If you're easily offended, stop reading now.
Okay, glad you're still with me. You've been warned. I've been reading a few blogs for a couple years now, and I happened to be reading Primal Wisdom when Don hit the epipha-tree (Simpsons reference) and turned his back on (and perhaps his nose up at) a typical Paleo diet.
I've seen it spiral further away for a while now, and with his latest post on B12, I think I figured it all out. I don't expect anyone to correct me, nor do I really care.
So here it is in all its rudeness: Don's wife wanted to be a vegetarian, and Don still wants to get laid. There, plain and simple, I said it.
I don't blame Don for that, although in time his lack of meat consumption will make it easier to go without sex.
Certainly I'm the only one thinking it, as the number of comments in which people ask if he's just having a fun game indicate that people are seriously wondering what the heck is going on.
Glad I got that off my chest.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
I'm Not Against Aging
But I don't anticipate growing old like most Americans. Most of the people I see past about 55 are just prolonging the act of death, while some ambitious folk seem to have started at about 40. The 40 year olds are the ones that are already on a couple of prescription medications for all manner of ills, and probably 50+ pounds overweight. The preferable alternative to prolonged death is successful aging. That's a term I enjoy, and one that I can get motivated by. Aging is inevitable, so why not be successful at it?
That's what I'm after. But what does it mean to age successfully when the ultimate conclusion of the aging process must be death? Clearly it's not avoiding death. Perhaps it's not even extending life as long as possible. That would be prolonged aging.
Consider two extremes:
Scenario A, you live to the ripe old age of 80 and die peacefully in your sleep. Until the last week of your life you were active and athletic. Your muscles were strong from exercise, you enjoyed the body you were in, and you used it for your enjoyment. You were happy to go on a bike ride with the grandkids, or perhaps great-grandkids if you started young like I did. You snorkeled on vacation, went skiing in the winter, etc. Your spouse will miss you, including the intimate relationship you still shared.
Scenario B, you live to the somewhat riper old age of 83 and die from cardiac arrest while trying to make it up a flight of stairs. You spent the last 8 years in a nursing home, and you almost never left it for the last 2 or 3 years. The kids and grandkids would come visit regularly, but you felt less and less attachment to them as they continued to live in "the real world" while you lived on Lipitor, Metformin, Nexium, and Plavix...not to mention the insulin shots you self-administered. Your spouse would miss you if only they could remember who you are. They've been on their own list of drugs and statins in particular aren't kind to the neural networks.
I don't know about you, but I'll take option A on this one. Now play the game for a while and determine how big a gap in lifespan has to exist before you go with option B. 10 years? 20? More? It's just a mental exercise, but the point is that the goal of what I will now call Successful Aging isn't the longest lifespan, it's the one that results in the most fulfilling life.
These are real world choices. I believe that it's entirely possible for the average person to make great choices in exercise, nutrition, sleep, relationships, and hobbies and live well past 90. I also believe that longevity could be further optimized in less healthy ways, perhaps with calorie restriction. And finally, longevity could be reduced in exchange for a higher level of athletic performance and perhaps health as well.
Single point optimization isn't my goal. If you draw a triangle with the three points labeled health, longevity, and performance, I'm going to pick a point inside that triangle that is skewed a bit towards health and performance. That is what I will try to optimize for while not making major concessions that will reduce my longevity needlessly.
For me, that three-point graph I just described with a slight emphasis on health and performance will be what guides me through successful aging.
Next time I talk about aging, I'll show you why I plan to be better at 45 than I've ever been as far as athletic performance goes. No, it's not wishful thinking, it's just a reasonable analysis of where I am, have been, and will be. And it applies to almost anyone who hasn't spent a lifetime experiencing rare levels of athleticism.
I'll even have graphs, which means what I'm saying HAS to be true. ;)
That's what I'm after. But what does it mean to age successfully when the ultimate conclusion of the aging process must be death? Clearly it's not avoiding death. Perhaps it's not even extending life as long as possible. That would be prolonged aging.
Consider two extremes:
Scenario A, you live to the ripe old age of 80 and die peacefully in your sleep. Until the last week of your life you were active and athletic. Your muscles were strong from exercise, you enjoyed the body you were in, and you used it for your enjoyment. You were happy to go on a bike ride with the grandkids, or perhaps great-grandkids if you started young like I did. You snorkeled on vacation, went skiing in the winter, etc. Your spouse will miss you, including the intimate relationship you still shared.
