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Do you...

suppose you should buy this book: "Correctly English in 100 Days(Shanghai Correctly English Society, 1934)"? The publisher's blurb is frightfully compelling: "This book is prepared for the young man who wishes to served for the foreign firms. It divided nealy hundred and ninety pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language....." So tempting. If you enjoy books that promise to be full of linguistical insights, it seems clear you'll rarely encounter English used in quite this fashion.

Or another book you may really really want. It has a stellar reputation. All five-stars on Amazon and various websites of interest. Dinosaur Training It's not easy to get. One copy on Amazon, for a hundred bucks. It's sort of a waste of time.

Hardly any real information, for all the enthusing of the reviews. It's a long pep talk from coach. About lifting HARD with HEAVY weight!!! The author is a lawyer, and absolutely in love with saying the same thing eight slightly different ways in the same paragraph. Cuz, like, that makes it better. Two possibilities. Either he is a writer, and so he writes a lot; or he's not a writer, and so he writes a lot. Alas, he needed an editor. The book would have been a fifth of its current length. Chapters are about 6 pages long. What does that tell us? He's collected his rants, and shared them. A good thing, if you need to be motivated, or if the philosophy is new to you, of lifting HARD with HEAVY weight like the oldtime REAL MEN used to do.

Or another book on fitness training. Infinite Intensity! Groovy name. All you need is a catchy title and you're set. Infinite Dinosaurs! That should be the name of some dude's program! But why is it that these writers all have such porous prose? We want density. The author of Infinite Intensity gives a quote from some contemporary athlete: "You may be bigger and stronger, but I have more will." They do love these sorts of sayings. Sounds good, doesn't it. As if virtue will prevail.

But did it take no will to become bigger and stronger? Is the presumption always that such attributes are gifts, unearned and undeserved? The reasoning doesn't track. The variables correlate randomly. Some are big and strong with will, some without. Some have will, and are big and strong, and some are not. As for will, perhaps it will be the deciding factor, and perhaps not. Your will is insignificant, no matter how great, if the other guy's size and power dominate it regardless of his will. Will comes into play only in extremis. If it never gets to that point, it is incidental.

Regardless, here's a new inspirational quote: "Failure just means you've found your next goal." (wise saying by FW, famous internet fitness philosopher) Subscribe to FW's weekly private newsletter at the low low cost of only a one-time joining fee of $51.96 and a low low monthly payment of 17.23 Euros automatically deducted from checking account to receive very many similarely insighful and witty origigal wordings for young fatnass persons in firms wishes correctly to workout extra ordinarily fitnose.

Or, if instead you'd like to just get to it, doing what it takes to get fit, well, FitWorks. Some talk, yes, but backed up with work and results.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Glucose, Glycerol, Glycogen, Glycemic, Triglycerides, Thermogenesis -- Too Many Dang Words That Look Alike

All calories are, by definition, thermogentic, heat-producing. Calorie is a unit of heat measurement. That doesn't seem like a very smart way of measuring nutritional value. Sort of a blunt instrument. In any case, here's a way to explain how high carb diets can result in less body fat. First, it's not refined carbs, so the uptake is slower. When we say carbs, we generally mean glucose. Glucose wants to be used right away. It's instant energy. It's the preferred fuel for emergencies. That's why it's blood sugar, and not tissue sugar. It's right there in the pipes, waiting.

So, it's used first by the brain and organs, as energy. Then it's formed into glycogen in cells -- concentrated energy molecules. Then it's stored as fat in cells. Too much glucose all at once stimulates a hysterical response from the liver to form triglycerides, the storage form of lipids, and by insulin to store the triglycerides away. So we want a low, steady drip, like an IV -- not a huge inundating bolus, the way we see villains murder bedridden victims in hospitals.

There is a normal range of body temperatures. One of the ways the body regulates blood sugar -- a non-insulin way -- is by using glucose to bump up the temperature. Once that upper level of the safety gauge is reached, insulin secretion becomes more aggressive. In the hierarchy of uses, brain/organ energy first, body heat, emergency muscle energy, fat creation, tumors.

As long as the IV drip is steady, you can eat more carbs/glucose without fat gain, because any slight excess will be used as heat. When carbs are too easily digested, the body doesn't opt for fever, but for fat, via insulin and glycerol.

Meanwhile, the glycerol byproduct of glucose-combustion can itself be used as fuel. If glucose levels are good, low, the body will opt to use glycerol as an auxiliary fuel source. When glucose becomes too abundant, glycerol stops burning as fuel and is used as the glue to bind free fatty acids into triglycerides, which get stored as blubber.

