Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 1:53 am

Did you eat more than you did before?
If not, the child probably sucked you dry.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:18 am

I have a friend who lost weight during her pregnancy, but that was due to chronic morning sickness.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:59 am

I've heard tell from numerous anecdotal stories about ladies who gained *and* lost significant amounts of weight during pregnancy where morning sickness/diabetes was not always a factor. All I can go with is that it really messes with hormones to understate things, and that could have lasting changes. Hell, pregnancy may possibly mess with your gut bacteria which could have long term changes and I doubt such things have been investigated very thoroughly.

Hah, I just did some web sleuthing and it may have be due to bias from my search terms but it appears to support my intuition that hormones+gut flora is a very likely suspect for why some women have their metabolism apparently change, sometimes permanently, causing weight loss.

Ding ding ding! I think I may have found a winner. It is mostly about how a pregnant woman's gut bacteria changes during pregnancy due to hormone shifts and how that meddles with the fetus, but it surely has an affect on expectant mother weight-gain/loss as well. It appears to be a new article because gut flora is a pretty new area of research where people are discovering it is pretty important and not well understood.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:25 am

Interesting link. I'll use that as a basis for more research.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 5:21 am

Something else to consider is that after having become pregnant, some cells from the fetus will remain alive in the mother possibly for the rest of her life, roving around about in her body possibly causing changes. I don't think these are as likely a suspect for changes in weight/metabolism, but hell, they're there.

Lemme see if I can google up a citation for that. The reason I am skeptical that this is a cause for weight changes is pretty well summed up by this quote from the cited article.

The jury is still out on the effects of microchimerism—or if there's an effect at all. "There isn't enough evidence to accuse or acquit microchimeric fetal cells," Bianchi says.

That continues to be the prevailing understanding. There isn't one. Or rather it is conflicting.

For what it is worth, I was cued into both this and various gut flora information thanks to Radiolab. I can't plug that podcast series enough.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 9:02 am

There are a lot of things that pregnancy can do that can affect your weight:

Calories: The act of growing a new life that weighs as much as two gallons of milk in forty weeks is actually quite calorically intensive. If you don't respond by considerably increasing your consumption of food, weight will be lost. The act of starving, which you will begin to do when that happens will prompt you to eat much more, and if you eat considerably more than is needed to fund the fetus formation, you'll gain weight instead.

Kidneys: During pregnancy, your kidneys grow by a centimeter or more each, and the rate of glomelular filtration increases significantly. This remodeling is also sometimes a failure, and the end result can be a considerable increase or decrease in water retention.

Insulin During pregnancy, insulin resistance increases substantially, causing blood sugar levels to maintain a higher basal level. This can drive people into full-on diabetes, but it can also cause people to have to eat a lot less if they happen to be hypoglycemic normally.

Liver During Pregnancy, the liver undergoes a number of changes, not the least of which is that the liver is being called upon to produce many more of certain blood products than it normally does. This can provoke some fairly bad forms of liver failure (Fatty Liver of Pregnancy, HELLP), and it can potentially limit flow through your bile duct (which sometimes hurts like hell and can make it difficult to digest and absorb fat).

Blood Pressure Your blood pressure can fall (because your blood is passing through a bigger volume and because of the aforementioned kidney effects), and it can also rise. It can rise enough to be life threatening (Pre-Eclampsia). Changes in blood pressure can provoke changes in metabolic rate, which can substantially alter how many calories you use in a day.

And so on. This is why we prefer it if pregnant women go to doctors and get a bunch of tests done. Because the reactions to pregnancy aren't super predictable, as there are many opposing forces unleashed that could push equilibrium in many directions depending on what effects end up being stronger.

-Username17

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 10:01 pm

Thanks!

---

New Question...

Why the hell are companies starting to ask for user names that contain both letters and numbers?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 10:15 pm

A couple reasons spring to mind:

1. Idiots whom use their real names for things they shouldn't.
2. A lot of sites will give the same error message for wrong username and wrong password, so having numbers in usernames would make blind dictionary attacks more difficult.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 10:18 pm

Also, many sites will have enough users to cause people to add numbers to their name, just to avoid collisions. You could argue that they're just getting in early to make sure that the collisions occur less often.

I'd be putting money on the crappy security measure, though.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:23 pm

If the Presidential election ended several months ago, why does it take until fucking January to swear them in? Another archaic holdover from the horse and buggy days, like the year and a half long election season?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:37 pm

Yes. The date on which they're sworn in is set in the constitution, and was actually amended down from March.

