Everything There Is to Know about Diet, Part One

It's not as much as one might suppose. Let's see. History, functioning, and common sense/ethics.

What is the ideal human diet. That's a history question, depending on whether we were Created by God Almighty, Divine Protoprogenitor ,  or Evolved through Random Chance from Primordial Slime which Itself Appeared from Virtual Potentialities for No Reason. That's the philosophical heart of the matter. Did we Evolve via Naturally Selected Haphazard Mutations, that whatever nutrients were available were what we adapted ourselves solipsistically  to need? -- and what wasn't available we Evolved out of a need for? Or were we Designed, as by some God, Superlative Architect of the Cosmos, to need whatever it is we need -- and sometimes we get that and sometimes we don't, but it's a fixed need, with only a fixed, genetically-determined capacity for variability?

If Evolved, then the "Paleolithic Diet" is correct or nearly so -- determined by observations of what modern but tribal, hunter-gatherer societies have access to. Because modern stone age cultures would be reasonably similar to ancient ones --  ignoring any ice ages or other actual millennia-long climate disruptions -- and from such cultures we would have Evolved. If it's true, it's true. Never argue with what's true. Is it? If so, what is the evidence, for this dietary theory? The evidence is  the fact that modernday hunter-gather cultures eat as they do. In other words, the argument begs the question, and the reasoning is circular.

Well there's hardly any other option.  What, God!? -- in a Garden!?!  LOL. We are far to sophisticated and scientifical to believe in that sort of hokus pokus.  Really.  Please.   Space aliens then -- much more logical  -- genetically manipulating us in a lab on the mother ship from behind the moon?  But, har dee har.  Um, breaking through from some other universe or dimension, uh, and somehow, er ... well, that one's not going anywhere.

Upshot is, origins are irrelevant. Philosophy is irrelevant.  Results matter, which are dependent on behavior.  But if there were an ideal diet that was meant to sustain the species, we might feel, from our modern bias and custom, that it was not a hunter-gatherer diet, of grubs and beetles, tapir, sloth and shrew --  nor was it an agricultural one of powdered grains. Something else, entirely.

If we suppose there are rules -- sort of the opposite of randomness -- that, say, the space aliens embedded in our genome, Rule One might be thus: "I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food." Things that grow on the ground and have seeds; things that grow in trees and have seeds. Cucumbers; tomatoes; squash -- herbs that have seeds ... they are fruits.

Rule Two: "You may freely eat of every tree, but there is some type that will kill you." So we have free will, regarding what we may eat -- but not everything that may be eaten, should be eaten. Diet affects our health. You heard it here first.

If there are rules  as from a rule book, then human food would be tree food and  ground food, with seeds. As it were, fruit. Coincidentally, fruit and berries and less obvious fruits are purposed, unlike virtually every other food, to be eaten. That's the deal the plant makes: you can eat my fruit if/because you spread my seeds. Pretty clever, eh?

Leaves are meant to convert sunlight into sugar, and may be eaten. Vegetables are meant to be the body of a plant, and may be eaten. Roots are meant to pull up water and minerals, and may be eaten. Tubers are meant to store energy for the plant, and may be eaten. Grains/seeds/nuts are meant to grow into another plant, and may be eaten. Flesh is meant to be the body of an animal, and may be eaten. Eggs and milk ... well, you know.  Contrariwise, the purpose of fruit is to be food.

Cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, pumpkins, lychee nuts, dates, chili peppers, nuts -- they are fruit. Apples? Alas. We have the same needs as always, but not the same resources nor even the same world.  We do not after all live in a garden.  Apples nowadays, as with so many commercially grown foods, are hybridized for flavor and appearance and shelf-life, not for nutritional content.

And behold, Rule Three: "You shall eat the herb of the field." Thus, the invention of agriculture. The orchard-tender, or again the berry-eating shrew-like scampering underbrush creature, becomes a farmer.  Still plant-based, but second-best. as we knew  anyway: too many carbs/grains will make you fat.

In a harsh and uncooperative world, sadly, essential nutritional resources become rare or extinct. There have been mass extinctions.  There are droughts and floods and blights, and global warmings and coolings.  Thus, Rule Four: "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. You are given all creatures, even as the green herbs."

What to eat, during an Ice Age or its searing hardpan Global Warming counterpart, or your short-term merely decades long deforestation events like lava floes and catastrophic floods? Eat animals, which can scavenge on debris and carrion.  Point is, we eat meat because we can, especially in the absence of something better. And some better things are certainly absent, cf mass-extinctions. Who can say what nutritionally superb fruits and herbs and seeds and fungi are now extinct. Who can say how much longer we'd live, with vibrant health, if these lost but essential nutrients were not extinct.

Maybe we came from apes and shrews and lizards and fish and germs and inorganic matter that was stuck by lightning. Sounds like a theory.  Maybe we came from dust and the breath of God, another theory.  No matter.  What matters is what works.

No matter if it;s a hunter-gatherer diet of grubs and sap and roots and reptiles and monkeys and bark and mold and algae and salamanders over hundreds of  thousand or millions of years, or a human diet of fruits and berries and herbs and agriculture.  Upshot is, there be an ideal human diet, optimal for health and performance. Diet can be optimized within existing if irreparable limits.

It's not about dogma.  It's pragmatism.  What works?  Do that thing.  Thus, CrossFit -- highly eclectic, completely practical, in theory devoid of theory, although, as people we do love our answers.  There is a CrossFit for diet, an optimal set of behaviors, hard perhaps to identify, and changing perhaps over time, but identifiable with experience and diligence.  Paleo, or vegan, or Intermitant Fasting, or some other thing or combination.  Be bold and resolute, and maybe and maybe not bloody.

Rough and ready definition of CrossFit: constantly varied functional movements at high intensity.   Works with nutrition as well: a wide variety of calorie-poor/nutrient-dense foods of high quality.  So there it is.  Serious people are serious.  Well?

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

An Ever-Expanding P-Factor List

I'm:

• hot
• digesting / hungry
• sore / sick / tired
• not focused / not there / not feeling it
• annoyed / distracted
• depressed
• weak
• old
• consumed with self-loathing and want to look bad
• very complicated, conflicted & contradictory
• dizzy / nauseous
• pregnant, I think
• pacing myself to the music
• not fully recovered from last time
• not being yelled at /  not being watched
• worthless / fantastic / good enough
• just doing a maintenance workout
• doing really well / working hard enough
• not going to be first anyway
• saving it for a strong finish
• working tomorrow
• me.

Long list. Good excuses, all of them. All excuses are automatically good, if they excuse us. Our motives would need to be a little murky, a little confused or conflicted, but that's just part of being human. Oh, there's another one. I'm only human.

What we will not be, if we excuse ourselves so easily, is excellent.  P-factor is all the reasons, the excuses, the lies we use to stop us from doing our best. It's the Permission to PHail PHactor. Not a good thing, in the long run.

The antidote to p-factor is honesty.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Industrial Carbs

If chronically elevated insulin levels have an almost one to one correlation to excess body fat, how do we account for thin diabetics? You can look at someone and know the state of their pancreatic activity by the size of their gut. Insulin is a storage hormone -- the storage hormone -- and the more you make of it, the more you are storing. That’s why it’s an imbalance. So how can there be thin prediabetics. The answer is  that despite the imbalance, they’ve found some sort of homeostasis in cells that are disproportionately insensitive to insulin.  Understand, without any insulin at all, diabetics would starve to death no matter how much they ate.