Scenario B, you live to the somewhat riper old age of 83 and die from cardiac arrest while trying to make it up a flight of stairs. You spent the last 8 years in a nursing home, and you almost never left it for the last 2 or 3 years. The kids and grandkids would come visit regularly, but you felt less and less attachment to them as they continued to live in "the real world" while you lived on Lipitor, Metformin, Nexium, and Plavix...not to mention the insulin shots you self-administered. Your spouse would miss you if only they could remember who you are. They've been on their own list of drugs and statins in particular aren't kind to the neural networks.
I don't know about you, but I'll take option A on this one. Now play the game for a while and determine how big a gap in lifespan has to exist before you go with option B. 10 years? 20? More? It's just a mental exercise, but the point is that the goal of what I will now call Successful Aging isn't the longest lifespan, it's the one that results in the most fulfilling life.
These are real world choices. I believe that it's entirely possible for the average person to make great choices in exercise, nutrition, sleep, relationships, and hobbies and live well past 90. I also believe that longevity could be further optimized in less healthy ways, perhaps with calorie restriction. And finally, longevity could be reduced in exchange for a higher level of athletic performance and perhaps health as well.
Single point optimization isn't my goal. If you draw a triangle with the three points labeled health, longevity, and performance, I'm going to pick a point inside that triangle that is skewed a bit towards health and performance. That is what I will try to optimize for while not making major concessions that will reduce my longevity needlessly.
For me, that three-point graph I just described with a slight emphasis on health and performance will be what guides me through successful aging.
Next time I talk about aging, I'll show you why I plan to be better at 45 than I've ever been as far as athletic performance goes. No, it's not wishful thinking, it's just a reasonable analysis of where I am, have been, and will be. And it applies to almost anyone who hasn't spent a lifetime experiencing rare levels of athleticism.
I'll even have graphs, which means what I'm saying HAS to be true. ;)
Monday, July 25, 2011
Eastern Approach/Meditation
Lord knows, I'm not into meditation or yoga, but somehow the simple approach this video mentions is intriguing.
I think I'm going to have to pick up the book, though I'm not sure how to add to the existing simple message.
You feel better already, don't you?
I think I'm going to have to pick up the book, though I'm not sure how to add to the existing simple message.
You feel better already, don't you?
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Bacon and eggs aren't good for you
It's obvious, right? Heck, anyone will tell you that bacon and eggs are bad for you.
The wonderful thing is this little gem of wisdom is usually delivered by someone who would much prefer you eat cereal for breakfast. Genius. And with that last comment, I'm coming dangerously close to pegging my sarcasmeter...or is it sarcasmometer?
So, here's the reality check, let's take it point by point:
Cereal: What is it? Well, it's healthy grains, and maybe a little sugar and other stuff, right?
Uh...not really. It's so easy to pick up a box of cereal in the store and we're conditioned to believe what's in the store is food. What are we REALLY feeding ourselves, or perhaps our children?
I chose a cereal at random. Really. I googled "cereal" and there was a link to "SpecialK" which I clicked on. At their site they listed cereals, and I didn't quite go random this time, I actually chose what sounded tasty to me. "Special K Vanilla Almond Cereal" I like almonds, I like vanilla, this sounds yummy!
Now what do I get for my money? Whole grains? Check. Rice? Check. Almonds? Check. Well, they're honey roasted almonds...so let's start our trip down the rabbit hole.
The almonds have their own list of ingredients. That's right, just the honey roasted almonds have:
DRY ROASTED ALMONDS, SUGAR, HONEY, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, BHT FOR FRESHNESS
That's just the "Almond" part of "Vanilla Almond Cereal!" Wow, if I was making something with almonds, I'd put (drumroll please...) almonds in it.
Back up the rabbit hole, we find that the list of ingredients is quite impressive. Heck, I'll just throw the whole thing out here for the fun of it:
RICE, WHOLE GRAIN WHEAT, SUGAR, HONEY ROASTED SLICED ALMONDS (DRY ROASTED ALMONDS, SUGAR, HONEY, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, BHT FOR FRESHNESS), WHEAT BRAN, SALT, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SOLUBLE WHEAT FIBER, MALT FLAVORING, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), REDUCED IRON, NIACINAMIDE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, BHT (PRESERVATIVE), FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN D, VITAMIN B12
Don't believe me? Check it yourself here.
