tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55319326840219357092023-11-15T09:28:27.039-08:00Conditioning the KoyoteMy journey through strength training, paleo nutrition, and raising childrenNeal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-8987820069184558772014-01-06T07:43:00.005-08:002014-01-06T07:43:59.308-08:00Sweat, Then EatSeveral years ago I was involved in a fitness challenge. I took it seriously and really hammered on every aspect.<br />
<br />
One of my best secrets was to sweat before I ate anything. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and especially snacks.<br />
<br />
The quality and quantity of your diet is important- it's far better to get away form heavy processed sugars and carbs and get a better balance.<br />
<br />
But <b>almost</b> regardless of this, if you do enough interval work (snatches, swings, hindu squats, walking- anything) to build up a<b> sweat - just get a good bead of sweat going</b>, then eat, your metabolic rate increases and you don't immediately turn your food into fat.<br />
<br />
Short, sweet, and key.Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-53037464302676786442014-01-05T11:59:00.002-08:002014-01-05T11:59:26.176-08:00We all have different starting levels.<br />
<br />
Since I'm focussing on getting into shape with this blog right now, let's assume a fairly beginning level.<br />
<br />
You might be 40 pounds overweight, or 140. You might not even know. You may have worked out a lot in the past and just lost it, or this whole idea of physical culture is new.<br />
<br />
But a few things are likely to be true:<br />
<br />
You likely have some health problems from overweight. The most common of these that are relevant to my type of program are knee and back issues (and feet, sometimes), higher blood pressure, and breathing issues.<br />
<br />
While I'm not able to give medical advice, it's likely your doctor will agree that all of these will be alleviated to some degree by losing weight and improving your muscular/endurance health.<br />
<br />
How do you start? Well, soon enough you want to sweat. But for a very beginning level all we want is movement.<br />
<br />
So let's start with the first three things- pushups, abdominals, and squats.<br />
<br />
I highly recommend a book called "convict conditioning" for this type of program, it has very good examples of working up your levels in these areas. I don't tend to agree with the workout <b>programs</b> themselves, though.<br />
<br />
Ask yourself, can you do 15 pushups, nice and slow, on the ground? It's okay if you can't. you can start by leaning against a wall, a bit lower would be a countertop. a step stool would be the next progression. Eventually you will get to the ground, so don't worry. You don't want to kill yourself, and we'll see why a bit further in.<br />
<br />
Abdominals are an area where there is a lot of controversy. Some people think situps are bad for you, some think crunches are bad for you. I don't think it matter much what you are doing, if your form is right. But follow whatever professional advice you can get. (ask your doctor.) - But I would start with leg lifts.<br />
<br />
Depending on how much extra weight you are carrying, you may or may not be able to move in certain ways. but, lying on your back, you can get your legs in the air somehow. Pick your starting level, one leg at a time or both, knees bent of legs straight. just lift them up and set them down- higher is better. GO slow, and don't flop. half the exercise is in slowly lowering your legs. You want to do this 15 times (or 20 if you are alternating legs)<br />
<br />
Squats are a problem area, because knee issues are so often a problem when overweight. There are two ways to approach this, with the caveat that you need to be cleared by your doctor, expecially if you have known problems.<br />
<br />
One is to lie on you back with your hips elevated (a cushion or pillow can help.) Get your legs vertical above you and do the squats that way. Another is to start with half squats, with your hands on a counter top. Eventually you should work up to being able to do full squats nice and fast, but that's later.<br />
<br />
Again, you want to do 15.<br />
<br />
Now, the key here is you do this set of 3 exercises <b>often</b>. 5, 10 times a day. you need to make sure you progress to a level where you are feeling effort as you improve. And stay with your weight. (don't blow your knees trying to do deep squats 150 times a day when you are still 320 pounds)<br />
<br />
You will elevate your heart rate a bit, keep the juices and metabolism up.<br />
<br />
Not a complete workout plan- walking or running or cycling or swimming, kettlebells or weights- there's plenty to add. But if you are starting from a really low place, it's far better than not starting.<br />
<br />
Advancing in this is possible through 3 methods, which you can combine at will:<br />
<br />
1: Adding exercises (again, see the convict conditioning book and look at other bodyweight exercises)<br />
<br />
2: Adding repetitions (you may find you need to get these interval workouts to take 6-10 minutes to get your heart rate up some)<br />
<br />
3: Increasing difficulty.<br />
<br />
<br />Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-4401856433128852542014-01-01T09:48:00.001-08:002014-01-01T09:48:32.976-08:00Happy New Year!<br />
<br />
<br />
The last year has been up and down for me, and I need to lose some weight and get back on track.<br />
<br />
Diet is always an issue, but so is exercise. I am finding exercise is more of an issue than diet for me.<br />
<br />
So let's go. Expect more regular posts on here, with notes and tricks I've found over the past several years that I will be applying this year.<br />
<br />
(Yes, it's January first, but why not use that tradition for the best?)<br />
<br />
The first thing, and one I've noticed is amazingly effective when I was doing my 6 month challenge several years ago-<br />
<br />
Intervals. ANY intervals. For some people 10 puchups (or ten wall table/chiar pushups) and 20 squats is enough. And it's far better than nothing.<br />
<br />
<br />Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-80018155742106357792012-10-13T13:06:00.001-07:002012-10-13T13:06:15.533-07:00Soft drinks, marketing, and social restrictions There's a lot of angst going around right now over the NYC Board of Health enacting a restriction on soda- or sugary drink- sales.<br />
<br />
The current lawsuit rests on the idea that the Board of Health, being an appointed and not elected body, hasn't got the authority to enact rules that are "legislative."<br />
<br />
However, the campaigns to fight this decision, and previous decisions to ban smoking and require calorie counts on menus in NYC, have *not* been about the legislative process. That's just the legal avenue of approach for the companies, trade groups, and unions involved.<br />
<br />
two links out of many, which I will use for analysis:<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/nyregion/soda-industry-sues-to-stop-bloombergs-sales-limits.html?_r=0<br />
<br />
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444799904578052943656540564.html<br />
<br />
Quote from Mike LaVorgna (Bloomberg spokesman):<br />
<br />
"The Board of Health absolutely has the authority to regulate matters affecting health...."<br />
<br />
Which brings up the debate on whether or not this is, in fact, a public health issue.<br />
<br />
A passel of lawyers have already looked at this and said "aye." <br />
<br />
It is obvious that we have a ongoing health issue related to diet and lifestyle in "westernized" (commercialized and consumerized?) societies. There are many causal and correlative factors, but there has not yet been a reasonable method of combating them. Simply telling people to get healthy cannot compare in force with the advertising, addictions, programming, and lobbying of industry groups.<br />
<br />
And in this case, there isn't even a hint of fighting on nutritional grounds. The industry, trade, and union groups are *not* trying to address health consequences and nutritional data directly in this battle. We've come far enough that they no longer have the ability to pull quite that much of a propaganda campaign off. <br />
<br />
Noted in several articles (and the links I posted above have changed content over the last several hours, removing some of the references) are the campaigns by the industry, trade, and union organizations to put a negative spin on this in terms of freedom, individual choice, and unfair restrictions on struggling small business owners. <br />
<br />
These arguments can be discarded - with the exception, possibly, of the Korean American Grocer's Association, the concern for small business interest isn't really something evidenced in a realistic and consistent manner by industry groups. Individual choice is something that marketing and advertising industries have attempted to remove, limit, or control as much as possible. "freedom of choice" to them means "making people believe they can't live without it." And making- compelling- is operative.<br />
<br />
In terms of broader freedom, almost all consumer based industries (previous examples would include tobacco companies and fast food restaurants, among others) argue in terms of liberty and freedom. While deliberately- and often times dishonestly- slanting the available information, programming people through verifiable advertising and addiction vectors, and reducing individual liberty in favor of increased corporate liberty- these groups have attempted to defend themselves with the idea of individual enlightened self interest in making decisions.<br />
<br />
(So, if Joe Camel and spiked nicotine along with funded movie props get a teen addicted to smoking, it's obviously the teen's knowledgeable and educated choice!)<br />
<br />
So, the freedom argument by industry is a remarkably adept and long standing lie- they have no interest in freedom, and spend a lot of effort finding ways to reduce it.<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
The lawsuit offers some interesting comparisons, stating that it will be legal to order a 20 ounce beer, but not a 20 ounce soda, or a large 800 calorie chocolate milkshake instead of a "240 calorie soda."<br />
<br />
Noting that a 12 ounce serving of Coca Cola is 140 calories, and the average observable medium (whatever they call it) size around here is 32 ounces at any fast food or theatre (larges are 44 ounces or MORE), the "240 calorie" statement is disingenuous if not outright dishonest. It is based on the "20 ounce soda" - with the implicit argument that the 16 ounce limit is going to cost a lot of money for a reduction of 4 ounces. Which isn't really the case.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure theatres actually OFFER a soda that small anymore. I recall the smallest size available for an adult at the last chain theatre I went to was 24 ounces. And fast fooderies and convenience stores push much larger serving sizes. The argument isn't about 20 ounces sodas, it is about 32 through 64 ounce sodas.<br />
<br />
More specifically to the point, the comparison is of what industry has marketed as an all day, every day drink to a *beer* or a *dessert.*<br />
<br />
This is enlightening as is demonstrates that they don't make any sort of reasonable distinction between types of foods and drinks. It's pure consumption and profit.<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
The Board of Health, while trying to accomplish *something*, *anything* to stem the tide, is missing the boat.<br />
<br />
In our current political and social environment, it's possible that there *is* no way to catch the boat. While easily verifiable in medical literature and pop-sci chemistry and nutrition, there's a huge resistance to allowing the differences between fructose and other sugars to be discussed- or even mentioned. Everyone seen the "corn syrup is just sugar from a healthy source" ads?<br />
<br />
Any psych graduate can look at the data on marketing instilling preferences and amygdalal happiness responses to certain images, scents, and tastes/textures as early as 6 months. We know we can do this, but the idea that it *is* possible, let alone common, is strongly resisted by the public.<br />
<br />
No one *wants* to be a slave to outside programming. That part is easy to see. I could argue- do argue- that there are influences beyond a simple distaste for the idea, which come from various industry, medical, and governmental (educational) sources.<br />
<br />
This is tougher to tackle than the "corn syrup is sugar" or "enriched wheat flour buns with sugar are healthy grains" arguments. Much tougher.<br />
<br />
Got no answers there. I know it's possible and not event hat difficult to reprogram, if it's socially accepted and promoted. But I'm at a loss for how that's going to happen. <br />
<br />
**<br />
And so we have the idea that there's a fundamental right for McDonald's to exist. Though much of what they sell isn't food by any reasonable definition and they have a marketing department to die for- there's no way to restrict *their* operation because it somehow reduces *my* freedom. Not sure I buy that. And I'm not sure we can continue to afford to buy into this.<br />