Consider the mechanism that allows starving people to digest all their muscle tissue, until they get to the heart, at which point the heart is catabolized, and they die -- all the while retaining body fat. They can starve to death and still be obese. Emaciated and fat, at the same time. Clearly the adipose tissue is morbidly, fatally dysfunctional. It has to do with pathologically raised insulin, that stands guard, as it were, outside a fat cell and forces free fatty acids back into the cell rather than allow them into the bloodstream.

The problem boils down to carbs. Not a great word, at all, carbs. Food is carbs. Carbohydrates are the ultimate source of all nutrients. Yeah yeah, sun and soil, but no, plants, and thence to animals. Common usage has determined that carbs refers to refined carbs, sugars and starches. And these are, indeed, the problem. A potato isn’t the problem. But potato chips and pasta and flour and white rice and grain flakes disguised as breakfast and coated with sucrose and fructose and syrup -- well, it’s a bit much. All of it comes from the factory. That’s the problem. Glucose shouldn’t be industrial strength.

Low cholesterol is  more a function of carb metabolism than of fat intake. Same with triglycerides. There are tests that directly measure insulin levels. A HOMA test.  An hsCRP test, for inflammation. An HbA1c test.  But it's easy to know.  Eyeball it. Visible body fat is a profound indicator of raised insulin.  Lower the industrial carbs and you liberate the trapped fat, that escapes into the bloostream, to be used by muscles.  See?  Carbs, bad carbs, industrial carbs are, well, they're not excellent.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Recovery Drink

For any endurance workout, or where there's been a lot of sweating, it is just necessary to replace not only the water you've lost, but the, yes, nutrients in that sweat.  One of our totally awesome and superamazing FitWorks athletes has been known to sweat fourteen pounds in a few hours of striving - all of which needs to be replaced during and within a few hours after the workout.  Proper nutrition will handle the oxidative stress, the free radicals and metabolites that vigorous exercise produces. But sweating isn't quite the same as metabolism. It's almost mechanical.

Sweat, the actual fluid, comes not from some big bag, some sac secreted away deep within the bowels. It comes from blood volume. Your blood becomes thicker, as in a heart attack waiting to happen, when you sweat excessively without replacing the fluid. That's why Gatorade™ is a billion dollar company, if it is.

But Gatorade™, while sound in concept, is flawed in execution. Chemicalized sugar syrup? How is that better than drinking ditch water? Quality control should include something more than the exclusion of rat feces. For this reason, make your own recovery drink. The research is out there. In fact, it's right here. So, a simple formula for a homemade 4 to 6 serving recovery drink:

One gallon water
250 gms carbs (1000 calories)
60 g protein (250 calories)
5 g each of:
   • potassium
   • magnesium
   • salt
   • creatine
   • glutamine
   • vitamin C & E
   • ALA (alpha lipoic acid)
   • for Paleo faddists: blood, fresh, to taste.

Tap water? Sure -- or purified, better. Carbs? Say, frozen fruit juice concentrate -- the whole can, usually more than a thousand calories, but who's counting. Get real juice, not the favored sugarwater "fruit drink". Quality matters, after all. (If you've got any jiggle that you don't want, cut back on the carbs -- in the recovery drink their purpose is to raise insulin, which will usher the nutrients into cells; skin fat indicates high insulin already.)  Protein powder. Which kind? Any will do, but pea protein is actually rather harmonious. To be even more thorough, adding branch-chained amino acid powder is a good idea. As for the 5-gram ingredients, they can be found as powders, which is a lot easier than grinding up pills or hoping a mixer will sufficiently disintegrate them. So experience shows.

This particular formula is for during the workout, with the pre- or post-workout drinks being twice as concentrated. Rather too sweet for some palates. Really, it hardly matters. It's not about being theoretically perfect. It's about being reasonably responsible.

For a during-workout drink, use a half-full a liter bottle, or bigger, and put it on its side in the freezer. When it's slushy, shake it up so that when it freezes solid it won't be all separated. When it's time to get dangerous, fill up the rest with the drink, and it should still be icy by the time you're about done with it. Icy, because heat is the enemy, and cooling the core lets you exercise more. Get rid of the heat any way you can.

There it is. Just another way to be responsible.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Burn

The wind blows, clouds flow, rain falls, sunshine, moonlight, wind, rain, hot, cold. We blink through it like coming out of solitary confinement, or stare it down like a mad dog, or find a hand to hold and stand side by side, for a moment or through the decades.

Yes, time is a fire. We don't want to put it out or slow it down though -- time is what life is made of. We burn through it, understanding there will be pain, and scars. There are caresses and embraces and quiet smiles and rollicking laughter and the swelling of our hearts with love and pride and tenderness. So it's more than worth it, the pain, if we do it right. Wait long enough and everything is calm.  Meantime, and all the while, we live in our bodies.

More pearls from the clam of ancient wisdom.

Be excellent.

FW
CrossFit Burbank

A Very Boring List of Overtraining Symptoms

• Morning pulse higher by five or more beats per minute
• Abnormal rise in heart rate upon standing, or pre- or post-workout
• Slower heartrate recovery after workout
• Poor posture, slouching
• Loss of drive or joy; apathy
• Lethargy, listlessness, boredom
• Desire to quit during competition
• Peevishness; anxious; easily irritated
• Unable to relax
• Inability to concentrate
• Changes in sleeping patterns; insomnia
• Unrefreshing sleep
• Loss of appetite / libido
• Poor coordination, clumsiness
• Increased thirst
• Dejected, drawn look, sallow, gaunt
• Prolonged sluggishness, heavy-legs
• Undesired weightloss
• Muscle or joint pain
• Persistent and increasing soreness
• Slow healing of minor scratches
• Lymph node swelling
• Gastrointestinal disturbances, diarrhea
• Increased headache, infection, allergies, injury
• Loss of menstruation
• Increased blood eosinophin count;
• Serial T-wave changes on the electrocardiogram
• Mild hypothalamic, sympathetic and adrenocortical insufficiency

Yes.  Very boring.  BOOOORRRRRIIIIIINNNNGGGGG.  So, uh, let's just ignore it?  Because it is insufficiently amusing?  Our ennui shall keep us safe?  This "responsibility" thing is so tiresome.  Worse than a wod, if such a thing is possible.  We will train unceasingly and progress infinitely beyond mere excellence.  For are we not superhuman?  Of course we are.  Yes.  Yes.  Ahhhhh.

No.  Be responsible.  Be merely excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFitBurbank

The Voices in Your Cells

Maybe there's no better analogy-- ones about the same, but no better -- so let's just go ahead and use it. Think of the food you've just eaten, the available calories, as fluid in a bucket. Let's say the bucket is your bloodstream. All those wet calories, waiting in the bucket of your bloodstream, waiting to be used.

Now let's suppose that the bucket has a bunch of tubes in the bottom, through which the calories are diverted to various tasks. There's a calorie/nutrient tube to the brain for thought, to all the muscles for movement, and tubes for bodyheat and digestion and libido, for the immune system, for growth and repair, for hair, skin and nails. Everything that needs energy has a tube to it. Of course there is a tube to bodyfat as well.

Now let's say that everyday the bucket is filled with 2000, uh, calories, and these calories drain down the various tubes in a predictable and healthy way. Homeostasis. Everything is going along fine. Sure, some calories pour down the adipose, fat tube, constantly filling up those fat cells -- but the fat cells do their job, and drain back into the bucket. Fat cells after all are just a storage system -- not forever, just as a buffer, a pantry.  For a few hours after a meal, there's too much available energy, so the fat cells sop it up, like a sponge, and release it drip by drip back into the bloodstream until the fat cells aren't sopping anymore, just damp.