Is that amazing, or what? In case you weren't aware, ingredients are listed in order of the percentage by which they constitute the product. So It has more rice than whole grain wheat, as an example. That means it has more rice, wheat, and sugar than it does almonds! It then has more wheat bran, salt, high fructose corn syrup, and wheat fiber before it gets to the malt flavor and "natural and artificial" flavors.
Well, I was sold on the vanilla almond part. That was what made me choose the cereal. I guess all the rest comes along for the ride.
So they took processed grains that don't exist in natue in quantites sufficient to live on and they combined that with processed and concentrated sugar and then added some almonds that had been similarly modified. Then they added some more grains (wheat bran) and salt, and even before flavoring they added some high fructose corn syrup. None of this is NATURAL. In fact, none of it really even food. Well, the almonds were until they got screwed over and turned into sugary nuggets.
So this concoction makes its way to our bowl, and we scoop it up and eat it, right?
No! We first have to cover it with mammal-squirts. Well, actually, we don't even do that, do we? That wouldn't be processed enough. I'd be fine with some raw milk, but that's not what's going on the cereal is it?
We can't just get the mammal to squirt right on the cereal, so we get a machine to suck the squirts out and put it in a big holding tank. The combined squirts of many mammals then gets homogenized. That sounds healthy, but what is it? Oh, the squirts are just forced through a tiny orifice under pressure to break apart the larger fat globules. They're homogenized, meaning made to all be the same. Meaning, not in their natural form.
If that's not enough modification, the squirts are then heated sufficiently that it destroys the enzymes that help digestion and absorption. Then it's finally good enough to be poured over those processed grain/sugar/corn syrup nuggets.
So processed food pieces covered in processed mammal squirts, none of which could have been produced without modern day machinery, chemicals, etc. That's a healthy way to start your day. Sure it is. None of this exists in nature and I'm going to say a breakfast like this just isn't natural.
Now is it possible to find a pig, kill it, and snatch some eggs from a nest? I think so. And while I don't do that to serve myself bacon and eggs, I think it's a hell of a lot closer to nature than the crap I described earlier.
Is it a wild pig? No. Is it a wild bird? No. Is it better than sugar/wheat/corn/chemical nuggets with homogenized and pasteurized milk? I'm confident it is.
The wonderful thing is this little gem of wisdom is usually delivered by someone who would much prefer you eat cereal for breakfast. Genius. And with that last comment, I'm coming dangerously close to pegging my sarcasmeter...or is it sarcasmometer?
So, here's the reality check, let's take it point by point:
Cereal: What is it? Well, it's healthy grains, and maybe a little sugar and other stuff, right?
Uh...not really. It's so easy to pick up a box of cereal in the store and we're conditioned to believe what's in the store is food. What are we REALLY feeding ourselves, or perhaps our children?
I chose a cereal at random. Really. I googled "cereal" and there was a link to "SpecialK" which I clicked on. At their site they listed cereals, and I didn't quite go random this time, I actually chose what sounded tasty to me. "Special K Vanilla Almond Cereal" I like almonds, I like vanilla, this sounds yummy!
Now what do I get for my money? Whole grains? Check. Rice? Check. Almonds? Check. Well, they're honey roasted almonds...so let's start our trip down the rabbit hole.
The almonds have their own list of ingredients. That's right, just the honey roasted almonds have:
DRY ROASTED ALMONDS, SUGAR, HONEY, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, BHT FOR FRESHNESS
That's just the "Almond" part of "Vanilla Almond Cereal!" Wow, if I was making something with almonds, I'd put (drumroll please...) almonds in it.
Back up the rabbit hole, we find that the list of ingredients is quite impressive. Heck, I'll just throw the whole thing out here for the fun of it:
RICE, WHOLE GRAIN WHEAT, SUGAR, HONEY ROASTED SLICED ALMONDS (DRY ROASTED ALMONDS, SUGAR, HONEY, MALTODEXTRIN, SALT, BHT FOR FRESHNESS), WHEAT BRAN, SALT, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SOLUBLE WHEAT FIBER, MALT FLAVORING, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), REDUCED IRON, NIACINAMIDE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, BHT (PRESERVATIVE), FOLIC ACID, VITAMIN D, VITAMIN B12
Don't believe me? Check it yourself here.