<br />
I have a strong distrust of governmental interference on a regulatory basis- I eat paleo and the current corporate/governmental ideas on the wheat/corn/soy based diet would not be good for me. Certainly don't want to be forced by regulation to endure it!<br />
<br />
And I dislike taxation as a fine. (that's gotten so confused nowadays that a fine is considered a tax by the Supreme Court!!)<br />
<br />
But, perhaps, we do need to offer up some definitions of food. Not necessarily nutrition, but... food. Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-23579847716754182472012-05-22T08:23:00.001-07:002012-05-22T12:32:37.508-07:00Conditioning- for weight lossBodyweight exercises, weight loss, and interval training come together...<br />
<br />
<br />
This post is one I've worked on for a while, but am posting now for a friend. The bodyweight work revolves around "Convict Conditioning."<br />
<br />
Now, there are dozens of bodyweight books and websites out there. Convict Conditioning isn't necessarily the best, but it has some major advantages for someone who has had physical difficulties, is out of shape, or especially for someone with a lot of weight to lose.<br />
<br />
Any workable regimen will boil down to "eat better, move more." In keeping with that, any program that essentially follows those two principles will produce results.<br />
<br />
The main reasons I like Convict Conditioning so much as a base for a training regimen are:<br />
<br />
It's broken out into 6 uncomplicated exercise progressions. Push ups, Pull ups, Bridges, Squats, Leg raises, and Handstand puh ups. No isolated muscle complications, and with all bodyweight exercises- you work multiple muscle groups, so everything will get stronger as you go without recourse to cage machines.<br />
<br />
The second main reason I love this book is that it starts the progressions out at beginning physical therapy levels. It's nearly impossible to hurt yourself going through the lower progressions attentively.<br />
<br />
<br />
Of course, Convict Condition is not complete for the expressed purposes. You need some intense interval exercise to add to your regimen and you <b>must</b> find a dietary protocol- an eating plan- that works. I've mentioned in a previous post that nearly any of the better diet plans will work.<br />
<br />
I would like to add here, though, that one that is a bit draconian and doesn't allow for subconscious cheating is probably better to start with.<br />
<br />
<br />
Under my hybrid, you'll be doing your basic pushup, pullup, squat, and leg lift progressions in short sets, multiple times a day. If you *firmly* believe in the need to have rest days, work a bit hard before one. But take no more than 2 rest days per week. the 2 advanced progressions- bridges and handstand pushups, can be added after some weight loss and core strength is built.<br />
<br />
This would start with, for example:<br />
<br />
5 wall pushups (that's right, feet about 18 to 24 inches from the wall)- do your pushups - ONE SECOND down, ONE SECOND hold at bottom, ONE SECOND to raise.<br />
<br />
Only 5? yeah, the first week. You will be doing the round 5 times a day. As you progress, feel free to bump the sets to 7 or 10- but watch that you don't burn yourself out in one morning set!<br />
<br />
Same thing with wall or door jamb pullups. same thing with bent leg lifts, and shoulder stand squats.<br />
<br />
These sets won't kick up the metabolism, though. So you need a pump. My suggestions for the pump vary depending on your condition and materials at hand. Under NO circumstances would I recommend jump roping or running if you are above 180 pounds going into this. Not a good idea.<br />
<br />
Jumping jacks aren't a bad idea. 50 of those should finish off the workout fine - 5 times a day! ----- start with 10, add 5 every other day.<br />
<br />
Playing Hot potato over your head with a 15 or 20 pound dumbbell is a good starting point. 5 presses each side with a 20 or 25 pound dumbbell- or 30, whatever you can barely do, but do right.<br />
<br />
Of course, if you have a kettlebell heavy enough, 25 swings is the best. (50 after the first 2 weeks, moving up slowly to 100 for each of the 5 workouts in a day)<br />
<br />
<br />
If you do Jumping Jacks, don't <b>jump high</b> ---- jump enough to get your legs in or out, but don't jar your spine. You are wearing a full combat load or more in excess weight and don't have a strong back yet. you don't want to crush anything.<br />
<br /> --Why intervals? --<br />
<br />
The intervals- 5 short workouts during the day- are there to boost your baseline metabolic rate. This is essential to fat loss and daily energy- and doing more active things outside of workouts.<br />
<br />
But, the intervals have to leave you a bit worked out. The bodyweight conditioning by itself can't do that in the beginning. You simply need time to develop the strength, flexibility, and body shape to do full pullups, one hand pushups, and handstand pushups. <br />
<br />
So you need something to make you feel a bit of sweat or heart rate increase- be it kettlebell swings and snatches, jumping jacks, or whatever.<br />
<br />
<br />
-- The myth of days off. --<br />
<br />
The days off myth comes from bodybuilding for show. We aren't trying to condition for a show event, we are looking for a dual functional strength increase and weight loss/metabolic increase. This is why you need to do these daily. Once your body systems know they need to be active, they will turn active. Just like a farmboy.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
-- Weight <b>Gain</b> --<br />
<br />
The same regimen is useful for weight gain. Not "muscle show" bulk, but healthy, general, weight gain. In certain cases- usually females, but my son is an example of the male effect- there's a tendency towards extreme slimness. this is generally accompanied with a low muscle tone and a generally good diet (meaning no extreme fat layering overeating or food choices)<br />
<br />
The way to fix that is to build strength and metabolic rate! you will naturally eat a bit more, process the food differently, and add a bit of muscle mass and density.<br />
<br />
-- but, <i>girly push ups?</i> --<br />
<br />
Well, girly push ups are something you have to work up to, actually! - joint strength, neuron training, and basal metabolism.<br />
<br />
Odds are, if you did push ups in school, you did fast, jerky, halfway push ups. It's harder to do 10 <i>3 second, full down</i> push ups on a table, than it is to do 15 jerky high school gym class push ups.<br />
<br />
This forms the underlying basis of Convict Conditioning (yeah, you need to buy the book) - and is the key element. It's only going to take you 4-8 weeks out of your life to work from level one to four in most areas, and you will gain a lot of safety and injury immunity in the process. In terms of your life, that's not a lot of time.<br />
<br />
--Progression-- a week to try those out, skip one of your baseline interval workouts and replace it with the progression test for each of the bodyweight exercises. If you make it, move up!<br />
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The book, Convict Conditiong, has in it a list of progression tests. Pick a dayNeal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-32324726063382846862012-05-12T11:31:00.001-07:002012-05-12T11:31:51.924-07:00 This article originally came into my universe by way of google plus and generated some good - and some off the wall- discussion.<br />
<br />
I have a few things I feel like posting on the topic- but first, give it 5 minutes and read this:<br />
<br />
<a class="ot-anchor" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/gary-taubes.html">http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/gary-taubes.html</a><br />
<br />
I will tell you right now that I think Taubes is generalizing and simplifying a bit too much. There are.... details. But, in the general atmosphere of generalizing-<br />
<br />
If you look at the proponents of most dietary reginmens that are really
working, whether they are no-red meat, lean meat, lotsa meat, paleo,
atkins, primal, panu (archevore) - south beach, raw, mediterranean- the
list is long.<br />
<br />
If the diet is working, almost regardless of the
debate on fat, almost regardless of the elimination of grains versus the
re-mapping of how and when grains are eaten- if the diet is working it
will almost invariably include-<br />
<br />
lower carbs.<br />
<br />
Even a Mediterranean diet with pasta, done properly*, is going to be
massively lower in carbs and sugars. Sugars, on a good Med diet, will
drop from a 3 pound a week average (yeah, that's JUST sugar) to a
quarter pound. Carbs, believe it or not, will drop by 30-60% (rough
math, it's right within a large margin, I got 45% on the calculator)<br />
<br />
*properly-
properly doing a diet is crucial. With very few- and exclusively market
driven- exceptions, any of the diets I mentioned is going to be largely
compatible with Pollan's Food Rules. (small book, go buy it) The rules
essentially boil down to eating Real Food instead of packaged,
manufactured, preprepared, and etc. I cannot stress strongly enough that
this essential thread tying the diets together is of absolute
importance. - Eating Real Food is decent proportions will cut so much
sugar, refined carbs, and processed oils out of your diet that you can
almost choose the diet as a "desktop theme" type of choice.<br />
<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
<br />
One person in the original discussion thread contended that insulin had nothing at all to do with fat.<br />
<br />
"There is no evidence that insulin regulates the fat in our cells. At
least not as the major contributor. It is another hormone. <br />
<br />
Actually, there is
research that show that higher levels of insulin lowers the risk of
getting fat. I can produce a dozen references, like <a class="ot-anchor" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2056116">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2056116</a>, that shows this."<br />
<br />
<br />
Okay, if you go to that study, it seems to me, that there is less fat formation among the subjects who are insulin resistnant. Insulin resistance is a lessening of the ability of insulin to handle gllocuse in the blood. Which means less processing into fat.<br />
<br />
Pointing this out, I was informed that insulin isn't involved in processing the sugar in blood.<br />
<br />
This is wrong- Insulin tells the cells to absorb glucose, fat and aminos. Fat cells are cells. Insulin <i>is</i> the main fat storage hormone. <br />
<br />
High levels of insulin also block the activation of catecholamines (such as adrenaline, dopamine) which control the <i>release of energy into the body</i>.<br />
<br />
Quite possibly, the single most important reason that carb controlled diets (which may or may not be called such) work is that when you reduce the insulin spikes, you increase the activation of PKA and bang, increased metabolic rate.<br />
<br />
<br />
*****<br />
<br />
I mentioned the "theme" of diets. The reason a dietary plan is important is that you have to have boundaries and rules. Many of us traditionally were provided these culturally or through our families. (Now they are provided by marketing firms, and don't work)<br />
<br />
This is absolutely crucial. Oh, you can change- from ketosis stage atkins to south beach, for example. But having and sticking to a set of food rules is really improtant. <br />
<br />
The single most important presupposition for any diet plan is this- <i>no fakery</i>. No Atkins bars, No Atkins bread. No lo-carb energy shakes. Real food, on the plan. Real food.<br />
<br />Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-55192454622486603742011-10-05T13:57:00.001-07:002011-10-07T13:55:42.686-07:00The inns and out of eating out<div><div><p>Eating out paleo is rough. If you do much paleo you have already figured that out.</p>
<p>I have run the gamut. From tossing 3/4 of my meal out to having to get a manager involved to get pan fried unbreaded fish on a bed of romaine with mayo.</p>
<p>Fast food is a joke,. While it is barely possible to get something not toxic in a fast food establishment, it really isn't very compatible with the reasons to eat out. (Paleo fast food is stupid easy to pack. Fast food chains serve no need when you can carry a bag of jerky and cheese and salami around with some fresh cucumber.)</p>
Diners, while a bit easier, fare poorly for people on paleo or real food diets. For so called "market" reasons, the ingredient lists plainly suck. Corn, wheat, and soy products are in every sauce and dressing. And don't even try to find oilive oil and vinegar.
I have worked in and operated restaurants. The market and cost issues are pretty bad, but I think there might be another answer.
Let's forget paleo for a moment. Anywhere honest food is served, it is possible to eat paleo with a little explanation. Let's look at honest food.
