It's a necessary part of fitness, training. There's no getting around it. Our daily activities will most assuredly make us fit for doing what we usually do. But fitness is bigger than that. It's a general thing, rather than the specific of your daily routine. It's a preparation for the unexpected. When we hear the term survival of the fittest, it isn't about surviving normal things. If you run a lot, to train, that's good. But sometimes life requires you to stand and fight, rather than run. Did you train that? A metaphor, of course -- we're too civilized to need to fight. But you see the point. Running will not make you suited to carry fainted damsels down firetruck ladders. Strength matters too. So does speed. These are trainable. So train them along with the running. Be fit.
We've discussed it before, the ideas of activity, and exercise, and training. Activity is just an expression of metabolism. Living things move around, most of them -- even sponges. Going here, doing this, moving that -- just a part of being alive. Then there’s exercise. It requires an accelerated heartrate. There’s no intelligence required, it’s just working at a more intense level than usual. A good thing, pretty much, but possibly rather haphazard. Then there’s training: exercise with the addition of intelligence. It requires a plan, and a goal, and measurable progress, and consistency.
Life has its randomness. But it's not random. It's predictable, in a statistical way. No guarantees, but usually it's business as usual, usually. We don't however train for the usual. We train for the extraordinary. Yes, we may have to climb stairs every day. That counts as exercise. If we plan on climbing a mountain, though, we need to do more, we need to train. A reiteration, because important things should be remembered.
An athlete can’t be better than his deficits allow him to be. They hold him back, obviously. A weakest-link thing. So training must identify and address those shortcomings. They are not something to be ignored. They are to be embraced, as it were, and sometimes made the heart, the core of a workout. It’s not about idealism. It’s a necessity, for improvement.
The reason a standard gym-bodybuilder is so much weaker than he should be is that he has never trained his shortcomings. No, it's not about calves or forearms or deltoids or rhomboids. It's about the little stabilizers that hardly anyone knows the names of, and that don't show up in the mirror except subliminally, as the difference between a guy who works a few muscles so he can pose in front of a mirror, and an athlete who's trained his body the way it was meant to be trained -- completely.
Well ... the reason he's weaker, that bodybuilder, than he should be is the lack of meaningful variety, but also the sort of training itself, the reps and sets and loads he's carrying. No need here to go into it. It has to do with effectiveness and with goals. If you want to be big and sort of puffy, the muscle mags are full of advice on that. Lots of bad advice, some okay -- hardly any really sensible. Point is, train to achieve an intelligent goal. It's not about being one of the prettyboys. Just get the job done. Prettiness comes along with that.
Second Place
Dig this! Aerobics is groovy, man. It's far out. The happenin' 70s thing, for the dude on the go! So boss! Right on! Dy-no-mite! Red rocket man! Totally out of sight! Shazbot! Kiss my grits! Let it all hang out! Jive turkey! Sit on it! Plop plop fizz fizz. I can't believe I ate the whole thing! Keep on truckin! Disco lives!
Aerobics. It's not what it used to be.
Not a bad thing, aerobics. It's just not the only thing. Not even the main thing. Unless you live in the Kalahari, in which case covering long slow distances -- LSD -- is a requirement for survival. But you don't, and it's not.
For most people, aerobics workouts plateau after about 8 weeks. After that, it's just burned calories, but at a reduced rate, because the body has become efficient at that narrow activity. Being efficient is a good thing, if the thing is an adaptive trait. Flying south for the winter, say. But that's not why people do aerobics. So do your 8 weeks, then do an occasional maintenance workout for that skill. It is, after all, a skill -- and it would be a shame to lose a skill. But otherwise it's just sucking up your time. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If aerobics is your thing. Dude.
Aerobics makes you slower. ... Aerobic make you slower? ... What. Everrrrr. Muscle cells adapt to the activity they are most required to do. Spending a lot of time in low-grade calorie burning makes fast-twitch fibers (required for power and strength) function as slow twitch fibers (weak endurance). The expression of your genetics changes. One myosin protein type within the cell is selected over another. Regarding athletics, most people would rather be fast and strong, than slow. You get good at what you practice. Practice being slow, and you will be.
Aerobics generates a higher volume of free-radicals, than more strength-focused workouts. Free radicals are aging. Highly aging. The longer you run, per workout or habitually, the greater the flood of oxidative pollution in your system. This depletes your supply of antioxidants. Bad all the way around. Always at your back you hear Time's winged chariot racing near. You can run, but you can't hide. Damage equals age.
Aerobics stresses the, uh, stress hormones. Testosterone goes down, cortisol goes up. Bad combination. Testosterone adds muscle. Cortisol dissolves it. It's a bad thing. Your body doesn't know you're working out. It thinks you're fleeing a wildfire. There's a difference between controlled exercise stress, of pressure alternating with rest, and prolonged flight. The result can be adrenal fatigue, symptoms of which are: fat retention, allergies, arthritis, flus, fearfulness and anxiety, depression, lack of focus, forgetfulness, insomnia, tiredness and fatigue. This stress, added to workaday stress, is a formula for fat retention. Counterproductive, it can be.
Sprinters have less fat than marathoners. Go figure. On the other hand, it makes sense. Fat is the fuel marathoners use. Not so, with sprinters, for whom fat is unwanted ballast. Intensity burns fat. Intensity is high heartrate, not miles plowed. Jogging for an hour will burn more calories than running 10 sprints of 20 seconds -- but over the next two days, the sprinter will burn more calories. Go figure. It's the ramped up metabolism. In a 1997 study (by I. Tabata et al.), joggers improved aerobic capacity by 10%, with zero% anaerobic gains. Sprinters improved aerobic capacity by 14%, and anaerobic by 28%. Hmm. Intensity burns fat.
Jog? Sure, why not. Generally, not more than 45 minutes at a time. More than that may raise cortisol output to detrimental levels. Cortisol, a stress hormone, breaks down muscle protein for its glucose. Your body figures it's more important to escape the danger, than to keep muscle that isn't helping you run away. A live to fight another day sort of strategy. Very sensible, if you're fleeing tigers. You, alas, are trying to flee your fat behind. The wrong thing is being shrunk. And you did just see the numbers. Intense intervals increase aerobic capacity 4% more than does jogging. Less time, greater benefit.
Still, something is better than nothing. Jogging is generally better than sitting, only. And if you won't do the better thing, at least to a thing that's better than nothing. A workable compromise, eh? Sort of like the way we manage to live in the world. Perfection is not required -- just effort.
Don't waste your time.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
Aerobics. It's not what it used to be.
Not a bad thing, aerobics. It's just not the only thing. Not even the main thing. Unless you live in the Kalahari, in which case covering long slow distances -- LSD -- is a requirement for survival. But you don't, and it's not.
For most people, aerobics workouts plateau after about 8 weeks. After that, it's just burned calories, but at a reduced rate, because the body has become efficient at that narrow activity. Being efficient is a good thing, if the thing is an adaptive trait. Flying south for the winter, say. But that's not why people do aerobics. So do your 8 weeks, then do an occasional maintenance workout for that skill. It is, after all, a skill -- and it would be a shame to lose a skill. But otherwise it's just sucking up your time. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If aerobics is your thing. Dude.
Aerobics makes you slower. ... Aerobic make you slower? ... What. Everrrrr. Muscle cells adapt to the activity they are most required to do. Spending a lot of time in low-grade calorie burning makes fast-twitch fibers (required for power and strength) function as slow twitch fibers (weak endurance). The expression of your genetics changes. One myosin protein type within the cell is selected over another. Regarding athletics, most people would rather be fast and strong, than slow. You get good at what you practice. Practice being slow, and you will be.
Aerobics generates a higher volume of free-radicals, than more strength-focused workouts. Free radicals are aging. Highly aging. The longer you run, per workout or habitually, the greater the flood of oxidative pollution in your system. This depletes your supply of antioxidants. Bad all the way around. Always at your back you hear Time's winged chariot racing near. You can run, but you can't hide. Damage equals age.
Aerobics stresses the, uh, stress hormones. Testosterone goes down, cortisol goes up. Bad combination. Testosterone adds muscle. Cortisol dissolves it. It's a bad thing. Your body doesn't know you're working out. It thinks you're fleeing a wildfire. There's a difference between controlled exercise stress, of pressure alternating with rest, and prolonged flight. The result can be adrenal fatigue, symptoms of which are: fat retention, allergies, arthritis, flus, fearfulness and anxiety, depression, lack of focus, forgetfulness, insomnia, tiredness and fatigue. This stress, added to workaday stress, is a formula for fat retention. Counterproductive, it can be.
Sprinters have less fat than marathoners. Go figure. On the other hand, it makes sense. Fat is the fuel marathoners use. Not so, with sprinters, for whom fat is unwanted ballast. Intensity burns fat. Intensity is high heartrate, not miles plowed. Jogging for an hour will burn more calories than running 10 sprints of 20 seconds -- but over the next two days, the sprinter will burn more calories. Go figure. It's the ramped up metabolism. In a 1997 study (by I. Tabata et al.), joggers improved aerobic capacity by 10%, with zero% anaerobic gains. Sprinters improved aerobic capacity by 14%, and anaerobic by 28%. Hmm. Intensity burns fat.
Jog? Sure, why not. Generally, not more than 45 minutes at a time. More than that may raise cortisol output to detrimental levels. Cortisol, a stress hormone, breaks down muscle protein for its glucose. Your body figures it's more important to escape the danger, than to keep muscle that isn't helping you run away. A live to fight another day sort of strategy. Very sensible, if you're fleeing tigers. You, alas, are trying to flee your fat behind. The wrong thing is being shrunk. And you did just see the numbers. Intense intervals increase aerobic capacity 4% more than does jogging. Less time, greater benefit.
Still, something is better than nothing. Jogging is generally better than sitting, only. And if you won't do the better thing, at least to a thing that's better than nothing. A workable compromise, eh? Sort of like the way we manage to live in the world. Perfection is not required -- just effort.
Don't waste your time.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
The Age of Aquarius
The fish have been in the news lately. And the amphibians and the reptiles. How they’re changing their sex all the time. That's so ... alternative. The Potomac is full of such transgendered vertebrates. How daring.
Transmutations of this sort are natural in certain species, as with a type of fish in which the largest female of a group where there is no male will simply become male. Certain lizards can manage the same feat. How interesting. But the Potomac fish are a different kettle of, um, fish. The females are normal. Eighty percent of the smallmouth bass males, however, produce eggs instead of sperm.
At this same time, there is a sharp rise in reported cases on college campuses all along the Potomac of impotence and a lack of sexual interest by males. The Potomac is full of feminizing chemical endocrinal disruptors.
The soft female-like boys of this latest generation, however, cluster not only along the Potomac. We find them everywhere. Throughout the continental USA, in England, in Greenland, in Japan. All over. As for our human females, many of them are enjoying an early puberty, starting around age eight.
Well? Male alligators in Florida are turning up with shriveled testicles and high female-hormone counts. The phenomenon has been linked to phthalates, which are used in clear plastic drinking bottles -- water, Coke, Pepsi and so on. The specific actor is polyethylene terephthalate, PET. When the bottle gets a bit heated, as in a hot car, and the liquid has a plastic taste, that’s PET. All those plastic bottles from Disney World end up in the watershed and affect the alligators. PETs act like female hormones. Girls testing as having high PET levels tend to enter puberty early. Six times higher levels means eight-year-olds with developed breasts.
Elementary school teachers notice the phenomenon. Little boys, and a handful of ten year old girls with fully developed breasts. In olden days the boys were behind the girls by months, rather than years. By thirteen the girls where through puberty and the boys were entering. Now the lag time is three or four years. It’s not just PETs. It’s a lot of chemicals. Endosulfan, for example -- a major commercial pesticide -- was shown in 2003 to disrupt the onset of puberty in boys, by blocking the effects of testosterone and other androgens.
The actions of these industrial chemicals are overwhelmingly feminizing, hastening puberty in girls, delaying and distorting masculine development in boys. Seems like a problem. The plastic in baby bottles, for example, has been shown actually to damage male neonate animal brains, specifically in memory and motivation functions focused in the nucleus accumbens. The same damage does not occur in females. The males demonstrate less curiosity about their environments, and their activity profile strongly resembles that of control females. Strangely, females exposed to the same plastic demonstrate heightened activity, environmental curiosity, and learning ability. Again, the only relevant variable here is the plastic.
Increased ADHD in boys. Decreased testosterone and semen levels than in previous generations, lower sperm count, and endemic infertility. Genital malformations are up by three times; pregnant mothers who drink phthalates are ten times more likely to have boys with undescended testicles, or subaverage penis-size, or hypospadias (misplaced urethra terminus).
From these specifics we might derive any number of insights, environmental, political, sociological, ethnographic. We won’t bother to flesh it out. We could talk about planting the seeds of our own destruction, for all that there are fewer and fewer seeds. Why bother. Everyone talks about history, but nobody does anything about it. Is there a solution? Well, first, is there a problem? Maybe it’s a good thing? We become extinct and save the planet from our pollution and global warming? We remove our unclean presence and leave the world to the purity of the encroaching desert? What after all has freedom and free will given us? Melting icecaps and mutant fish. Yin yields to yang.
On the other hand, we might choose not to use clear plastics to drink from. We might wash our vegetables (alas, animal flesh stores such chemicals at an even higher density). It starts with being aware of the problem. After that one can choose to care, or not. If biologically generated motivation from out of a healthy nucleus accumbens is insufficient to make us care, perhaps ethics and a commitment to some intellectual ideal might do it. How are we to know what will move us to responsible action? Sociological movements are not planned.
But that’s why we should eat healthfully. Health matters for so many reasons.
Does the title here, "The Age of Aquarius," seem impenetrable to you? We did not know what the New Age would bring. The triumph of hippie values is brought about by the very thing they rebelled against. Corporate chemicals -- as opposed to hallucinogenic ones. Their feminine-leaning ethos triumphs against its masculine counterpart at the cost of infertility. The New Age is bringing not love, love, love, but sterility, deformity and extinction. What is the point of saving the planet, if we fail to save the human baby boys?
Grand theories about saving the planet are all very fine and good. How laudable it is, to be so ethereally idealistic. Yes, smoking should be banned. Just like alcohol should be banned. Oh. Wait. Um, well, let's rethink this. Smoking should be banned in our own lives. We ourselves should take responsibility for us ourselves. Before we take responsibility for anyone else, we should take responsibility for ourselves. Yes, that sounds more sensible.
