. They start out the day with virtuous intentions, resisting croissants at breakfast and dessert at lunch, but each act of resistance further lowers their willpower. As their willpower weakens late in the day, they need to replenish it. But to resupply that energy, they need to give the body glucose. They’re trapped in a nutritional catch-22:

1. In order not to eat, a dieter needs willpower.

2. In order to have willpower, a dieter needs to eat.

A quick, early comment as I read the first page. I've noticed that my "language issues" are much more prevalent at night when I'm tired. Not that I don't make mistakes throughout the day, but the wide array of eye-popping blunders at nighttime is amazing. I've taken to shutting down the computer by 9:00 simply because I'm worthless by then.

I've noticed that my "language issues" are much more prevalent at night when I'm tired. Not that I don't make mistakes throughout the day, but the wide array of eye-popping blunders at nighttime is amazing.