To keep food honest, you have to work with variable seasons and supplies. Which means set, plastic coated, everything the same across the country menus won't work.
The answer, in case you missed the post title, is the Inn. The classic romanticized public house style inn. Big pots of chili or soup- not from a menu, but whatever is being made today. Cuts of meat from a locally butchered animal, possibly quarter steer roasts. The list can go on, with local produce, regional harvests like seafood.
Fast food? Well, much of the daily menu is already ready already.
Menu? Daily, on a chalkboard.
Food costs? If you aren't reliant on the manufactured food industry to maintain a set menu, you can work you food costs using seasonal, local/revional, food. At lower cost.
</div></div>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-66969993955587609482011-08-27T10:30:00.000-07:002011-08-27T10:36:51.504-07:00half of Americans to be obese?according to an article in the washington post:
<br />
<br /><div class="article_body"> <article> <p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/half-of-us-adults-will-be-obese-by-2030-report-says/2011/08/25/gIQAYthweJ_story.html">Based on trends, half of the adults in the United States will be obese by 2030 unless the government makes changing the food environment a policy priority, according to a report released Thursday on the international obesity crisis in the British medical journal </a><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/half-of-us-adults-will-be-obese-by-2030-report-says/2011/08/25/gIQAYthweJ_story.html">the Lancet</a><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/half-of-us-adults-will-be-obese-by-2030-report-says/2011/08/25/gIQAYthweJ_story.html">.</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/half-of-us-adults-will-be-obese-by-2030-report-says/2011/08/25/gIQAYthweJ_story.html">Those changes include making healthful foods cheaper and less-healthful foods more expensive largely through tax strategies, the report said. Changes in the way foods are marketed would also be called for, among many other measures. </a></p></article> </div>
<br />
<br />Okay, dangerous ground- half of the US obese is a LOT of unhealth.
<br />
<br />I won't argue in this case that paleo is the only way to go, there are several answers to the problem.
<br />
<br />I don't believe taxing foods that the current medical prejudice thinks are unhealthful is the way to do it. That sort of top down approach won't get anywhere.
<br />
<br />Banning advertising entirely? Yeah, I'd go for that.
<br />
<br />Hiring Michael Pollan to write the food guide? Yeah, I'd go for that.
<br />
<br />Once again, the problem is large corporations designing our health education, and what we get to see as food. Food isn't about health- it's about profit.
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<br />I'm not sure what the answer is to that- but I have children with no TV who haven't even <span style="font-weight: bold;">eaten</span> half the really nasty foods out there- and somehow, the advertising still gets them.
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<br />Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-6266301452206601892011-08-25T18:27:00.000-07:002011-08-27T10:29:58.999-07:00going hot turkeyMy wife and I were discussing a conversation on a forum about the best way to approach a paleo diet- gradually or cold turkey.
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<br />My initial response ins "cold turkey, of course!"
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<br />Talking to my wife, I realized that from her point of view, we've spent 6 years developing a paleo diet. (My point of view is a bit different, as by the time we met I had deprogrammed on a lot of diet issues through various diets, living in other countries, and adequate experience with MREs.)
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<br />When we moved to Davis in 2005, my first attempt at a family healthy diet was to get to "no processed foods" - including no bread. For a while, this was pretty rough. Even a 1600 calorie chef's salad with <span style="font-weight: bold;">everything</span> wasn't a meal to my wife because there wasn't one or more of the following:
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<br />pasta
<br />rice
<br />bread
<br />dessert
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<br />So, there was a huge deprogramming stage for that. And we did, with fits and starts- well before looking at paleo specifically- go through several progressive iterations of ever more natural, less canned/bagged/processed, and raw diet changes.
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<br />So, okay, gradual.
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<br />But.
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<br />If you aren't eating paleo yet, you are going to have to go through these adjustments. Is it easier to do it quickly? I think so, with some caveats.
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<br />One of the most often quoted passages in paleo literature for a step by step process is from Dr. Kurt Harris' Archevore (formerly paleonu) blog. The list is as follows:
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<br /><p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">Here is a 12- step list of what to do. Go as far down the list as you can in whatever time frame you can manage. The further along the list you stop, the healthier you are likely to be. There is no counting, measuring, or weighing. You are not required to purchase anything specific from me or anyone else. There are no special supplements, drugs or testing required.* </a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/"><strong>1. Eliminate sugar (including fruit juices and sports drinks that contain HFCS) and all foods that contain flour. </strong></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/"><strong> </strong></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/"><strong> </strong></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/"><strong> </strong></a></p> <p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">2. Start eating proper fats - Use healthy </a><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">animal fats</a><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/"> to substitute fat calories for calories that formerly came from sugar and flour. </a></strong></p><strong> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">3. Eliminate gluten </a><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">grains</a><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">. Limit grains like corn and rice, which are nutritionally poor.</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">4. Eliminate </a><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">grain and seed derived oils</a><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/"> (cooking oils) Cook with Ghee, butter, animal fats, or coconut oil. Use no temperate plant oils like corn, soy, canola, flax, walnut, etc.</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">5. Favor ruminants like beef, lamb and bison for your red meat. Eat eggs and fish.</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">6. Make sure you are Vitamin D replete. Get daily midday sun or consider supplementation.</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">7. 2 or 3 meals a day is best. Don't graze like a herbivore.</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">8. Attend to your </a><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">6s and 3s</a><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">. Pastured (grass fed) dairy and grass fed beef or bison has a more optimal 6:3 ratio, more vitamins and CLA. If you can't eat enough pastured products, eat plenty of fish.</a></p> <a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/"><strong> <p>9. Get proper exercise - emphasizing resistance and interval training over long aerobic sessions.</p> </strong></a> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">10. Most modern fruit is just a candy bar from a tree. Go easy on bags of sugar like apples. Stick with berries and avoid watermelon which is pure fructose. Eat in moderation. If you are not trying to lose fat, a few pieces of fruit a day are fine.</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">11. Eliminate legumes</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/">12. If you are allergic to milk protein or concerned about theoretical risks of casein, you can stick to butter and cream and avoid milk and soft cheeses.</a><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.archevore.com/get-started/"> </a>
<br /></span></p> </strong><p></p>
<br />Many of the individual items on the list are fairly easy- for example, 4, 5 and 11 are going to be fairly easy for many people.
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<br />But I do believe the list has a useful graduation. 1 through 6 form a unit that's really life changing. And while the biggest single difficulty is likely to be "eliminate sugar"- it's also the single biggest immediate benefit.
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<br />And it has a cascading effect on the rest of your diet and lifestyle. Industry sneaks sugar into EVERYTHING, and eliminating just that will make profound changes.
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<br />The reason I lump the rest into the group is that it pretty much eliminates most of the worst of the processed foods- since animal fats replacing vegetable fats means less shelf life and more need for actual- well- food.
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<br />And this bring up the last point my wife brought up to me. Can you cook?
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<br />Being able to cook is pretty essential! Let's assume you aren't a grillmaster, aren't too inventive, and basically can't cook that much. You're idea of cooking is adding chili to macaroni and cheese. or making a grilled cheese sandwich. Maybe even adding some fried onion and chicken to a canned soup and serving over rice.
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<br />And thus we get to:
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<br />Paleo Hot Turkey.
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<br />See Kurt's list up there? grab it, live it, love it. Empty the fridge and the cabinets. Go go go!
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<br />(assuming you need to shop and can't do this all yuppie farmer's market organic whoopdedoo)
<br />Buy a mess of eggs, and a bulk bag of bacon. Grab a few stacks of meat in whatever portions you can deal with, and several bags of frozen fish. Go ahead and get some frozen berries.
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<br />You need cheese? it's optional and contested, but go ahead, get the extra sharp cheddar, a pound or so.
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<br />coconut milk (for your coffee and those frozen berries.)
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<br />Now, you are going to go totally retro early 20th century and hit the store every day or every other day, and visit the produce aisle and meat counter. All your frozen meat is for when there's nothing good at the meat or fish counter, okay?
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<br />lettuce. Any assorted fun thing you can handle in your salad- a small pear, cucumber, bell pepper, whatever.
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<br />Okay. Cook the meat, chill the salad. Done! Hot turkey semi raw paleo.
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<br />Assuming you can handle frying an egg and bacon, you are pretty much set from here on out and can happily visit the paleo recipe sites and work your way up to my wife's status of master chef.
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<br /> She could cook- from a cookbook- when we met, while I had never used a cookbook for more than ideas. In some sense, I definitely helped her leanr to <span style="font-style: italic;">cook</span> in the sense of recognizing food synergies and interactions without a cookbook. She's much more creative than I am with paleo recipes- I'm a grill and salad guy- she can make paleo ZUCCHINI FRAPUCCINOS that taste like ... frappucinos!
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<br />At some point, you really will do better if you learn to cook- not just to follow a recipe.
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<br />There's really not much more to it than that- the easiest way to go paleo is to get stuff you don't have to cook much, right?