Is that amazing, or what? In case you weren't aware, ingredients are listed in order of the percentage by which they constitute the product. So It has more rice than whole grain wheat, as an example. That means it has more rice, wheat, and sugar than it does almonds! It then has more wheat bran, salt, high fructose corn syrup, and wheat fiber before it gets to the malt flavor and "natural and artificial" flavors.
Well, I was sold on the vanilla almond part. That was what made me choose the cereal. I guess all the rest comes along for the ride.
So they took processed grains that don't exist in natue in quantites sufficient to live on and they combined that with processed and concentrated sugar and then added some almonds that had been similarly modified. Then they added some more grains (wheat bran) and salt, and even before flavoring they added some high fructose corn syrup. None of this is NATURAL. In fact, none of it really even food. Well, the almonds were until they got screwed over and turned into sugary nuggets.
So this concoction makes its way to our bowl, and we scoop it up and eat it, right?
No! We first have to cover it with mammal-squirts. Well, actually, we don't even do that, do we? That wouldn't be processed enough. I'd be fine with some raw milk, but that's not what's going on the cereal is it?
We can't just get the mammal to squirt right on the cereal, so we get a machine to suck the squirts out and put it in a big holding tank. The combined squirts of many mammals then gets homogenized. That sounds healthy, but what is it? Oh, the squirts are just forced through a tiny orifice under pressure to break apart the larger fat globules. They're homogenized, meaning made to all be the same. Meaning, not in their natural form.
If that's not enough modification, the squirts are then heated sufficiently that it destroys the enzymes that help digestion and absorption. Then it's finally good enough to be poured over those processed grain/sugar/corn syrup nuggets.
So processed food pieces covered in processed mammal squirts, none of which could have been produced without modern day machinery, chemicals, etc. That's a healthy way to start your day. Sure it is. None of this exists in nature and I'm going to say a breakfast like this just isn't natural.
Now is it possible to find a pig, kill it, and snatch some eggs from a nest? I think so. And while I don't do that to serve myself bacon and eggs, I think it's a hell of a lot closer to nature than the crap I described earlier.
Is it a wild pig? No. Is it a wild bird? No. Is it better than sugar/wheat/corn/chemical nuggets with homogenized and pasteurized milk? I'm confident it is.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Adventures with Analogies
Let's pretend for a moment. Suspend disbelief if necessary, and just play with me a bit.
Let's pretend you loaned your car to a friend for a day. If you don't have one or the other, just pretend that you do. :)
Now imagine that your friend returns the car and you immediately notice the tires are covered with plugs and patches and are no longer balanced. The car drives poorly, vibrating badly and getting worse the faster you drive. So you ask your friend what happened and this is his response:
"Well, I drove through some fields full of thorns and nails, and each time I got a flat tire I took out your patch kit from the trunk and put in a plug or patched the tire. Good thing you had so many kits in the trunk, because I think I must have patched the tires several hundred times!"
What would your reaction be to this scenario?
If you decide to not loan your car to that friend again, or at least tell him to quit driving through fields of thorns and nails, congratulations. You're a clear thinker. You're practical and logical.
On the other hand you might decide that the problem was having so many patch kits. After all, the only way the tires could be covered with hundreds of patches is if your friend had access to hundreds of patches to begin with. So you decide to keep loaning your car to your friend, say nothing about the driving that caused the problem, and instead promise yourself to remove the patch kits from the trunk! No more patches, no more overly patched tires. Now you're thinking!
Hell, you're as smart as a doctor!
Don't understand or like my analogy? Okay, let's pretend again. Here goes:
You go see your doctor, and upon measuring your cholesterol he says "Your cholesterol is too high. I'm going to give you a drug to lower it."
Cholesterol is used by your body to patch and repair damage. It's probably elevated because of the damage as opposed to being the cause of the damage itself. Does the doc conclude the damage should stop? No, he simply prescribes a statin to reduce the number of patches!
When you come back in 6 months he checks your cholesterol again, and now that your body isn't making as many patches the number is lower. He says all is well, and tells you to continue taking statins for life. Does that mean the damage is gone? Of course not! He has treated the number, not the problem. He removed the patches from the trunk and set you free to drive through fields of nails!
So what happens to your body now that you have shut off its repair mechanisms and have blunted your body's ability to fix itself? Simple, you get other illnesses.
Don't believe me? Do some searching for all-cause mortallity and statins. Google away. While you're at it, google cholesterol levels and all-cause mortality.