The trick is, low insulin. High insulin short-circuits the homeostasis process, and brings on a cascade of health problems. We achieve low insulin not by eating lots of fat and protein, but by eating sensible carbs as well, which are complex carbs, which are unrefined carbs, which are slow-to-digest carbs, which are fibrous carbs. Some grains, sure, once in a while. But low glycemic index, and a low-calorie to high-nutrient ratio. Fructose powder, then, sucks -- low glycemic index, but no nutrients at all. And it provokes a low but long-term insulin reaction -- which amounts to at least an equal overall exposure to raised insulin. Insidious.

Some of this is theory. But theory doesn't have to be true to have utility. Pace, marxism. It's that black box thing. We don't know what happens inside of it, but we know the results. How do we burn fat? That's really two questions -- what behaviors do we engage in, and what metabolic process occurs. The second is irrelevant for most purposes. What works, matters. Sensible diet, sensible exercise.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Weakness

You know what weakness is. It's what we crumple with. Unavoidable, of course. If illness or accident or crime don't get us, time will. It's in the way our atoms spin -- with a wobble. So it's not about perfection. Nothing in this universe is perfect, or can be. What then of strength? It's what we use to distinguish ourselves from, well, from what is weak. It's what we use to stand, when we want to fall.

We're born with only emotion. There is no capacity for rationality. That comes later. Of course they whine and cry and are selfish. That's what animals are. It's not that we eliminate emotion. We just grow larger than it. If we do. It isn't their fine minds and grasp of detail that endear children to us. We may notice such a thing, and be impressed, but our fondness comes from their purity. There must be an insight there, something about knowledge complicating things. Well, of course. It's a Tree of Life / Tree of Knowledge thing. But we have to be larger than purity. We grow into a new sort of purity, as innocence becomes integrity. If it does. If we do.

In all of us there is much weakness, and some strength, and it's not quite enough, but if we don't have hope, perhaps it will be given to us? It's not being in charge that makes us happy. It's accepting the way things are. Which isn't to say we can be irresponsible. Sometimes we're in charge, and we mistake that for happiness. But it's being in charge. Being. Now, I'm in the mud, in the cold rain. And I am happy. Now I am with my beloved, who is tender and lovely, and I am happy. Now, I'm working hard, striving toward some goal, in pain, and happy.

There it is. When we're engaged in some unpleasant task, exercise, say, we may listen to the dull hateful voices inside our heads, dim, stupid. If we listen to the voices, only, we surely would not do well, for all that there was a good start. With effective coaching, and effective strategies, we improve, physically and mentally. That's just how it works. Improvement. Finding new strength. It need not be dramatic, or even steady. But it's getting better, and it makes us happy.

It takes another voice, though. There's never silence. Coaching, or music, or self-talk -- or the old voices of failure. Because when we strive for excellence there's always going to be the pain. It's being happy about it that makes the difference. Happiness is accepting the inevitable, and seeing the good in it, and loving the good.

When you crumple, with weakness, who will you find by your side, to lean on? It's such a soulful, such an existential question. Depends on how you've lived your life, doesn't it. If we narrow the scope of the question, to workouts and physical improvement, well, it's best to work out with other actual people. With exercise, sadly, there is no leaning on anyone else. You do it. Other encouraging people are the other voices, the good ones, that help you through the emotion and the weakness, as a series of steps, baby steps or great athletic leaps as the case may be.

Weakness? It will always be with us. It is an addiction. Maybe we can't be free of it entirely. But if we can't, perhaps we'll be strong, through it. We will not be its slaves. Are we inconsistent? That's because, like all children, we are emotional, and only just learning about rationality.

Nevertheless, be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com


FW
CrossFit Burbank

Wax Man

No, this time he's just gone too far.
That NY pol, noted of late for the unsolicited tweeting of marital photos to co-eds.  That in itself seems beyond the Pale, but, hey, guys are guys, right? Sort of kind of immature, flashing one's self around like that, but it's a confusing age, is all that we can say. 

But a man who has to shave twice a day, this hairless? Seems unlikely. Dude's waxing.  Hey, to each his own, and who wants to look like he's wearing a sweater made out of Brillo Pad.  But why so extreme?  A little verisimilitude might be nice. Maybe just a trim? -- a little artful shaping? Manscaping? Cuz this is ... it's ... just unamerican, is what it is. Unseemly.  Point being, why the shame, Mr. Weiner? We aren't born this way, baby, we grow into it.

Doubt it? Object lessons:





















Not so pretty, eh? Hair, no hair ... alien, vampire, mutant, zombie, disease-ridden freak ... be what you are.  Think about it.  Then, not only in your body, but in your character,

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com


FW
CrossFit Burbank
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