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<br />(And, in the end, the faster you do it, the faster you will feel the effects. doing 5% a week for 20 weeks you may not notice ANYTHING)
<br />Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-12166048271520576502011-08-07T16:12:00.000-07:002011-08-07T16:14:17.848-07:00WARNING, action ahead. (and it's political, ew)First, this post is particularly for Americans. nothing against any of<br />y'all, but this is particular to American politics. And I have a firm<br />belief that our internal politics should remain internal.<br /><br />that being said:<br /><br /><br />The timing of this post may seem odd to you- we have a huge amount of<br />time before the next set of elections (except for district 2<br />Nevadans!) - yet the races are starting and this is the most important<br />time for the individual citizen to get involved.<br /><br />I'd like to recommend a book. It is, I believe, out of print in paper,<br />but Baen publishing has an ebook version available- without DRM as is<br />the policy of Baen publishing.<br /><br />The book was originally written in 1946, and re issued in 1992. It was<br />re issued specifically to generate more impetus to a particular third<br />party candidate- but the book itself isn't written along any party<br />lines. Just about the only American political stance you will see it<br />stand *against* is classic political communism- which was and is<br />dictatorial and repressive.<br /><br />I would like urge everyone to get, to read, and to enact in some small<br />way, this book. It's an easy read, written by someone who managed to<br />make a nearly obscene living off of writing well. So it's easy to get<br />through. It's also thought provoking- it demonstrates in many ways how<br />the culture and mechanisms of politics have changed over the decades<br />since WW2, and offers some pictures of what reforms could look like.<br /><br /><br />Quoted from the book, the author has 7 beliefs he has listed that are<br />a result of his working in politics on local through national levels:<br /><br />"(1) Most people are basically honest, kind, and decent"<br /><br />I'd like to point out that if you do NOT believe this, if you firmly<br />believe that people MUST be controlled to force them into decency<br />(what my childhood religion calls the Luciferian Error)- I will<br />probably stand against you in every poll. But don't let that stop you,<br />get this book!<br /><br />"(2) The American people are wise enough to run their own affairs.<br />They do not need Fuehrers, Strong Men, Technocrats, Commissars, Silver<br />Shirts, Theocrats, or any form of dictator."<br /><br /><br />For reference, a Silver Shirt is a member of the defunct Silver Legion<br />of America, an openly fascist group founded by William Dudley Pelley,<br />who hoped to install himself as dictator in the 1930s.<br /><br />A dictator in reference to the time period when this was written was<br />anyone who had anything approaching an absolute, or overly<br />influential, amount of power - "One who dictates". If a president<br />tries to assume congressional powers, he is attempting to be a<br />dictator. (I could point to several on both sides of aisle, I'm not<br />targeting a specific individual here)<br /><br />The main point of this belief is that American citizens are wise<br />enough to run their own affairs. There are two aspects to that. One,<br />which I believe may be key in this election cycle- is that Americans<br />are wise enough to vote how they vote. We have had far too many<br />managed elections- and managed ballot lists- over the past several<br />cycles. Maybe we oughtta take that back.<br /><br />The other aspect to this is a classically liberal belief that the<br />individual is wise enough to run his own affairs and governmental<br />intrusion into such should be limited. In fact, the structure of the<br />Bill of Rights to the Constitution is a prime example of Classic<br />Liberal thought.<br /><br /><br />"(3) Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them<br />don't want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit<br />them to raise families in decent comfort without fear of the future.<br />They want the least government necessary to this purpose and don't<br />greatly mind what the other fellow does as long as it does not<br />interfere with them living their own lives. As a people we are neither<br />money mad nor prying; we are easy-going and anarchistic. we may want<br />to keep up with the Joneses -- but not with the Vanderbilts. We don't<br />like cops."<br /><br />Greed is something that appears to me to be attempted to be instilled<br />in our children and selves by marketing campaigns- both commercial and<br />scholastic. I could not state absolutely that I agree with the author<br />at this point, but I can let it slide because most of the people I<br />know who are honest and decent do not want wealth for the purpose of<br />removing power from others. Good enough for me.<br /><br />"The least government necessary to this purpose." - I know that a fair<br />percentage of the people I'm trying to reach will at this point<br />disagree with that phrase. The belief that we need government to<br />ensure fairness, elevate the oppressed, mandate rules and regulations<br />to prevent people from doing what another believes is harmful- Well,<br />I'll admit I don't *totally* disagree with that view. But, to me, the<br />least government necessary to the purpose of guaranteeing my children<br />access to healthy food is still the "least government necessary to the<br />purpose". Think on it.<br /><br />Cops. It is almost a requirement in my line of work to idolize<br />policemen on a level equivalent to military veterans. (Since I hold<br />close to my heart a separation of civilian government and the<br />military, I have to disagree with this on some levels.) While I<br />appreciate the risks and service of the job, the point here is that<br />Americans don't want cops sniffing around everything they do. It has<br />become institutionalized to the point where I know a LOT of Americans<br />who won't allow their children to have a conversation with a uniformed<br />police officer or badged government representative because the<br />possibility of fishing for a crime is too great- and it is almost<br />impossible to be guilty of nothing in our current legal landscape. You<br />can end up being investigated for deprivation if your kid complains<br />about not ever getting candy, or investigated for neglect f he says he<br />eats candy all the time! What the author meant, I believe, is that<br />Americans don't like authoritarian busybodies.<br /><br /><br />"(4) Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and<br />constitutions. It is a living, dynamic process which must be worked at<br />by you yourself -- or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and<br />form remains."<br /><br />Any of us, on any side of debate, could point to infringements of the<br />first, second, fourth, fifth, eighth, and fifteenth amendments in the<br />past decade once the amendments were pointed out to us. I won't go<br />talking about vigilant defence- but involvement. Your cell phone<br />camera may be the democratic sunshine tool of choice for youtube- but<br />voting and being involved in your party(ies) is much more effective in<br />the long term. just a letter, a phone call, 4 hours of volunteer work<br />make a difference.<br /><br />"(5) One way or another, any government which remains in power is a<br />representative government. If your city is a crooked machine, then it<br />is because you and your neighbors prefer it that way -- prefer it to<br />the effort of running your own affairs...."<br /><br />(the ellipsis refers to some notes on Hitler which were timely then<br />but I can safely leave out for the moment.)<br /><br />I hear an argument from many persons- right and left and center- that<br />it's pointless to get involved because it doesn't matter. As long as<br />enough people believe that, it is to some extent true. If you abdicate<br />your franchise because "all politicians are bad"- you still abdicate<br />your franchise. Don't do it.<br /><br />"(6) Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented<br />by the human race. One the record, it has worked better in peace and<br />war than fascism, communism, or any other form of dictatorship. As for<br />the mythical yardstick of "benevolent" monarchy or dictatorship --<br />there ain't no such animal"<br /><br />Well, look. If you really don't believe this and think that there's<br />some justification for taking over the government on a NON<br />representative basis, then elections aren't your game anyway.<br /><br />"(7) A single citizen, with no political connections and no money, can<br />be extremely effective in politics."<br /><br />And that last point is where the book takes off. It's a manual of how<br />to apply number 7.<br /><br />Here's what I want you to do, here's why I'm writing this. I want you<br />to get involved. I don't care if your politics agree with mine- I have<br />several major disagreements with the platforms of the Republicans, the<br />Democrats, and at least half the amazing hodge-podge of contradictions<br />that is the Tea Party (Bachman and Ron Paul in the same bed?!?!?!? how<br />on Earth?)<br /><br />Disagree with me. or agree with me. Just do it in a more personal,<br />more active, more individual political manner.<br /><br />Please.<br /><br />The book: Take Back Your Government, 1946, 1992 by Robert A Heinlein<br /><br />Published currently as an e-book by Baen, available here:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.webscription.net/p-1154-take-back-your-government.aspx" target="_blank">http://www.webscription.net/p-<wbr>1154-take-back-your-<wbr>government.aspx</a><br /><br />No, I have nothing to do with Baen except for some friendships with a<br />few authors who have published through them.<br /><span style="color:#888888;"><br /></span>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-59341058239688636572011-07-22T13:00:00.000-07:002011-07-22T14:14:49.894-07:00Working in the economyHey guys, guess what?<br /><br />The US economy is sucking for those of us in the bottom 80% right now. It's causing a lot of concern, angst- oh, and a lot of joblessness. While Congress, The President, Wall Street and the Corporate interests are making out dandy, thanks- we're not.<br /><br />So here's a few notes, from someone who hasn't had a job in long enough that he's self-employed.<br /><br /><br />One thing you might want to look at is whether you want a job, or you want income.<br /><br />Think on that one for a moment, and realize that the two aren't inseparable.<br /><br />There's a lot of advantages to jobs as such- health benefits, retirement plans, managers directing and controlling your work. I can see flat out stating that it's gotta be a job you want- That's cool, but the rest of this post is aimed at someone who wants income in the meantime. Or someone who doesn't care about the job aspect as much as the income aspect.<br /><br />Why am I writing this? Because, I honestly think it's up to us to build the economy, or at least keep some levels of it functioning- underneath, orthogonal to, and in spite of DC and Wall Street. I'm not going to get into any details, but my view is expressed here:<br /><br /><a href="http://koyoteconditioning.blogspot.com/2011/07/politics-of-working.html">http://koyoteconditioning.blogspot.com/2011/07/politics-of-working.html</a><br /><br /><br /><br />Okay, back to work. Income. Income means producing wealth- whether it's trade, production, reselling- doesn't matter. In some way, you need to add something to the mix, then collect some cash for it. (Or barter, but that's all up to you.)<br /><br /><br />The absolute basic rules are pretty simple. The first one is Do Stuff. Very simply, you need to move around, and make changes in your local universe. Weaving baskets out of pine needle bundles may sound silly, but it sure beats couch potato lard.<br /><br />It really doesn't matter, at most levels, what it is you are doing all the time, as long as you are Doing Stuff. If you want a job coding remotely for a company, that's great- your Doing Stuff should probably include lots of software in the OSS and PDA fields. But sharpening all your friends' axes and whittling a chain necklace are cool, too.<br /><br />Do. Stuff.<br /><br /><br />Second rule: Finish something every day. Some projects take an hour, some take a month, but you need to make sure that <span style="font-weight: bold;">every single day</span> you have something you can point to and say "Complete!"<br /><br />This is crucial stuff. Without going way deep into psychology, if you do this you'll build up some momentum, horsepower, and your time management skills will soar (trust me)<br /><br />Third rule: eliminate all "can't", "not allowed to", "don't have the materials", and "need to buy this first" talk.<br /><br />As I said before, pine needle baskets are cool if that's where you are at. With what's around you, you can do <span style="font-weight: bold;">something.</span> Do it. "all the jobs are near this rail line I live far away from." "The landlord won't let me run a forge on a balcony." "I need a CNC mill before I can make this model to sell."<br /><br />Balls. Do Stuff. No can't, just Do Stuff.<br /><br /><br />Okay, here's the magic part- as long as you follow these three rules (intelligently- starting a $25,000 homebuilt airplane while on unemployment is not intelligent), good stuff will happen to you. Money will come in, however slowly, people will give you stuff, trade you stuff, come over and share experience. Stuff Happens when you Do Stuff.<br /><br />You can target this, you can focus on an area, build a career, aim for a job in a specific industry, whatever you want. Just don't break the three simple rules.<br /><br />Let's say you are following the rules. What's next? Well, don't expect $2,500 a month off of etsy selling pine needle coasters that you learned how to make a week ago.<br /><br />This one is really hard for people. You can't master anything that's going to make you a lot of money and generate life quality in a day, a week, or a month. You may get no more than 10% over your materials cost for stuff at first. A set of pine needle coasters (6) might sell for $10. And that's going to take you half a day of work to do. Sucks, huh?<br /><br />Well, here's the thing- every hour you spend, attentively, doing stuff, is an investment in skill and ability.<br /><br />I have met a model maker- guy makes little plastic models. He sells them for over $250 each. (A couple a week.) Believe me, he's not slapping together a Revell kit and spraypainting it! He's got years into this, he's developed skill, an artistic style (even accurate modelling has it), and a customer base.<br /><br />Making chainmail jewelry? great. It's not magic, but it's sellable if you choose materials right. But you have to produce detail oriented work (smooth closures, even rings), and you have to put enough time in to have something to sell. 5 days for a $20 bracelet ain't it. 5 days should net you a sleeveless shirt. 