P-Factor™!

P-Factor™ is the willingness, the eagerness with which we give ourselves Permission to PHail. It's the excuses, the compromises, the deals we make in our secret hearts, the calculations and the little stories we tell ourselves that allow us to save our energy for some hypothetical future all-out effort instead of using it now when it matters. So that the all-out effort never really comes. How cunning. Such a relief. Because that would be hard. And exercise is all about looking good.

So there they are, the dudes, chatting in the gym, pairs and trios mostly, getting ready to get to it! Any time now. Oh, there one goes! Ah, curls. Excellent. Pump those bi's, gee. Cranking away, eeek eeek eeek like a rusty hinge. "Ungh, ungh, ungh," he says, a painful expression distorting his glossy countenance. And now after a suitable rest it's something with a bar and some weight held over his head at a strange angle, arms akimbo. "Ooomp." It impresses us as being very scientific.

Indeed, the gymrat bodybuilders, per their muscleman mags, know all about intensity -- the way they know about silkworm farming: as a theory. No need at all for any P-Factor™ here. There's no intention of achieving even the slightest amount of grueling effort, which is what P-Factor™ gets us out of. They do get a thimbleful of benefit from the facemaking they practice, which over a long enough time will amount to a bucketful of effort. Good for them. But they're not serious. Because emotion isn't what makes us serious. Effectiveness is. It's what you do.

The most effective thing is intensity. Saving nothing. Doing it now. The enemy of intensity is P-Factor™. It has to do with mental toughness. You don't get it by wanting it. You get it by building it, through consistent training and by continuing self-examination to find the weakling in your mental closet so you can slap h/im/er until s/he stops making excuses. Easy to say, hard to do. Because a lot of the time the weakling isn't in the closet. S/he's out front offering you bon bons. But no excuses. Dogs need to be trained. You do it by consistency and clear expectations.

We call it P-Factor™. P as in permission. Permission to Phail. As if we needed Permission.

Yes, P-Factor™ is trademarked, the way you can patent a gene. As for how to overcome it totally, why there's just one thing you need! Our new, exclusively revised and updated INFINITE DINOSAURS PROGRAM™, available now for a LIMITED TIME ONLY from our luxurious corporate office complex located in EXOTIC Las Vegas, Nevada, at the low low price of only $399.99! That's right! INFINITE DINOSAURS™!!! -- over 127 elegant spiral bound pages with several professionally-drawn TWO-COLOR illustrations of almost virtually everything you need to achieve the new new you you knew you knew you always knew you wanted to be! INFINITE DINOSAURS™!!!! Sent direct to YOU by first class mail via the United States Postal Service of AMERICA! No APOs. Hurry! Get that P-Factor™ OUT of your face!!!!! You might expect to pay thousands of dollars for the VALUABLE secrets contained in just one paragraph of this priceless INFINITE DINOSAURS PROGRAM™!! So act now before this limited one-time offer expires forever! Rush cash or money order for the amazing INFINITE DINOSAURS PROGRAM™ to: FabulousOneTimeChance, TRLR 11, Mobile Haven, Rural Route 29, Henderson, NV, 89009. Don't wait!!! Act now!!! You CANNOT afford not to!!!  P-Factor™ is everywhere!!! INFINITE DINOSAURS™!!!!!!! ***>>>>>SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!!!!<<<<<**** Do it NOW!!!!

*ahem*

Yes. Well. Uh, pardon. How did that happen? Too much television? You see, though, the danger of too much hype. There is no magic, other than the psychological kind. People do sometimes win the lottery. Hurray for them. The rest of us earn what we have. And we don't appreciate being lied to, or hearing phony promises. You know it, girlfriend. Infinite Dinosaurs™, nor acai berries, nor any other uberproduct will burn the calories or add the muscle for you. To get it, you earn it. Either the hard way, which is inefficient and unnecessarily unpleasant -- or the less-hard way, which is efficient and necessarily unpleasant.

Not a very good sales pitch, eh? But it's not about hype. Honesty. Sorry, if you were hoping to be lied to. Look up your ex, for that. What you really want is effective exercise, safety and results. It takes reasonable work. Interested? If not, well, uh, could it be P-Factor™? (And no, it's not trademarked ... or is it?)