We'll start with our own bodies, our own health, the composition of our own flesh, its ratio of muscle to fat. That way we won't be metaphysical theoreticians, like Marxists making predictions about how capitalism will fade away into a worker's paradise -- we'll have some credibility. Our own house will be in order. We'll start by having a sensible diet, engaging in sensible exercise, excluding the obvious poisons from our lives, and as they become apparent, the more subtle ones. That way we won't be loudmouth hypocrites or soapbox saviors. We'll be effective realists, admirable examples who make a difference by the excellence of our own lives.
Preachy? Yes. Not soapbox though. Realistic. It's about personal excellence. Everything else is theories about politics. How boring.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
Transmutations of this sort are natural in certain species, as with a type of fish in which the largest female of a group where there is no male will simply become male. Certain lizards can manage the same feat. How interesting. But the Potomac fish are a different kettle of, um, fish. The females are normal. Eighty percent of the smallmouth bass males, however, produce eggs instead of sperm.
At this same time, there is a sharp rise in reported cases on college campuses all along the Potomac of impotence and a lack of sexual interest by males. The Potomac is full of feminizing chemical endocrinal disruptors.
The soft female-like boys of this latest generation, however, cluster not only along the Potomac. We find them everywhere. Throughout the continental USA, in England, in Greenland, in Japan. All over. As for our human females, many of them are enjoying an early puberty, starting around age eight.
Well? Male alligators in Florida are turning up with shriveled testicles and high female-hormone counts. The phenomenon has been linked to phthalates, which are used in clear plastic drinking bottles -- water, Coke, Pepsi and so on. The specific actor is polyethylene terephthalate, PET. When the bottle gets a bit heated, as in a hot car, and the liquid has a plastic taste, that’s PET. All those plastic bottles from Disney World end up in the watershed and affect the alligators. PETs act like female hormones. Girls testing as having high PET levels tend to enter puberty early. Six times higher levels means eight-year-olds with developed breasts.
Elementary school teachers notice the phenomenon. Little boys, and a handful of ten year old girls with fully developed breasts. In olden days the boys were behind the girls by months, rather than years. By thirteen the girls where through puberty and the boys were entering. Now the lag time is three or four years. It’s not just PETs. It’s a lot of chemicals. Endosulfan, for example -- a major commercial pesticide -- was shown in 2003 to disrupt the onset of puberty in boys, by blocking the effects of testosterone and other androgens.
The actions of these industrial chemicals are overwhelmingly feminizing, hastening puberty in girls, delaying and distorting masculine development in boys. Seems like a problem. The plastic in baby bottles, for example, has been shown actually to damage male neonate animal brains, specifically in memory and motivation functions focused in the nucleus accumbens. The same damage does not occur in females. The males demonstrate less curiosity about their environments, and their activity profile strongly resembles that of control females. Strangely, females exposed to the same plastic demonstrate heightened activity, environmental curiosity, and learning ability. Again, the only relevant variable here is the plastic.
Increased ADHD in boys. Decreased testosterone and semen levels than in previous generations, lower sperm count, and endemic infertility. Genital malformations are up by three times; pregnant mothers who drink phthalates are ten times more likely to have boys with undescended testicles, or subaverage penis-size, or hypospadias (misplaced urethra terminus).
From these specifics we might derive any number of insights, environmental, political, sociological, ethnographic. We won’t bother to flesh it out. We could talk about planting the seeds of our own destruction, for all that there are fewer and fewer seeds. Why bother. Everyone talks about history, but nobody does anything about it. Is there a solution? Well, first, is there a problem? Maybe it’s a good thing? We become extinct and save the planet from our pollution and global warming? We remove our unclean presence and leave the world to the purity of the encroaching desert? What after all has freedom and free will given us? Melting icecaps and mutant fish. Yin yields to yang.
On the other hand, we might choose not to use clear plastics to drink from. We might wash our vegetables (alas, animal flesh stores such chemicals at an even higher density). It starts with being aware of the problem. After that one can choose to care, or not. If biologically generated motivation from out of a healthy nucleus accumbens is insufficient to make us care, perhaps ethics and a commitment to some intellectual ideal might do it. How are we to know what will move us to responsible action? Sociological movements are not planned.
But that’s why we should eat healthfully. Health matters for so many reasons.
Does the title here, "The Age of Aquarius," seem impenetrable to you? We did not know what the New Age would bring. The triumph of hippie values is brought about by the very thing they rebelled against. Corporate chemicals -- as opposed to hallucinogenic ones. Their feminine-leaning ethos triumphs against its masculine counterpart at the cost of infertility. The New Age is bringing not love, love, love, but sterility, deformity and extinction. What is the point of saving the planet, if we fail to save the human baby boys?
Grand theories about saving the planet are all very fine and good. How laudable it is, to be so ethereally idealistic. Yes, smoking should be banned. Just like alcohol should be banned. Oh. Wait. Um, well, let's rethink this. Smoking should be banned in our own lives. We ourselves should take responsibility for us ourselves. Before we take responsibility for anyone else, we should take responsibility for ourselves. Yes, that sounds more sensible.
We'll start with our own bodies, our own health, the composition of our own flesh, its ratio of muscle to fat. That way we won't be metaphysical theoreticians, like Marxists making predictions about how capitalism will fade away into a worker's paradise -- we'll have some credibility. Our own house will be in order. We'll start by having a sensible diet, engaging in sensible exercise, excluding the obvious poisons from our lives, and as they become apparent, the more subtle ones. That way we won't be loudmouth hypocrites or soapbox saviors. We'll be effective realists, admirable examples who make a difference by the excellence of our own lives.
Preachy? Yes. Not soapbox though. Realistic. It's about personal excellence. Everything else is theories about politics. How boring.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
Responsibility
Yeah, it's a McGuffey Reader slash Book of Virtues sort of word. Responsibility. How outré. We do what we want, when we want, and consequences be hanged. Oh. Well, not we. We're not quite that cool. But we do what we want, sort of, when we want, if it's convenient, and although we do indeed care about the consequences, it's not enough to change our behavior. Oh. Well, again, that's not really us either. Actually we are sort of responsible.
Just not in terms of the full measure of our health. Sensible exercise, sensible diet. It's the absolute foundation of health. We can't change our genes, but we can change what we do with them. So, yes, responsibility.
Folks get busy, and tired, and have all sorts of excuses for not maintaining themselves. Over the age of 30, Americans gain an average of one pound of fat each year. That works out to about 10 extra calories a day. A dab of butter the size of your pinkie nail. So something is definitely wrong here. It isn't about calories, for all that you hear otherwise. It's about fitness.
Fitness is a self-selecting process, as is an adherence to any virtue. Some folks are, alas, as seed that falls on the hard ground or among the thorns or where the birds can devour them. Alas. But that's not you. Because you're reading this, it's clear you have the interest, and no doubt an awareness of the need for safety and effectiveness, and motivation. Not nagging, not cajoling. Encouragement and education and information.
Just not in terms of the full measure of our health. Sensible exercise, sensible diet. It's the absolute foundation of health. We can't change our genes, but we can change what we do with them. So, yes, responsibility.
Folks get busy, and tired, and have all sorts of excuses for not maintaining themselves. Over the age of 30, Americans gain an average of one pound of fat each year. That works out to about 10 extra calories a day. A dab of butter the size of your pinkie nail. So something is definitely wrong here. It isn't about calories, for all that you hear otherwise. It's about fitness.
Fitness is a self-selecting process, as is an adherence to any virtue. Some folks are, alas, as seed that falls on the hard ground or among the thorns or where the birds can devour them. Alas. But that's not you. Because you're reading this, it's clear you have the interest, and no doubt an awareness of the need for safety and effectiveness, and motivation. Not nagging, not cajoling. Encouragement and education and information.
FitWorks, as the name implies, is about FitNess. We counsel on diet and nutrition, and we prescribe and supervise workouts. Not everyone sticks with it. Of course not. It requires dedication and effort, and that's not everyone's cuppa. They prefer soda pop? But that's not you. You know that personal excellence is a -- well, it's a responsibility.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Sick
Behold! The exotic super berry from the dripping bowels of the Amazonian Rain Jungle! Açaí. Has even more antioxidants than blueberries. So, oh! Let's all race out and buy a couple of gallons worth, at ten bucks a gram. Cuz it has all them antioxidants and such.
How many people don't even bother with the easy stuff, yet get all tingly over the idea of the exotic? Yes, açaí has ... have? ... more antioxidants than blueberries. Which is fascinating, but not all that useful, if you don't even eat blueberries. The point is about being practical. True, you can bankrupt yourself on Baikal caviar, but why not eat fisheggs? If you're into that sort of thing. They taste the same, and do the same job. That's our theory anyway, and for purposes of this example, it is correct.
Consider that populations that eat a certain type of potato have less of a certain type of cancer. Not of all cancers -- just a certain type. This tells us that at least some cancers are a deficiency disease. Like scurvy. Like, um, beriberi. The obvious lesson is that we want to include as wide a variety of nutrients in our diet as is reasonable. Give your body what it needs to heal itself and to keep itself healthy.
No medicine, no drug ever cured a disease. Diseases do get cured, but it isn't toxic chemicals that do it. Well, maybe they kill tapeworms -- but that's more a condition than a disease. What drugs do is suppress aggravating factors, so that your body can heal itself. It only takes a bit of thought to see the truth in this. Drugs can only stimulate your own body to do a job, or attack something that's causing a problem. Neither stimulation nor suppression is a cure. The really good doctors know this. It makes them humble. The foolish doctors are all about symptoms.
So, yes, add a spoonful of açaí berries to your diet. Why not? But don't imagine that it will make even a noticeable difference. What will make a noticeable difference is having a wide spectrum of nutrients in your bloodstream. Some your body will need, some not -- but it will have the choice. Maybe you're not susceptible to such and such a cancer. But since you don't have your genome memorized, it's better to graze than to binge -- roam the wide savanna, don't hunch over the carcass and glut yourself on zebra guts. Because your body does have its genome memorized -- it knows what it needs, even if you don't.
Eating complex meals, in which there are many nutrients, does have its risks. The enteric system -- the whole digestive system -- has as many neurons, as many "brain" cells as the brain does. The obvious conclusion is that digestion is a fantastically complex process. The greater the variety of foods you eat in a single meal, the more complex the process of digestion will be. It's not just a blender, your gut, where everything is dumped into an acid bath and dissolved into a featureless paste. Carbs aren't even digested in the stomach. Meat. Proteins. Not carbs. Carbs get digested farther along. The thirty feet of small intestines coiled up in our midsections aren't just a long hose to the restroom. Specific nutrients get absorbed at only certain spots along the way. It's very complex. So sometimes it makes sense to give your body a break, and eat simply.
Some folks have smart bodies -- very few health or digestive problems. Some people have, well, they have not-smart bodies. Through years of abuse, their digestive system has become befuddled and confused, and just can't do a lot of complex thinking anymore. It's like calculus. If you know it, and are thinking straight, you can solve the problem. If you never learned it, or have become stultified over the years through sloth and auto-intoxication, then forget about it. There's a brain in your gut. It has an IQ. You can make it backwards. If you do, it will take its unsubtle revenge.
Antioxidants are like Stonehenge. One sarsen stone may be much taller and more impressive than all the others. But it's not Stonehenge unless it describes a circle. Açaí may indeed be the tallest pillar. But you can't live on a pillar. Built a wall. Build four of them, and add a roof. Some specific species of berry provides a rich supply of beneficent plant chemicals, although along a narrow band of the vast spectrum of nutrients. That's so wonderful, but how about you flood yourself in brilliant light? How about you ensconce yourself in the noble bastion of mighty security, so that when the chill hand of the boreal wind comes clutching after your throat, you'll have some shield to fend off the blah blapity blah. Shall we say it in blank verse? Have Frank Miller illustrate it?
The upshot is, get started. Go ahead and continue eating not-so-good things. But eat something that will help you live, too. Same thing with exercise. Do a little. Do that gym stuff that does a little something, but doesn't quite get the results that the muscleman mags promise. Because something is better than nothing, and mostly it's not actually bad for you. Well, some of the machines are bad for you, but only if you do them too much, however much that is for you -- just enough to do some damage, eh?
But if you're interested in doing more, in seeing really impressive results pretty fast, look for it. That's what effectiveness is about. Not magic, not quick fixes -- sound principles of how the body works -- a soul living in a body, not looking for a way out ... looking to prolong the experience, vigorously.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
How many people don't even bother with the easy stuff, yet get all tingly over the idea of the exotic? Yes, açaí has ... have? ... more antioxidants than blueberries. Which is fascinating, but not all that useful, if you don't even eat blueberries. The point is about being practical. True, you can bankrupt yourself on Baikal caviar, but why not eat fisheggs? If you're into that sort of thing. They taste the same, and do the same job. That's our theory anyway, and for purposes of this example, it is correct.
Consider that populations that eat a certain type of potato have less of a certain type of cancer. Not of all cancers -- just a certain type. This tells us that at least some cancers are a deficiency disease. Like scurvy. Like, um, beriberi. The obvious lesson is that we want to include as wide a variety of nutrients in our diet as is reasonable. Give your body what it needs to heal itself and to keep itself healthy.
No medicine, no drug ever cured a disease. Diseases do get cured, but it isn't toxic chemicals that do it. Well, maybe they kill tapeworms -- but that's more a condition than a disease. What drugs do is suppress aggravating factors, so that your body can heal itself. It only takes a bit of thought to see the truth in this. Drugs can only stimulate your own body to do a job, or attack something that's causing a problem. Neither stimulation nor suppression is a cure. The really good doctors know this. It makes them humble. The foolish doctors are all about symptoms.
So, yes, add a spoonful of açaí berries to your diet. Why not? But don't imagine that it will make even a noticeable difference. What will make a noticeable difference is having a wide spectrum of nutrients in your bloodstream. Some your body will need, some not -- but it will have the choice. Maybe you're not susceptible to such and such a cancer. But since you don't have your genome memorized, it's better to graze than to binge -- roam the wide savanna, don't hunch over the carcass and glut yourself on zebra guts. Because your body does have its genome memorized -- it knows what it needs, even if you don't.