10 days should net you a full knee length hauberk and coif. Work means WORK.<br /><br /><br />Don't expect that anything you do is perfectly unique- no cottage industry is completely new (okay, very damned few) and you do have to deal with the fact that there's someone out there been doing it longer. that's okay.<br /><br />There's a saying in the knife world that anything you develop in your custom shop has been done before sometime in history. You may put a twist into it, or be using a new steel, but it's almost certainly been done. That's fine by me, I'm selling my knives as <span style="font-weight: bold;">my knives</span>. I don't need to try and force people to believe I invented knifemaking.<br /><br /><br />Fortunately, you don't have to saturate a market, nor even necessarily compete with anyone else. There's lots of room. Whatever you are doing, you can do it well and generate some life out of it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I have to append a pretty important note to the second rule. Extending this rule is crucial.<br /><br />I'm not talking solely about refusing to "I can't" on whatever you are doing. This needs to be extended to life.<br /><br />A lot of people, I find, have an excuse for everything. It's as if there's a programmed avoidance technique in operation where if anything new, active, or solution oriented is proposed, the first thing to do is find a reason why it can't be done.<br /><br />This is absolutely critical. <span style="font-weight: bold;">ERASE</span> this attitude, response, and habit from yourself.<br /><br />You may find you have to stop accepting it from others. Spending 5 hours of your Doing Stuff time listening to someone else chant "I can't" in all the various forms will not help you. And they are just as likely to put that onto you- "You can't."<br /><br />I'm not saying you have to divorce yourself from these people, but some tactic will need to be employed to protect yourself from ... well, not Doing Stuff.Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-84365517078010024752011-07-18T13:44:00.001-07:002011-07-22T13:00:14.563-07:00Politics of working<div><p>This is a side note, a reference for another post.</p><p>For purposes of working with how I am treating the subject of working and income, consider thbese views.....or don't! This isn't crucial, but points out some difficulties.</p><p>First, the government of the US isn't here to get anyone a job, nor to ensure employment. Not even to fix the economy. The federal government is primarily to prevent "bad actions" in the economy.</p><p>What this means is that, left unchecked, "capitalism" will end up taken over by monopolistic and protectionist machines. Adam Smith saw this one, as did many of our Founding Fathers. In fact, if you look at corporate law in our first couple decades as a nation, you see a <span style="font-weight: bold;">very</span> different picture.</p><p><br /></p><p>See:</p><p><br /></p><p>http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/history_corporations_us.html</p><p><br /></p><p>and (bit leftist for me, but read it)</p><p><br /></p><p>http://prorev.com/corpsandus.htm</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Secondly, large corporations in general are not here to benefit you. Further than that, their power structures are set up to control wealth and power over and of others. The independent businessman, cottage industry, and entrepreneur are threats.</p><p><br /></p><p>So don't be looking at corporate loyalty, benefits, or anything else to save you.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-20004083105955635902011-06-25T12:03:00.000-07:002011-06-25T12:29:25.954-07:00defining a diet and therapies.Yknow, I need to put the disclaimer up for this post.<br /><br />I'm not a doctor, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. This particular post has no goal of advocating a specific diet. This post is intended to explain some issues with alternative diets such as VLC, LC, and PN (Paleo Nutrition) with some references to individual desires to use them as a therapy.<br /><br /><br />Generally a question will come along such as:<br /><br />"How will a gluten free diet help my child with ADHD?"<br /><br />"How will a paleo diet help with my mild Asperger's?"<br /><br />"What do I do about a specific diet for autism (classical -actual- autism, not Asperger's, nor PDD-NOS, Rett's, nor CDD) ?"<br /><br />"How about my metabolism, or thyroid conditon?"<br /><br />The list of questions is endless in minor variations. The primary problem is in defining what, exactly, is meant by the "X diet" - and the search for the all important extensive studies.<br /><br />I'm going to be blunt. While there are several specific studies of certain aspects of various diets, and research supporting some of the theories, there is not and probably won't be (anytime soon), an extensive, 500 person 3 year study of whatever you think you mean by "X diet."<br /><br />There *are* enough studies, from the classic WW2 famine study onward, to support various forms of the low carbohydrate, paleolithic foods influenced diet in general.<br /><br />But what is this diet? What are the relevant factors?<br /><br /><br />Let's take a basic example, of a person using a paleo diet as a springboard for a gluten-free lifestyle because there's some evidence/suspicion that the gluten is making a condition (suspected celiac, ADHD, minor non specific IBS) worse.<br /><br />After 3 months, this diet which went so WELL at first, is having issues and behavior or health is going down.<br /><br />Well, eating local produce, it turns out that this three months has gotten you into the middle of apple season where you live, and your apple intake has quintupled, or septupled. The <span style="font-weight: bold;">fructose</span> load has skyrocketed!<br /><br />Perhaps it's something else, where the carbohydrate level has tripled. Or the lactose or casein levels.<br /><br />Some of this stuff can even effect your <span style="font-style: italic;">eggs</span> to the point where you end up with different reactions to commercial eggs at different times of year.<br /><br />And you can't tell why- it could be the vitamin D!<span style="font-weight: bold;"> NO ONE</span> knows, though there are some theories with merit. No one knows because it's <span style="font-style: italic;">chaotic</span>, and the math for network systems hasn't been applied to all the studies. I'm not sure it can be without much more in depth multivariable studies.<br /><br /><br />What you can do is look at the basic thrusts and tracks of many of the low carb, autism, and paelo <span style="font-weight: bold;">family</span> of diets.<br /><br />1: No gluten. This gets into- no grains. And thus no grain enzymes, no gluten, no storage molds, no rancidity, no conversions of starches into other sugars (such as happens through cooking or malting)<br /><br />2: Controlled levels of carbohydrates in a generally raw or unprocessed, balanced, inclusive food. Meaning you get carbohydrates from a carrot, a raspberry, or some other source where the carbohydrate is part of a <span style="font-weight: bold;">whole food</span>.<br /><br />3: low and <span style="font-style: italic;">controlled</span> levels of glucose and fructose. Fructose especially is dangerous as it bypasses some of the control mechanisms in the body that other carbohydrate types like glucose and proteins have to go through. (go to the paNu blog and search fructose, and read what the Doctor has to say)<br /><br />4: extremely limited or no dairy- losing the lactose and casein that can also cause problems, individually or systemically, with several types of disorder.<br /><br />5: exercise. at a minimum, some 15 minute <span style="font-style: italic;">sweat inducing</span> power interval type of workout (like 100 kettlebell swings and some situps) that increases the overall metabolic rate.<br /><br /><br />You need all 5. You can't - just can't- isolate to gluten, or fructose, or bean enzymes, or lactose. The reason is we don't know which specific control items in <span style="font-weight: bold;">which combinations</span> are damaging.<br /><br />It's far better to focus on a broader sense of the map than to narrow to one specific item- replacing gluten with 6 apples a day. replacing all dairy with high processed fakery. (fakery is bad. Fakery is processing, processing is bad. minimize it)<br /><br /><br />There's nothing unhealthy about leaving the high sugars, grains, beans, and dairy products behind. No one can prove that- <span style="font-style: italic;">if you eat the right foods</span>- axing these will harm you. Every argument relies on "<span style="font-weight: bold;">if</span> you don't eat enough plant fiber in salad greens, <span style="font-weight: bold;">if</span> you eat too much of X fat, if if if- iuf something, you will be less healthy"<br /><br />All you have to do- <span style="font-weight: bold;">all you have to do</span>- is not "if" yourself.Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-17629675091515131082011-06-11T08:22:00.001-07:002011-06-11T09:40:12.094-07:00that diet report thing.<span style="font-size:130%;">The paleo blogs blew up this week about the US News report on best diets:<br /><br />http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/best-overall-diets<br /><br />As amusing as the user stacking on the "did this work for you" is, I need to write just a little bit more on the topic.<br /><br />USnews states: "Experts took issue with the Paleo diet on every measure. Regardless of what a dieter's goal is—weight loss, heart health, or finding a diet that's easy to follow—most experts concluded he or she is better off looking elsewhere."<br /><br />Well, let's take a quick look. A fair amount of analysis has been done on the methodology and suspected .... industry bias... of this report. So I'm just going<br />to hit a few high points:<br /><br />http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/paleo-diet<br /><br /><br />How's the paleo diet for your heart?<br /><br />USnews: "While some studies have linked Paleo diets with reducing blood pressure, bad “LDL” cholesterol, and triglycerides (a fatty substance that can raise heart disease risk), they have been few, small, and short. And all that fat would <a href="http://health.usnews.com/health-conditions/heart-health">worry most experts</a>."<br /><br />Okay. Let's parse this. The studies there ARE show the paleo diet can be linked to lowering blood pressure, ldl cholesterol, and triglycerides.<br /><br />So the experts worry that it's unsafe because it's got too much fat.<br /><br /><br />Logic?<br /><br /><br />USnews on health risks:<br /><br />"By shunning dairy and grains, you’re at risk of missing out on a lot of nutrients. Also, if you’re not careful about making lean meat choices, you’ll quickly ratchet up your risk for heart problems."<br /><br />Which nutrients exactly? If you look into the vegan diet (same review) and poke around a bit, you find piles and piles of sources for replacements or improvements on every nutrient class. Leaving out the beans, soymilk, and tofu that form the basis of the vegan Way, we have complete animal sources of protein, vitamin D, and other nutrients.<br /><br />Lean meat choices? See the first point. "all that fat" has been proven in the existing studies to NOT be a problem.<br /><br /><br /><br />In the section "analyzing" how well the Paleo diet conforms to accepted guidelines, note the first thing is the fat:<br /><br />"<b>Fat.</b> At about 39 percent of daily calories from fat, a sample Paleo menu exceeds the government’s 35 percent cap by a bit."<br /><br />All this scare about fat, over 4%? 4%!?!?.<br /><br /><br />Okay, note that the report couldn't find a way to come down on salt. Paleo wins on balancing the sodium intake.<br /><br />Fiber- well, veggies. fiber. Got it.<br /><br />The potassium intake on the paleo diet is high enough to actually be used as a reason for the paleo diet to work. Not the only reason, but it's tops on many nutrients like potassium without supplements.<br /><br />USnews on Vitamin B12:<br /><br />"<b>Vitamin B-12.</b> Adults should shoot for 2.4 micrograms of this nutrient, which is critical for proper cell metabolism. You’ll have no trouble meeting the recommendation—fish and meat are B-12 powerhouses."<br /><br />USnews on Vitamin D:<br /><br /><b>"Vitamin D. </b>You’ll get very little or none, so you’ll either have to supplement (the non-caveman way) or just make sure you spend enough time in the sun to get the 15 micrograms recommended. Some experts suggest five to 30 minutes of sun between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., twice a week and without sunscreen, to meet the recommendation, according to the National Institutes of Health."<br /><br />Supplementing vitamin D the caveman way is pretty easy. Lard. The non hydrogenated, natural kind. (from pigs that see sunlight.) We're talking tablespoons per week here- the ONLY thing that beats it in vitamin D is cod liver oil.<br /><br />Though, for a paleo man or woman, a couple hours of sunlight a week isn't at all difficult. Because paleo is more than a diet and involves getting outside and moving mass in space (exercise)<br /><br />And last, on the nutrient list- calcium<br /><br />USnews:<br /><br />"<b>Calcium. </b>It’s essential not only to build and maintain bones but to make blood vessels and muscles function properly. Many Americans don’t get enough. Women and anyone older than 50 should try especially hard to meet the government’s recommendation of 1,000 to 1,300 mg. Because you’re not allowed dairy or fortified cereals, you’ll likely only get about 700 mg. from a Paleo menu."<br /><br /><br />Balls. That's it, just balls.<br /><br />First, the 1300mg is based on the lower bioavailability of calcium from milk sources. You get something like one and a half to double the amount of bioavailable calcium from non dairy sources. Which means 700mg might not be low, even if it's true.<br /><br />It's not.<br /><br />Calcium is available in a wide range of natural sources, once you exclude dairy and those ever-so-healthy "fortified" cereal chem lab experiments. Sardines, salmon, trout- not exotic fish, but inexpensive sources. Kale, spinach, collards- essentially every dark green leafy vegetable will have some significant calcium source.<br /><br />Not. A. Problem.<br /><br /><br />Diabetes is often a big issue with dieters these days. I'll leave it to you- look at one of the top rated diets- DASH, and read (carefully) the diabetes section (read more link int he page).<br /><br />Then read the paleo section.<br /><br />While the facts are nearly identical, the wording, tone, and phrasing are rather heavily slanted.<br /><br /><br />For a final comment, I'd like to point out the USnews sees a major issue with the paleo diet in that it requires you to shop in the produce section, and at the meat counter.<br /><br /><br />you know, where the food is....fresh?<br /><br /><br /></span>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-66247194674236375302011-02-04T17:48:00.000-08:002011-08-12T17:49:09.284-07:00Real food, fake food, and the natural paleoReal Paleo, what is it?