Basically, once upon a time, every state needed to count and verify votes for Electors, in the pre-computer days when even counting them would take stupidly long, then the Electors needed to all go to the same place and vote for the President. Also there was some slack in case no one got a majority and it went to the House.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Tue Jan 22, 2013 11:41 pm

Well, I can deal with that, but getting the election cycle down to like, 3 months would be awesome. Up here the minimum is 36 days, but some years 50-60+ days is not uncommon.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 2:57 pm

I dunno how you'd enforce that, though. I mean, technically speaking no one was formally campaigning until mid 2011, but it really started much earlier than that. How DO you enforce that in Canada?

Also, regulating political parties in the US is pretty difficult. Their legal status is kind of screwy, because the people who wrote the constitution did not want any yet failed to actually stop them from happening in their lifetimes.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:55 pm

Is there such thing as penile reduction? It isn't a big deal, but it would be nice to take a dump without my dick getting toilet water on it, or to get wood and be able to hide it.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:35 pm

Scissors.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:45 pm

I don't want to give up my porn watching though.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:48 pm

Oh, well then... a shrink ray?

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:01 pm

name_here wrote:I dunno how you'd enforce that, though. I mean, technically speaking no one was formally campaigning until mid 2011, but it really started much earlier than that. How DO you enforce that in Canada?

Also, regulating political parties in the US is pretty difficult. Their legal status is kind of screwy, because the people who wrote the constitution did not want any yet failed to actually stop them from happening in their lifetimes.

Well, not rightly sure, but we only have signs and political commercials during elections 98% of the time. IIRC, a few candidates at various levels have been rebuked for doing shit too early, or what have you. I guess one gets fined?

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 2:55 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Is there such thing as penile reduction? It isn't a big deal, but it would be nice to take a dump without my dick getting toilet water on it, or to get wood and be able to hide it.

If there is I bet it is expensive. It is probably cheaper to just get cosmetic surgery, then you can get into porn to make the money back.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 3:07 am

Get a bigger lavatory (only works in your own house, granted) and wear MC Hammer pants that let you smuggle airships?

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 3:15 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Is there such thing as penile reduction? It isn't a big deal, but it would be nice to take a dump without my dick getting toilet water on it, or to get wood and be able to hide it.

My family always installs one with "elongated bowl" and "comfort height" for this reason.

EDIT: Hiding the wood is probably going to be impossible. Your best bet would be to strap in place pointing straight up and wear a long, baggy shirt. Failing that, I suppose you could take steps to avoid getting hard. One of those chastity cages, or alcohol poisoning, or something. It might be simpler just to start thinking of it as free advertising.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 3:28 am

I highly doubt Count would really need to worry about plastic surgery to get into porn. He could probably walk onto the set, slap the director in the face with his junk, and get a job.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Jan 24, 2013 4:54 am

I looked into that. Male porn stars make less than I would working for wal-mart when you break it down per hour. Unless you do gay porn. And I have enough ass problems to deal with already, I can't imagine that would improve things.

EDIT: Working in porn is kind of metaphorical for when I used to date when I think about it. It doesn't matter how old or fat or ugly or emotionally damaged she is, all that's required of her is to show up and be willing, while the guy is expected to do a lot more, receives less in return, and is completely replaceable. Being a male porn star is that times a million. No, I don't think a career that takes all of my personal hang-ups to a ludicrous degree is a good career choice for me. Give me a lab or a toolbox and let me fix shit, please.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 6:39 am

Hmm... you don't have to go try and get a job with Vivid or some shit like that. Hell, google "porn site seeking male actor" or something. An indie will probably treat you a good bit better.

Then again, the indies that would treat you better, and usually encourage a positive body image, etc. would probably be, at best, turned off by your (admittedly perfectly justifiable) negativity.
Then again, you could try it and just not talk about this shit while "at work"

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 2:49 pm

name_here wrote:Yes. The date on which they're sworn in is set in the constitution, and was actually amended down from March.

Basically, once upon a time, every state needed to count and verify votes for Electors, in the pre-computer days when even counting them would take stupidly long, then the Electors needed to all go to the same place and vote for the President. Also there was some slack in case no one got a majority and it went to the House.

It's still a good idea, because that transition is not simple when the administration changes, and there's no downside if the administration continues in office. I can imagine better systems, but this one seems to work out pretty well.