Eating complex meals, in which there are many nutrients, does have its risks. The enteric system -- the whole digestive system -- has as many neurons, as many "brain" cells as the brain does. The obvious conclusion is that digestion is a fantastically complex process. The greater the variety of foods you eat in a single meal, the more complex the process of digestion will be. It's not just a blender, your gut, where everything is dumped into an acid bath and dissolved into a featureless paste. Carbs aren't even digested in the stomach. Meat. Proteins. Not carbs. Carbs get digested farther along. The thirty feet of small intestines coiled up in our midsections aren't just a long hose to the restroom. Specific nutrients get absorbed at only certain spots along the way. It's very complex. So sometimes it makes sense to give your body a break, and eat simply.
Some folks have smart bodies -- very few health or digestive problems. Some people have, well, they have not-smart bodies. Through years of abuse, their digestive system has become befuddled and confused, and just can't do a lot of complex thinking anymore. It's like calculus. If you know it, and are thinking straight, you can solve the problem. If you never learned it, or have become stultified over the years through sloth and auto-intoxication, then forget about it. There's a brain in your gut. It has an IQ. You can make it backwards. If you do, it will take its unsubtle revenge.
Antioxidants are like Stonehenge. One sarsen stone may be much taller and more impressive than all the others. But it's not Stonehenge unless it describes a circle. Açaí may indeed be the tallest pillar. But you can't live on a pillar. Built a wall. Build four of them, and add a roof. Some specific species of berry provides a rich supply of beneficent plant chemicals, although along a narrow band of the vast spectrum of nutrients. That's so wonderful, but how about you flood yourself in brilliant light? How about you ensconce yourself in the noble bastion of mighty security, so that when the chill hand of the boreal wind comes clutching after your throat, you'll have some shield to fend off the blah blapity blah. Shall we say it in blank verse? Have Frank Miller illustrate it?
The upshot is, get started. Go ahead and continue eating not-so-good things. But eat something that will help you live, too. Same thing with exercise. Do a little. Do that gym stuff that does a little something, but doesn't quite get the results that the muscleman mags promise. Because something is better than nothing, and mostly it's not actually bad for you. Well, some of the machines are bad for you, but only if you do them too much, however much that is for you -- just enough to do some damage, eh?
But if you're interested in doing more, in seeing really impressive results pretty fast, look for it. That's what effectiveness is about. Not magic, not quick fixes -- sound principles of how the body works -- a soul living in a body, not looking for a way out ... looking to prolong the experience, vigorously.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Commonalities
It's sad, when we look at each other with harsh, with impersonal eyes. We see the fat, rather than hear the music.
It only takes a little imagination, some generosity, and we smile not with arrogance, but in celebration of our shared humanity, with its frailty and tenderness.
What does any of this have to do with health and fitness, our focus? Well, there is a fitness and a health that isn't just physical. Of course we all know that, for all that reminders come in handy. It's just about appearance, though. It's so very important. You know it's true. That's why they sell magnifying mirrors. Yikes.
Nowadays we can banish our baldness with plugs and suck out the fat from our thighs and transplant it into our cheeks and tie off our stomachs and change the shape of our noses and the color of our eyes. Brave new world. What we cannot do is become more fit by taking pills or having operations. These can change us, but not in quite the same way that nature or its maker intended. To achieve the level of fitness, of physical health that makes living in a body a joy and a temptation to arrogance, we have to do, DO things differently. That's not the same thing as having someone else do something to us -- inject botox or apply spraytan. Aside from misfortune, the formula is simple: health is earned.
What do we have control over, if not our bodies? All those muffins and sodas, somehow finding their way into our hands and thence to our mouths. What insidious force motivates them? It's inexplicable. Surely we ourselves cannot be held accountable. Other than in our mere health, that is. And health hardly matters at all. We will live forever, after all, in eventual paradise or perdition, or we will be extinguished like smokeless flames -- take your pick, and live accordingly.
As for this other sort of health, emotional or spiritual, there's that venerable adage: Act as if you have faith, and it will be given to you. We live in bodies for a reason. It shapes the reality that our emotions feel. That's power. Change your behavior and you change your perceptions.
Physical redemption is about changing behavior. Effective exercise patterns, sensible dietary practices, and attention to an overall balanced lifestyle. Yes, we just love to look great naked. How gratifying. But when they bring out the magnifying mirror, none of us gets a pass. What we don't want to be is a magnifying mirror for the people around us. We take people as they come, and maybe try to make a bit of a difference. There should be no maybe about it. It's a mission.
It's like what Marley's ghost said to Scrooge: humanity is our business. Not just a no-man-is-an-island thing -- something to do with being human. Something to do with mens sana in corpore sano. It can't be all that complex. Everyone after all knows how to be human. It's just a matter of choices.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
It only takes a little imagination, some generosity, and we smile not with arrogance, but in celebration of our shared humanity, with its frailty and tenderness.
What does any of this have to do with health and fitness, our focus? Well, there is a fitness and a health that isn't just physical. Of course we all know that, for all that reminders come in handy. It's just about appearance, though. It's so very important. You know it's true. That's why they sell magnifying mirrors. Yikes.
Nowadays we can banish our baldness with plugs and suck out the fat from our thighs and transplant it into our cheeks and tie off our stomachs and change the shape of our noses and the color of our eyes. Brave new world. What we cannot do is become more fit by taking pills or having operations. These can change us, but not in quite the same way that nature or its maker intended. To achieve the level of fitness, of physical health that makes living in a body a joy and a temptation to arrogance, we have to do, DO things differently. That's not the same thing as having someone else do something to us -- inject botox or apply spraytan. Aside from misfortune, the formula is simple: health is earned.
What do we have control over, if not our bodies? All those muffins and sodas, somehow finding their way into our hands and thence to our mouths. What insidious force motivates them? It's inexplicable. Surely we ourselves cannot be held accountable. Other than in our mere health, that is. And health hardly matters at all. We will live forever, after all, in eventual paradise or perdition, or we will be extinguished like smokeless flames -- take your pick, and live accordingly.
As for this other sort of health, emotional or spiritual, there's that venerable adage: Act as if you have faith, and it will be given to you. We live in bodies for a reason. It shapes the reality that our emotions feel. That's power. Change your behavior and you change your perceptions.
Physical redemption is about changing behavior. Effective exercise patterns, sensible dietary practices, and attention to an overall balanced lifestyle. Yes, we just love to look great naked. How gratifying. But when they bring out the magnifying mirror, none of us gets a pass. What we don't want to be is a magnifying mirror for the people around us. We take people as they come, and maybe try to make a bit of a difference. There should be no maybe about it. It's a mission.
It's like what Marley's ghost said to Scrooge: humanity is our business. Not just a no-man-is-an-island thing -- something to do with being human. Something to do with mens sana in corpore sano. It can't be all that complex. Everyone after all knows how to be human. It's just a matter of choices.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Motivation
It's not an entirely rational process. It's not really about information -- if we just hear that one fact, it will make the difference. Motivation, as the very sound of the word suggests, is about emotion. We do what we feel like doing. Most folks feel like eating and sitting. So why should we get in shape? What should we do? -- and how? How do we transform that potential energy into kinetic energy? How do we get moving?
Fitness is an investment, of time and effort and the cost of expertise. All of that sounds like even more reason to do nothing. And the very real, measurable, tangible benefit of increased health and attractiveness and energy and functioning -- honestly, such things can seem just too far away, too hard to get. So many reasons to stay the way we are.
There is a way to get started, though, on the things that need starting. A little phrase, a verbal formula that gets things into perspective. Do it now. Right now, while it's on your mind. Most likely, if you even ask the question, should I do it now, you've already figured out that you can do it now. So do it. In the present context, about getting fit, that first step is, well, it would be to drop us an email. Because you can't get fit right now. It takes time. But you can start the process. And it will come as no news flash, that starting comes before finishing. Get started.
It's not about the whole job, the vast and great goal of the thing, with all its effort and commitment. It's about one small task at a time. That thousand miles, single step thing. Step One isn't thinking about how hard it will be to lose those extra pounds or strengthen that weak lower back or get the knees to where they should be or doing what it takes to increase your energy. Step one is taking a single, simple first step. And we just looked at that. If you need help, ask for help.
Motivation? You have all the motivation in the world. A huge host of reasons to be healthy, and no reasons at all to neglect the things that should be done. Excuses, yes. Reasons, no. That's it then. Do it now.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
Fitness is an investment, of time and effort and the cost of expertise. All of that sounds like even more reason to do nothing. And the very real, measurable, tangible benefit of increased health and attractiveness and energy and functioning -- honestly, such things can seem just too far away, too hard to get. So many reasons to stay the way we are.
There is a way to get started, though, on the things that need starting. A little phrase, a verbal formula that gets things into perspective. Do it now. Right now, while it's on your mind. Most likely, if you even ask the question, should I do it now, you've already figured out that you can do it now. So do it. In the present context, about getting fit, that first step is, well, it would be to drop us an email. Because you can't get fit right now. It takes time. But you can start the process. And it will come as no news flash, that starting comes before finishing. Get started.
It's not about the whole job, the vast and great goal of the thing, with all its effort and commitment. It's about one small task at a time. That thousand miles, single step thing. Step One isn't thinking about how hard it will be to lose those extra pounds or strengthen that weak lower back or get the knees to where they should be or doing what it takes to increase your energy. Step one is taking a single, simple first step. And we just looked at that. If you need help, ask for help.
Motivation? You have all the motivation in the world. A huge host of reasons to be healthy, and no reasons at all to neglect the things that should be done. Excuses, yes. Reasons, no. That's it then. Do it now.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Unexpected Fruits
Cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, pumpkins, dates, strawberries, chili peppers, allspice, eggplant, lychee nuts, pepper, rosehips -- all fruits. Any gourd or melon, anything with a seed in it, that can be eaten. A fruit is, technically, an ovary. Yum. Sometimes it ripens into a shell, sometimes into something leathery or papery, sometimes into something juicy enough to recognize as a fruit. What's the big deal about fruit?
There is the large class of things with seeds. All fruits have seeds. All nuts have seeds. All nuts are fruits ... in a sense: with some nuts the part we would think of as the fruit, the ovary wall, is the shell, and we don't eat shells. A true nut is a type of seed where the actual "fruit" cannot be separated. Chestnuts and hazelnuts. Pretty small category, if we limit it the biological definition. But we shouldn't. A walnut is not a true nut -- the shell is separated and we eat the seed but not the fruit. Likewise, almonds, cashews, pistachios -- they are the seeds of nuts. But come on, they're nuts. A coconut is the seed of a nut.
As we all loved to remind people when we were 12, bananas are legumes. But legumes are fruits. We eat the seed and toss the fruit, the peel, the pod. Same with peanuts. Peas, alfalfa, lentils, beans, carob -- legumes are fruits. Same with cereal grains, wheat, corn, rice -- they are technically fruits. The fruit wall is fused and uselessly thin, and what's edible is the seed, but they're fruit.
Nuts? They, like obvious fruits, have a strategy. For animals: eat my nuts, but forget about some that you hide so they will grow. With humans the strategy is just as easy: eat my nuts, notice how useful I am, and plant orchards of me. It's the same deal that fruit trees make. Philosophically we can think of them as fruit.
It seems that human food is anything a tree or vine or bush produces that can be eaten. Likewise with berries and gourds and melons -- such vines and bushes are a subclass of fruit tree. Grains, however, do not come from trees. They come from grasses. Just different. Same with vegetables (the bodies of plants), and herbs (the leaves and twigs). Edible, but not quite the same as fruit.
Did you know that we have the gene to make vitamin C? We, and the higher primates. It's mutated though, and silent, and useless. Best evidence now, and pretty clearly correct, is that there was a pandemic virus that attacked the vitamin C gene in all species that had a sufficiently close gene-design. This is obvious from the fact that many of the passerine, perching/songbirds also have lost the ability to produce vitamin C, according to no intelligible evolutionary-mutation pattern. This argues for a non-random mutagenic cause -- ie, one that attacks various but similar species.
Point is, we are not what we once were. Maybe there are vitamins that we don't even know about, that we used to get from some common food, a fruit from a tree, a tree as it were of life. Now extinct. Some essential nutrient, for heart health, for brain function, for cancer repair. How long might we live, given nutrition that is no longer possible?
Conclusion? We live in an ad hoc world. We don't live by the old rules. Mass extinctions have withered the orchard. We have to find our nutrients where we may. Because we too are not what we were made to be. Meat? Sure, if it's necessary. Grains? Likewise. Moderation in almost all things. We wouldn't want to eat just apples, either. We've got to use some common sense -- which is not, alas, governed and guaranteed by appetite.
So we look at the nutritional content of a food, relative to the amount of calories and ease of digestion, and weigh that against taste, and get busy composing a livable, sustainable menu. It doesn't come from infonutrients, the proprietorial products that promise the moon, the sun and the stars, all in a ruby red or emerald green powder. The guy who's trying to sell you the incredible Infinite Dinosaurs Program™!!! which is just the bomb -- he has a capitalist motive. Not a bad thing, in itself. But we hope for a quality product at a reasonable price -- ethical capitalism. There is no fantastic new revolutionary mega supplement energy drink, PrimaVita-C Mutation Negation Libation™ (do not feed to canaries) , that will hyper repair your genetic macro deficiencies, so get it now, while supplies last. Don't ACT NOW!!!, because it's a ripoff.
A little common sense. Magic bullets are magic. Do you believe in magic? We believe in solid nutrition and effective exercise. You've heard about how adults are supposed to get some number of servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Less than 20% of grownups meet even the minimum requirement. What are the rest of them thinking? If they won't eat right, how do they expect to be healthy?
It's so obvious. Yet, somehow, it's hard. If you have an adult-supply of skepticism, you don't believe in magic, and you care about evidence and results. Be effective and you will feel the difference, immediately. Promises are easy, but they're easy to test, too. At least this one is.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
There is the large class of things with seeds. All fruits have seeds. All nuts have seeds. All nuts are fruits ... in a sense: with some nuts the part we would think of as the fruit, the ovary wall, is the shell, and we don't eat shells. A true nut is a type of seed where the actual "fruit" cannot be separated. Chestnuts and hazelnuts. Pretty small category, if we limit it the biological definition. But we shouldn't. A walnut is not a true nut -- the shell is separated and we eat the seed but not the fruit. Likewise, almonds, cashews, pistachios -- they are the seeds of nuts. But come on, they're nuts. A coconut is the seed of a nut.
As we all loved to remind people when we were 12, bananas are legumes. But legumes are fruits. We eat the seed and toss the fruit, the peel, the pod. Same with peanuts. Peas, alfalfa, lentils, beans, carob -- legumes are fruits. Same with cereal grains, wheat, corn, rice -- they are technically fruits. The fruit wall is fused and uselessly thin, and what's edible is the seed, but they're fruit.