It's a cycle, a healthy cycle, with adipose tissue expanding and contracting slightly to meet the needs of normal variation. So, uh, like, there's a bucket with tubes, and one of the tubes leads to a sponge that drips back into the bucket. Clear?

Now let's suppose that something goes wrong with the fat tube. The opening gets bigger, and more calories pour down it into the fat sponge. That means there is less energy in the bucket, fewer calories that can go down the other tubes. Because one of the tubes is bigger, the bucket drains faster and gets empty sooner. This means that less energy will have gone down one or some or all of the other tubes.

That's thermodynamics. Because, while more calories are entering the fat sponge, the sponge drips back into the bucket at the same, old, slow rate ... maybe even slower. The sponge gets bigger and wetter, more coming in than leaving. It's a ShamWow™ sponge, that really really holds  that mess! Such a deal! Act now!

Well? That's how obesity seems to happen. It's not that more is being poured into the bucket. You're not necessarily eating more. Calories are not being forced down that fat tube by increased pressure -- they are not forced into fat cells. The tube is bigger -- the propensity to store fat increases, for whatever reason.  (The reason is insulin.)

But now the other systems, via the other tubes, get less energy. They were getting what they needed, and now they are not. So the bucket needs more calories than before. If it got 2000 calories before, of which 200 went down the fat tube, but now 400 calories are, and sticking  -- well, then the rest of the tubes have to deal with a 200 calorie shortage. So appetite increases, as a homeostatic adjustment, and now the calories bump up to 2200. Great. Problem solved.

 Except the fat tube gets bigger again. So you either supply even more calories, or just put up with the shortage. Meantime, the fat tube keeps on shunting away too many calories that are not released, creating a constant shortfall for the other systems. Even if the problem doesn't get worse, 200 necessary calories are being misdirected, and simply hoarded. You are eating the same old amount, always hungry, and getting fatter. Lucky you.

So that's the analogy. Not elegant, not pretty, sort of mixed and casual, but see if you can do better.  It may make you famous on the internet!

What makes the tube bigger? Disrupted hormones, mostly insulin. What disrupts the hormones? Bad carbs, industrial carbs. If you try to fix the calorie shortfall by eating more bad carbs, you just make the fat tube bigger -- you disrupt hormones even more. Meanwhile, ignoring increased appetite, the body has to prioritize, trying to compensate for the missing calories by economizing in other areas.

Thought, movement, heat, digestion, uh, immune system, and all those other things. Libido. Hair. They get less energy. Foggy thinking. Lethargy and fatigue. Feeling cold. Illness. Going bald.  Meantime, the fat cells just hoard the treasure. It's not greed. The Bad Carbs are telling them to. Fat cells are very obedient.

People have so much more power than they think.  We are the gods of our behavior, and lords of the universe within our heads.  We might chose to think of it otherwise, but that means all hope depends on what other people do.  And people who think like that just give up.  So?

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Threshold Nutrition

There is a threshold level for glucose, below which insulin is benevolent. Insulin has a vast host of problems, when it is present as a vast host. It will make you a vast host -- diabetic, heart diseased, obese. But at an optimal glucose level, all its necessary uses will be met -- brain and organ energy, and whatever else. You ate it, so it’s there, at the right level.

Glycerol is the inevitable waste product of glucose metabolism, and has two functions -- as energy, reconverted into glucose, and as the substrate, the glue of blubber-making triglycerides. If there is no excess glucose in the blood, merely sufficient, or optimal, the resulting glycerol will be used as energy, with a minimal but necessary, optimal, amount left over to formulate triglycerides. We do after all need triglycerides. Bodyfat has a purpose too. Just not so much. Tubby. Sheesh. Go for a walk.

Likewise with protein, amino acids. There is an optimal amount, that lies between an upper and a lower threshold. Too little dietary protein and, well, it’s too dang little. Didn’t you know that? Too much and it just gets turned into glucose, in a very wasteful and expensive process. If that’s the case, why not just eat the carbs? You need as much protein as you need. Any more is redundant and, frankly, stupid.

The constant then should be protein, with focus on the essential amino acids. All other necessary amino acids can be synthesized within the body. The general amount of protein you need to eat can be determined from the nitrogen in urine, and the ideal is to achieve a nitrogen equilibrium. The balanced dietary protein level is around five percent of total caloric intake, for averagely active people, which isn't too active. Obviously athletes would need more, since there is more muscle breakdown. Likewise perhaps with those who are sick or under stress or other exceptional circumstances. What should not happen is that amino acids be wasted by being turned into blood sugar.

The next constant should be glucose. It turns out that the brain uses about 20% of the body’s energy. Logically, more than twenty percent of your calories should be from glucose, since there are other needs for bloodsugar. The brain can also use ketone bodies, but that's a backup system. It will always use glucose, even if it has to steal protein from muscles and catabolize it into glucose. Dietary glucose is technically not necessary. Glucose is necessary -- there is a threshold, a lower threshold. Of course, too much glucose is more than a problem. It is the health problem of the modern age. So there is a huge upper threshold -- let’s turn it into a barrier.

Then there’s fat. Essential fats are essential. The only shortage is in omega-3, and that’s easy to remedy. Of course there are poisonous fats, as excessive carbs are poisonous, and as animal proteins can be. Poisonous. Transfats. Too much omega-6. But that’s easy to remedy as well. Generally though there are very real health benefits to other fats -- lauric acid, say, or oleic -- and those that are not specifically beneficial are just neutral sources of energy.

Too many calories are a problem because, aside from potential obesity, they get burned off as body heat, and that process creates free radicals, which are damaging and mutagenic and aging and bad. The body can and does regulate its weight homeostatically. It should have to do that as little as possible. Don’t race your engine.

What then is optimal for the macronutrients? Something over 20% for carbs -- brain plus CNS plus organs. Something equilibrated for protein. These seem very much to be not technically constants, but limited to a range. The independent variable, after a few essential grams, is fat. If you’re trying to lose fat you’ve stored, eat it less, so that what you have will be used rather than crowding your blood, even as free fatty acids. If you don’t have a weight issue, it’s all about health and performance. Where are you putting your energy? Lots of thinking? Eat a bit more glucose -- as good carbs. Lots of exercise? A bit more protein, and more fat to supply the muscles. What you don't want to be doing is wasting your energy with digesting more than you needed in the first place.

We do need some common sense. Some authors tell us about how good an all-meat diet is. Well, hardly anyone is always right. That's why we laugh at clowns. They're so wrong. The rest of us may be wrong, but we're teachable. Be teachable.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Note to Self

Sometimes it's just about reminding people of what's important. With FitWorks, that reminder must focus on fitness. Just think about the word. Fitness. It means "suitable" and "able" and "apt". It means increasing your capacity to get things done. It means being stronger and having more energy and being healthier. It's about turning back the clock, undoing the damage that time and some measure of neglect have caused.

Yes, you know all that. But that's what reminders do -- tell you what you already know. Because training isn't about a set of exercises. If that's all it were, you could go online and find a workout and do it. It wouldn't give you maximal results, but it would give you some results. That's a good thing. But it's not just about information. It's about commitment, and motivation, and encouragement and discouragement. It's about efficiency and effectiveness. It's about getting started, and keeping with it.

That's what real training is about. Yep, it's an investment, if you can't do it alone, and need to hire help. The worker is worthy of his hire. But you're worth it too. It's a matter of what you choose to invest in. It's unlikely that there are many things of more immediate importance than your health, than how you feel and how you function.

That's it then. It's on you. If you get it, about the fact that wanting something is only the start, and then you have to actually get started, then you'll go get it. Intensity is not something to be afraid of. There's a way that it's a pleasure. Not how hard it is -- rather, the demonstration of your excellence, the growth of your toughness, the increase of your ability and your confidence.