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<br />How I define real and fake foods.
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<br />This is a fuzzy area in parts. If you check my wife's blog for the homestead at <a href="http://learninglemurs.blogspot.com/">Lemurs in the Homestead</a> , you can see that she can get pretty creative with paleo ingredients. I wouldn't classify zucchini mint chocolate chip ice cream as anything but fake. Her coffee smoothies utilizing it are (except for the coffee) raw, whole, and complete. Can't fault that. Naturally, the most excellent and amazingly low carb Mock Split Pea Soup made with zucchini instead of peas is totally fine. And it's FINE, too!
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<br />More on this in a moment, first we need to look at what makes a food fake:
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<br />Processing versus conversion.
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<br />Processing is a fundamental change in the nature or purpose of a food. Processing in the commercial sense generally means mechanical, chemical, and heat changes to the food itself- along with additives.
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<br />When you take something that should be healthy- like pork fat (lard) and you hydrogenate it for shelf life, you destroy many of the benefits of the natural product.
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<br />Some processing is done by most of us- from grilling to canning to making jerky. But the difference in this realm of "fake paleo" is when processing is used for two purposes:
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<br />1: To convince someone they are eating something that wouldn't be considered paleo in any other context (cookies, crackers, the godsawful mess that is an atkins shake, etc)
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<br />2: To eliminate the whole and fresh aspects of the paleo diet. (healthy food has to be food, if your diet is 80% prepackaged and premade, it's just NOT going to work.)
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<br />Conversion, by contrast, is when a food is changed into a different food by a natural- most often living- process. Yogurt is an example, as is sauerkraut, kimchee, or real soy sauce. Or many types of cheese.
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<br />I have found that many converted food that would generally not be acceptable become so with conversion. In many to most cases, the specific issues a archevore or paleovore would have with a given food source become moot as the food is converted. (lactose, for example.) Many converted foods are living foods, as well.
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<br />Back to fake and real.
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<br />I've seen several reports of paleo not working for a specific individual- and atkins as well. In most of these cases where I've talked to people, there is a preponderance of fakery. If you eat 15 servings of "paleo cake" or "grok cookies" every week, things aren't going to go well.
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<br />It's best to keep it real, keep it simple as you grow into your lifestyle, and minimize the incidence of fakery.
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<br />Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-67657323206799049582011-02-04T17:15:00.000-08:002011-08-23T20:53:17.394-07:00Grok got fat, now what?Ah, an actual weight loss post. Finally!
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<br />A few cautions before we go in. This is a "ketosis" or "induction" style weight loss program. Ketoacidosis isn't ketosis isn't ketonuria. Go look it up, know what's what! If Dr. Atkins had done that to begin with, a lot of arguments about the dangers of ketosis that were made by people thinking about ketoacidosis would have never come up.
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<br />I am not a doctor, nor a nutritionist, nor a guru. This is what <span style="font-weight: bold;">I</span> am doing, and solutions to sticking points that <span style="font-weight: bold;">I</span> have used and will be using.
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<br />Dr. Atkins forms the basis for the very first levels. In his 1973 book, the original "Diet Revolution", he lays out a very workable first phase system for weight loss.
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<br />It's not that the current book is...bad. But the original book tends to follow a more "natural" or even "paleo" approach (except for the creams and cheeses) with less fakery. Fakery is bad.
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<br />Okay, look. Any of the paleo/very low carb/atkins type approaches are going to work. All you need is to get into ketosis for a few weeks, adjust the habits of eating, not cheat.
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<br />Also, while I've tried the fast and feast type of thing- it really does work better if you eat 3 or 4 meals a day. It just does. No idea why.
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<br />If you really want to blast the weight off, get a good power interval before each eat. Not food without a sweat right before. Simple!
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<br />I topped out at 248 after my wife's last pregnancy, with the move and the diet issues, and I'm looking at 195 now- 5 months of dieting and off and on exercise. Getting down to 215 or so was easy- ketosis. I got stuck, and the two things that seem to have gotten me past it are:
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<br />- eating lunch instead of just breakfast and dinner.
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<br />- EVERY DAY exercise.
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<br />I'm doing 100 kettlebell swings every morning, with various add ons. pushups, pullups, hot potatoes, snatches. Just anything- no real plan, except I always do some kettlebell presses.
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<br />I'm not even close to there yet- still 39" at the beer belly, but my neck has popped from 16 to 18 inches, body fat is calculating down at 21%. Another 6% to go and I'll be in "good" shape.
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<br />LC and paleo may be the key, but the lock is exercise.
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<br />Our ancestors didn't exercise 3 times a week for an hour, either. Makes games of it, change it up constantly, but make sure it's hard and you do it- a couple times a day.
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<br />Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-49597098122217395392011-02-04T12:42:00.000-08:002011-02-05T14:36:58.616-08:00Paleo isn't a weight loss regimen - part three<span style="font-family: arial;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br /><br />Mass in Space. I want to get my Muppet on and say it dramatically- MASSSSSSS IN SPAAAAAACE.<br /><br />Specifically, moving mass in space - or exercise.<br /><br />In a paleo-lifestyle, exercise is often a key component, but it's divorced from paleo-nutrition. There are exception, like the previously referenced 12 steps of Dr. Harris. Even there, though, it remains a very short statement.<br /><br /><br />To say that going paleo doesn't work as a weight loss system because it lacks exercise is untrue. Exercise is crucial, and often recognized by the paleo-life crowd. What the paleo lifestyle most often lacks in this regard is a progression or evolution of exercise from "couch potato" to "Grok."<br /><br /><br />Everything I write here applies to the guy who needs to drop 15 pounds and bump the energy levels nearly as much as it does to the girl who needs to shed 40 pounds, the guy looking at 50, 80, even 100 or more pounds of weight loss. But for illustrative purposes, I'm going to stick with the "middle major" area of needing to drop 40-90 pounds by the BMI index.<br /><br />Being overweight like this has effects. You can't move the same way you can when lean. You will be moving an automatic extra 40-90 pounds of weight with each squat, each swing, each pushup, each dreaded attempt at a pull up.<br /><br />Your heart is also feeding a lot more blood to a lot more flesh. And your lungs, more oxygen. There's a fair amount of taxation involved here.<br /><br />In short, you need a workout plan that you can do, that won't put you in the doctor's office, and that can grow with your rapidly expanding capabilities (and they will expand rapidly!)<br /><br />I'm not using this short post to get into any exercise programs, just to talk about what we need.<br /><br />For research, I'm going to leave you with two words: kettlebells and bodyweight.<br /><br /> I'd highly recommend picking up a decent kettlebell book like Enter The Kettlebell, and my bodyweight book of choice for this stage is Convict Conditioning.<br /><br />What's going to be key here is that you need a solid regimen that<br /><br />* ignores the high science of specific training,<br /><br />*boosts fat burning and overall metabolic function,<br /><br />*and that you can push yourself further with as you succeed.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-7583501091564781602011-02-04T07:26:00.000-08:002011-02-04T12:41:46.699-08:00Paleo isn't a weight loss regimen - part two<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br />Paleo nutrition involves eating a suite of healthy foods, avoiding neolithic dietary - well, poisons- and achieving a natural (even instinctive) balance of intake coupled with exercise to maintain your genetically and environmentally programmed ideal weight and optimal health.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There's a huge danger here for people with a weight problem.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Side note on defining weight problems:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> The BMI (</span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/">Body Mass Index</a><span style="font-family:arial;">) measurement system is both the easiest and the least accurate method of determining an overweight condition. Easiest because it works on 2 data points, least accurate for... the same reason. However, it is an easy one to use at the higher levels. If your BMI is over 25 and you aren't a professional athlete throwing off the numbers (in which case you already have better tracking systems!), it's usable as a needs and progress measurement. Use it. If your BMI is over 30 and you are looking at weight loss- knowing you have a problem- you can get away with using it until you drop to the 25-27 stage safely.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Rope&Choke system is the tradition system used in the US Navy to measure body fat. While it has the potential to be inaccurate, the conditions under which it becomes inaccurate involve a heavy powerlifting, weight training, or other situation well beyond the weight loss phase of our journey. Far more accurate than the BMI, you can use a </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.scientificpsychic.com/fitness/diet.html">calculator such as this one</a><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> </span>to calculate body fat. I'd suggest looking at other metrics once you get down to a place where you are feeling fit and balanced. Generally, if you are looking at over a 18% (male) or 22% (female) calculation, you still have some path to travel.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">End digression.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The danger here is that if you have a weight problem, your programming is wrong. It's out of balance. Note that it's not just a genetic program, but an environmental program as well. Odds are, if you are in an overweight condition, the programming is awry.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There are any number of ways for the programming to be wrong. From broken satiety, to emotional dependence, to accidental or deliberate physical addictions to high GI carbs (sugar), flavors, and fructose. Insulin spikes necessitating constant grazing on sugary foods, what have you.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Since the programming is gone wonky, you need to institute an artificial program. Which means measuring, weighing, controlling, and recording results. None of this is a natural part of paleo-health, but we're not healthy yet.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">You can't just cut calories down, you have to detox. Oh, sure, detox the body, but you have to detox the brain and the programs, too. This is why you need to do more than just eat one donut instead of 3 at the office in the morning.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Some of the major programming elements to change include:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What is and isn't food</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What is and isn't a meal</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">How often to eat</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">All three of these are covered in many paleo-lifestyle systems or regimens.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In "natural paleo nutrition", a term I have coined to eliminate the fakery of using paleo acceptable ingredients processed into fake foods, the list is very easy and sustainable.