Nuts? They, like obvious fruits, have a strategy. For animals: eat my nuts, but forget about some that you hide so they will grow. With humans the strategy is just as easy: eat my nuts, notice how useful I am, and plant orchards of me. It's the same deal that fruit trees make. Philosophically we can think of them as fruit.
It seems that human food is anything a tree or vine or bush produces that can be eaten. Likewise with berries and gourds and melons -- such vines and bushes are a subclass of fruit tree. Grains, however, do not come from trees. They come from grasses. Just different. Same with vegetables (the bodies of plants), and herbs (the leaves and twigs). Edible, but not quite the same as fruit.
Did you know that we have the gene to make vitamin C? We, and the higher primates. It's mutated though, and silent, and useless. Best evidence now, and pretty clearly correct, is that there was a pandemic virus that attacked the vitamin C gene in all species that had a sufficiently close gene-design. This is obvious from the fact that many of the passerine, perching/songbirds also have lost the ability to produce vitamin C, according to no intelligible evolutionary-mutation pattern. This argues for a non-random mutagenic cause -- ie, one that attacks various but similar species.
Point is, we are not what we once were. Maybe there are vitamins that we don't even know about, that we used to get from some common food, a fruit from a tree, a tree as it were of life. Now extinct. Some essential nutrient, for heart health, for brain function, for cancer repair. How long might we live, given nutrition that is no longer possible?
Conclusion? We live in an ad hoc world. We don't live by the old rules. Mass extinctions have withered the orchard. We have to find our nutrients where we may. Because we too are not what we were made to be. Meat? Sure, if it's necessary. Grains? Likewise. Moderation in almost all things. We wouldn't want to eat just apples, either. We've got to use some common sense -- which is not, alas, governed and guaranteed by appetite.
So we look at the nutritional content of a food, relative to the amount of calories and ease of digestion, and weigh that against taste, and get busy composing a livable, sustainable menu. It doesn't come from infonutrients, the proprietorial products that promise the moon, the sun and the stars, all in a ruby red or emerald green powder. The guy who's trying to sell you the incredible Infinite Dinosaurs Program™!!! which is just the bomb -- he has a capitalist motive. Not a bad thing, in itself. But we hope for a quality product at a reasonable price -- ethical capitalism. There is no fantastic new revolutionary mega supplement energy drink, PrimaVita-C Mutation Negation Libation™ (do not feed to canaries) , that will hyper repair your genetic macro deficiencies, so get it now, while supplies last. Don't ACT NOW!!!, because it's a ripoff.
A little common sense. Magic bullets are magic. Do you believe in magic? We believe in solid nutrition and effective exercise. You've heard about how adults are supposed to get some number of servings of fruits and vegetables every day. Less than 20% of grownups meet even the minimum requirement. What are the rest of them thinking? If they won't eat right, how do they expect to be healthy?
It's so obvious. Yet, somehow, it's hard. If you have an adult-supply of skepticism, you don't believe in magic, and you care about evidence and results. Be effective and you will feel the difference, immediately. Promises are easy, but they're easy to test, too. At least this one is.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Jack LaLanne
Died, January 23, 2011, age 96.
He invented the leg extension machine, and the smith machine, and the weight stack, and cable pulls, and jumping jacks. He invented the idea of the fitness health club. He had a right to be self-assured. He didn't eat meat. No dairy. No white bread. No sugar. Lots of fruits and vegetables. Worked out for two hours daily. He stopped towing submarines across the Straits of Hormuz for his birthday, but into his nineties he was still looking pretty good. A bit shaky, advertising his juicers, but looking good. His philosophy was simple unto simplistic, and not entirely up-to-date -- but he was right.
There's talk in certain circles about the genetic lifespan of humanity being 120 years. The evidence for this conclusion is not convincing. There seems to be exactly one honest record of such a thing, outside of the Bible. All those ancient Russians and Turks and Nepalese are just lying about their age to gullible anthropologists. That is after all what happened to Margaret Mead, so why not? Theoretical expectations don't seem to meet real world demands.
Old age is unavoidable, if you live that long. Jack L looked really good for nearly a hundred, but he didn't look 60. He looked like a pretty good mid-70s. That's two decades he shaved off his apparent age. Pretty good. But time's ragged hand mars every lotus. We'd like to see vigor thrive like the sunrise. It just seems like that's what should happen. It doesn't.
We get wiser, some of us, but we will never again be what we were, or might have been had we tended after ourselves properly. How can we regret sunsets, though? As much as to mourn our disbelief in Santa Claus. We pass through stages, and regret for this fact must itself be a stage through which we pass. Our beauty will crumble, even such great beauty as yours, and your power will fail, unshaken though it now may be. There never has been an empire that has lasted. All that remains is the land, and even land succumbs to tide. There comes a day when we realize that all our school teachers are dead.
The care we take of ourselves -- diet, exercise, morals, morale -- that's part of our character. Stewardship. Integrity isn't just about business transactions. Pig-out on cream puffs? Sure. The once-in-a-while things aren't likely to do much harm, just like the passing of a moment doesn't make you that much older. But they do add up, these bon bons, these moments. And you find yourself old, if not sick.
Jack L said, "There are two things that people have in their lives that will never fail: pride and discipline." Well, he was a man who constructed himself out of pride. And he certainly didn't actually mean "never". But he was a motivational speaker, and short declarative sentences motivate.
Almost everything fails. Our bodies will fail. Our intellect will fail. But we don't fail until our character fails. That's another aspect of what fitness is. It's something that needs to be tended. We nurture it, or we become decrepit. There is an old age that has its own vitality. Mostly, it's a blessing that we bestow upon ourselves. Moderation, sensible diet, sensible exercise -- but it's a sort of jealous guarding of something valuable, too.
Competence identifies and clarifies goals, and then achieves them. It's a balance between the short- and the long-term. We've just looked at the long view. If you live that long, you'll be old. It can be an ugly thing. But it can be inspirational, too. Know what? You can be like that. The best dreams are the ones we turn into plans. Sensible diet, sensible exercise. Seems like a reasonable place to start.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
He invented the leg extension machine, and the smith machine, and the weight stack, and cable pulls, and jumping jacks. He invented the idea of the fitness health club. He had a right to be self-assured. He didn't eat meat. No dairy. No white bread. No sugar. Lots of fruits and vegetables. Worked out for two hours daily. He stopped towing submarines across the Straits of Hormuz for his birthday, but into his nineties he was still looking pretty good. A bit shaky, advertising his juicers, but looking good. His philosophy was simple unto simplistic, and not entirely up-to-date -- but he was right.
There's talk in certain circles about the genetic lifespan of humanity being 120 years. The evidence for this conclusion is not convincing. There seems to be exactly one honest record of such a thing, outside of the Bible. All those ancient Russians and Turks and Nepalese are just lying about their age to gullible anthropologists. That is after all what happened to Margaret Mead, so why not? Theoretical expectations don't seem to meet real world demands.
Old age is unavoidable, if you live that long. Jack L looked really good for nearly a hundred, but he didn't look 60. He looked like a pretty good mid-70s. That's two decades he shaved off his apparent age. Pretty good. But time's ragged hand mars every lotus. We'd like to see vigor thrive like the sunrise. It just seems like that's what should happen. It doesn't.
We get wiser, some of us, but we will never again be what we were, or might have been had we tended after ourselves properly. How can we regret sunsets, though? As much as to mourn our disbelief in Santa Claus. We pass through stages, and regret for this fact must itself be a stage through which we pass. Our beauty will crumble, even such great beauty as yours, and your power will fail, unshaken though it now may be. There never has been an empire that has lasted. All that remains is the land, and even land succumbs to tide. There comes a day when we realize that all our school teachers are dead.
The care we take of ourselves -- diet, exercise, morals, morale -- that's part of our character. Stewardship. Integrity isn't just about business transactions. Pig-out on cream puffs? Sure. The once-in-a-while things aren't likely to do much harm, just like the passing of a moment doesn't make you that much older. But they do add up, these bon bons, these moments. And you find yourself old, if not sick.
Jack L said, "There are two things that people have in their lives that will never fail: pride and discipline." Well, he was a man who constructed himself out of pride. And he certainly didn't actually mean "never". But he was a motivational speaker, and short declarative sentences motivate.
Almost everything fails. Our bodies will fail. Our intellect will fail. But we don't fail until our character fails. That's another aspect of what fitness is. It's something that needs to be tended. We nurture it, or we become decrepit. There is an old age that has its own vitality. Mostly, it's a blessing that we bestow upon ourselves. Moderation, sensible diet, sensible exercise -- but it's a sort of jealous guarding of something valuable, too.
Competence identifies and clarifies goals, and then achieves them. It's a balance between the short- and the long-term. We've just looked at the long view. If you live that long, you'll be old. It can be an ugly thing. But it can be inspirational, too. Know what? You can be like that. The best dreams are the ones we turn into plans. Sensible diet, sensible exercise. Seems like a reasonable place to start.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFitBurbank
Still Crazy
President Garfield was killed by Charles Julius Guiteau,
who wanted to be made ambassador to Paris. When his dream was dashed by the cold reality of his complete lack of qualifications -- like, sanity -- God told him to buy a gun. Having plagiarized a book on theology, Guiteau counted himself sensitive to the Lord's will, secured a revolver -- not as pearl-handled as he had wished -- and killed Garfield. At trial his defense was that he was legally but not medically insane. All the while he was planning his triumphal post-trial lecture tour and campaign to run for president in 1884. On the scaffold, he asked for an orchestra to play so he could sing a poem he had written: "I Am Going to the Lordy."
McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz,
anarchist of the Emma Goldman flock. The president had to die because, uh, there are rich people. Bang. Czolgosz was electrocuted, zap, his body dissolved in sulfuric acid and his papers and clothes were burned. Good riddance.
Kennedy? Well aside from the Mafia, which does not exist, and the CIA, and Castro and Johnson,
and, uh, all the others involved in the conspiracy, like the Dallas police, there was Oswald.
Who was a Marxist.
Theodore Roosevelt was shot but not killed by John Flammang Schrank.
TR, with a bullet lodged in his chest, continued to give his speech, for another ninety minutes. As for Schrank, he wrote poetry and was told by God in a dream to avenge McKinley's death. So, of course, what else could he do? He spent the rest of his life in an insane asylum.
FDR was shot at by Giuseppe Zangara,
a delusional bricklayer, who instead shot five other people, killed a woman and Anton Cermak the mayor of Chicago, who threw himself into the line of fire. Zangara's motive: he hated rich and powerful people. Madness? Who can say.
Truman was shot at by Puerto Rican leftists, Oscar Collazo, right,
and Griselio Torresola.
Ford was shot at by Manson freak Squeaky Fromme
and by SLA radical Sarah Jane Moore.
Samuel Byck
-- a Sean Penn look-alike
-- was a psychiatric patient, who tried to join the Black Panthers and also incidentally wanted to fly a plane into the White House, to kill Nixon because the government conspired to oppress the poor. He killed the pilot and co-pilot, then himself. Bang bang bang.
Reagan was shot by John Hinkley
to impress Jody Foster.
The madman thought that Jody might be interested in a man of his caliber.
Saddam Hussein
tried to get HW. So, another madman.
Frank Corder,
a drug dealer, tried to fly a plane into Clinton. Francisco Duran
fired 29 rounds at what he thought was Clinton. Tourists tackled him. His defense at trial was that he was trying to save the world from a mist fed by an umbilical cord connected to a space alien hidden in the lofty mountains of Colorado. He might not have been insane.
Robert Pickett,
emotionally problematic and employmentally aggrieved, stood this side of the fence and unloaded a handgun at the W White House. Sentenced to three years. The gun got off scot free again. Then on 9-11, aside from other notable events, some dudes tried to sneak into Bush's motel room in Florida.
These two pasty geniuses,
Paul Schlesselman and Daniel Cowart, complete with swastica tattoos, had it against Obama, as did these three, Shawn Adolf, Tharin Gartrell and Dwaine Johnson,
also geniuses.
So that's about it then. Everyone who's gone for a president. But it just seems like maybe ... maybe there's another one? OH! LOL!!! How silly!!!!!! LINCOLN! HAHAHAHA!!!!!! Killed by a man who thought slavery was a very good thing.
Assassins are all insane, or extremists, or potheads. People who listen to their delusions and want ambassadorships for which they are not qualified. Well. There is craziness that does not lead to murder. Dishonesty is a sort of madness. Reality should be affirmed, after all. The political blame-game is nothing but shameful. Let's not be shameful. Let's be, oh, say, excellent. And integrity applies to the physical as well as to character -- to lifestyle as well as philosophy.
So? No blame. Accountability. Sensible exercise, sensible diet. No excuses, only valid reasons. You do know what that leads to. It leads to excellence. So?
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz,
Kennedy? Well aside from the Mafia, which does not exist, and the CIA, and Castro and Johnson,
Theodore Roosevelt was shot but not killed by John Flammang Schrank.
FDR was shot at by Giuseppe Zangara,
Truman was shot at by Puerto Rican leftists, Oscar Collazo, right,
Ford was shot at by Manson freak Squeaky Fromme
Samuel Byck
Reagan was shot by John Hinkley
Saddam Hussein
Frank Corder,
Robert Pickett,
These two pasty geniuses,
So that's about it then. Everyone who's gone for a president. But it just seems like maybe ... maybe there's another one? OH! LOL!!! How silly!!!!!! LINCOLN! HAHAHAHA!!!!!! Killed by a man who thought slavery was a very good thing.
Assassins are all insane, or extremists, or potheads. People who listen to their delusions and want ambassadorships for which they are not qualified. Well. There is craziness that does not lead to murder. Dishonesty is a sort of madness. Reality should be affirmed, after all. The political blame-game is nothing but shameful. Let's not be shameful. Let's be, oh, say, excellent. And integrity applies to the physical as well as to character -- to lifestyle as well as philosophy.
So? No blame. Accountability. Sensible exercise, sensible diet. No excuses, only valid reasons. You do know what that leads to. It leads to excellence. So?
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Apples to Apples
The workout that the FW crew did on Jan 6 is a good demonstration of the power of the Power Grid. Some surprising results after crunching the numbers. Case in point:
ETo, of the Amazing Chinup Prowess, racked up a stellar total of 427 -- 134 chinups, 186 pushups and 107 ball slams. Because each movement got 6 minutes, we can find their individual grid results:
chins: 37K workload/ 6100 power/ 25 power ratio;
pushups: 29K/ 4900/ 20
ball slams: 12K/ 2100/ 8
Workout total: 79K/ 4400/ 18 PR.