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank



*Allow eight to ten months for delivery. Not responsible for lost or stolen items. Guarantee valid only until December 31, 1997.

Kiai!

This one is laughable, several times. This one is sad, yet beautiful.  This one is just silly. This one is a study in foolishness. An even bigger fool (starting at :20). Here's why (and from another angle). Deeply disturbing.

It's entirely possible that pressure points can do odd things. We've all hit our funnybones, and that proves something. It's remotely possible that there is some actual but immeasurable force that might be transmitted without recourse to the physical universe. It's certain that we have not seen it here. Those of us who have seen the name-it-and-claim-it hairdoo preachers on TV will recognize the falling bodies. Emotion and fraud. Satan loves religion.

That an old man should delude himself is pitiable. That his "blackbelt" disciples, steeped in Hongywood acrobatics, should collude or fall prey to the delusion is shameful. That some MMA fighter should beat up this foolish old man is just the way of the world. Harsh lessons may or may not be necessary, but the world is full of them, regardless. So we'll comfort ourselves by supposing they're necessary.

Let's look for the lessons, and learn them, before we end up crumpled on the floor, bleeding, in shock, and mortified. Let's not be fools. Let's test all things, and hold fast to that which is true.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Fuel to the Fire

A fit individual can maintain a constant healthy bodyweight for an entire adult lifetime. The body finds its weight according to its activity level, and the diet adjusts itself to that via appetite. If there is less exercise, five extra pounds of useless weight may be gained, from storing more than is used. But it levels off. There is a lag time, then. But there is self-regulation.

Getting fat, very fat, should be no easier than getting very muscular. Both are functions of hormones and metabolism. Eating by itself won't do either. Neither will moving or not moving. There is a range that normal individuals have, within which they will gain or lose weight. After that, it takes exceptional effort or circumstances, or a profound genetic or hormonal disruption.

To get muscular, amino acids and glucose must be directed within muscle cells, guided by hormones. To get fat, free fatty acids and glycogen must be localized within fat cells. It is not the presence of amino acids or FFAs that dictate this. It isn't the presence of insulin per se. It is the receptivity of cells and the prevalence of hormones. A muscle cell takes in raw materials not because they are in the bloodsteam, but because its receptors have been activated or sensitized. Exercising a muscle does that. Then, if sufficient nutrients and the proper hormones, testosterone, HGH, etc, are in the bloodstream, muscle growth will occur. Same deal with fat. An excess of glycerol and insulin, in a generally insulin-resistant body, will result in the pervading corpulence of the current American population.

It isn't about excess calories anymore than being muscular would be. It's about the type of nutrients and the hormonal reactions. Some people are born to be powerful, some to be fat. The rest of us have to work at it, or fall into it by habits of lifestyle. It's not a moral statement. Only choices can be judged by moral standards. We might say, informed choices. That's why there is the Old Testament concept of unwitting sin -- it is treated differently by God. The harm is done, but the guilt is less. Those who are congenitally muscular may be proud, as those who are fat may feel shame or guilt. But not all blessings are earned, nor curses. The universe, like metabolism, is hormonal. There is balance, within a range.

Because muscle is made of protein, and fat is made of, uh, fat, people generally assume there is a cause and effect relationship. But perhaps we've seen the dudes with the protein powders straining away in the gym trying to bulk up those guns. Some of them do. But they usually look, to an informed eye, sort of puffy and soft, and always malproportioned. Unwitting sin. It's the opposite with the fatties. They think fewer calories rather than more grunting will do it. Yes, it will, sort of for a while, until they start eating again in the way they think is normal. But it's not, none of it, about calories, anymore than heat is about fuel. There's a lot of fuel in the world. Why isn't the world on fire?

Some of the work, you just have to do. Sometimes there's no help but what you give yourself. Sometimes there's help.

Here we are.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

The Good with the Bad

Meat, including red meat, or bacon, or lard, seems -- according to actual evidence, rather than the common bias that plagues dogmatic but non-evidentiary medical belief -- to play no role in creating heart disease. It may in fact mitigate against it, in that it promotes good cholesterol and inhibits bad.