There it is. Not a lot of info, this time. Just a reminder. The clock's hands move in only one direction, but you can influence their speed. Not magic -- competence.

Be excellent.


FW
CrossFitBurbank

InfiniDinoPro™!

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I am pleased to endorse your amazing Infinite Dinosaurs Program™! 


Yours Very Truly,

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You CANNOT afford not to fail omitting to neglect THIS offer! Act NOW! You'll be so glad YOU did!

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Pres. and CEO,
InfiniDinoPro Enterprises, LLC

-------

What, you think it's a hard sell? You think the claims are unrealistic and irresponsible? You are not impressed with the rank appeal to celebrity? Right you are. We must be, all of us, too aware of how the world works to fall for such nonsense. Most of us must be.

More reasonable is a philosophy and approach designed to attain every reasonable goal that folks are willing to work for. Not a whole lot of surprise, in a statement like that. All it says is that you get what you earn. It's a sort of justice. The land cries out for justice.

Sensible exercise, sensible diet.

Be excellent.


FW
CrossFit Burbank

Middle Body

We've looked already at the lower body. It does two things: horizontal and vertical movement. It steps and stands, runs and jumps, lunges and squats. Simple. We've looked at the upper body -- it does two things: pushes and pulls. Arms up, arms out, arms down, but pushes and pulls. Overhead press and chinups; pushups and rows; dips and highpulls. That's everything the upper body does. Simple. What's left? The middle body. Torso, trunk, abs, core. It does two things: bends and twists. Exercises for the core? Not as simple as the others.

First, the core is, or should be, involved in all athletic activity. That's the problem with the standard gym routines, the isolation machine mentality of working just a single muscle at a time. Take the fabulous benchpress. Isolates the outward pushing structure. There you are, all relaxed lying on a bench, with just that one part working. Alas, when it comes time to push a Buick, all you've trained is one third of what's necessary. The rest of you was lounging on the bench. So when you're trying to push your 1949 Roadmaster out of the ditch, well, your backside folds out like a sugarplum fairy sprinkling stardust.

You didn't train your body -- you trained only part of it. It's the difference between being integrated, and being disintegrated. The body should be trained not as a bag of hinges (this one moves, that one moves ... whatever) but as a spring (every part of a spring is involved in every movement). Point is, the core should always be engaged. That's why benchpresses are good only in theory, and pushups are good in practice -- you engage your whole body, with pushups.

You can demonstrate this to yourself, thus: compare an overhead press, sitting to standing. You will find that with standing it becomes a whole different experience. No need to elaborate. Discover it for yourself. It's the difference between training-wheels and mountain bikes. It's junior high compared to grad school.

So real, useful, functional exercises take heed of the fact that muscles are related not only to joints and bones, but to the central nervous system and to other muscles. We are not a palm and a collection of fingers. We are a hand, and when need be, a fist. That being said, we still want to focus, not on body parts, but on body functions. Pushing and pulling; standing and stepping; and, here, bending and twisting.

Deadlifts, kettlebell swings, the horrifying burpees -- all are full-body movements which exploit the hip movement that amounts to bending and unbending. What, did you think bending was just curving the spine? Not something you want to do a lot of, with weight. No. Don't.

As for twisting, there's a machine in the gym designed just for that. You sit in it, and grab ahold of a lever or somesuch, and taaaa-wiiiiiist! Really fast, too! Boom boom boom. Now that's a workout! Cuz it works the abdominal obliques, y'see -- that's such a good thing!

*ahem*

Whoever invented that machine should be poked in the eyeball with a stick, while in prison. Aside from any actual damage to the vertebrae, we just know, because it has happened to us, what happens when we lift something heavy, with a twist. Pulled muscles -- not as bad as damaged vertebrae, but bad enough.

Smarter? Sidebends exercise the same muscles, and there's no twisting involved. Situps with elbows to opposite knees hits those muscles, with only natural bodyweight. And so on. These are fine, when done with good form. But some people don't do any of these, or rarely, and still have visible obliques. Why them, and not you? They naturally, unconsciously engage their core when they exercise. So their core is developed. What they do naturally, others have to think about. No worries. Think about it, and then do it.

Isolated middle-body exercises? Crunches paired with back extensions. Sidebends. Alternating situps. Yeah, they're fine, if you think one particular body part should be emphasised over the others. Maybe you have a photo shoot for your Sports Illustrated bikini issue? The cover of Men's Health? The poster of "300"? Sure, go crazy. But for actual functional improvement, so your back doesn't ache so much, so you can lift your nephews without slipping a disk, well, deadlifts and knees-to-elbows will train you, not just parts of you.

Here's the point. Crunches are an isolation exercise, for the abdominal rectus, the abs. Crunches shorten the distance between sternum and pubic bone. Hm. How useful a movement is this? Um, clipping your toenails, and packing yourself into a small box, and, uh, vomiting. Y'see, the actual, functional purpose of the abs is mid-line stabilization, working in close conjunction with the small of the back -- so that you don't flop forward, or backwards, like a broken robot. It's a dynamic tension, an equilibrium thing. You see it when toddlers walk -- they're wobbly in the hips -- their abs and lumbar muscles are learning the job.

This is the core that they talk about. It's the stabilizing girdle of muscle around the midsection, without which there is no athleticism, aside from the sort possessed by, say, wheelchair athletes. How odd. Teenage boys think it's about curls and the benchpress. Adults understand that the lower body is where most of the muscle is. But athletes, whether they're aware of it or not, spend most of their time training their core.

A way to illustrate it is with punching. A child, or someone who's just not into it, hits with their arm, as a sort of push, as if their arm is a club or a spear. The toughguy in the bar winds up and hits with his shoulder behind it, like John Wayne. But the professional, the knowledgeable striker, understands that the real power comes from the twist of his hips. Hips first, then shoulder, and arm. A whipcord progression. The point? Power comes from the hips, which is of course where the middle body begins.

That's it then. Middle body. Not so clear-cut. Almost muddled -- it comes from being centrally located -- a place where the confluence of energies makes it hard to, uh, isolate things. Yes, it's about bending and twisting, and there are exercises that train these functions. But it's about so much more. We think of the starfish as five arms, but those are just appendages. The fish is at the center. That's always were the strength is. Everything else is peripheral.

Well. See what you've learned? Sort of a different perspective, isn't it. It's not about being different, but being effective. Just the tip of the iceberg. It starts with simple effectiveness. Everyone can benefit from not doing useless, unsafe things.

Be excellent.


FW
CrossFitBurbank

Wrong Theories, pt. II

Climbing Higher than Possible

Another wrong theory. The plateau. The dreaded plateau, where you work and work and just don’t make any more progress. How very sad for you. Your body has adapted to some motion, some exercise, and you’re stuck, just can’t break through to a heavier weight, or continued fat-loss. So frustrating. How to fix it? Do more of the same? Try harder? Psych yourself up? Pray? Take a supplement? Have your spotter do more work, all the while saying that it’s “All you!”

Some of it, this limit, is psychological. The 200 benchpress, or 250, or 300. It’s not the weight, it’s the number. Frightening, somehow, and the unconscious mind just won’t let you do it. But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the actual limit to what your body can do with that motion. It’s a real barrier. Lots of theories, not all of which can be correct. How bothersome, all these wrong ideas filling people’s heads. Like the way to overcome the plateau limit.