Looks unbeatable. And it was.
But JHo's results have a few surprises. Total points, 348 -- 77 chins, 141 pushups and 130 ball slams. That total is like ... well, a lot less than ETo's. So sad. Some might say, pathetic. They however would be wrong. The results for the individual movements are:
chins: 26K WL/ 4400 power/ 19 PR;
pushups: 28K/ 4600/ 20;
ball slams: 16K/ 2700/ 12.
Workout total: 70K/ 3900/ 17 PR.
Analysis: Even though JHo outperformed in the ball slams, that workload was relatively smaller, and had a small effect on the total -- regardless of the movement's subjective difficulty. Even though ETo did 45 more pushups, when we make a pound for pound comparison, a relative power comparison, JHo and ETo performed approximately the same. But talent will out, and ETo is a chinup prodigy. To match his power ratio for that movement, JHo would have to do approximately 100 -- nearly 25 more. On the other hand, to match JHo's ball slam power, ETo would have to do about 155 -- nearly 50 more.
Takeaway lesson? There are several. The thing that you're best at may not be enough. Or it may make you the champion. An apparently smashing victory may actually be rather more modest, when objectively considered. A murky performance may turn out to have been an impressive effort.
It is unlikely that JHo, heavier and longer, would ever match ETo's raw number for this WOD. Boo hoo. But the Power Grid shows that to beat the pound-for-pound results for the total workout, all other things remaining the same (which they wouldn't since we do not remain static), JHo would have had to do only 8 more chinups, 85 instead of 77. The total power ratio would then be ETo's 17.9 to JHo's hypothetical 18.0 -- instead of the 17.3 that implacable reality insists upon.
Does it matter? Well, for all that we want to be excellent in ourselves, we want to be excellent when compared to others. So, yes, it matters, sort of. In this, the New Year, a new decade of a new century of a new millennium, there is much talk about resolutions. At the root of that word is resolve. A fierce and firm determination, unwaivering. Talking won't do it, neither scheming, nor grand emotional declarations. Reality, like resolve, is about doing. So?
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
ETo, of the Amazing Chinup Prowess, racked up a stellar total of 427 -- 134 chinups, 186 pushups and 107 ball slams. Because each movement got 6 minutes, we can find their individual grid results:
chins: 37K workload/ 6100 power/ 25 power ratio;
pushups: 29K/ 4900/ 20
ball slams: 12K/ 2100/ 8
Workout total: 79K/ 4400/ 18 PR.
Looks unbeatable. And it was.
But JHo's results have a few surprises. Total points, 348 -- 77 chins, 141 pushups and 130 ball slams. That total is like ... well, a lot less than ETo's. So sad. Some might say, pathetic. They however would be wrong. The results for the individual movements are:
chins: 26K WL/ 4400 power/ 19 PR;
pushups: 28K/ 4600/ 20;
ball slams: 16K/ 2700/ 12.
Workout total: 70K/ 3900/ 17 PR.
Analysis: Even though JHo outperformed in the ball slams, that workload was relatively smaller, and had a small effect on the total -- regardless of the movement's subjective difficulty. Even though ETo did 45 more pushups, when we make a pound for pound comparison, a relative power comparison, JHo and ETo performed approximately the same. But talent will out, and ETo is a chinup prodigy. To match his power ratio for that movement, JHo would have to do approximately 100 -- nearly 25 more. On the other hand, to match JHo's ball slam power, ETo would have to do about 155 -- nearly 50 more.
Takeaway lesson? There are several. The thing that you're best at may not be enough. Or it may make you the champion. An apparently smashing victory may actually be rather more modest, when objectively considered. A murky performance may turn out to have been an impressive effort.
It is unlikely that JHo, heavier and longer, would ever match ETo's raw number for this WOD. Boo hoo. But the Power Grid shows that to beat the pound-for-pound results for the total workout, all other things remaining the same (which they wouldn't since we do not remain static), JHo would have had to do only 8 more chinups, 85 instead of 77. The total power ratio would then be ETo's 17.9 to JHo's hypothetical 18.0 -- instead of the 17.3 that implacable reality insists upon.
Does it matter? Well, for all that we want to be excellent in ourselves, we want to be excellent when compared to others. So, yes, it matters, sort of. In this, the New Year, a new decade of a new century of a new millennium, there is much talk about resolutions. At the root of that word is resolve. A fierce and firm determination, unwaivering. Talking won't do it, neither scheming, nor grand emotional declarations. Reality, like resolve, is about doing. So?
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Incurring Debt
Bob Dude sent FW an email, asking that it be posted, with the above title. His email goes on and on about how effective his workouts are, now that he's adopting a different fitness modality. He says he was doing a strength workout the other night, making himself "even more gorgeous, if such a thing is possible," and a fellow he'd shown some stuff a while back was doing his thing. Sort of slow, deliberate, not actually what Bob Dude would suggest, now that he's doing things differently. He asked the fellow what his goal was, and the reply was, "Strength. And endurance." Oh. Both. With that workout. Hmm.
Well, it's possible, the way pyramids on Mars are possible, or base metal into gold. You know, where things happen in a progression that has no relationship to cause and effect -- just one thing that happens after another thing that went before, for some reason other than what logic and experience would support.
Well, it's possible, the way pyramids on Mars are possible, or base metal into gold. You know, where things happen in a progression that has no relationship to cause and effect -- just one thing that happens after another thing that went before, for some reason other than what logic and experience would support.
But it got Bob to thinking, he says, about what actually is the outcome of such slowish movements, like pushups from dumbbells and then you lift one of them and twist it into the air while supporting yourself on the other one. Like something you see on an infomercial about DVDs that will get you INSANELY RIPPED! There's no actual intensity -- a slightly elevated heartrate, the fellow said, and some perspiration -- we shan't call it sweat -- and some breathing ... but no intensity. But there's muscular activity, so it is exercise.
The benefit of real exercise? There are two goals. Evoking a hormonal response, which builds muscle by adding contractile protein and therefore strength; and evoking CNS efficiency, so that existing motor units fire more efficiently, resulting in agility, strength, athleticism and so on. Which of these would result from the ponderous workout the fellow was doing? There was no meaningful intensity, so there was no effective (in terms of cost-benefit, effort to outcome) hormonal response. The brain responds to the stress of intensity by causing the release of anaerobic hormones, testosterone and HGH. And there was no meaningful CNS training, since the motions were so slow, so deliberate, that they were entirely under the conscious direction of the forebrain.
If there is such a thing as passive exercise, that was it. Like passive learning, sitting in front of the TV and letting it soak in. Maybe. But if so, the last several generations should be supergeniuses. Having someone else manipulate your limbs into the semblance of an activity that requires actual motor skills may have some therapeutic benefit, like, say, if you have spinal damage. But it's exercise the way a ventriloquist act is conversation. Take charge, is the point. Participate in your pursuit of excellence. There's a cost. But there's a benefit.
The benefit of slow, not very intense exercise? Of course there is one. Of course. Long walks, brisk hikes, bowling or golf -- good pastimes that give a health benefit. Not something however that a gym, of any meaningful description, is about. Not what weights are about -- you know, added strength. Not what athleticism is about -- the mild, moderate leisure-time display seen in most glass-and-chrome gyms sucks up time, and promotes short-term self-esteem, and raises heartrate and gives a pump, but in terms of reaching actual training goals, not so much.
Nagging doesn't do any good, of course, and the observations that Bob Dude made aren't really a criticism. People can spend their time and energy as they please. Be happy. And we have to make our own mistakes, hopefully free from harsh judgments or tragic consequences. And we can receive advice only when our experience has brought us to such a place where it may be heard. So Bob was non-committal, apparently non-judgmental, seemingly supportive in the fellow's greater goals, encouraging in his quest to find what works for him. Bob said, "Do what you enjoy doing. It's not as good as the more effective thing that you don't enjoy, but maybe you'll actually do the thing you enjoy." And they laughed, because it seemed funny and wise.
Now Bob Dude wants you to send him one hundred dollars. He says, "Homie. You were warned up front. You can read. This is called "incurring debt". You don't know what that means? This is a legally binding contract. This is my new career, giving unsolicited but debt-incurring fitness advice on the internet. You read it, you owe me. Send me your Social Security Number, so I can sue you for non-payment or at least ruin your credit. Cuz I know how you are."
It seems Bob isn't as wise as we had come to hope. His character is not entirely reformed. Our opinion about him may have to be revised. Bob says that next time his email, that he wants posted, will be called, "Sexual Satisfaction." He says you should be sure to read it.
FW
CrossFit Burbank
CrossFit Burbank
The Memory of Roses
George Will has written in achingly poignant prose about the long decline of his aged mother into the oblivion of dementia and the final release of death. He wrote as beautifully in prose as a great poet writes in verse, impelled by a theme that is rarely matched in its grip on our souls. It fills the heart with inexpressible sadness, having known something of grief, as we all have, or will.
We can love people -- opt to love them, volunteer -- who are not worthy of love, humanly speaking. No need for elaboration. It’s a provocative enough statement, for all that betrayal might seem almost commonplace. And we drag ourselves away from such and such a situation trailing most of our courage and all of our hope behind. And being human, imperfect in our capacity for tranquility, we might be infected with rage like a low-grade fever. Self-pity? Yes. It comes with an awareness of our flaws. But who even has a right to an opinion on the matter of the secret flaws in someone else's secret heart? All this is the negative.
And if the ones who work havoc were to fall into the hands of their victims? Best not to speak of it. But the one, the ones we have loved, despite their betrayals? Of course we're angry. Here’s what we must tell ourselves: "I did not love, that it might turn into hate. I did not sacrifice, that it should bring only loss." To love is an act of will as much as a sort of pit into which we fall. This is what it means when we are told that love does not fail. It’s not that the flame doesn’t scorch but that its light doesn’t fade. The outcome of love is not assured, but its reality should never be in doubt.
High-sounding sentiments however about the unfailing character of love have little merit if they have no effect in the real world. But we do need soft phrases sometimes, as we need soft touches -- they are comforting to us. It isn’t only monkeys that clutch onto each other when the skies grow dark. It’s a picture of ourselves. We are created to love. We were made that we might count ourselves less, that someone else might be more. There is no race that knows no expression of this truth.
And if the ones who work havoc were to fall into the hands of their victims? Best not to speak of it. But the one, the ones we have loved, despite their betrayals? Of course we're angry. Here’s what we must tell ourselves: "I did not love, that it might turn into hate. I did not sacrifice, that it should bring only loss." To love is an act of will as much as a sort of pit into which we fall. This is what it means when we are told that love does not fail. It’s not that the flame doesn’t scorch but that its light doesn’t fade. The outcome of love is not assured, but its reality should never be in doubt.
High-sounding sentiments however about the unfailing character of love have little merit if they have no effect in the real world. But we do need soft phrases sometimes, as we need soft touches -- they are comforting to us. It isn’t only monkeys that clutch onto each other when the skies grow dark. It’s a picture of ourselves. We are created to love. We were made that we might count ourselves less, that someone else might be more. There is no race that knows no expression of this truth.
It isn’t something that needs to be written in a holy book. It’s written in our hearts -- incised, rather, in deep and ragged gouges. This too might make us angry. What sane person wants more pain? But can it be helped? Honestly. We must, must love, and it hurts the way a little child cries when stung or struck. But we cannot escape our nature any more than we can change our destiny -- or rather, as fools and saints attempt, change the destiny of someone else.
George Will reminds us of the words of J.M. Barrie: God gave us memory that we might have roses in winter. How lovely a thought. Someone wisely said that pain comes to pass, not to stay. It calls to mind the fact that even in our wrath, we may forgo our demand for justice and discover almost out of vacuum a capacity for mercy, and forgiveness.
George Will reminds us of the words of J.M. Barrie: God gave us memory that we might have roses in winter. How lovely a thought. Someone wisely said that pain comes to pass, not to stay. It calls to mind the fact that even in our wrath, we may forgo our demand for justice and discover almost out of vacuum a capacity for mercy, and forgiveness.
So, after a long and blessed life, an old woman may descend into the darkness and indignity of senility. Her character so carefully built-up over the decades might fall away as cities succumb to earthquakes. What is left remains only as a mockery. But it doesn’t remain forever, and when she finally passes from sight, that dimming light must flair up bright as garden sunshine. So might we hope.
In this same way, we can only hope ... if we can hope ... that those who have passed beyond our sight after having shed darkness upon our world like Satan in his fall, might with the passing of time enjoy a sort of dementia of an evil character -- where repentance works its transformation and nobility is found where only betrayal has been seen.
In this same way, we can only hope ... if we can hope ... that those who have passed beyond our sight after having shed darkness upon our world like Satan in his fall, might with the passing of time enjoy a sort of dementia of an evil character -- where repentance works its transformation and nobility is found where only betrayal has been seen.
It cannot be that the world is destined only for decay. There must be some counterbalancing force, where the agony of watching those we love reduced almost to animals, is matched in some measure by the redemption of those who started life as animals, but who discover the very purpose of what humanity is. This would be grace, and a sort of justice too. For to be human is to be condemned to love.
You see the point. We speak here of health and of fitness. For what purpose? That we might be a more excellent sort of animal? It is an easy thing to hold out cliches of love and betrayal -- how wise we might seem. But honestly. What matters? We arrive at the answers we believe by traveling through our lives like fishermen dragging nets. Perhaps we come up with hope, and courage. But it takes strength. We grow strong by enduring trials. The trials of exercise and of diet are easy, then, and a good starting place. That's the point.
FW
CrossFit Burbank
CrossFit Burbank
More re Diet
Diet. It's so hard. It just always needs reinforcing. There are so many conflicting, contradictory ideas about it. Carbs? Fats? Proteins? The correct ratios? Their effects on health and performance? Well, the health aspect of being vegetarian, or at least of having a very high proportion of the diet as vegetables, is established and beyond debate. But what about athletic performance? There are anecdotal claims that vegetarian athletes who switch to animal foods increase performance. The methodology is nonexistent at this point, but the claims are made. Are they true?