Maybe we should let our body repair as needed while reducing the damage that needs repairing. Maybe. Like maybe we shouldn't drive in fields of thorns and nails.
If you're actually following my analogy at this point, I'll finish by saying that thorns and nails are equivalent to sugar, high fructose corn syrup, seed oils, and grains.
Have a nice drive.
Let's pretend you loaned your car to a friend for a day. If you don't have one or the other, just pretend that you do. :)
Now imagine that your friend returns the car and you immediately notice the tires are covered with plugs and patches and are no longer balanced. The car drives poorly, vibrating badly and getting worse the faster you drive. So you ask your friend what happened and this is his response:
"Well, I drove through some fields full of thorns and nails, and each time I got a flat tire I took out your patch kit from the trunk and put in a plug or patched the tire. Good thing you had so many kits in the trunk, because I think I must have patched the tires several hundred times!"
What would your reaction be to this scenario?
If you decide to not loan your car to that friend again, or at least tell him to quit driving through fields of thorns and nails, congratulations. You're a clear thinker. You're practical and logical.
On the other hand you might decide that the problem was having so many patch kits. After all, the only way the tires could be covered with hundreds of patches is if your friend had access to hundreds of patches to begin with. So you decide to keep loaning your car to your friend, say nothing about the driving that caused the problem, and instead promise yourself to remove the patch kits from the trunk! No more patches, no more overly patched tires. Now you're thinking!
Hell, you're as smart as a doctor!
Don't understand or like my analogy? Okay, let's pretend again. Here goes:
You go see your doctor, and upon measuring your cholesterol he says "Your cholesterol is too high. I'm going to give you a drug to lower it."
Cholesterol is used by your body to patch and repair damage. It's probably elevated because of the damage as opposed to being the cause of the damage itself. Does the doc conclude the damage should stop? No, he simply prescribes a statin to reduce the number of patches!
When you come back in 6 months he checks your cholesterol again, and now that your body isn't making as many patches the number is lower. He says all is well, and tells you to continue taking statins for life. Does that mean the damage is gone? Of course not! He has treated the number, not the problem. He removed the patches from the trunk and set you free to drive through fields of nails!
So what happens to your body now that you have shut off its repair mechanisms and have blunted your body's ability to fix itself? Simple, you get other illnesses.
Don't believe me? Do some searching for all-cause mortallity and statins. Google away. While you're at it, google cholesterol levels and all-cause mortality.
Maybe we should let our body repair as needed while reducing the damage that needs repairing. Maybe. Like maybe we shouldn't drive in fields of thorns and nails.
If you're actually following my analogy at this point, I'll finish by saying that thorns and nails are equivalent to sugar, high fructose corn syrup, seed oils, and grains.
Have a nice drive.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
PWO Ice Cream
I've been playing with homemade protein ice cream post-workout. So here's my notes and recipe for PWO (post-workout) ice cream.
1 cup whole milk
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1 cup cottage cheese
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Not up for the sugar bomb of maple syrup? No problem. Believe it or not, 8 ounces of finely chopped sweet potato cooked in a skillet with a tiny bit (like a teaspoon or so) of coconut oil will get pretty sweet tasting once it just barely starts to brown. The 8 ounces (measured when raw) of sweet potato will provide a great source of about 50g of carbs to round off the shake to the 100g carb mark.
Whichever route you go, put all of it in a blender and blend until smooth. This breaks up the sweet potato chunks and/or the cottage cheese chunks. When you're done it should look like smooth, thick, chocolate milk.
Sorry, no picture. But it's a blender. You probably have one, right?
Make sure it's well chilled, and pour it in the Cuisinart ice cream maker.
Don't go absolutely to the top on all the liquid measurements or it will overflow a bit while churning. This is right at the limit for this size ice cream maker. So when I say a cup above, I really mean 95% of a cup or so. Or you can just let it overflow a bit...who cares?
Yumm. In this picture it's about halfway done. When it stops getting thicker and creamier it's done. It will only get about the consistency of soft serve frozen yogurt.
Scoop the ice cream into a plastic container and store it in the freezer until your workout. Workout REALLY hard and then enjoy some chocolate ice cream.
Is it paleo? No. Neither is the BCAA supplement I take before my workouts. Neither is soap. Neither is the automobile. You see where I'm going? If this has a place in your plan, enjoy. If not, ignore. If you're unsure, experiment and decide for yourself.