“Muscle confusion”. Goodness. What a ridiculous concept. It’s just a descriptive term though, and of course there is no brain in the muscles to be confused. Still, it’s a silly phrase. Adaptation is a smarter one. The body has become efficient at executing a movement, say the benchpress, and it’s become more of a skill than a stimulus to muscle growth. This is a bad thing? Only if it’s size, and not effectiveness, that you’re after. Well, either size, or attaining a new goal -- the latter of which is an honorable thing. Even so, for all that adaptation may be an explanation, it’s not a solution to the problem.

We humbly propose another solution to the problem. It’s not that the muscles, the pecs and the triceps, have become as strong as they can be. Far from it. These muscles are not the limiting factor. The limit, the plateau, is in the so-called stabilizing muscles. These neglected "muscles" are not being challenged by that same old foolish motion, executed rep after rep, set after set, day after week after years and years and years. Mercy. Is there nothing else to do with your time, than these same few non-functional movements, mindlessly rehearsed like a pagan bowing before his idol?

It’s not a plateau, it’s a rut. It’s not the big muscles -- they’re getting plenty of work. It’s the auxiliary muscles, the stabilizers -- the unrecruited motor units; they're not getting much of a workout, not even in their supporting role. The big muscles have crowded the auxiliaries out, attempting as it were to take over their function. The trained motor units have reached their capacity, and can't grow any more disproportionately. Well? The benchpress may think it’s a lonewolf hero, but it’s just a player on a team. Everyone needs to play, on a team.

The way out of the rut is indeed to mix things up, do new movements -- give the rest of the body a chance to develop. It should be obvious. It’s only one of the many reasons that constantly varied functional movements must be the core of an effective training program. It’s not an eat-your-vegetables sort of thing, because eating them is somehow theoretically good for you. It’s because vegetables supply the most nutrients; in this same way, doing many varied movements trains the whole body, including the limiting factors, the weakest links, the stabilizers, a full range of motor units within a given muscle. This is what makes the difference between someone who only looks big and strong, and someone who is actually strong, no matter how big.

There's a lot of nonsense in the world. The relative proportion between foolish and wise is probably about the same when it comes to fitness. Perhaps more. Perhaps much more. No matter. We don't know what we don't know we don't know, if we think we know it. Sometimes however we get the chance to correct a wrong notion, or a wrong practice. This is a wonderful thing. We do, after all, live inside our bodies. That's a world where nonsense can make you weak, or unattractive, or old before your time or ill, or worse.

None of us can undo all of the nonsense, because hardly anything is perfect, and of that catagory, none of us fit. No tragedy. The tragedy is not that we aren't perfect, but that excellence is possible, while so much less is the norm. If you'd like to undo some of the decay, you can start with yourself. 

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

A Few Observations

Beautiful:

because caprice is delightful,

and meaning is invented,

and because butterfly wings do not cause chaos;

... and because we have a right to aspire.

Not beautiful:

because choices are responsibilities,

and not all effort is rewarded,

and because, as the twig is bent, so grows the tree,

and because cruelty is so casual.

We all went to high school with this guy.  He thinks function follows form. 

Hm, seems harmless enough ...

... oh.  The danger of taking something to its logical extreme.  Moderation, please. 

You just never can tell.

Gonna mess you up.

Perils abound.

What a complicated world.  Where, where is clarity to be found?  Blown about by opinion is no way to live.  Consult the occupants of the First Circle of Hell, as evidence.  So decide on a few rules, and live by them.  Nothing preachy.  Eat sensibly, to feed your cells.  Exercise sensibly, because the absence of stress is a kind of distress.

Well?  That's what we do here, at FitWorks, CrossFit in Burbank, as you are increasingly becoming aware.  Questions?  Feel free.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

Be excellent.

FW
CrossFit Burbank

What To Eat

We start with common sense. If your grandma wouldn't recognize it as food, it probably isn't. Food, contrary to popular opinion, does not grow in boxes, bags or cans. Its growth is somehow connected with the ground. As little contact as possible with factories is desirable, generally. Organic? -- heirloom? -- sure, of course. But don't let that stop you. Excellence is better than good enough, but good enough is good enough. Perfect is a fantasy, a destructive fantasy. See? Common sense.

So, what to eat? We've seen it before. Berry-fruit smoothies. Doesn't have to come out of a $400 blender. Just get the job done ... make a smoothie. Berries are superb nutrition. Invented to be food. So get to Trader Joe's or CostCo or where ever, and blend frozen blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, cherries, strawberries ... all very low glycemic load ... you can get exotic and try goji or mulberry or cranberry or gooseberry or acai.  And if you do NOT have a weight issue, maybe a tiny little bit, a cube or two, of mango, pineapple, kiwi, banana, for the nutrients, not for the flavor. The tropical fruits have a higher glycemic load, so go easy on them. On the other hand, a little is reasonable if it's appropriate -- we're after the nutrients. Do NOT guzzle it.  Sip it.  Carb digestion starts in the mouth. Savor the flavor.

Add water, maybe tap, maybe purified ... whatever. Add some protein powder, to taste, not more than 30 grams per serving (and that's a lot) -- maybe rice protein, maybe pea protein, maybe mixed veggie protein -- no need for soy, or whey ... we get enough soy and animal proteins just by being American -- no need to supplement it. Add some coconut oil, some flax seed oil, some omega three oil.

Omega 3 fish oil.  The most important neglected nutrient in the Western / American diet.  Major malnutrition.  We like folks to MEGADOSE it -- two or three TABLE spoons, the big spoon.  Liquid form, Carlsons is a high quality brand, 35 to 50 bucks a bottle, but you're worth the investment.  This is not cod liver oil -- completely different.  Good quality doesn't taste fishy.  (HERE for more details.)  Never use the pills -- rancid.

You now have in effect perfect nutrition. You could live, abundantly, off of just this sort of meal. No need for any other beverage, milk or rice milk or soy milk or almond milk or cow milk or, um, wheat milk or milk milk. Common sense. We're not trying to add calories and spike our insulin. We're trying to get nutrients into our bloodstream.

Most people's blood is sugar water and red corpuscles, and maybe some heavy metals ... strontium or plutonium maybe. Don't be like that. Feed your cells, not your appetite. The bloodstream should be a soup, a thick broth as it were, of nutrients, available when your cells need what they need. You don't know what they need. But they need it. So eat nutrients, not sugar in all its industrial disguises.

What else? Fibrous vegetables. Nutrient dense, calorie poor: the perfect ratio, if there is such a thing as perfect.  Maybe a stew, a delicious stew, of frozen broccoli, cauliflower, mixed peppers, corn and peas and green beans and string beans and carrots. Chop in any other veggies you like, or high quality meats.  Add seasonings. Apple cider vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil, turmeric, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, basil, oregano, parsley, any other high-nutrient herbs or spices. Bragg Liquid Aminos -- savory.  Bread?  Some, Ezequiel, at most stores ... seven grains, sprouted ... low glycemic load.  Good.

As we age, or as we continue to abuse ourselves with sub-adequate dietary practices, we stop digesting food properly, or at all.  Very bad.  Eat food, and then digest it adequately.  See how that works?  Fortunately there's such a thing as capitalism in the world, so there are products for which we exchange money and gain benefit.  Specifically, cooking kills all enzymes in the food we eat, which places an undue stress on the pancreas, which makes our own digestive enzymes.  So what?  Our industrial-style diets give us a pancreas three times larger than that of someone with a traditional diet.  Bigger is not better.  So go to a health food store etc and buy DIGESTIVE ENZYMES, and use them with every cooked-food meal.  Very deep long-term benefits.  Further, with any protein meal, use HCl supplements (with betaine and pepsin), say, HERE.