It could be that performance is enhances by the metabolic byproducts of meat -- uric acid, say, acting as a toxifying stimulant. Or by hormones, both artificial, from commercial and factory-fed beef, and also natural hormones, left in the flesh from the terror of being butchered. Yes, all that adrenaline could act as a performance enhancer -- stimulants will do that. At the expense perhaps of long term health, but if it's only about short term performance, well there you go.
Like coffee. Caffeine definitely increase the availability of fat to be used as an energy source with distance runners, and presumably other athletes. But we are reading more and more about adrenal fatigue -- the over-activity of stress hormones. It would be a counterpart to pre-diabetes, where the pancreas is forced to over-produce insulin, because of a dangerous lifestyle. It's imbalanced, it's damaging to long-term health, and it's unnatural. Stimulants, including meat, are or may be performance enhancers. Well? If that's okay, what's wrong with steroids? Extreme example. Draw the line back where you will.
It's just a theory, the stimulatory effect of meat, invented to answer the possibility, the anecdotal possibility that switching from vegetarian to meat-eating yield results. It needs to be investigated.
And let's look at protein. It is said that animal proteins are dangerous simply by being like those proteins we ourselves make. If you introduce a similar but alien protein into your bloodstream, your body produces antibodies to destroy it. All well and good. But if those alien proteins are too similar, your body learns how to attack itself. Auto-immune disease, thank you very much. It's a theory. But it makes sense.
Another problem is in the composition of the meat people eat. First, you cannot use protein. Nobody every used protein. It's useless. That why we digest it. We break it down into its constituent amino acids, and use them. Now here's the thing. If we eat meat, it's fair to suppose that the ratio of amino acids the meat yields is comparable to the meat, muscle, of our own bodies. So, yes, meat could go to make muscle. But there's a problem with the reasoning. The meat/amino acids that we might use does/do not go just to make muscle. Our bodies use amino acids for a host of other functions. Amino acids are used to build every hormone we have. They are used as peptides, as neurotransmitters, as the building blocks of bone and hair and fingernails and organs and, well, everything. Everything that gets done in your body is done by proteins. It's not about meat. Proteins are robots, that travel throughout the body and get things done. See? You are guaranteed to get exactly the WRONG ratio of amino acids, if you rely on meat.
What is the ideal proportion of essential amino acids? It's unlikely that anyone knows. But we can be sure it's not that of any meat. Milk, perhaps? Human milk? But you do not plan on doubling your weight in the next few months, do you? Because that's what milk is designed to do. So milk is the wrong ratio too, for adults. It must be, must be, some admixture of plant materials. What recipe? Who knows.
That's why we advocate eating as wide a variety of plant nutrients as is convenient. You don't know what you need, but your body needs it anyway. So give it a chance to choose. You don't need to have every nutrient at every meal. It's not about loading the stew up with absolutely everything. Indeed, that may be a bad idea. Digestion is a very very very complex thing. We know this because there are as many neurons in the gut as there are in the brain. From this we might conclude that digestion is as hard a thing to figure out as calculating the orbit of Neptune. No worries, our gut can do that. But let's not make it unnecessarily difficult.
So consider those dietary supplements, the powders that have every fruit ever heard of, all in a single tablespoon. Sounds pretty good, right? Maybe. But that's like 112 different plant families that your body has to figure out how to digest and absorb, all in one sitting. Sure, it can be done. But it seems like a strain. Like stimulants would be a strain. Like adrenal fatigue would be a strain. Like pre-diabetes would be a strain. Stress is okay. Distress is bad. How about getting all those nutrients over a few meals, or a week, or something like that. Rather than glut yourself, for all that the portions are small.
It's not about being perfect. It's about being sensible. Sensible diet, sensible exercise. Since you are made out of what you eat, it seems like starting with diet would be smart.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
It could be that performance is enhances by the metabolic byproducts of meat -- uric acid, say, acting as a toxifying stimulant. Or by hormones, both artificial, from commercial and factory-fed beef, and also natural hormones, left in the flesh from the terror of being butchered. Yes, all that adrenaline could act as a performance enhancer -- stimulants will do that. At the expense perhaps of long term health, but if it's only about short term performance, well there you go.
Like coffee. Caffeine definitely increase the availability of fat to be used as an energy source with distance runners, and presumably other athletes. But we are reading more and more about adrenal fatigue -- the over-activity of stress hormones. It would be a counterpart to pre-diabetes, where the pancreas is forced to over-produce insulin, because of a dangerous lifestyle. It's imbalanced, it's damaging to long-term health, and it's unnatural. Stimulants, including meat, are or may be performance enhancers. Well? If that's okay, what's wrong with steroids? Extreme example. Draw the line back where you will.
It's just a theory, the stimulatory effect of meat, invented to answer the possibility, the anecdotal possibility that switching from vegetarian to meat-eating yield results. It needs to be investigated.
And let's look at protein. It is said that animal proteins are dangerous simply by being like those proteins we ourselves make. If you introduce a similar but alien protein into your bloodstream, your body produces antibodies to destroy it. All well and good. But if those alien proteins are too similar, your body learns how to attack itself. Auto-immune disease, thank you very much. It's a theory. But it makes sense.
Another problem is in the composition of the meat people eat. First, you cannot use protein. Nobody every used protein. It's useless. That why we digest it. We break it down into its constituent amino acids, and use them. Now here's the thing. If we eat meat, it's fair to suppose that the ratio of amino acids the meat yields is comparable to the meat, muscle, of our own bodies. So, yes, meat could go to make muscle. But there's a problem with the reasoning. The meat/amino acids that we might use does/do not go just to make muscle. Our bodies use amino acids for a host of other functions. Amino acids are used to build every hormone we have. They are used as peptides, as neurotransmitters, as the building blocks of bone and hair and fingernails and organs and, well, everything. Everything that gets done in your body is done by proteins. It's not about meat. Proteins are robots, that travel throughout the body and get things done. See? You are guaranteed to get exactly the WRONG ratio of amino acids, if you rely on meat.
What is the ideal proportion of essential amino acids? It's unlikely that anyone knows. But we can be sure it's not that of any meat. Milk, perhaps? Human milk? But you do not plan on doubling your weight in the next few months, do you? Because that's what milk is designed to do. So milk is the wrong ratio too, for adults. It must be, must be, some admixture of plant materials. What recipe? Who knows.
That's why we advocate eating as wide a variety of plant nutrients as is convenient. You don't know what you need, but your body needs it anyway. So give it a chance to choose. You don't need to have every nutrient at every meal. It's not about loading the stew up with absolutely everything. Indeed, that may be a bad idea. Digestion is a very very very complex thing. We know this because there are as many neurons in the gut as there are in the brain. From this we might conclude that digestion is as hard a thing to figure out as calculating the orbit of Neptune. No worries, our gut can do that. But let's not make it unnecessarily difficult.
So consider those dietary supplements, the powders that have every fruit ever heard of, all in a single tablespoon. Sounds pretty good, right? Maybe. But that's like 112 different plant families that your body has to figure out how to digest and absorb, all in one sitting. Sure, it can be done. But it seems like a strain. Like stimulants would be a strain. Like adrenal fatigue would be a strain. Like pre-diabetes would be a strain. Stress is okay. Distress is bad. How about getting all those nutrients over a few meals, or a week, or something like that. Rather than glut yourself, for all that the portions are small.
It's not about being perfect. It's about being sensible. Sensible diet, sensible exercise. Since you are made out of what you eat, it seems like starting with diet would be smart.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Stuff
Catch that show about “Hoarders”? Lots of anxiety and catastrophizing. “I feel like just leaving and never coming back.” Yeah, sure, you’re going to go kill yourself because people are exasperated with all your mess and crap. You’ll just disappear from the planet. It’s not the hoarding of course. It’s the mess. If it were organized it wouldn’t be hoarding. It would be collecting. It's more than just some reluctance to throw out anything that might possibly someday be somehow useful. Pathological.
But really, it’s not the stuff. It’s the mess. It’s really important to stay on top of it. Especially with boys. Two rules. First, have a place for everything. All the papers -- work, academic, finance -- all the books, dishes, jackets, shoes, toys, games -- they all have a place. Boxes, chests, closets, hampers, drawers, cupboards, shelves -- these are places, for things. Armoires. Credenzas. Highboys. Whatever. They don’t have to be neat in their place, but they have to be in their place, and out of sight. Their place is not on tabletops, chairs, beds, floors, floors under beds. Their place is not, ever, on a surface. Surfaces do not count as places. Things are either out of sight, or on display. It’s more a matter of judgment than of taste. And when they get messy in their place, out of sight, well, once a week, places get a going over. Sunday evening, after dinner and before family time. It's a part of family time.
Second rule, no mess at bedtime. Never let it get out of control. You do that by having a procedure. Whose ever bedtime it is, there’s a few minutes before that, for spot check. You know what you’ve been doing. If it’s kids, they don’t know what they’ve been doing. So there’s a checklist, formal or informal. Of course kids want to do a sloppy job. It’s not bad, it’s human. But there’s accountability too.
Too much stuff? Not enough places? Really, that's not hard. Decide if you want to be a hoarder. Keep what you need, keep what you like, but don't keep what you might perhaps someday maybe have a use for possibly. It's like paint cans. When you repaint, many years from now, is it going to be the same color? Really? Liar. Buy less than you want. It's more than you need. One fellow had the rule, anything that wouldn't fit on the one shelf in his garage, had to go. Severe, but it worked. He had one big place, rather than a lot of more specific ones. It worked for him.
Too much mess? There's the Mount Vernon technique of housekeeping. It's such a big place, how do you clean it? Start in a corner, and work out. It's a system, and systems get things done. Doesn't have to be the best system ever, or the most efficient. Just effective. No search-and-rescue grids required. Overwhelmed? Schedule time. Do it in pieces. Make it a project. Ask for help. Hire someone. Just get it done.
It's important because people form judgments. Family overlooks it. Friends make allowances. Strangers don't care, or shouldn't. Social workers write reports. But everyone has opinions. And if there are kids, well, there it is. We want them to benefit from our excellence. Sadly, they have to deal with it all.
That’s it. Two rules. Have a place, and use it. But that's how it is with everything. A few rules, just common sense, and chaos becomes cosmos. This is how God created the universe. With a rule, a unified field. Light. Then a lot of separating.
Second rule, no mess at bedtime. Never let it get out of control. You do that by having a procedure. Whose ever bedtime it is, there’s a few minutes before that, for spot check. You know what you’ve been doing. If it’s kids, they don’t know what they’ve been doing. So there’s a checklist, formal or informal. Of course kids want to do a sloppy job. It’s not bad, it’s human. But there’s accountability too.
Too much stuff? Not enough places? Really, that's not hard. Decide if you want to be a hoarder. Keep what you need, keep what you like, but don't keep what you might perhaps someday maybe have a use for possibly. It's like paint cans. When you repaint, many years from now, is it going to be the same color? Really? Liar. Buy less than you want. It's more than you need. One fellow had the rule, anything that wouldn't fit on the one shelf in his garage, had to go. Severe, but it worked. He had one big place, rather than a lot of more specific ones. It worked for him.
Too much mess? There's the Mount Vernon technique of housekeeping. It's such a big place, how do you clean it? Start in a corner, and work out. It's a system, and systems get things done. Doesn't have to be the best system ever, or the most efficient. Just effective. No search-and-rescue grids required. Overwhelmed? Schedule time. Do it in pieces. Make it a project. Ask for help. Hire someone. Just get it done.
It's important because people form judgments. Family overlooks it. Friends make allowances. Strangers don't care, or shouldn't. Social workers write reports. But everyone has opinions. And if there are kids, well, there it is. We want them to benefit from our excellence. Sadly, they have to deal with it all.
That’s it. Two rules. Have a place, and use it. But that's how it is with everything. A few rules, just common sense, and chaos becomes cosmos. This is how God created the universe. With a rule, a unified field. Light. Then a lot of separating.
Point? It's not about messy stuff. It's about being in charge. First, most, of yourself. Health and fitness. Because we are not our stuff, and we are not the place that our stuff is in. For purposes of this discussion, we are our bodies. Don't have a messy body. Don't be a hoarder of body stuff. You know, fat. Fungus. Yeast infections. Impacted fecal matter on the colon wall. You know, stuff. Don't do that. How? Two rules. Sensible diet, sensible exercise.
FW
CrossFit Burbank
CrossFit Burbank
Human
Poignant isn't the right word. Compassion, pity, sympathy, empathy -- not it. What ever it is though, about futility, we feel it. We feel it about fatherless kids, sometimes even enough to try to do something about it. To a lesser degree, hopefully, we feel it about fat people.
Futility. A concrete noun that carries with it an abstract feeling, if you feel it. Let's avoid a detailed retelling of the insanity cycle of doing the same thing expecting different results. Broadly, calorie restriction slows metabolism up to 45%, stopping calories from being used as energy, storing it instead. Lethargy and cravings.
Of course there is some character issue involved. A little bit at least. It's the industrial carbs that gets the obesity cycle started. Everyone knows not to eat those sorts of things. Chips and cookies and things in bags and boxes, of whatever flavor. It's the stuff parents don't want kids to ruin their appetites on. A sort of folk wisdom. What, it doesn't apply to adults? But since we're answerable only to ourselves, in actuality, we eat what we want. Character, then.
But that's what's behind almost every problem. You married an unworthy spouse because you were attracted to unworthiness. You lost your home to foreclosure because you were adolescent with credit cards. You lost your job because et cetera. Not about blame, though. We have problems because we're human.
The fat problem is about what we eat. There are people who eat once a day, and spend no small part of it on the treadmills, and they don't lose the fat. It's the carbs. The industrial carbs. Refined, denatured, powdered, fried. Pre-digested. What are we, baby birds? Instant bloodsugar means instant hyperinsulinemia means excessive fat storage and consequent lack of energy. Industrial carbs means an excess of the raw materials that are essential in forming fat. Don't eat the industrial carbs and you will starve your fat instead of your immune system. Seems like a good deal.
But appetite is what it is. Even with the actual sure knowledge of what the problem and its cure are, some shocking number of people will continue as they are. Smoking through the hole in the neck. At which point, futility largely decouples itself from compassion. Perhaps not though. Judgment hardly does any good at all. It serves justice only, if anything. Justice is an abstract.
As for fatherless children, well, isolation is our natural state. If we fill the void with comforts, it cannot be a surprise. High on the list of first-learned-words, is "mine".