That's a very VERY challenging statement. Consult then G. Taubes, in his meticulously documented "Good Calories, Bad Calories," pp. 168-169:

"The observation that monounsaturated fats both lower [bad] LDL cholesterol and raise [good] HDL also came with an ironic twist: the principal fat in red meat, eggs, and bacon is not saturated fat, but the very same monounsaturated fat as in olive oil. The implications are almost impossible to believe after three decades of public-health recommendations suggesting that any red meat consumed should at least be lean, with any excess fat removed.

"Consider a porterhouse steak with a quarter-inch layer of fat. After broiling, this steak will reduce to almost equal parts fat and protein. Fifty-one percent of the fat is monounsaturated, of which 90 percent is oleic acid. Saturated fat constitutes 45 percent of the total fat, but a third of that is stearic acid, which will increase HDL cholesterol while having no effect on LDL. (Stearic acid is metabolized in the body to oleic acid....) The remaining 4 percent of the fat is polyunsaturated, which lowers LDL cholesterol but has no meaningful effect on HDL. In sum, perhaps as much as 70 percent of the fat content of a porterhouse steak will improve the relative levels of LDL and HDL cholesterol, compared with what they would be if carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, or pasta were consumed. The remaining 30 percent will raise LDL cholesterol but will also raise HDL cholesterol and will have an insignificant effect, if any, on the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL. All of this suggests that eating a porterhouse steak in lieu of bread or potatoes would actually reduce heart-disease risk, although virtually no nutritional authority will say so publicly. The same is true for lard and bacon."

The lesson is not that meat is good, but that refined carbs are bad. Didn't we already know that? From a heart disease perspective, meat is the lesser evil. And it's not the meat anyway, but the fat. Meanwhile carbs, refined carbs, industrial carbs, appear to be the single major factor in creating heart disease, diabetes, obesity -- Syndrome X. Sounds like bad news for vegetarians, eh?

Indeed it is. Bad news for some vegetarians. The muffin vegetarians. The unthoughtful ones. The PETA freaks. The fanatics. But not for those vegetarians who are about health. Because in terms of nutrition,  responsible people don’t use refined carbs in meaningful amounts. It’s not that meat is good and veggies are bad. It’s that meat, with its mitigating role in disease, should be irrelevant, since those diseases shouldn’t be a problem, and wouldn’t be, given a sensible, plant-based diet.

Of course there are problems with an imbalanced and foolish carb diet. Huge problems, of plague proportions. But if those problems were solved, as they easily could be, by using unprocessed plant nutrients, then what would the major problem with its major diseases be? Per The China Study, meat, and its putrefaction and its autoimmune diseases.

See? Diet is the most important common factor in health. Exercise is about fitness. There is significant crossover between these two distinct areas, but the areas are distinct. It's all very Confucian. You know ... the Rectification of Names. Truth starts by calling a thing what it is.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Economics According Two Cows

Versions of this have been around for 80 years. Why, that's even before the Internets! It can get a lot more complicated, but here are the essentials.

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Feudalism: You have two cows. The lord takes some of the milk and all the cream.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Direct Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to decide who gets the milk.

Democracy, Democrat-style: You have two cows.  Your neighbor has none.  You feel guilty. You elect politicians who raise your taxes, which forces you to sell one cow. The cow is given to a homeless man. The cow has a calf out-of-wedlock; the calf drops out of school and runs away with buffaloes. You feel like a good person.

Democracy, Republican-style: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You move to a better neighborhood.

Singaporean Democracy: You have two cows. The government canes you for keeping unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.

Indian Democracy: You have two cows. You worship them.

Theoretical Socialism: You have two cows. The government makes you share them with your neighbors.

Actual Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor, a chicken farmer. You have to take care of chickens. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as its regulations say a vegetarian should need. You are not vegetarian.

South American Socialism: You have two cows. The government won’t license them. After taking bribes, it regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows. Then it burns your village and you are drafted.

Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned. You are tortured.

Soviet Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You stand in line all day, in the rain, for sour milk. Your neighbor denounces you for complaining and you are sent to a gulag. You write a brilliant novel about those 30 years. It is banned.

Chinese Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them, sells them to WalMart, buys US Treasury bonds, builds up its blue water navy and takes over the world.