What to eat before a workout? Something that won't spike your insulin. Eat more than half an hour, or an hour, prior to the job. What to eat after the workout? If your goal is to pack on muscle, it's the one time that spiking insulin is good, to usher protein into muscle cells. Here it is again, the post-workout recovery drink:

A can of 100% fruit juice (not the sugar water "drink"), flavor does not matter -- it's all instant carbs anyway, which, in this instance, is the point. Look at the ingredients, see how many grams of carbs there are, and add about one-third or one-fourth that many grams of protein powder -- pea protein is nice. So if it's 250 grams of carbs, add 60 to 80 grams of protein. It's not complicated, it's easy. Protein you don't need just turns into calories, and in the mean time turns your body acidic, and leaches calcium out of your bones, and is hard to digest anyway. Don't get more than you need. Get what you need. That's called optimal.

Add 2 g each of:
• potassium
• magnesium
• creatine
• glutamine
• vitamin C & E
• ALA (alpha lipoic acid) .

Divide it into 3 or 4 portions, freeze them for later, use it within an hour of a hard, big workout.  How concentrated?  Your business, but you do want the fluid.

What else to eat?  Paleo?  Atkins?  Zone?  South Beach? Weight Watchers? They are all insulin-control diets.  Low glycemic load.  It's not all the protein that gives the benefits, it's cutting back the industrial carbs.  Paleo gets it right in the emphasis on good fats and low glycemic load carbs.  As for all the protein, there's a debate that we need not get into.  Eat, be happy, but be responsible.  So eat nuts and seeds and fruits and whole grains and all those good things. In moderation.  Eat them for the nutrients.  Feed your cells abundantly, and feed your appetites moderately.  You know, common sense, like grandma would have wanted.  No need to be perfect.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

At Sixes and Eights

Let's keep it simple. The upper body -- arms and shoulders -- does 2 things: pushes and pulls. The middle body -- core, torso, trunk -- does 2 things: bends and twists. The lower body -- legs and hips -- does 2 things: stands and steps. That's it. Simple. Six big things the body does.

The muscleman magazines and protein supplement sellers and gizmo hucksters want you to believe it's about exotic movements and magic pills and hightec molded plastics. Hmm. We have a question then. How does a baby learn to walk? Does it have standing days and stepping days and balancing days? And patented specially formulated megadose diets from the factory? And devices that twist its appendages into froglike contortions for some theoretical benefit?

Should we have leg days and arm days and chest days and back days? Yes we should, if we're the Frankenstein Monster, made out of discrete body parts that function in isolation and make no use of opposing muscles or cooperative neuromuscular functioning. So ... that would be a no. We shouldn't train like that. It all sounds so scientific, but so did phlogiston.

You learn to play the piano by playing scales and chords and melodies, not by hitting all the Cs on the keyboard every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And we teach our bodies to be phenomenally fit by doing constantly varied functional movements at high intensity, consistently.

The weightroom has its place. But why in the world are regular people attempting to do exotic bodybuilder movements? It's nuts. Are you a professional bodybuilder? No. Hardly anyone is, yet so many people are doing workouts that only the genetically gifted and the steroid users could possibly benefit from. Futility. People focus on the tiny little refinements before they have even a foothold on actual strength. They're doing things for their posterior deltoids before they can even do a proper squat. It's nuts.

So let's keep it very simple. If you think that weights are all you should be doing ... well, you'd be wrong. But if you insist on thinking that, then at least use effective movements. You only need 8 of them. Eight. Only 8, for the 6 big things the body does -- push, pull, bend, twist, stand and step.

Two  pushes, either dips or bench press, and an overhead press. Two pulls, either rows or chins, and highpulls.

Deadlifts and squats; do not do these without being taught how -- done properly, they are utterly safe; done carelessly, they are a trip to the emergency room. Always start with less weight than you think.

Lunge and twist -- again, these movements must be learned. Do not twist with weight.   But "core" training, ab training, is only part of the picture. We'll talk about this some other time.

So there it is. Simple. If you can do it right, and with the discipline and intensity that it takes, well, you deserve to talk in a loud voice that brooks no argument.  But don't. Alas, doing things right is not so easy, or common.  If being a great chef were just following recipes, we'd all be fat and famous. There has to be talent somewhere in the formula.

You can be told what to do.  But it's  about results. If you like results, well, be competent.  Information is fascinating, and necessary, but reality is real.  In any case, do something effective.  It's not complicated.  It's simple.


Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Protein

There's quite a bit of controversy about the appropriate amount of protein required by various activity levels. It is common to read something like this, at the Weider site: "For those who are physically active, research has shown that between 1-1.5g of protein per pound of body weight is optimal."

In itself this is a virtually meaningless statement, given that no account is taken of gender or lean body mass, let alone body composition. A 105-pound cheerleader and a 240-pound bodybuilder, and a morbidly obese layabed are barely members of the same species -- Homo athleticus ... gracile, robust and otiose. The Weider site -- a commercial webpage with the primary purpose of selling nutritional supplements ... such as protein powders -- attempts to refine its figure with the following chart.

Fair enough. It's not uncommon to read estimates as high as 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. That's 300 grams of protein for someone 150 pounds, and 1200 calories -- which is precisely half the calories of what most men need on a daily basis.

A very active athlete can burn up to an estimated 3000 calories per workout. This can be estimated with the rough and ready formula of: every pint/pound (of sweat) you lose represents about 350 to 400 calories burned. It's a rule of thumb -- ambient temperature, humidity, hydration levels, ventilation all factor in, confoundingly. That same athlete may lose up to 12 pounds in a few hours -- and must, MUST drink enough water in the next few hours to replace the loss.

How much protein does all this burning and sweating require? And how much protein should a normally active person get? Protein is 4 calories per gram -- same as carbs (most fats are just over twice that -- 9 cals; medium chain lipids are 7 cals, same as alcohol). If we go by the Weider numbers, an active 150-pounder with a 2000 calorie diet (rounding of course) would require up to 900 calories of protein daily. That's like ... uh ... um ... 45%, right? Seems really high. Just about half your calories coming from protein. What, are we cavemen?

That is the crux of the matter. How much protein. There's an actual test to determine what gets used and what gets wasted -- urea nitrogen urine tests, which reveal how much protein the body takes in but cannot use. We might go into it in a future post. But the number is much smaller than what the bodybuilders assert. Standard bodybuilding literature and protein supplement sellers put the number pretty high.

Hm. Now why would that be? It's a mystery. But maybe it's not greed. Maybe they are both profit-minded and sincere. Maybe they're not ignoring contrary evidence in favor of a bias. Maybe they're ignoring it for some other reason.

The contrary testimony puts the daily protein requirement, at the high end, at something between 10 and 15 percent of total calories. Ten percent of a 2000 calorie diet is 200 calories. Fifty grams of protein. Note the difference please, between 45% and 10%. It seems like a lot. Maybe 100 times difference? A million? How could we ever know? The math is so complicated. Of course we're comparing low-end needs of low estimates with high-end needs of high estimates -- but we're pointing that fact out, too. Illustrative of the wide divergence of opinion in the matter.

Protein isn't really supposed to be a fuel. It's about amino acids, which are building blocks and act as peptides and neurotransmitters -- hormone-like. Really important. But not optimal as fuel. When blood glucose isn't available, and when fat isn't up to the job, your body will convert proteins into sugar in an expensive and inefficient process. Your brain needs sugar, you see, more than your body needs muscle. How inefficient? Glad you asked.

This is from "The Second Brain" by Michael Gershon, the seminal figure in modern enteric system research. A few preliminaries, though. You don't need a stomach. "The small intestine and its associated glands can make do without them." [pp. 93-4] Vitamin B12 is the essential issue, since it cannot be absorbed without the "intrinsic factor" that is made in the stomach. Well, we have pills and shots nowadays.