Even good boys need to be bad sometimes. Bad, in the sense of disobedience. Find a way you can get away with it. Because otherwise it's always about being good, and that's not possible. Not fully human. It's not healthy. It's about a safety valve. An assertion of individuality. Yes, we want them to be above criticism. We want them to receive the praise of strangers. But on the other hand, those are the children who get into windowless vans idling by the bushes in big parks. We have to practice being disobedient. Sometimes it's actually the responsible thing to do.
There it is. Responsibility. Adults must be responsible. Fitness, nutrition -- health -- these are duties. So.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
Futility. A concrete noun that carries with it an abstract feeling, if you feel it. Let's avoid a detailed retelling of the insanity cycle of doing the same thing expecting different results. Broadly, calorie restriction slows metabolism up to 45%, stopping calories from being used as energy, storing it instead. Lethargy and cravings.
Of course there is some character issue involved. A little bit at least. It's the industrial carbs that gets the obesity cycle started. Everyone knows not to eat those sorts of things. Chips and cookies and things in bags and boxes, of whatever flavor. It's the stuff parents don't want kids to ruin their appetites on. A sort of folk wisdom. What, it doesn't apply to adults? But since we're answerable only to ourselves, in actuality, we eat what we want. Character, then.
But that's what's behind almost every problem. You married an unworthy spouse because you were attracted to unworthiness. You lost your home to foreclosure because you were adolescent with credit cards. You lost your job because et cetera. Not about blame, though. We have problems because we're human.
The fat problem is about what we eat. There are people who eat once a day, and spend no small part of it on the treadmills, and they don't lose the fat. It's the carbs. The industrial carbs. Refined, denatured, powdered, fried. Pre-digested. What are we, baby birds? Instant bloodsugar means instant hyperinsulinemia means excessive fat storage and consequent lack of energy. Industrial carbs means an excess of the raw materials that are essential in forming fat. Don't eat the industrial carbs and you will starve your fat instead of your immune system. Seems like a good deal.
But appetite is what it is. Even with the actual sure knowledge of what the problem and its cure are, some shocking number of people will continue as they are. Smoking through the hole in the neck. At which point, futility largely decouples itself from compassion. Perhaps not though. Judgment hardly does any good at all. It serves justice only, if anything. Justice is an abstract.
As for fatherless children, well, isolation is our natural state. If we fill the void with comforts, it cannot be a surprise. High on the list of first-learned-words, is "mine".
Even good boys need to be bad sometimes. Bad, in the sense of disobedience. Find a way you can get away with it. Because otherwise it's always about being good, and that's not possible. Not fully human. It's not healthy. It's about a safety valve. An assertion of individuality. Yes, we want them to be above criticism. We want them to receive the praise of strangers. But on the other hand, those are the children who get into windowless vans idling by the bushes in big parks. We have to practice being disobedient. Sometimes it's actually the responsible thing to do.
There it is. Responsibility. Adults must be responsible. Fitness, nutrition -- health -- these are duties. So.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
Academic Standards
The inevitability of calories. All nutrition orbits around that star. But aside from a glaringly obvious relationship to thermodynamics, how much information does the term contain? Every doctor knows that the body is a mystery. Sure, science and all that. Get numbers on the problem. Metrics -- it’s like money … so good. But some people don’t get well, when all the numbers demand that they do.
Sometime in the nineteenth century they figured out there was such a thing as protein and fat and carbs, and how much heat was released from each when you burned it, whether in a crucible or metabolically. No, really, it is important to know that. But it’s not something we should run our lives by. Since that time, we’ve learned a few more things. Like about hormones, say.
We keep using calories as if it were a meaningful concept because it’s a simple number that measures a real thing. That’s very good. But not all real things are meaningful. There exist books that, say, give brief biographies for the peers and nobles of Great Britain up until the mid 1860s. Of limited application. Is there some way of expressing useful nutritional information in a simple way? A grade? ORAC value, glycemic index, available energy content (with a nod to DIT and fiber)? Bioavailable protein? Bioavailable mineral content? Something where you don’t have to be a brain genius to be able to make a decision? Something where crafty marketeers can’t up the score by dumping some vitamins and fiber into their cotton candy? -- like every breakfast cereal?
That’s a lot of info. Looks like a grade isn’t enough. A report card. That’s too much. Not easy. But we can’t just express it as a ratio, dry weight over calories ... sugar would get a grade of ¼, grams over calories. So does a granola bar. Hm. Broccoli is 29 grams over 98 calories. Call it 3/10. In other words, sugar is 25%, broccoli is 30%. Does that seem reasonable? Because that’s what the current system thinks is important to tell us. As if 100 grams of one carb is the same as 100 grams of another. That’s just insane. Is the math right? Because something here is insane.
Point is, calories are like women. All the same.
Oh, is there something wrong with that idea? Not all women are the same? It hardly seems possible that sophisticated men of the world could be wrong about this. But in the vanishingly small likelihood that it is wrong -- and the idea is both absurd and offensive -- maybe the world is wrong about calories. It’s just barely possible.
Sometime in the nineteenth century they figured out there was such a thing as protein and fat and carbs, and how much heat was released from each when you burned it, whether in a crucible or metabolically. No, really, it is important to know that. But it’s not something we should run our lives by. Since that time, we’ve learned a few more things. Like about hormones, say.
We keep using calories as if it were a meaningful concept because it’s a simple number that measures a real thing. That’s very good. But not all real things are meaningful. There exist books that, say, give brief biographies for the peers and nobles of Great Britain up until the mid 1860s. Of limited application. Is there some way of expressing useful nutritional information in a simple way? A grade? ORAC value, glycemic index, available energy content (with a nod to DIT and fiber)? Bioavailable protein? Bioavailable mineral content? Something where you don’t have to be a brain genius to be able to make a decision? Something where crafty marketeers can’t up the score by dumping some vitamins and fiber into their cotton candy? -- like every breakfast cereal?
That’s a lot of info. Looks like a grade isn’t enough. A report card. That’s too much. Not easy. But we can’t just express it as a ratio, dry weight over calories ... sugar would get a grade of ¼, grams over calories. So does a granola bar. Hm. Broccoli is 29 grams over 98 calories. Call it 3/10. In other words, sugar is 25%, broccoli is 30%. Does that seem reasonable? Because that’s what the current system thinks is important to tell us. As if 100 grams of one carb is the same as 100 grams of another. That’s just insane. Is the math right? Because something here is insane.
Point is, calories are like women. All the same.
Oh, is there something wrong with that idea? Not all women are the same? It hardly seems possible that sophisticated men of the world could be wrong about this. But in the vanishingly small likelihood that it is wrong -- and the idea is both absurd and offensive -- maybe the world is wrong about calories. It’s just barely possible.
Absurdity, of course. A thing has merit because of its particular qualities, not because of imposed judgments and sloppy assumptions. Nutrient-dense / calorie-poor foods are manifestly superior. Empty-calorie foods are drugs -- non-nutritive substances that manipulate hormones.
No, it's not just diet. Lots of actual work involved. It's a big-picture thing. Approach it with open eyes.
FW
CrossFit Burbank
CrossFit Burbank
Tisquantum
That's "Squanto's" real name, in Algonquian. Tisquantum. That Indian who helped out the Pilgrims. The shortening can be forgiven -- Algonquian rivals ancient Elamite for its opaqueness. Nquitpausuckowashawmen. No, not glossolalia. That's how Squanto would have said, "There are a hundred of us." Tashuckqunne cummauchenaumiz? "How long have you been sick?" Yep. Tough language.
Of course Squanto could have numbered his tribe, the Patuxets, in several languages. In English, and in Spanish. Alas, there were not a hundred Patuxets left to count: all had perished, to smallpox. He alone survived, like some servant of Job -- as indeed he was, to the hardpressed Pilgrims. As for how long Squanto was sick, sudden fever took him the year after he had settled with his new tribe of pilgrims.
He must have been used to being snatched away. He wasn’t kidnapped just once, understand. In 1605, one George Weymouth whisked him away to England -- whether kidnapped or volunteered, history does not record. He labored for untold years -- well, eight or nine -- until returning to America in 1613 as translator for none other than John Smith. Set free as reward for his service, Squanto returned to his own tribe, only to be enslaved and taken to Spain -- kidnapped in 1614 by Thomas Hunt, a lieutenant of Captain Smith. He escaped to London where he remained until 1619 (interrupted by one odd excursion to Newfoundland), then he joined an expedition to America. There he found his family and tribe all wiped out.
Providence? To find an English-speaking Indian wandering the coast at just the right time to save the Pilgrims? Well, yes. But how many other Squantos have wandered the earth, who never found their mission? -- Jonahs who made it to Tarshish?
To know one's purpose is something to be thankful about. Father, mother, friend -- and to bring light and love not only to those you care about but to the stranger -- well, this is something in which we might make our own providence. The rest of it -- being kidnapped and orphaned and dying young and such -- we count as beyond our understanding, and trust in Providence to resolve.
Much fiction will have crept into the story of Squanto and the Pilgrims. Of course. It's not that it wasn't a good enough story on its own. It's just that the reality is complex, and myths have a happy simplicity to them. The tales of childhood are for inspiring us to emulate an example of excellence ... since there are hardly any real examples of excellence. Having heroes who actually lived requires a degree of selective blindness on our part. We give importance to what is admirable, and choose not to see the flaws -- or at least to down-grade them. This is as it should be. If we saw the chamber of horrors that is the heart of every human, we might never stop screaming.
So we have myths.
Is America everything it might be or that we wish it were? The question answers itself. The same holds when we inspect any ideal. There are no “ideals.” If they were real, they’d be “examples.” But part of living in the real world is understanding that it is hopelessly flawed. Well, not hopelessly. Fatally. Even in the face of the inevitable fatality of our biology, though - in the face of ultimate metabolic failure, we need not be hopeless.
And so we have Thanksgiving. It has its own mythology, as does Christmas. But for all that there is the fiction of Santa, there is the reality of saintliness. And for all that the Hallmark and Rockwell images may be nothing but a happy conceit -- of convivial Indians supping in sumptuous abundance with the dour wayfarers from across the gray waves of the churning seas -- yet they have the reality of vivid dreams, that might be true, for all that sunlight says otherwise.
The cherished dreams of our hearts have no guarantee of coming to pass. Every prayer of thanks must, must include a prayer of abject supplication, begging God that evil, or greater evil, should not strike us. So Job, and tragedy, and the loss of every loved one, teach us. So, as a nation we take a day, a single day, collectively to call to mind the many blessing with which we have been blessed. We recall that it need not be so. We understand that who looks for perfection is a fool. We understand that who accepts the inspiration of a myth honors the daylight the visions of night have promised.
We wish to all who read this a joyful and most blessed Thanksgiving Day.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
Of course Squanto could have numbered his tribe, the Patuxets, in several languages. In English, and in Spanish. Alas, there were not a hundred Patuxets left to count: all had perished, to smallpox. He alone survived, like some servant of Job -- as indeed he was, to the hardpressed Pilgrims. As for how long Squanto was sick, sudden fever took him the year after he had settled with his new tribe of pilgrims.
He must have been used to being snatched away. He wasn’t kidnapped just once, understand. In 1605, one George Weymouth whisked him away to England -- whether kidnapped or volunteered, history does not record. He labored for untold years -- well, eight or nine -- until returning to America in 1613 as translator for none other than John Smith. Set free as reward for his service, Squanto returned to his own tribe, only to be enslaved and taken to Spain -- kidnapped in 1614 by Thomas Hunt, a lieutenant of Captain Smith. He escaped to London where he remained until 1619 (interrupted by one odd excursion to Newfoundland), then he joined an expedition to America. There he found his family and tribe all wiped out.
Providence? To find an English-speaking Indian wandering the coast at just the right time to save the Pilgrims? Well, yes. But how many other Squantos have wandered the earth, who never found their mission? -- Jonahs who made it to Tarshish?
To know one's purpose is something to be thankful about. Father, mother, friend -- and to bring light and love not only to those you care about but to the stranger -- well, this is something in which we might make our own providence. The rest of it -- being kidnapped and orphaned and dying young and such -- we count as beyond our understanding, and trust in Providence to resolve.
Much fiction will have crept into the story of Squanto and the Pilgrims. Of course. It's not that it wasn't a good enough story on its own. It's just that the reality is complex, and myths have a happy simplicity to them. The tales of childhood are for inspiring us to emulate an example of excellence ... since there are hardly any real examples of excellence. Having heroes who actually lived requires a degree of selective blindness on our part. We give importance to what is admirable, and choose not to see the flaws -- or at least to down-grade them. This is as it should be. If we saw the chamber of horrors that is the heart of every human, we might never stop screaming.
So we have myths.
Is America everything it might be or that we wish it were? The question answers itself. The same holds when we inspect any ideal. There are no “ideals.” If they were real, they’d be “examples.” But part of living in the real world is understanding that it is hopelessly flawed. Well, not hopelessly. Fatally. Even in the face of the inevitable fatality of our biology, though - in the face of ultimate metabolic failure, we need not be hopeless.
And so we have Thanksgiving. It has its own mythology, as does Christmas. But for all that there is the fiction of Santa, there is the reality of saintliness. And for all that the Hallmark and Rockwell images may be nothing but a happy conceit -- of convivial Indians supping in sumptuous abundance with the dour wayfarers from across the gray waves of the churning seas -- yet they have the reality of vivid dreams, that might be true, for all that sunlight says otherwise.
The cherished dreams of our hearts have no guarantee of coming to pass. Every prayer of thanks must, must include a prayer of abject supplication, begging God that evil, or greater evil, should not strike us. So Job, and tragedy, and the loss of every loved one, teach us. So, as a nation we take a day, a single day, collectively to call to mind the many blessing with which we have been blessed. We recall that it need not be so. We understand that who looks for perfection is a fool. We understand that who accepts the inspiration of a myth honors the daylight the visions of night have promised.
We wish to all who read this a joyful and most blessed Thanksgiving Day.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
Faults
There's a part of us that might ask, what's the use. Haiti will be as much of a basket case after that last particular act of God, like all the others, recedes into myth. Pity the land that is made a colony of the French. The poor are always with us -- most especially if they live in a culture of utter corruption ... as distinct from just the workaday corruption inherent in the human condition. Sheesh. We can't even take a Carnival Cruise without being tormented by fate.
Why watch the news at all. More chaos? More of the same. Just more concentrated now, in time and location, in this era of mass communication. Wars and rumors of war. It matters, theoretically and actually, but if you don't know, say, any Haitians, any compassion one might feel is theoretical, regardless of how genuine. And catastrophe victims aren't everyone's particular cross to bear. It must be a good thing, to not bleed for every wound that overtakes humanity. That's what callouses after all are for.