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Now, nothing wrong with the very occasional coconut flour tortilla, but these types of fakery have a tendency- especially with persons having or having had eight issues- to become staples.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So, in NPN, you have a basic list of as-nature-provided meats, vegetables, and fruits. If you add dairy, there's unprocessed dairy products. With the dairy and the other areas, there are types of conversions that aren't processing in the normal sense. Fermentations, pickling, cheeses- I'll get a post out about those sometime.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What is and isn't a meal requires deprogramming. I remember my wife having issues years ago with salad as a meal. I could put a thousand calories of meat, salami, cheeses, artichoke hearts and such onto a salad and because it was a </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" >salad</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">, to her it wasn't a meal. (We got over this.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There's a similar aspect with paleo nutrition, where many people have to deprogram the presence of bread, dessert, pasta, taters, or something else. All I can say is, you have to do it. The Atkins plan for a short term reprogramming has some benefits here as there are no restrictions on quantities in the induction phase.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">How often to eat. Man, this is tough. It runs the gamut from athletic training involving steady, 6 or 8 times daily inuts to balance the needs of training, to Warrior Diet style single daily meals. Most paleo lifestyle diets seem to involve 1 to 2 main meals and occasional snacks. We'll see later how this works with weight loss needs.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Measurement. Numbers. We need them. First, they are a concrete tracking system for reprogramming. Second, when dealing with weight loss, they are necessary for controlling the input levels to achieve the reduction in mass.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">With a weight loss program, there are a few main areas for measurement. The first is carbohydrates, and psuedo carbohydrates (such as splenda or sweet and low type sweeteners). Second is eating times- I haven't posted about the exercise component yet, but the ideal situation is to never eat without some exercise immediately beforehand. You also have controls on pure number of times to eat per day. Third is input quantities, which becomes important when getting stuck at a certain phase or body fat level. Fourth, is measuring results.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So, the above is another part of your list of matters to convert a paleo lifestyle into a weight loss program. After the exercise portion is covered, I'll try and post about what a paleo weight loss program that works for ME is, in more detail.</span></span>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-7337212792298334062011-02-03T18:11:00.000-08:002011-02-04T16:59:02.592-08:00Paleo isn't a weight loss regimen - part one<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Possibly the most dangerous aspect to the "paleo movement" insofar as it's a single thing is the notion that it's an ideal no- effort weight loss system.<br /><br />Nothing could be further from the truth.<br /><br />Paleonutrition is an aspect of the paleo-lifestyle. Not the sum total, and not necessarily the most important aspect.<br /><br />We evolved not just to eat, but to Do Stuff. Exercise is crucial, critical important, and unavoidable. Which is something I'll have to get to in another post....<br /><br />Paleonutrition, again, is not a weight loss plan, and on the higher levels of instinctual eating, isn't very good for weight loss at all.<br /><br />Weight loss, at its most basic, is fixing a problem. Eating a healthy diet in a healthy body is ideal, but if the body isn't healthy yet, the "regular" paleo diet doesn't get you reasonable wins in weight loss by itself.<br /><br />Which brings us to the dieting part of my life.<br /><br />The two times I have needed to and successfully lost weight, and kept it off for extended periods, I used the same initial method.<br /><br />Minor digression: the first time I was looking at trimming about 4% body fat and getting down the a reasonable "Navy trim" of 15% (measured via rope and choke). The second time was a decade later, and required closer to a full 12-15% reduction. A decade of living...dangerously. That one worked until we moved and between shop issues, family, and budget issues, we got caught in a carb spiral and I started exhibiting addictive behaviors.<br /><br />Neither of these cases is a failure of diet, but a failure of lifestyle.<br /><br />Back from our digression, I'll give you the answer to the first phases of weight loss: Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution. The original, old school, 1970s Diet Revolution- sans Atkins bars, minus the "New", without the fakery.<br /><br />The original meat, eggs, butter, cream, coffee, mayo and salad version.<br /><br />This is all very critical. Fakery is bad. How bad? I've seen diet bars for the New Revolution with ingredients lists over a dozen and a half, and with carb levels of 14 grams!!!!! Fakery is bad.<br /><br />I've known, dated, lived with, and cooked for vegetarians over the course of my life. I'm not one, and I doubt I ever will be. But cooking for and living with vegetarians has taught me a lot about food.<br /><br /><a href="http://michaelpollan.com/">Michael Pollan</a> and I may not agree on everything, but one of his Food Rules stands out supreme, among paleos as well as natural vegetarians and agricultural natural eaters:<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Eat Food.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Pretty simple on the surface, and incredibly simple once you wrap your head around it.<br /><br />The vegetarians I've known with the lowest health indexes- they eat regular quantities of tofu burgers, vegetarian hot dogs, tofurkeys, soy or TVP jerky, TVP chili, and.. well, Doritos.<br /><br />The vegetarians I've known with the highest health indexes eat FOOD. Salads, stews, rice dishes, edamame, vegetables.<br /><br />The difference is that- while legumes are out for those of us who grok Grok, the healthy vegetarian is eating soy as a natural food- edamame. She is eating rice as a natural product- rice. Not rice tortured into "milk", and not beans tortured into some sort of replacement for turkey!!<br /><br />Back to those of us who like blood dripping out of our steaks, The original Atkins plan involved primarily eating real food, real fats, real meat, and real meals. No shakes, no fake candy bars. There were some sugar free gelatin desserts and other things to get the psyche past the hump of getting over sugars and desserts, but even these were rel recipes involving basic ingredients.<br /><br />All this comes down to a couple central points on why "eating paleo" isn't a magical no-effort weight loss magic.<br /><br />First- a lot of paleo cooking, as I browse the Web, is getting increasingly involved in fakery. faking tortillas, faking cake, even faking sandwich bread! Fakery isn't food.<br /><br />I'm reminded of a recent conversation I heard involving some questions about getting family members "into" eating paleo. A spouse who doesn't like cooked and boiled veggies, a child who wants peanut butter and jelly every day. Birthday cake. Donuts.<br /><br />The suggestions mostly involved ways to fake food!<br /><br />Regarding the spouse who doesn't like cooked veggies- don't try making cauliflower rice, try NOT COOKING the vegetables! Or even just not having many.<br /><br />I have no comment on the peanut butter and jelly except to say that anything faking a PB&J is going to be worse than the PB&J in it's regular form, guaranteed.<br /><br />Fakery almost never helps with weight loss.<br /><br />Second, "Paleo" has too many meanings. You can eat "almost pure" paleo and still load yourself with so much fruit, added to piles of milk and cheese, mixed with the "occasional" bowl of rice or slice of bread as a treat and... get fat.<br /><br />You have to get a set view of what paleo means (while not the classic hardcore view, Dr. Harris' list of <a href="http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/">Twelve Step List</a> - taken as a whole and not a step by step approach- is a good rulebook. Or any other reasonable paleo rulebook, but don't switch daily because this or that treat is available. No diet coke paleo? stay off the DC! Diet coke okay, but no dairy? Don't mess with it.<br /><br />Many of these plans have plusses and minusses. There's something wrong with all of them, if you listen to that person or this study. (I'd argue that the excellent PaNu list of 12 steps is flawed for weight loss and family/group diets primarily by being a progressive list instead of a set of rules you follow in totality.)<br /><br />Or, in short- there's too much allowed in general paleo diets, with too little control, for a weight loss regimen.<br /><br />Next up, talking measurements and planning, and why paleo by itself isn't a weight loss plan.<br /><br />Third, hopefully, The all important movement of mass in space issues.<br /></span></span>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-71586991778936417382011-02-03T17:43:00.000-08:002011-02-03T18:11:31.929-08:00RESTART<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Boy, what a fall/winter.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">By last January I had managed to pull way down to 190, was in possibly the best shape of my life, and had just started adding the convict conditioning into my workouts.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">By July, we were in a hectic last minute stress situation moving the family, pregnancy, and knife shop to our new home in Nevada. Coupled with ensuing budget issues, the actual birth of Eira, and my regular tendency to gain all the fat my wife loses during pregnancy, things have gotten back to....</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">square one.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Well, I've done it before, I will do it again.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Fortunately, in the past 18 months the Low Carb, Very Low Carb, and Paleo Nutrition movements have generated enough social acceptance and research data that my wife is all for it. A fantastic example is the excellent </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://paleonu.com">PaNu blog/info site</a><span style="font-family: arial;">.Added to that is that it's become obvious how my kids behave with various bad ingredients. And our new daughter has the typical issues our kids have while nursing necessitatin my wife go dairy free and bean free.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So, now I've got the ability to eat well without fighting the rest of the household!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course, this leads to the fact that a paleo-nutrition lifestyle is NOT A WEIGHT LOSS PLAN. I'll get to that soon.....</span><br /></span>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-29082502581374413632010-01-18T18:00:00.000-08:002010-01-18T18:21:35.807-08:00SimplicitySimplicity is hard.<br /><br />yesterday at the local Unitarian Universalist Church, where one of my housemates does snackfood for the children (and where I take my kiddos on Sundays) there was a bit of a bobble in the food showing up.<br /><br />There's a lot of trouble with the snacks for the kids as, even though the church as a whole is focused <span style="font-weight: bold;">loudly</span> on eating a 'low carbon diet' with a focus on natural, sustainable, local foods- the children's snacks have traditionally been donuts, "go-gurt", "froot by the foot" and other such ....delicacies.<br /><br />My housemate has been very instrumental in helping that change- to the point where you can <span style="font-weight: bold;">almost</span> guarantee the presence of whole fruit in the snacks. <br /><br />Well, Simplicity is the problem. The kids are happy eating apple slices, or grapes, or carrot sticks. Parents who volunteer to supply food cannot handle this, though. There's a constant creeping <span style="font-style: italic;">need</span> to add things- cheese slices, hummus dip, 7 kinds of fruit in quantities too small to share out well to the classes. Dips. Always something has to be added because just eating fruit can't be done!<br /><br />This weekend when the parent who volunteered to go get food asked, it was a 5 minute circular conversation where everytime my housemate said "apples are in season, a 5 pound bag of apples is fine"- the response was "with what?" "can I get cheese?" "how about peanut butter?"<br /><br />Simplicity.<br /><br />As a knifemaker, I try and focus on simplicity in design and ergonomics. It's surprisingly hard. I practice, and regularly simplify a design I'm working on through 2 or 3 iterations.<br /><br /><br />In exercise- simplicity.<br /><br />One of the things I like best about the Convict Conditioning program is that it is dead simple. You have 6 moves, each with 10 progressive steps. You just do them. it's helpful to have a pullup bar around, but it's very simple on equipment. Just do the reps. Slowly.<br /><br />Kettlebells are currently going through a major period of complexification. There's really not but a few core movements- swings, snatches, getups, presses. Maybe deadlifts and hot potatoes, too.<br /><br />You can do nothing but swings and getups forever and be in fantastic shape.