Nor do the 65% of the population that are not obese (according to your numbers, which I am not sure where you get them from since the Lancet reports much different numbers: http://www.thelancet.com/journ....

Once again, no item you can eat contains healthy or unhealthy calories. The calorie is a measurement of energy. If one eats dramatically more or dramatically less energy then one's body metabolizes, they are adding an unhealthy element to their lives.

We do not say sarcastically "But you still get all the healthy water!" because its possible to drink enough water to get water poisoning. We do not claim that water is unhealthy for us because a surfeit or lack is unhealthy for us. It is the surfeit or lack that is unhealthy, not the water. Similarly, a calorie itself is not healthy or unhealthy.

A calorie is a unit of energy. I still don't understand what makes one calorie unhealthy and what makes another calorie healthy.

But not a lack of them? Quantity is a much different facet than the identify of a thing.

What makes a calorie unhealthy?

What do you mean by originates? Cocoa beans don't grow in the US, nor do they grow in Europe. If you mean produced, then both Europe and US have fine chocolatiers and fine chocolate producers.

Foot in mouth, I am sorry. I did not see your original post and was responded with the wrong context in mind. You are absolutely correct in arguing against the general guidelines due to your specific situation.

Feelings are rather important when it comes to expressing oneself. If I feel like what I say will be twisted and used against me, I will be less likely to express myself. If everyone feels like what they say has no impact, or worse a negative impact, they'll remain mum and docile.

The "study" has many, many problems, but the fact that they are concerned by how writers "feel" is not one of them.

You are an individual. Individuals have needs to sometimes vary from the norm: for example, your high blood-pressure. That does not mean that general guidelines are wrong for the norm. It does mean that one should tailor general guidelines to one's individual scenario, usually through expert opinion like a doctor's. Which you've done.

Sorry, but it irks me when someone posts "X is generally a good/bad idea" to which someone replies "I have condition Y, so I am (not) doing X." It sounds like debunking general guidelines, which hurts others.

It sounds like the book does a good job of addressing what's wrong with nutrition research, but does it give any advice on how to eat?

The underlying motive is "change is happening externally, what sort of change can I attempt internally." People also typically have similar thoughts at other external change points: weddings, funerals, graduations, etc. It's a pretty basic (although flawed as you point out) way of thinking.

That said, it is also very much true that something done repeatedly become habit and easier to continue accomplishing. We are creatures of habit, and forming new habits is a powerful way to change our behavior.

To combat the New Year's resolution flaws though, it's better to make habit changes all throughout the year and one at a time.

It, again comes does to removing judgment and making clear lines. First, the premises of both laws: crossing the street can be done safely or unsafely; smoking pot by yourself is not harming anyone but providing pot for others could be a harm to others. Now, how to enforce them without making vague rules: lines painted where it's permitted; a mass measure to determine how much is more than for oneself.

Of course, there are times when one can cross safely outside the lines and there are times when one wants to smoke a lot more, but if we make laws to encourage one type of behavior it's better for those laws to be clear. Lines and numbers do that; that's why there's a number.

One can disagree with the number, but that's how limits work. Same goes for BAC or number of times you enter the country on a visa or amount of money you can carry across a border without declaring it or value of a gift you can give without it being taxable income or so many other things.

Out of curiosity, why have you stopped using the ViewSonic p225f?

Do you have a citation for a few of these studies?

Both video games and board games can be very good. I've noticed years ago that there are so many games out there of all formats, that I will never have time to play them all so I've cut my budget in all gaming categories. I used to have boxes of rarely played board games (hello Die Macher) and gigabytes of rarely played video games (hello Theater of War). Now when I want to game I look through my library and play one of those. Most of the time I find something enjoyable to play (hello Baldur's Gate 2 I didn't finish back in the day and hello Amun Ra that's still amazing fun). I still acquire new games, but much more slowly.

Board games address your six points, but so can video games. The only ones that they can't address are #2 as they do require battery power.

The major difference is that a company given a letter (not a subpoena) has no incentive to not hand over the data. It's not like consumers have ever shown they care (enough, via the bottom line). Companies know this. That's why Amazon shut down WikiLeaks with only a phone call (no subpoena) and no one cared that the government could just silence a website they disagreed with without even making a legal argument. That's why scuba shops handed over their customer lists to the FBI when asked, without a subpoena. There are so many other cases of companies thinking "well, it's not like the customer cares, we can be nice to the government and not even piss anyone off".

In the case of the subpoena, yes you gain nothing by storing the data yourself. In the case of a letter or phone call asking nicely, you have far more control. You can ignore it. A company may or may not.