Italian Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

German Fascism: You have two cows. The government shoots your neighbor and takes his cows.

Anarchy: You have two cows. Your neighbor shoots you and takes the cows.

Khmer Rouge Communism: You have two cows. The Government shoots you and the cows and your neighbors.

PC Multiculturalism: You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of the phallocentric, militaristic, intolerant past) two differently-abled (but no less valuable to the community) bovines of non-specified but similar gender. The government regulates you from exploiting them. The bovines get married as required by the Constitution and adopt a veal calf.

Obamaism: You have two cows. You are taxed for being a millionaire or billionaire.  The cows are given mandatory healthcare. Sea-level is carefully monitored. You lose your job.

Counterculturalism: Wow, dude, there’s like . . . these two cows, man. You have got to have some of this milk.

Surrealism: You have three giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

CrossFitism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull, resulting in the birth of a calf. You carry the calf everyday until it is a bull. You are the strongest human being alive. Milk? Milk is not Paleo. Government? You take care of yourself -- it's called "fitness," baby.

----

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com


FW
CrossFit Burbank

Getting Fit

It's not AEROBICS: low-grade arm-flapping and slow slog-jogging. If you train, the purpose should be to go faster, longer, stronger -- not plodding, for however long. Get there fast, able to carry more than just body fat. Sometimes life requires that you carry objects, while you’re running away ... you know, like a baby.

It's not BODYBUILDING: bigger but not meaningfully stronger or more functional -- sort of puffy. If you train weights, you should be more powerful, harder and leaner for men, more shapely and toned for women. Thor, and the 300 -- not Arnold and Sylvester; Linda Hamilton, not Mae West.

Male or female, being a HERO requires more than just wanting it, more than having a heroic character. It means actually being able to do heroic things. If you run into a burning building to rescue an imperiled puppy, you’ve got to be able to actually save it. Otherwise you’re a heroic victim. Nice try. Bad outcome. We’ll send flowers. But all you would have had to do to succeed, was to prepare. Train.

So, going slow for a long time, or being bloated with sodden muscle tissue, well, there is a better way.  We do constantly varied, functional movements at high intensity.  We train to be good at the broadest spectrum of physical skills, using real-world, multi-joint movements. Not isolated -- integrated. We treat the body not like a bag full of hinges, eek eek eek, but like a spring -- every part is involved in getting the job done. You know, functional. Athletic.

Intensity is why some folks just don’t want to do CrossFit. It’s not as easy as sitting on a bench pumping those guns. Intensity requires some unpleasantness. It’s worth it, because intensity is the reason exercise gets results. Has to do with hormones. Look into it.  

Or not. But maybe yes? Because quality matters, and time runs out.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW

CrossFit Burbank

More on the Bottom Line

The metabolism of fat people seems to run as fast or faster than that of lean people. This observation is repeatedly confirmed. So much for the "slow metabolism" theory. They burn faster. Seems hard to believe. Afer all, fat insulates. They need to make less, not more body heat. But the energy they're burning need not be for heat. Maybe it's just expended in moving all those extra pounds around. Even so, it's counterintuitive. Why can't it just be simple.

If on average they expend more energy, they must eat more. But they don't. So let's see: they eat about the same, they expend more energy, and they save more energy as fat? A conundrum. A thermodynamic paradox. But we've already looked at the idea that it's not a closed system. There's leakage. There's seepage as well. More energy is getting into the system than we think.

The answer is to be found in feces! Perhaps. Gram for gram, could the stool of a fat person burn cooler than that of a lean person? It's not that the obese are eating more. It's that they're absorbing more. The lean are wasting calories, by not getting them into the bloodsteam to begin with. If calories remain in the digestive tract only, then they would show up in the self-same crucible that determines the caloric value of food. It's just a hypothesis.

We know that not all calories need be absorbed, because there can be sugar in urine, and stool can be oily under certain diets -- of very much oil. That oil would burn bright in the camp fire. An unpleasant subject? We are adults, here. How much protein is to be found, in feces? How many carbs? How much fat? And comparatively, between the obese and lean? Or is digestion generally an entirely efficient process? We would hope so, but is it?