The stomach's parietal cells which make intrinsic factor also make the hydrochloric acid that handles the digestion of protein in the stomach. Only protein is digested in the stomach. Carbs and fats are broken down further along the tube. An interesting question is, why doesn't hydrochloric acid digest the cell that makes it?

To produce the hydrochloric acid of gastric juice, the parietal cells pump hydrogen ions from the blood into the lumen [lining] of the stomach. Chloride ions follow the movement of hydrogen, resulting in the formation of hydrochloric acid outside the cell where the two ions meet.

The trick is to be able to pump the hydrogen ions. This is not easy. Hydrogen ions carry a positive charge. Moving charged particles is difficult because they affect one another. Particles with the same charge repel.... A cell thus cannot just gather up a bunch of positively charged hydrogen ions and move them from one place to another. To successfully transfer a large number of positively charged hydrogen ions from one side of a cell to the other, some other particles with the same charge have to be moved back the other way to replace the hydrogen.

Pareital cells manage to avoid charge separation by making the pumping of hydrogen ions a simple transfer operation. The cells exchange hydrogen ions for potassium ions. Which are similarly charged. ...This hydrogen-potassium exchange is the process that is blocked by omeprazole (Prilosec). Once it stops, acid production comes to a screeching halt.

Since the concentration of hydrogen ions in blood is far less than the concentration required in the gastric lumen, the pariental cell pumps against staggeringly unfavorable electrical and chemical gradients. In terms of the amount of work involved, the pumping of hydrogen ions is not unlike going *up* Niagara Falls in a barrel. The effort is vast and requires the consumption of immense quantities of oxygen, the utilization of magecalories, and the production of an amazing amount of the high-energy molecule ATP. ATP is the currency that the cells spend to get the work done. [p. 95; Gershon's *italics*, emphases added.]

All this work, in order to produce hydrochloric acid, for the sole purpose of digesting proteins. See why this is important? Protein is astronomically expensive as an energy source. It's not like burning coal. It's like burning diamonds. That would be an amazing, vastly immense megawaste of staggering effort. Every effort should be made to spare this expense.

Per Colin Campbell, grand old man of protein research and author of The China Study, the RDA for protein is "about 10%.... This is considerably more than the actual amount required." [p. 58] "Relative to total calorie intake, only 5-6% dietary protein is required to replace the protein regularly excreted by the body (as amino acids)." [p. 308] He's speaking of course about mere metabolic requirements, not fantastical bodybuilder conceits of beef-packing. We won't elaborate on Campbell's frankly compelling argument. His conclusion is that high levels of protein are carcinogenic.

However much protein the body actually requires, any more than that amount is simply foolish. Unfair? We've seen the lengthy quotation that established the context. Digestion produces energy, but it uses energy too. The body is an economy. Profitable economies run as efficiently as is reasonable. When all conditions are optimal, we can afford to be profligate. When there are wide-open frontiers, we might pollute. When we are looking for elite results, we need to apply intelligence and diligence to the process. It is self-evident.

So how much protein do we actually need? For sedentary adults, the RDA for protein is 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. "Health experts say that at maximum, athletes may require 0.55 to 0.73 grams per pound." That's quite a range. The caveman estimate of 1 to 1.5 grams is twice the, uh, smart man estimate. Heh heh. How ever shall we determine which is the more likely?

Results. We have vegetarian athletes who use no animal protein whatsoever, for decades. One of them, for example, in his late forties has 8% body fat, with a BMI is 21.9 -- the exact center of "healthy". He is, as they say, ripped. His daily protein intake averages about 70 grams total -- .39 grams per pound -- 280 protein calories, out of about 3000 calories daily, on which he exercises vigorously for 2 and 3 hours a day.

Clearly, excessive protein is not the key to health. Sufficient protein is a key. Thus, the horrific Atkins Diet is not about health, but fat loss. We won't go into it now. Enough to say it is generally damaging, when extended too long. That's the problem with fad diets. They are fads.

Lasting fitness is about lifestyle, not gimmicks. The body gets stronger by doing what human bodies do, natually. Doing non-functional, highly artificial exercises can make you less fit -- there is a detraining effect that we'll talk about some time. Point is, what you just happen to hear, on TV or at the gym or standing in line, may be true, or it may be foolishness. At FitWorks we hope we make that clear. Because fortune favors the prepared, and doing just anything is a zero-sum game. Do what is effective.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

FW
CrossFit Burbank

Tonic

It is required that one use a little common sense. Not even a lot. Just some. Like, you actually believed that alcohol was good for you? Because the news told you about a study? O, Despair! For reals? Your mommy told you there was a Santa. Your teacher told you there was protoplasm. Can't we just please do a little thinking for ourselves? Yes. Sure. Drinking poison, a toxin, is going to do wonders for you. It's so good for your heart. Mmm. That red wine is a miracle drug! Salut!

Or you could use your brain. Oh, it reduces cardiovascular disease in women? -- raises good cholesterol and moderates bloodsugar? That is so great! And it lowers prudish inhibitions! So that's a win-win situation! And a daily glass of wine is linked to reduced dementia, boneloss, and lymphoma. That too must somehow be good for the love life. Demented, boneless, lymphomatics -- they just don't do it for the happenin' playah.

But drinking any alcohol at all -- let alone "moderate" -- increases risk of getting cancers of the breast, liver, mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, colon and rectum. The cardio benefits of wine are precisely matched by the increased risk of stroke -- it's good for the heart and bad for the brain. Drinking any amount over moderate, one glass daily for women, two for men, is powerfully linked to a plethora of problems. Disturbed sleep, impaired judgment, and slowed reflex reactions. Fetuses. For younger men, the risks of accident with even moderate drinking far outweigh the cardiovascular benefit.

Health benefits? They come largely from the antioxidants and anti-inflammatories that red wine and dark beers have, independent of alcohol content. Grape juice does the same thing. Or fruits and vegetables, and they don't deplete your B vitamins.  Yes, it decreases social inhibitions, and not all inhibitions are bad, as not all are good.  So there's that.  On the other hand, one's real, inner playah might show through, whatever that is, and it may be vicious.

The convivial lubricant and gaiety-maker has an  inverse correlation to the quality of the conversation. To those who are enjoying their moderate drink, their comments may seem profound or at least insightful. Conversely, they may seem even more obvious than usual. There is much to be commended in emotional availability and an unguarded tongue. But the same could be said for any of the other recreational mood/mind alterers. When we are sick, we need drugs. Give strong drink to the dying. Alas, the judgment it would take to make the judgment call is impaired by the cure.

The ethanol molecule interacts with human biology in untold ways. Of course there are benefits. But the cardio benefits that moderate drinking provides would not be needed at all, were it not for an toxic diet. To use one poison to mitigate against another poison is standard medical practice. Prevention at the level of root cause is not standard practice. So, sure, if one eats foolishly, drink wisely. There is a wisdom of sorts in this. But it's an ironic one.

Maturity seeks out simplicity, and an apt philosophy in this regard is, be happy. This requires that we be good, in the philosophical sense.  The mild tonic effect that alcohol can have is not toxic. The body can handle small doses of poison. If you know your particular genome down to the final allele, then you can do no wrong, or if you do, it is a considered choice. But ... you don't know your genetics. Live in fear? Feel deprived? No. Be happy. Be happy if you have a stroke, though, or get cancer of the rectum.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

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CrossFit Burbank

Cravings

Cutting down animal products in the diet is a generally wise choice. There are very clear problems correlated with a lot of meat in the diet, whereas there are no common problems with a sensible variety of plant-based foods. It's not about being vegetarian -- it's about meeting the nutritional needs of a human body -- which are met in large part by vegetables, fruits and so on. Moderation, of course.

