When I was 18, my friends and I took a trip to Burbank. We roamed the city, ate hamburgers, and listened to a lot of “At The Drive-In.” The band later broke up so Omar Rodriguez Lopez could go batshit insane in northern Europe and make the album “Se Dice Bisonte, No Bufalo.” While there is a familiarity with “The Mars Volta,” not as many have heard the work of the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Quintet (or whatever he’s calling it nowadays). Consider this your initiation:
This guy just fell off the wagon.
It’s a new year, which means a litany of individuals who are starting new diets, getting back into the gym, trying to upgrade their lifestyle and inevitably showing up on internet forums or blogs. They set out of the best of intentions, ready to never revert to a lifestyle that is an extension of their entire existence, and of course they fail. They have setbacks, they fall off the wagon, and really rip themselves a new one. They’re failures, terrible human beings, worthless, etc. What a load of bollocks. read more…
If you’re like me, the holidays don’t really do anything to the waistline or the scale. I eat the treats elsewhere and avoid bringing them home with me. My girlfriend likes to say I have huge self control, when really my self control is “fully charged” from not being tempted all the damn time at home. However, I understand that many of you are weak, perhaps praying to the deity of your choice to release you from your holiday chocolate addiction. Some, I’ve heard, are even considering a life of flogging at their local abbey. Well before you pick up your cat o’ nine tails or do a Sedona Coyote dance, let me save you, my child. I have a protocol for those guilty of reckless, sinful lack of self control around the cookies, cakes, and truffles. read more…
Insulin is, by current accounts, the greatest scourge to a lean physique, long-term health, smart children, world peace, sexual competence, NAFTA, singularity, the economy, the rain forests, climate change, your mother, your father, and your brothers and sisters. In short, you should panic and throw yourself from the nearest window. Since the nearest window is on the first floor, I merely got a bit wet (it’s been raining). Hopefully you smacked your head and came to your senses: we have insulin for a reason. Today, I’d like to shine the light on a study that shows we might be able to determine our “best” diet from our fasting insulin levels. read more…
The militant-vegetarian-posing-as-nutritional-big-brother CSPI were (shockingly) allowed to comment on this story about the amount of calories in a a medium popcorn and soda combo at your local theater. The grand total of this dynamic duo, 1610 calories and 60 grams of saturated fat, is certainly excessive for anyone in one sitting. However, let’s play this game called “math,” shall we? read more…
I’m a fan of a hormonally adequate environment for health and fitness. By this, I mean that all hormones should be in a normal physiological range. Point of fact, if one was to believe the claims of supplement hucksters, all the cortisol in our body should be destroyed, when in reality only excessively high levels over a long period of time (chronically high vs. acutely high) should be of concern.
Growth hormone. GH. Maximize GH output and you should grow muscle and reduce bodyfat, right? Given a certain metabolic environment GH is certainly going to do its job promoting lipolysis and protein synthesis. But there is a limit to theses effects, especially with regard to direct manipulation without injection. More on that later, but first I have a question: if injecting GH to supra-physiological levels doesn’t do anything, why worry about elevating it post workout?
I was recently re-listening to the discussion between Charles Staley and Arthur De Vany. In typical cock-hole bravado, I went and found studies that refuted the notion of fasted state workouts expressing genetic adaptations favorable to hypertrophy. However, there is a line at the end of the interview that I really like. Staley quoted Art in saying:
We should recognize the limits of knowledge and get on the path that favors better outcomes.
I like this for a host of reasons.
Odds
After having read Fooled by Randomness, already knowing the stories we tell ourselves about factors we can’t possibly know (or simultaneous juggle in our grey matter accurately), the “limits of knowledge” aspect range loudly. So from a health perspective, you greatly improve your odds, or rather minimize your black swans, by eating mostly whole foods in their natural packaging (as Clarence Bass would say). And since it’s about what you’re doing most of the time, the occasional folly isn’t going to destroy what you’ve built.
Masturbation
You won’t find the perfect routine. Or the perfect diet. Or the perfect supplement regime. While it’s great to really research the ins and outs, it’s really easy to get mired in minutia. On top of cramming your brain with every increasing amounts of information that only fractionally improve your total “knowledge” on the subject, you run the risk of second guessing your routine. Routine jumping and diet jumping are very common ways to spin your wheels and I think most of it would be avoided by establishing a routine and then getting the hell away from the internet or other ways of second guessing what you’re doing! If you’re making progress, let that run the course and only look to make changes when things require change.
Obsession
After my first ever successful diet, I fell into obsessive behavior. This was not a new manifestation, as I would readily throw myself into my interests with ferocity. However, when you’re dealing with a relationship like food, it really can be too much. When I see people posting their every meal of every day on twitter, I can’t help but think of a Brad Pilon quote:
If food were a person, you would have divorced a long time ago.
In short, care about what you eat but obsession will lead to rebound behaviors or social isolation because you can’t control your food. Just. Perfectly. All. The. Time.
So what’s the point? The favorable path isn’t perfect: it’s good enough for most situations. Being good enough all of the time, the favorable path, is the way not only to health, but also to just about anything else you’re seeking to achieve in life. Avoid perfectionism, be consistently favorable.
Jack Lalanne will never die.
Just a quick blurb about an older study I found this week whilst writing a post over at the work blog:
We conclude that high-resistance weight training leads to significant gains in muscle strength, size, and functional mobility among frail residents of nursing homes up to 96 years of age.
96 years old. That’s 70(!) years away for me and I’m sure it will come in a blink. While I could take the time to note training temperance and gradual improvements because you really have a lot of time to do this, I’d like to focus on the fact that one can lift weights until the day you collapse. You really can.
- There people were at least 90 years old when starting the study; they could barely walk but they could lift weights.
- Controlled lifting through a full range of motion will preserve your joint strength, integrity, and keep your maximum range of motion. It really is a use it or lose it situation with mobility.
- Art De Vany talks about physiological headroom (or as he said in his interview with Charles Staley, the “One Horse Shay”). The largest area under the curve for quality of life. I’d like to still be doing chinups at 90+, which means you have to be fairly consistent with your lifestyle over the long term. Just as 20lbs of muscle doesn’t magically crawl up into bed with you and fix itself to your body, strength, ROM, and health doesn’t magically fall off of your body (save for pathologies/muscle wasting diseases).
So what’s the take home message? You’re going to be doing this for a long time. If you do it right, you’ll be nearly as active at 95 as you are at 35. Stay safe, try new things, and have fun.
“You want to start working out. Great. Why? Health and fitness? Good. What’s that? Low body fat and a high vertical jump? Great. Have you always thought these associate with health and fitness? No? So why now?”
It’s quite the dilemma, using precise language for an imprecise and moving target. However, I think it is (sometimes) this ambiguity that leads to the falling off of a path toward health and fitness. read more…
