Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle: Re: [fast5] Re: Fast on! Fast off!

I don't think salt produces chlorine to any great degree? Anyway, I grew up swimming in salt water (AKA the Pacific) and I get along with it just fine. Not so much the local pools though. When I make my millions I'm putting in a salt water pool. Actually we could put in the pool easily ... we have an unused raised one now, they are pretty affordable these days ... it's the heating that is the issue. I think my days of swimming in 60 degree water are past.

OK, so on Wikipedia they have a rundown of the issues:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_water_chlorination

The benefits of salt systems in pools are the convenience and the constant delivery of pure chlorine-based sanitizer. The reduction of irritating chloramides versus traditional chlorinating methods and the "softening" effect of the electrolytic process reducing dissolved alkali minerals in the water are also perceived as benefits. For some people that have sensitivities to chlorine, these systems may be less offensive.

Downsides are initial cost of the system, maintenance, and the cost of replacement cells. Salt is a corrosive; it will damage some metals and some improperly-sealed stone, however as the ideal saline concentration of a salt-chlorinated pool is very low (<3,500ppm, the threshold for human perception of salt by taste; seawater is about ten times this concentration), damage usually occurs due to improperly-maintained pool chemistry or improper maintenance of the electrolytic cell. Pool equipment manufacturers will not warranty stainless steel products damaged by saline pools.

Calcium and other alkali precipitate buildup will occur naturally on the cathode plate, and sometimes in the pool itself as "scaling". Regular maintenance of the cell is necessary; failure to do so will reduce the effectiveness of the cell, which will in turn increase the salinity of the water to corrosive levels (as water flowing through the chlorinator will have salt added but not electrolyzed into chlorine). Certain designs of saline chlorinators use a "reverse-polarity" design that will regularly switch the roles of the two electrodes between anode and cathode, causing this calcium buildup to dissolve off the accumulating electrode. Such systems reduce, but do not eliminate, the need to clean the electrolytic cell and the occurrence of calcium scale in the water.

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So it sounds like that the chloride doesn't just break down into chlorine (that would be odd, since we use salt in making kraut, for instance, and bleach would kill kraut really quickly). But the salt water pools they talk about use chlorine too, not just salt. And not much salt, at that.

I wonder what the bacteria load would be, if you salted a pool to the level of the Pacific? Granted that you wouldn't want it let out onto a land area, but going to the ocean wouldn't be an issue (and your average water softener uses up a lot of salt too). Salt ferments don't tend to grow bad bacteria, since most of the problematic ones don't like salt.

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OK, this is serious off-topic so I'll drop it at that. Maybe we'll dump a few bags of rock salt into our swimming pool ...

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 9:53 PM, Pamela Bush <livingintheraw@gmail.com> wrote:

Yeah, I can understand why you don't want to be in chlorinated pools. The problem is...salt water pools use "sodium chloride". It's making its own chlorine. I wish pools would use hydrogen peroxide. It's cheaper and can actually have some benefits. H2O2, has an extra molecule of oxygen. There are some people w/melanoma who use a 1/4 C of food grade H2O2 in their bath water. Some say it has helped them.... I've used it in other ways successfully...Namaste! Pamela

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 11:37 PM, Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@gmail.com> wrote:

Glad it worked for you! I expect part of it is how much you work at it. It's easy to swim and not use many muscles, but when my daughter was in swim class and the coach PUSHED her she did get into shape nicely. I agree it's way less likely to injure you in any case. I'm hoping one of the newer "salt water" pools open up near here.

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 7:54 PM, Pamela Bush <livingintheraw@gmail.com> wrote:

I disagree, I didn't start loosing weight until I started swimming. I've done both. I've been a runner and am a swimmer. If you do a true workout you will effect more muscles than in weight training. If you're going to paddle back and forth and hang on the edge after each lap nothing will get done. I actually swim around 3,000 meters each workout which takes me an hour and ten minutes right now. That's slow for me. But I'm just getting myself back into it again after 30 years. Swimming is actually one of the best ways to get in shape with little chance of injury. Have you ever taken a look at a swimmers body????

Namaste!
Pamela

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@gmail.com> wrote:

I can't speak to soft drinks (it never was a habit of mine), but I do live in a rather cold climate, and it does seem to have an effect on weight. Also, swimming, as an exercise, doesn't appear to promote weight loss like running does. I think your body knows it needs the fat to float!

One thing about cold drinks though ... the countries that drink hot drinks usually drink tea or coffee. The die-hard warm-beverage swiggers are the Asians, and it's mainly tea they swig ... and they are typically thin. Now tea actually is associated with good stuff and supposed to be an appetite suppressant. Hm. And Queen Elizabeth is going strong at 85, likely drinks lots of tea?

So maybe ditch the pop cans and get a good tea pot ...

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 5:42 AM, thentor <bherring@fast-5.com> wrote:

Sometimes, it can be just one thing that you cut out that makes enough of a difference to matter. Peanut butter is a frequent suspect, because it is tasty, calorie-dense and very easy to gulp in a few hundred extra calories in what seems like a small snack.

In the "study of one" category, another suggestion applies only to those who typically drink most of their beverages cold or on ice, and especially to those who work in an air-conditioned workspace. Drinking cold beverages may signal the brain, (the hypothalamus "set point" controller) that the environment you're in is much colder than it really is, and so the hypothalamus may add to appetite to build or maintain fat reserves to deal with the a cold winter that isn't really there. The experiment would be to avoid cold (particularly iced) beverages for about 4-6 weeks and see if there's any noticeable change.

Why do I think it might matter? Iced drinks are a relatively new fashion as homes acquired freezers and ice makers, then ice dispensers over the last few decades. Iced drinks are much more popular in the USA than in Europe. Obesity follows a similar pattern. In a world where we spend most of our time in air-conditioned/heated comfort, we may be inadvertently signaling our brains that it's freezing cold outside, in which case putting on extra weight to make it through the winter would be a good idea.

If you work outside or exercise to the point of breaking a sweat frequently, your body's probably getting enough messages that it's warm to balance out the cold messages from cold drinks.

Bert

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Heather Twist
http://eatingoffthefoodgrid.blogspot.com/

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Heather Twist
http://eatingoffthefoodgrid.blogspot.com/