The facts behind fidgeting fat away

TV-land is bursting at the seams with programmes telling us how we are all getting fatter – Operation Transformation, A Year to Save My Life, The Fattest Loser, Bulging Brides and Fat Camp just being a few of the myriad on offer.
In this week’s Horizon: The Truth About Exercise (BBC2), I learned that sitting down is slowly killing me, which is upsetting as I tend to spend a sizable part of the day in a similar position, in fact I’m sitting down to write this column, which should probably mean I should stand up to do it.
Presenter Michael Mosley’s father had type two diabetes and so he was on the hunt to stop himself developing the condition, yet avoid the gym at the same time. So donning a pair of “fidget pants” to see how much he moved during the day, scientists were able to determine that he did not really move at all, in fact Mr Mosley had been sitting for 12-plus hours a day. But that’s not unusual we were told, as the average person manages 12 to 14 hours a day.
There was a lot of Neat (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) phrases thrown in for good measure. The creator of Neat, Dr James Levine, argued the amount energy burned by exercises such as jogging or at the gym is negligible compared with natural movements like bending, walking and so on, which will leave a good number of the population naturally shaking their fist at a wasted gym membership. But don’t fret, that’s also burning calories.
So taking up walking and cycling, Mosley also went to see more acronym-creating scientists. HIIT (high-intensity interval training) pedals the idea that three minutes of intense workouts a week can burn more fat than longer workouts. Professor James Timmons argued this also helps increase insulin effectiveness by 30% and queried British government guidelines recommending 150 minutes of moderate activity and 75 minutes vigorous activity a week.
Singing a tune I recognised – in that he claimed people respond differently to exercises – poor Mr Mosley turned out to be a non-responder – his aerobic capacity cannot be increased, which was a shame given all the effort he had put in to the biking. As for food, it was argued that almost all diets fail because the body conspires against the will. As you lose weight, your metabolism slows down and the body gets cheeky by reducing movement to conserve calories.
By that stage I’d had enough of how eating the wrong foods will kill me or at the very least give me some sort of condition and that my exercising attempts could be completely redundant, so I avoided the new series of Channel 4’s Supersize v Superskinny. I’m also sitting down to finish the column as I’m getting a pain in my neck from leaning over the computer.
We’ve seen many reincarnations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s inimitable creation Sherlock Holmes but in the main, they have all retained the basic elements – Holmes and sidekick John Watson get caught up in some case or other and ultimately solve it. Last year saw the release of Guy Ritchie’s second Holmes film with Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock and Jude Law as Dr Watson. The BBC had huge success earlier this year with it modern-day adaptation Sherlock, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the leading role and Martin Freeman as his long-suffering sidekick.
In Elementary however, the new modern-day Sherlock Holmes pilot being produced in America by CBS, it’s not just getting a makeover, there’s a monumental change in gender involved. Lucy Liu, she of Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill ass-kickery, has been cast as Joan Watson, a former surgeon who has lost her license, lives in Brooklyn and acts as a sober companion to former Scotland Yard consultant Sherlock (Johnny Lee Miller) following his stint in rehab for addiction issues.
Sherlock Holmes is a beloved character, so any changes to Doyle’s creation are bound to be met with suspicion but I’m holding my powder on this one. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ adaption for the BBC could also have gone horribly wrong by introducing it to modern technologies like blogs and mobile phones and the likes. It didn’t though, it was brilliant.
How it is scripted will ultimately decree if the whole thing will endure or unravel. The essence of the Sherlock Holmes stories is the friendship between Holmes and Watson; a female Watson introduces that pesky flirtation element, which could ruin everything. That said, when Battlestar Galactica was getting its rather brilliant update a few years ago, there was uproar when Lieutenant Starbuck was cast as female yet Katee Sackhoff’s portrayal far outshone Dirk Benedict’s original hero. Could be interesting.
In the midst of the Republican Primaries, a new made for TV film chronicling former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s meteoric rise and fall in politics has hit a bit of a nerve with some of her compatriots.
Seven of the former Alaska governor’s past staffers have aired their criticisms of Game Change this week to journalists, which stars Julianne Moore in an uncanny resemblance to the woman herself.
Not one of them has seen the show, mind, their criticisms are all based on the book that it is based on and the trailers for the HBO creation, which is due to air later this month on Sky Atlantic.
According to Palin’s former foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, “It gives fiction a bad name”. I wasn’t aware fiction had a bad name.
A former aide during the 2008 campaign added “It’s like me telling you what happened at your wedding by talking to your caterers”.
Overall, they described the show as a “fabricated” version of the 2008 election campaign, also claiming it distorts her grasp of foreign affairs. In one part it suggests she thinks the Queen rather than the Prime Minister runs the British government.
I cannot wait.