If you gain lots of muscle and set personal bests on a regular basis while eating this, please let me know. If you get fat and break out with severe acne, well you should have known better than to eat ice cream! What were you thinking?
1 cup whole milk
- Fat: 8g
- Protein: 8g
- Carb: 12g
1 cup cottage cheese
- Fat: 5g
- Protein: 26g
- Carb: 8g
- Fat: 8g
- Protein: 8g
- Carb: 10g
- Fat; 4.5g
- Protein: 7g
- Carb: 7g
- Fat: 1g
- Protein: 2g
- Carb: 6g
- Fat: 1.5g
- Protein: 54g
- Carb: 3g
Not up for the sugar bomb of maple syrup? No problem. Believe it or not, 8 ounces of finely chopped sweet potato cooked in a skillet with a tiny bit (like a teaspoon or so) of coconut oil will get pretty sweet tasting once it just barely starts to brown. The 8 ounces (measured when raw) of sweet potato will provide a great source of about 50g of carbs to round off the shake to the 100g carb mark.
Whichever route you go, put all of it in a blender and blend until smooth. This breaks up the sweet potato chunks and/or the cottage cheese chunks. When you're done it should look like smooth, thick, chocolate milk.
Sorry, no picture. But it's a blender. You probably have one, right?
Make sure it's well chilled, and pour it in the Cuisinart ice cream maker.
Don't go absolutely to the top on all the liquid measurements or it will overflow a bit while churning. This is right at the limit for this size ice cream maker. So when I say a cup above, I really mean 95% of a cup or so. Or you can just let it overflow a bit...who cares?
Yumm. In this picture it's about halfway done. When it stops getting thicker and creamier it's done. It will only get about the consistency of soft serve frozen yogurt.
Scoop the ice cream into a plastic container and store it in the freezer until your workout. Workout REALLY hard and then enjoy some chocolate ice cream.
Is it paleo? No. Neither is the BCAA supplement I take before my workouts. Neither is soap. Neither is the automobile. You see where I'm going? If this has a place in your plan, enjoy. If not, ignore. If you're unsure, experiment and decide for yourself.
If you gain lots of muscle and set personal bests on a regular basis while eating this, please let me know. If you get fat and break out with severe acne, well you should have known better than to eat ice cream! What were you thinking?
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Obsession
Here it is, straight from Merriam-Webster online:
Wow, lots to consider there, especially for anyone who recently called me obsessive. I could have put this under the topic of sayings I hate, but this is a little bit different.
I recently heard from someone I know that I was "obsessed " with diet and exercise. In this person's opinion I must have had a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling in regards to my diet and exercise.
So, let's take it piece by piece. How is my focus on diet and exercise "disturbing" in any way? It sure as hell isn't disturbing me. It's awesome to be able to take the stairs three steps at a time. It's fantastic to wear size 32 shorts and jeans. I'm not mortified to take my shirt off in public. These are all things that don't disturb me.
Is it a preoccupation? The national average for television watching is 28 hours per week. That's four hours a day! I probably average 3 trips to CrossFit per week, and if I include my commute time, my workout time, and even my social time in which I enjoy the company of similarly obsessed people, I still can't come up with a number that approaches half the time the average person sits and watches a television.
And while I'm at it, the television angle is a fun one. See, I also heard from this same person that CrossFit is too expensive. My question is "Compared to what?" According to this article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/06/news/companies/cable_bill_cost_increase/index.htm the average spend on cable television is about $75/month and increasing. I can get a year at a CrossFit gym for $100/month if I prepay the whole year. So $900/year for television and 28 hours per week or $1200/year for CrossFit and less than half that time invested. Your choice. Oh, for that extra $300 you get a hard body at the end of the year, and an extra 700 hours in which to use it.
Interesting observation: I don't subscribe to cable or satellite services, but the person who felt free to call me obsessive does. Things that make me go hmmm.
Back to my obsessing. That last part of the definition really irks me. What is my unreasonable idea or feeling? To be in shape? To be fit? To have a nice body? How is it unreasonable? I weight 55 pounds less than I did 5 years ago and have more muscle. I've lost over 8 inches off my waist. So I'd say it ISN'T unreasonable, I'd say it's working just fine.