The presumption is that if a lean or a fat man eats, say 2500 calories a day, that's what will end up in their bloodstream. But there must be seepage. More is seeping in, for the obese. Must be, because they eat the same, expend more, and save more. Or, from a different perspective, the lean leak more. They absorb the same, but waste it as fidgeting or body heat or libido or thinking. Either way, the lean seem to be less efficient. Somehow that doesn't seem like a bad thing, given the alternative. But if there were a way to harness this supposed waste, toward athletic excellence -- wouldn't that be swell.

Heat, again. We measure basal metabolism by measuring how much oxygen is used. That tells us combustion, which tells us about calories. What it does not tell us about is how the energy was actually exploited. If there are the same amount of calories in the bloodstream -- excluding the confounding factor of digestive absorption -- and if the same oxidation rates are found in the fat and the lean, showing equal energy usage, then it's a matter of how that energy is wasted, and more importantly, how it is used. It shouldn't be heat, calories, that we measure. There should be a unit of measurement for vitality.

As has been noted, the gut is a brain -- there are as many neurons associated with digestion as there are with the cranium. Further, there is only one nerve connecting the two -- the vagus nerve, the severing of which seems not to interfere with digestion. Hm. LLut us then propose, informally -- and don't let this get back to our professional colleagues in the, uh, Digestive Sciences and Extraordinary Fitness Department at Übermensch U -- that the gut itself has a homeostatic mechanism, whereby overall bodyfat is regulated. The gut knows where the gauge is set, and maintains that level by digesting and absorbing, or passing through calories, undigested.

Guessing and speculation is one thing. Effectiveness is something else. What matters is what works. You lose excess bodyfat by cutting way down on the industrial carbs -- low nutrient, high calorie starches. Just say no. You gain muscle mass, strength and beauty, by exercising effectively.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Hot Calories, Cool Calories

Vegetarians burn hotter than meat-eaters, per The China Study. These skinny Chinese daily eat over 3000 calories and are, well, skinny. Where does it go? Body heat.

That is a bother. Heat is bad. You know that because heat is bad for your car engine. How could it be good for us? It is certainly bad for athletic performance. So is a veg diet bad for exercise? Yes. A grain diet, high carb even unrefined, is not ideal. This seems clear on theoretical grounds.

In terms of performance, reliable anecdotal evidence indicates that endurance seems a bit less on the raw-vegan-no-oils-or-supplements diet. Never argue with reality. It's not unexpected. First, such a diet is too theoretical -- too pure and idealistic. That's not how reality seems to work. Reality is about reality.

Just as different types of fuel combust differently in an engine, producing more or less heat, more or less power -- that's how it is with carbs and fats. When you have almost only carbs, glucose, to burn, it burns instantly, too much heat for the power. Fat burns cooler, more controlled, with more energy available for movement, if there is movement. We know this is so because fat generates almost no heat in its digestion -- whereas carbs and protein make a lot more thermogenesis. If fat is not utilized, it just circulates, or it gets stored as, uh, fat -- as will glucose too, if it's not used. Glucose doesn't store. If it's not burned it gets changed into glycogen or triglycerides. Think of glucose as flash and fat as glow -- one all intense and mistimed, too much expended all at once, and the other steady, cool, reliable.

Glucose is designed to be brain and organ food. It shouldn't be the primary energy source for muscles. So, that it is less efficient in muscles makes sense. Athleticism is about efficiency. Athletes are better at using fat as energy than are non-athletes. Metabolism is trained too, you see. Fat is designed to be muscle food. If you do extraordinary feats, you need an extraordinary diet. Carbs may be great for treks across the Kalahari, or working all day in the fields, but that's not athletics.

Well, that's the whole point of it. Athletics is about physical excellence. It's more than an appearance, although it has an appearance. Train for excellence -- by way of diet and exercise.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Do you...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Weakness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nevertheless, be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Wax Man

No, this time he's just gone too far.

That NY pol, noted of late for the unsolicited tweeting of marital photos to co-eds.  That in itself seems beyond the Pale, but, hey, guys are guys, right? Sort of kind of immature, flashing one's self around like that, but it's a confusing age, is all that we can say. 

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

Doubt it? Object lessons:

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

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW

CrossFit Burbank