<br /><br />But lately it's like there's a new program variation, exercise, or 'system' every couple of hours.<br /><br />I like the simple approaches:<br /><br />100 morning swings.<br />lots of snatches twice a week.<br />20 minutes of 'messing around' twice a week.<br /><br />or the brutal minimalist workout (TGUs, swings, and hindu squats)<br /><br />The program minimum, of course.<br /><br />One of the most attractive things about a kettlebell is simplicity. It's a gym in a cannonball. Why complexify it?Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-52359610807481079222010-01-08T20:41:00.000-08:002010-01-08T21:02:32.436-08:00Strength Training<span style="font-size:130%;">Lately, on one of the forums I frequent, there's been a lot of talk in a thread about getting in shape.<br /><br />Apparently, and this is a shock to me, because I can't always see it in the mirror- I'm a bit of an inspiration to some guys. I love it because it means I </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >have</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> to keep going! It bugs me a bit because I'm...just a guy, yknow? Nothing special here at all.<br /><br />There's been a bit of debate recently. One of the participants is nearing completion of a degree in exercise science (I'm not recalling the exact name, but it's a general exercise and not a physical therapy specific degree). He's come down pretty hard on the kettlebell, thinking it's a horribly dangerous thing.<br /><br />Now, all my reading suggests that the rate of injury among gireviks is </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >far</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> lower than in many lifting programs. If you ave the basics of good form and focus on that, it's safe and has done wonders for my joints. I couldn't point you to a study that supports swings as a cure for carpal, but mine is </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >gone.<br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />All the old issues with my heels and knees in the mornings are similarly gone, but that could be following Pavel's advice and wearing combat boot as much as anything I get directly out of swings.<br /><br />Swings- this is the big thing that is causing the whole misunderstanding. The guy is thinking of a swing as... a swing. It's not. It's a "dynamic ballistic deadlift." A nice phrase I made up. Oh, there's definitely a rotational force, but it's not like a chain and ball toss at the scottish games.<br /><br />All my swing force is generated from my center. Aside from grip tension (yes, there's some shoulder in this, Anastasia (my kettlebell) is floating like a 35 pound butterfly until I bring it home at the top. and that's not a shoulder joint motion- it's my upper back and shoulder muscles popping everything to completion before I pull her down again.<br /><br />One thing you see often is people flipping kettlebells at the top of the swing. If you had 200 odd pounds of rotational force pulling on a tangent </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >out</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> at that point, you couldn't DO a flip of the KB, right?<br /><br />And I've found precisely seven reports of injuries involving Turkish getups with a kettlebell. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Every one</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> of them involves dropping a KB on your chest, and they all resulted in bruising. I won't stop doing TGUs because of that, though I might take care not to try and do a getup with a KB I can't do 15 or 20 presses with!<br /><br />The TGU is one of those exercises where I fail to see how you can get an injury. You can overtrain anything, but I simply </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >cannot do a getup with a weight that's too heavy for my joints.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> Remember that a TGU is a static press, and doing a getup with 16 or 24 kilograms just can't be considered extreme. Very few people would tell you that a 35 pound dumbell is inherently unsafe to lift.<br /><br /><br />Now, on to strength training. A lot of my fellow travellers are in a heavy fat burning phase. I'm stepping back into one for a couple weeks to burn through part of this next 5%.<br /><br />One of the common cautions, based on nothing I can find that's factual, is that if you try to lose weight fast you are going to drop muscle mass. Well, thanks to rusty over at fitnessblackbook, I've got the answer.<br /><br />Resistance (or strength) training. This is where bodyweight is probably king of kings. Drop those calories and do a full bodyweight resistance program and you are golden. And hey, those bodyweight exercises are going to get a lot easier with each kilo you drop!<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-10918462552657566962010-01-04T12:34:00.001-08:002010-01-06T10:57:10.805-08:00Greasing the Groove<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Monday is Progression Testing day for my system, I do one or two light sets early and then spend the day spacing out progression test cycles.<br /><br />Today I've done:<br /><br />09:00 light warmup<br /><br />10:30 I progress tested the frog leg lifts. 3 sets of 30. Didn't have any difficulty making the standard, did surprise myself a bit as the first set I'd done last Monday evening was a little rough. Purely subjective, but I'm feeling like the GTG approach is working.<br /><br />11:15 I progress tested on the straight bridges- Didn't make the progression standard, but did 3 sets of 30 (standard is 3 sets of 40). This is good, as I have an area to track progress in for a longer period.<br /><br />13:00 I progress tested the half pushups. Hard, but doable. 2 sets of 25. Remember, the slow pace is a big part of this- I can pop out that many sloppy military fitness test pushups in a minute. the sets of 25 were closer to two minutes of work each.<br /><br />I could hang back and work this level a bit more, but I'm going to go ahead and move to full pushups and milk that phase for a while. My arms are a bit stubby and the half pushups I'm doing, using a smaller ball, are closer to the full pushups prescribed in the next phase.<br /><br /><br />I'm going to update later, I need to get several hours of recovery time in before I do the jacknife pull ups. I'll go ahead and do squats at some point after, though I'm not expecting much difficulty with them, and am not worried about being a bit blown when I do the standard.<br /><br /><br />On a purely subjective basis - I have noticed a definite increase over the past 3 weeks in my 'comfort strength'- to the point where I'm having to be significantly more cautious than previously in some tasks. This isn't a "get off the couch" program for me, I've been working out since July, so I'm a bit surprised by the dramatic level of the general, overall strength increase.<br /><br />I've been at this GTG style adaptation for over 3 weeks now, and I'm told that it's going to be too much to maintain, but thus far I'm not feeling like that is the case. I may be going slower at developing pull up strength than I otherwise would if I had a dedicated Naked Warrior style program for pull ups exclusively. It is simply my weakest area and I can't really tell if that's the case.<br /><br />There's a built in balance, I think, in the CC program. In Naked Warrior, the focus is designed to be purely on max strength, though there will be some endurance gain from the frequency of the workouts. With Convict Conditioning it appears that beginning a new step in any one of the big 6 will promote a phase of rapid strength gain, with a following cycle of endurance gains. (Not that it's a 100% shift, there will obviously be a ratio that changes, never hitting 0 in either area.)<br /><br />Truth is that in many of the areas I'm not putting much stress on the body or muscles just yet- and as that grows the reps go down, so I'm going to continue with this program for now and if I need to back off to 1 set done 3 times a day versus 2 sets done three times a day at some point, I will.</span>Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-24592999869220863522010-01-01T21:53:00.000-08:002010-01-01T21:57:18.716-08:00A new decade!I started my new year/new decade shift in physical culture training a bit early, sure.<br /><br />But it's the first day of the decade, the year, and the first official day of my 2010 goals.<br /><br />Breaking down the simplest ones fast:<br /><br />max set of 12 pullups<br />12 minute 1.5 run time<br />handstand pushups<br />one arm pushups<br />pistols<br />hanging leg raises<br /><br />I'm on my way!<br /><br /><br /><br />Today was an good example of a rought training day- not ebcause I trained extra hard but because I logged about 1/3 of what I did and did maybe 75% of what I do on a Friday. Maybe being in a hot tub at 03:00 had something to do with it!<br /><br />But the lesson is there- record SOMETHING, do SOMETHING, even if you know that for one reason or another you just aren't physically going to manage a full day.Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531932684021935709.post-76692114806285209422009-12-31T19:02:00.000-08:002009-12-31T19:59:31.956-08:00It has been 2 weeks and one day since I started the Convict Conditioning GTG program I've developed. Generally, if you are already working out and switching to a beginner level regimen you wouldn't expect a lot of change in that period of time.<br /><br />Yet- in 15 days I've gained a noticeable amount on arms and chest, and somehow managed to drop some body fat - this was my real concern going in to such a light sounding beginner program. I'm still needing to focus on fat loss hard for another 20 to 30 pounds.<br /><br />One thing I've found is that the program isn't as easy as it looks- it's dead simple, easy to motivate yourself, and not terribly time consuming. But it's not easy in the muscluar sense. The key to this is the speed and tension of the repetitions.<br /><br />We all want speed, but paradoxically, up to a point, the way to gain speed is to move more slowly. That's because, as explained in Naked Warrior, up to a fairly advanced point, the explosive strength is going to go up hand in hand with maximum, or power, strength. (there's also endurance strength, which is another approach from the initial goals I have in CC)<br /><br />So, go slow. Go slower. Go slower still. I am probably going to hang and milk the simple pushups steps of my progression (half and full pushups) for a bit longer than necessary because I can't go as slow as I can with squats. A set of ten 'half' pushups (really close to what most people think of as a full pushup) is 35-40 seconds depending on how fast I am with my stopwatch buttons. So I may milk these progressions for an extra few weeks until I can use a gymboss timer and do full 5 second repetitions in 2 sets of 25<br /><br />So here you are, laughing at wall pushups, then, you really start taking 5 seconds for each one....150 times for the progression standard (in 3 sets). It's a bit of work, now!<br /><br />The kneeling pushups in step 3, same thing. One of my friends was laughing at me doing "girl pushups", but she can't keep up with my gtg set of 15 done for my slightly speedy 3.5 second time.<br /><br /> On squats I'm not timing with a watch, but with my breath. very slowly down, a shorter pause since full squats aren't under a lot of tension at the bottom, and very slowly up. A set of ten runs me 55 seconds according to a friend. That's about right.<br /><br />Leg lifts are running 39 seconds for 10 reps, nice and slow for the movement range. The next level is the last level before it moves to hanging work, and I'd like to let my pullup work catch up before I switch to that so I may work the straight leg rasises to 60 or even 80 second sets of ten. (Ten is purely arbitrary in all cases, being at this level a decent in-between the beginner minimum standard and the intermediate standard as a working set for multiple daily grinds)<br /><br />With bridging, I go up at a fairly quick rate, controlled but not lingering. It's the clench at the top, holding that for a 2 count, that I'm looking for. It's crucial in all bridging work to control the motion coming back down, as well. The range of motion at my current level isn't tremendous, either. I'll likely start milking the meditative speeds at the half or full bridge level.<br /><br />Pullup work is my weak point. To some extent, all upper body work is weaker on me, I have far better development in my abdomen and legs. I'm moving a bit too quickly on my jacknife pullups, though I'm still controlled and not ragdolling, and I have a clenched pause at the top. I've been considering getting some bands to use with the bar and modifying the step progression so I'm doing 50 pound bands instead of jacknifes, and then 25 pound bands instead of halfs. My only concern there is that standing on bands can have an impact on the tensing of the abs.<br /><br />Slowing down the pullups is the hardest part, and the only realistic thing to make it easier is to rapidly drop another 20 pounds of body fat off. Even if I gain 5 or 10 in muscle, the strength gains will offset the 'lack' of weight loss.<br /><br />I'm working at one quarter, possibly one fifth, the pace I have worked out with pushups and crunches and bodyweight squats in martial arts classes and military PT. I'm developing a desire to slow down my repetition pace at certain levels.Neal Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02149784410308690490noreply@blogger.com0