The more interested someone becomes in the elite functioning of their bodies, the greater the attention they will pay to their diet. Garbage in, garbage out. Most people notice a benefit in cutting back on the meat. Nothing to argue about here. If you don't, that's fine. Most do. But some folks feel hungry and tired when they start to cut back on meat. Why would that be, if they're getting all the nutrition they need? And why the craving?

Let's take a little detour. A useful definition of hunger is not "the feeling of an empty stomach," but rather "the body's craving for nutrients." Big difference. We crave what our body actually needs, that will make it stronger and healthier.

Let's take another detour. There's a theory about the role in digestion of our sense of taste and smell. Remember back to seventh grade health class, when we all read about how important it was to properly chew food? Not just to grind it up, but because saliva contains the enzyme amylase, which digests carbs. Perhaps we thought grinding should be enough, and stomach acid would do the rest of the digesting that was needed. Problem is, only protein gets digested in the stomach. The fats and carbs have to sit around and wait, seeping out little by little along with the digested proteins. So in a sense, chewing, mixing in saliva does the job of the stomach, continued farther along. (This is why you shouldn't just chug your juice or smoothie. You should slosh it around, sort of chew it for a while, to get the digestion started.)

And now a final detour -- maybe back onto the main road -- dealing with smell and taste. Your body has to do some phenomenal calculations in order to digest food. It is an astoundingly complex task. As sophisticated a process of analysis as calculating the orbit of Neptune and its moons in your head ... even more sophisticated. Smell, then, is one of the first cues, the first analytical chemical tests that prepares the "enteric" system, the digestive system for the job ahead.

Indeed, the enteric system has more neurons, more "brain cells" than your brain. Smell does more than just make your mouth water. It's telling your brain to tell your gut what's coming, what enzymes to use and how powerful the acid has to be. Same with taste. It's more than just sweet and sour and salt and bitter. The very combinations, it's been suggested, act as a code, a sort of spectrum identifying and anticipating the foods that will be digested -- like the light from a star that tells us what elements it contains.

Regarding cravings, the classic example is the pregnant woman. Some women crave fish or chicken. Omega-3. Appetites can be emotional or physiological. Hard to tell the difference sometimes. But knowing the difference will determine whether you're optimally nutriated, or both overweight and undernurished.

The body needs what it needs, and doesn't care if it has to be a cannibal to get it. What is it in meat, then, that might be craved? First, it might be the emotions. Meat will make you strong, the propaganda goes. We can get over that with a bit of maturity and education. As for physically, there's protein, B12, a few other vitamins, iron, and trace minerals. The dark side of it is that there are also sex hormones and adrenaline and uric acid and other toxins in butchered meat. Slaughtering an animal makes it afraid, and that fear response makes the meat more flavorful. Sorry if you didn't know that. This unfortunate fact, though, accounts for meat's stimulating effects -- all those poisons. Eating a food that has sex hormones and adrenaline in it can make you not-so-tired. So that's one possibility. Meat is literally a drug.

If you're going to eat animal products, meat or eggs or milk, get the real thing, instead of the factory product. A cow raised in a stall for a year is not meat. A chicken kept in a box its whole life is going to be about as good for you as the box was good for the chicken. The pastel eggs they sell will feed your heart disease, only. And we all know that mass-produced milk has a government limit on how much infection it's allowed. You do know that, right? Ah, here. The point is, buy free-range.

Meat is the major source of dietary B12, which is just vital at the cellular energy level. It is highly unlikely that a B12 deficiency would cause a regular mid-week weakness, signaling meat-time. The body is phenomenal at retaining its B12. But the B vitamins in general may be in short supply. Solution? Take a pill. Take two.

Not just vegetarians, but almost everyone gets too little Omega-3. Simple solution, in flax seed oil, walnuts, or even fish oil. It's about health, after all, not doctrinal purity. Nutritionists report that taking flax eliminates at least some food-cravings. So there you go.

Figure it this way. If you're going more vegetarian and still craving meat, or if only it will answer your appetite, well, the obvious thing about meat is the protein. Try a protein shake. See if it works. If so, mystery solved -- you wanted protein. If you're craving veggies, it's likely to be vitamins that you want. Maybe buy a juicer and drink a salad. Throw a handful of lentils or black beans or whatever into your stew. Variety. If you want ice cream, could be you're looking for fats? Try flax or olive oil or fish oil. Eat an avocado or some macadamia nuts. And while your at it, drink enough water. Dehydration messes up your internal chemistry, so you don't know what you want. And while we're on the topic, maybe you'll stop drinking all that soda and coffee?

A naive understanding about health thinks in terms of the body in general. I feel good, I feel tired, I'm achy. When we get a bit more sophisticated we start thinking about organs. My heart, my liver, my kidneys. When we get clever, we understand that all health, all energy, derives from how cells function. So we do what we can to cut down on free radicals and make sure we get CoQ10 (co-queue-ten) and the B vitamins and the like. But there's an even more basic, more important level, which of course would be mental attitude. The mind-body connection is what the body is about. All healing is psychosomatic. The placebo effect cures more problems than medications do. It's just common sense. It's just being responsible. Guard your thoughts and your emotions.

Sometimes as you're trying to fall asleep you might find that you've tensed up your shoulders, or legs or back or whatever. How odd. You'll consciously relax it, and in a few moments you'll be tense again. You might notice that you're holding your breath. You'll be driving, and you've forgotten to breathe. How can you be healthy if you have these unconscious stress reactions going on? Stress both causes and is caused by hormonal imbalances. Adrenaline. Cortisol. Those switches need to be off, most of the time. Why aren't they? No matter how good the diet, it's not going to be optimal until the whole system is under control. Point is, thinking matters.

Well, we've covered a lot of ground, with all these detours. Did we ever get to the answer to that first question, about tiredness and craving? It may be that the answer isn't known. There's a lot of pop literature on diet nowadays that claims there are different body types that need different nutrients. It does sound like it makes sense. If your ethnic heritage included for many generations a large amount of animal products -- say, if you're Masai, or Eskimo -- then you may need meat. But in the mere decades that we in affluent America have been exposed to high amounts of dietary meat, it seems unlikely that we've developed an actual genetic need for it. Meat has always been a luxury -- even in hunter-gatherer cultures. The Buddha died from eating pork. He was visiting some poor folk, who slaughtered their pig in honor of him, and he was too polite to refuse the meal. Point being, it's a luxury -- an expensive one.

Dogs eat grass and cats eat clay. They need something in it. If you need something in meat, that's not the same as thinking you need to eat meat. But moderation is almost the same as forgiveness. A little meat is no big deal. Vegetarians don't think of meat as food at all. But that's just a way of seeing things. No big deal. Be happy. But it's obvious that we'll be happier if we feel well. Diet is a major component of feeling well. Then all you have to do is get your thinking in line, and you'll be a buddha.

Perfection? Not in this lifetime. The world is outside of our control, that we should worry about perfection. But we're not helpless. There is a way that we are indeed Buddhas. We are the lords of our bodies. We can't remake it, but we can do some earthmoving -- redirect a few rivers, cut back some mountains. Not gods, but monarchs, then. That's a lot of power.

That's the sensible way of seeing things. We're not all-powerful, but we're powerful. We have cravings, and we have willpower. We have feast days and fast days. We live in a body, but it is the servant and we are the master. If not, well, time to get rational.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com

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CrossFit Burbank