So when Pat Robertson said, say, that Haiti had made a pact with Satan 200 years ago, and that hurricane was a sort of judgment, well, do we need to have an opinion about his opinion? One of the ways the biblical God deals with humanity is through its nations. Maybe it's true. It's no dumber than Danny Glover's statement on exactly the same topic: The earthquake came from God as a judgment because Haiti didn't do enough to save The Planet at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Remember that? As if the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere could have done anything at all. Could it even afford airfare to Denmark? At least Robertson had documents to support his claim. God after all has acted judgmentally, in the past. It's surprising though that Robertson imagined he had access to the archives of Hell, to know the private arrangements between slaves and Satan. As for Glover, it's surprising he believed in this sort of God. Must be Goddess, he means.
Ah well. All that is old news. What, five or ten years ago? Who can remember. And here we are, racing around, if only mentally, trying to find meaning. Why why why did this thing this or that horrible thing occur? Sin, private or public? A cursed creation? Entropy? Randomness? Job and David and every human being capable of thought have looked for an answer. Jesus gave one. Why do towers fall on innocent victims? So that non-victims will repent. We are all object lessons, one to another. This may not be an entirely satisfactory answer. It's doubtful that there is a better one.
Take addicts, drug addicts. California legislators and other ne'er-do-wells have agitated for legalized pot. So they can tax it and use it and be all groovy and socialistic. Yes, to profit from drug sales is a sound fiscal policy. Of course. But regarding addicts, there is nothing at all, ever, under any circumstance, that one can say, or do, or cause to be done, that can change an addict into not an addict. There is no formula, no thing, no performance, that is the thing to do. Wisdom is doing what is appropriate. Sometimes it's appropriate to understand helplessness. Sort of a Zen thing, where non-action is most dynamic. The still small voice, heard, where the Voice from the Whirlwind is just noise.
God is not all-powerful. He cannot be untrue to his own nature. He cannot violate our free will. Chosen, yes, and choosing. Not a contradiction. Not even a paradox. Just something we can't understand. That's probably why God wants us to be like little children. We have to accept some things, not because faith is valuable in itself -- it's just necessary if we want serenity.
What was the number of Haitian dead? Up to five hundred thousand? -- but that isn't likely to be right. Fifty thousand? Out of a population of ten million. So half a percent of the population, killed in a single blow. One and a half million, if it were the USA. Seems like a lot. But everyone dies. We just prefer that the horror be distributed more evenly across time. We prefer our grief to be decoupled from horror, for all that when we are overwhelmed we become numb. A madman or bureaucrat might propose that we get the killing and dying done all at once -- more efficient and statistically less traumatic. But something in our actual humanity argues against this sort of logic. God, taking the long view, allows both perspectives free expression, that we may chose between them as we please.
Of course God cares. It must be that he wants us to care as well. That, and that we should repent.
Why watch the news at all. More chaos? More of the same. Just more concentrated now, in time and location, in this era of mass communication. Wars and rumors of war. It matters, theoretically and actually, but if you don't know, say, any Haitians, any compassion one might feel is theoretical, regardless of how genuine. And catastrophe victims aren't everyone's particular cross to bear. It must be a good thing, to not bleed for every wound that overtakes humanity. That's what callouses after all are for.
So when Pat Robertson said, say, that Haiti had made a pact with Satan 200 years ago, and that hurricane was a sort of judgment, well, do we need to have an opinion about his opinion? One of the ways the biblical God deals with humanity is through its nations. Maybe it's true. It's no dumber than Danny Glover's statement on exactly the same topic: The earthquake came from God as a judgment because Haiti didn't do enough to save The Planet at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Remember that? As if the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere could have done anything at all. Could it even afford airfare to Denmark? At least Robertson had documents to support his claim. God after all has acted judgmentally, in the past. It's surprising though that Robertson imagined he had access to the archives of Hell, to know the private arrangements between slaves and Satan. As for Glover, it's surprising he believed in this sort of God. Must be Goddess, he means.
Ah well. All that is old news. What, five or ten years ago? Who can remember. And here we are, racing around, if only mentally, trying to find meaning. Why why why did this thing this or that horrible thing occur? Sin, private or public? A cursed creation? Entropy? Randomness? Job and David and every human being capable of thought have looked for an answer. Jesus gave one. Why do towers fall on innocent victims? So that non-victims will repent. We are all object lessons, one to another. This may not be an entirely satisfactory answer. It's doubtful that there is a better one.
Take addicts, drug addicts. California legislators and other ne'er-do-wells have agitated for legalized pot. So they can tax it and use it and be all groovy and socialistic. Yes, to profit from drug sales is a sound fiscal policy. Of course. But regarding addicts, there is nothing at all, ever, under any circumstance, that one can say, or do, or cause to be done, that can change an addict into not an addict. There is no formula, no thing, no performance, that is the thing to do. Wisdom is doing what is appropriate. Sometimes it's appropriate to understand helplessness. Sort of a Zen thing, where non-action is most dynamic. The still small voice, heard, where the Voice from the Whirlwind is just noise.
God is not all-powerful. He cannot be untrue to his own nature. He cannot violate our free will. Chosen, yes, and choosing. Not a contradiction. Not even a paradox. Just something we can't understand. That's probably why God wants us to be like little children. We have to accept some things, not because faith is valuable in itself -- it's just necessary if we want serenity.
What was the number of Haitian dead? Up to five hundred thousand? -- but that isn't likely to be right. Fifty thousand? Out of a population of ten million. So half a percent of the population, killed in a single blow. One and a half million, if it were the USA. Seems like a lot. But everyone dies. We just prefer that the horror be distributed more evenly across time. We prefer our grief to be decoupled from horror, for all that when we are overwhelmed we become numb. A madman or bureaucrat might propose that we get the killing and dying done all at once -- more efficient and statistically less traumatic. But something in our actual humanity argues against this sort of logic. God, taking the long view, allows both perspectives free expression, that we may chose between them as we please.
Of course God cares. It must be that he wants us to care as well. That, and that we should repent.
What does this have to do with fitness, or health? Or addiction or helplessness? This is the world we live in. We can live in it as victims, slaves to fate, or as captains of our destiny. The weather is what it is, with its droughts and hurricanes. How we sail the waters or traverse the wasteland is up to us. We eat what we chose to eat. We exercise as we will. The result of these things is health, and fitness, or its lack. We can't chose our bones. But we do choose what hangs off of them.
That's all. Understanding this, our strength and our helplessness, earns us all the serenity we will ever be entitled to.
FW
CrossFit Burbank
CrossFit Burbank
Letting Off Some Steam
Counterintuitive ain't the half of it. We seem to have gotten our understanding of obesity and weightloss from infomercials. Can that be possible? What about Oprah? -- didn't she lose a bunch of fat? And Robert De Niro -- he got fat on purpose for Raging Bull. So eating more will make you fat, and diet and exercise can lean you down. It's obvious. But controlled studies consistently invalidate this observation. Calorie restriction for the obese results in lower basal metabolism and decreased energy expenditure. Exercise increases appetite and for the effort provides a relatively insignificant energy expenditure. That's the clear conclusion from the studies.
It's not genetic, as we know from the obesity epidemic. If Americans were generally not fat 30 years ago, and three times as many are fat now, it's environmental, some behavioral change of diet, lifestyle, etc. It's genes responding, not demanding. So why is it happening? That's not the question right now. Now, it's why isn't it changing, with diet and exercise.
It's as if somewhere in the brain there is a silhouette of what it thinks we should look like, and the brain works to maintain that shape. That's not how it is, but as if. There is a gradual increase and excess of calories, however, that allows for the slow modification, adaptation of that image, so that slow fat gain can be sustained, whereas sudden change is more easily reversed. It's really a function of insulin -- but insulin is subject to homeostasis, even if an unhealthy one.
Undoubtedly meditation, visualization, affirmations can hack in as it were and edit that image, allowing for successful weight loss where a merely thermodynamic approach will fail. We can say will fail, because that's what the mechanistic studies show -- treating fat loss as a mere equation of positive or negative energy balance results in failure. The homeostatic silhouette gauge makes adjustments -- faster heartrate, more spontaneous movement, nervous energy, body temperature fluctuation, manipulation of appetite and cravings -- anything to waste or conserve energy, calories, fat. We know the mind-body relationship is controlled but not ordained by hormones -- the way a puppet is controlled by stings ... it goes beyond the strings. Point is, thinking matters.
The diet and exercise paradigm, to which every sensible person must be attracted, seems to be wrong. You'll have to look at your own life experience to see if it has worked. It's not a simple equation, energy in, energy out. If the body were a closed system, that idea would work. But it's not a closed system. There's leakage. It's not energy in, which is either stored or burned for purposeful metabolic functions. Such functions can be quantified, as body heat or lifting or locomotion or breathing or heartbeat or shivering. These are purposeful, and because of that they are predictable, quantifiable, and variables of an equation. The silhouette gauge is a randomizer, in that insulin may be set too high -- making you too fat. Why? Who knows. Aside from too many industrial carbs that is.
Think of the body as a steam engine, in an old fashioned train. A heap of coal, a furnace, and a way to get work done. Easy. Straightforward math, whatever the details. But then there's the whistle. The safety valves, that keep the boiler from exploding. It confounds things. Some people are always blowing their whistle. A lot of wasted steam. Keeps them lean. Some people let the pressure build until it's dangerous. Not on purpose -- it's just how the thing is built. Some engine cabs just keep filling up with coal, that doesn't get burned -- or the firebox has a problem, and the coal builds up there. You get the idea. Not an elegant analogy, but you can play with it yourself.
The point is that the calculations can't be valid if the system is not closed. How can people eat less and still be fat? First, metabolism is not even a steam engine, but rather a hybrid motor, that uses different fuels in a pattern we haven't recognized yet. Then, well, the system is not closed. What goes in? Calories? How meaningful is that? Something burned in a crucible is supposed to translate one-to-one into metabolism? Isn't that actually sort of an insane assumption? And once we have digested these "calories", they can be used only according to the mechanistic expectations of thermodynamics? We're all for thermodynamics. For mechanistic systems. The fact that fat people can eat less and exercise more than lean people confounds the issue, though, wouldn't you agree?
There's an engineer at the switch, and he operates according to rules that you don't find in elementary physics textbooks. He decides wheel speed and burn rates and heat and pressure and noise. He doesn't like to be starved, and he works at his own pace. How do you make him happy? Feed him right, and have a conversation.
That's all. That's all for now. Complex, and simple. Diet and exercise. We eat right for health. We exercise for fitness. Both matter, a lot. Food makes our bodies, and we use our bodies to do the things that life is about. Energy and movement. Diet and exercise. That's it.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
FW
CrossFit Burbank
It's not genetic, as we know from the obesity epidemic. If Americans were generally not fat 30 years ago, and three times as many are fat now, it's environmental, some behavioral change of diet, lifestyle, etc. It's genes responding, not demanding. So why is it happening? That's not the question right now. Now, it's why isn't it changing, with diet and exercise.
It's as if somewhere in the brain there is a silhouette of what it thinks we should look like, and the brain works to maintain that shape. That's not how it is, but as if. There is a gradual increase and excess of calories, however, that allows for the slow modification, adaptation of that image, so that slow fat gain can be sustained, whereas sudden change is more easily reversed. It's really a function of insulin -- but insulin is subject to homeostasis, even if an unhealthy one.
Undoubtedly meditation, visualization, affirmations can hack in as it were and edit that image, allowing for successful weight loss where a merely thermodynamic approach will fail. We can say will fail, because that's what the mechanistic studies show -- treating fat loss as a mere equation of positive or negative energy balance results in failure. The homeostatic silhouette gauge makes adjustments -- faster heartrate, more spontaneous movement, nervous energy, body temperature fluctuation, manipulation of appetite and cravings -- anything to waste or conserve energy, calories, fat. We know the mind-body relationship is controlled but not ordained by hormones -- the way a puppet is controlled by stings ... it goes beyond the strings. Point is, thinking matters.
The diet and exercise paradigm, to which every sensible person must be attracted, seems to be wrong. You'll have to look at your own life experience to see if it has worked. It's not a simple equation, energy in, energy out. If the body were a closed system, that idea would work. But it's not a closed system. There's leakage. It's not energy in, which is either stored or burned for purposeful metabolic functions. Such functions can be quantified, as body heat or lifting or locomotion or breathing or heartbeat or shivering. These are purposeful, and because of that they are predictable, quantifiable, and variables of an equation. The silhouette gauge is a randomizer, in that insulin may be set too high -- making you too fat. Why? Who knows. Aside from too many industrial carbs that is.
Think of the body as a steam engine, in an old fashioned train. A heap of coal, a furnace, and a way to get work done. Easy. Straightforward math, whatever the details. But then there's the whistle. The safety valves, that keep the boiler from exploding. It confounds things. Some people are always blowing their whistle. A lot of wasted steam. Keeps them lean. Some people let the pressure build until it's dangerous. Not on purpose -- it's just how the thing is built. Some engine cabs just keep filling up with coal, that doesn't get burned -- or the firebox has a problem, and the coal builds up there. You get the idea. Not an elegant analogy, but you can play with it yourself.
The point is that the calculations can't be valid if the system is not closed. How can people eat less and still be fat? First, metabolism is not even a steam engine, but rather a hybrid motor, that uses different fuels in a pattern we haven't recognized yet. Then, well, the system is not closed. What goes in? Calories? How meaningful is that? Something burned in a crucible is supposed to translate one-to-one into metabolism? Isn't that actually sort of an insane assumption? And once we have digested these "calories", they can be used only according to the mechanistic expectations of thermodynamics? We're all for thermodynamics. For mechanistic systems. The fact that fat people can eat less and exercise more than lean people confounds the issue, though, wouldn't you agree?
There's an engineer at the switch, and he operates according to rules that you don't find in elementary physics textbooks. He decides wheel speed and burn rates and heat and pressure and noise. He doesn't like to be starved, and he works at his own pace. How do you make him happy? Feed him right, and have a conversation.
That's all. That's all for now. Complex, and simple. Diet and exercise. We eat right for health. We exercise for fitness. Both matter, a lot. Food makes our bodies, and we use our bodies to do the things that life is about. Energy and movement. Diet and exercise. That's it.
Be excellent.
Here: CrossFitBurbank.com
CrossFit Burbank
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