I found it strangely tempting to just tell this person to go F themselves, but instead I'll break down the thinking that I imagine must be going on:
"Gee, I'm 60 pounds overweight. I can't do a pullup to save my life. I'm not passionate about my health. Hell, I'm not really passionate about anything. I certainly don't pursue anything at all with the passion Bill does. And he's talking about CrossFit again! He's talking about something he DOES, and I only talk about things I WATCH. Hmmm. I suddenly feel inadequate. I feel bad. I don't want to feel bad. I think I'll insult Bill and make myself feel better by labeling what he does with a negative label. Yeah, the problem isn't my ballooning waist, declining sex drive, or man-boobs that deserve a training bra, the problem is Bill for being so obsessive and making me feel bad by comparison. I'll tell him he's being obsessive and then I'll feel better."
Well, I'm glad I could make you feel better. And you didn't even really have to work for it, did you? Nope, you can just call me obsessive and get a little boost. I wonder if that high will still be occurring when you go to get dressed and find another pair of pants that won't fit. Hmmm. Not a problem I'd like to deal with, I'll just suffer with my obsession.
OBSESSION:
1: a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; broadly: compelling motivation (an obsession with profits)
Wow, lots to consider there, especially for anyone who recently called me obsessive. I could have put this under the topic of sayings I hate, but this is a little bit different.
I recently heard from someone I know that I was "obsessed " with diet and exercise. In this person's opinion I must have had a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling in regards to my diet and exercise.
So, let's take it piece by piece. How is my focus on diet and exercise "disturbing" in any way? It sure as hell isn't disturbing me. It's awesome to be able to take the stairs three steps at a time. It's fantastic to wear size 32 shorts and jeans. I'm not mortified to take my shirt off in public. These are all things that don't disturb me.
Is it a preoccupation? The national average for television watching is 28 hours per week. That's four hours a day! I probably average 3 trips to CrossFit per week, and if I include my commute time, my workout time, and even my social time in which I enjoy the company of similarly obsessed people, I still can't come up with a number that approaches half the time the average person sits and watches a television.
And while I'm at it, the television angle is a fun one. See, I also heard from this same person that CrossFit is too expensive. My question is "Compared to what?" According to this article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/06/news/companies/cable_bill_cost_increase/index.htm the average spend on cable television is about $75/month and increasing. I can get a year at a CrossFit gym for $100/month if I prepay the whole year. So $900/year for television and 28 hours per week or $1200/year for CrossFit and less than half that time invested. Your choice. Oh, for that extra $300 you get a hard body at the end of the year, and an extra 700 hours in which to use it.
Interesting observation: I don't subscribe to cable or satellite services, but the person who felt free to call me obsessive does. Things that make me go hmmm.
Back to my obsessing. That last part of the definition really irks me. What is my unreasonable idea or feeling? To be in shape? To be fit? To have a nice body? How is it unreasonable? I weight 55 pounds less than I did 5 years ago and have more muscle. I've lost over 8 inches off my waist. So I'd say it ISN'T unreasonable, I'd say it's working just fine.
I found it strangely tempting to just tell this person to go F themselves, but instead I'll break down the thinking that I imagine must be going on:
"Gee, I'm 60 pounds overweight. I can't do a pullup to save my life. I'm not passionate about my health. Hell, I'm not really passionate about anything. I certainly don't pursue anything at all with the passion Bill does. And he's talking about CrossFit again! He's talking about something he DOES, and I only talk about things I WATCH. Hmmm. I suddenly feel inadequate. I feel bad. I don't want to feel bad. I think I'll insult Bill and make myself feel better by labeling what he does with a negative label. Yeah, the problem isn't my ballooning waist, declining sex drive, or man-boobs that deserve a training bra, the problem is Bill for being so obsessive and making me feel bad by comparison. I'll tell him he's being obsessive and then I'll feel better."
Well, I'm glad I could make you feel better. And you didn't even really have to work for it, did you? Nope, you can just call me obsessive and get a little boost. I wonder if that high will still be occurring when you go to get dressed and find another pair of pants that won't fit. Hmmm. Not a problem I'd like to deal with, I'll just suffer with my obsession.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Root of Health
Any guesses? Maca? Ginger?
Nope!
The roots of a tree are the foundation for everything the tree is, yet are the least visible. Everything above ground, the trunk, branches, leaves, are all dependent on a strong attachment to the earth and a source of water. The roots are critical.
So what is the root of personal health? If you said "diet and exercise" you're way ahead of things. Those are branches, they're not even the trunk.
The root of health is a commitment to be personally responsible for your health. It's that simple. Without that commitment, without that decision to be personally at cause for your health as opposed to a hapless passenger in your own body, you have nothing to drive everything else in regards to your health.
Most of you reading this have already made that commitment, perhaps without doing so explicitly. But that commitment drives you to make choices and take actions that naturally flow from taking personal responsibility for your health.
It's also why people who haven't made that commitment become quite perplexing to those who have. The friend who doesn't care about what they eat makes no sense to us. The co-worker who scoffs when you mention you don't eat somethng because it has hydrogenated soybean oil is perplexing to us because from a position of personal commitment that attitude make no sense.
I spoke with a friend recently who told me his doctor had put him on a statin. First, if you're responsible for your health how can a doctor "put you" on anything? Without going down that path, I instead asked him if he had researched statins to see if that was really the best thing for him. His response was incredible: "Dude, I just do whatever my doctor tells me."
I challenged him briefly by asking if he would do it if his doctor told him he needed to eat rat poison. Of course he wouldn't because he knows that's bad for him. He just happens to have that knowledge, yet he won't pursue new and additional knowledge to make an informed choice in regards to his doctor's recommendations. The reason is simple: He's not personally responsible for his health. Heck, he just does whatever his doctor tells him.
Easy.
Stupid, but easy.
Some people will go a lifetime without ever making that decision. Others either made it at an early age or slowly grew into it as they matured. Even fewer will have a life altering event, such as a heart attack, that will cause them to become the captain of their ship as opposed to a passenger.
And in that light it's easy to see why people will eat what they eat while we wouldn't touch it: It's not their problem. Maybe it's just in my nature to want to be in control.
When I fly my own airplane, I perform a through preflight. I check every control surface, make sure all the bolts and screws I can see are tight. I check the fuel quantity and drain a bit to check for water. When I am a passenger on a commercial flight I can't exercise that responsibility. Instead I have to trust the pilots in command of that airplane, which is actually very difficult for me to do. Commercial flights annoy me because I'm not controlling the factors that may spell doom, I'm just along for the ride with my fingers crossed. I can't imagine taking the same attitude with my body.
So, diet and exercise are way down the list. The root of it all is a commitment to being personally responsible for your health. Next time I'll talk about the steps that come after that. It's all a pretty natural progression and eventually I'll get to the branches of diet and exercise but there are a few more pieces first.
Nope!
The roots of a tree are the foundation for everything the tree is, yet are the least visible. Everything above ground, the trunk, branches, leaves, are all dependent on a strong attachment to the earth and a source of water. The roots are critical.
So what is the root of personal health? If you said "diet and exercise" you're way ahead of things. Those are branches, they're not even the trunk.
The root of health is a commitment to be personally responsible for your health. It's that simple. Without that commitment, without that decision to be personally at cause for your health as opposed to a hapless passenger in your own body, you have nothing to drive everything else in regards to your health.
Most of you reading this have already made that commitment, perhaps without doing so explicitly. But that commitment drives you to make choices and take actions that naturally flow from taking personal responsibility for your health.
It's also why people who haven't made that commitment become quite perplexing to those who have. The friend who doesn't care about what they eat makes no sense to us. The co-worker who scoffs when you mention you don't eat somethng because it has hydrogenated soybean oil is perplexing to us because from a position of personal commitment that attitude make no sense.
I spoke with a friend recently who told me his doctor had put him on a statin. First, if you're responsible for your health how can a doctor "put you" on anything? Without going down that path, I instead asked him if he had researched statins to see if that was really the best thing for him. His response was incredible: "Dude, I just do whatever my doctor tells me."
I challenged him briefly by asking if he would do it if his doctor told him he needed to eat rat poison. Of course he wouldn't because he knows that's bad for him. He just happens to have that knowledge, yet he won't pursue new and additional knowledge to make an informed choice in regards to his doctor's recommendations. The reason is simple: He's not personally responsible for his health. Heck, he just does whatever his doctor tells him.
Easy.
Stupid, but easy.
Some people will go a lifetime without ever making that decision. Others either made it at an early age or slowly grew into it as they matured. Even fewer will have a life altering event, such as a heart attack, that will cause them to become the captain of their ship as opposed to a passenger.
And in that light it's easy to see why people will eat what they eat while we wouldn't touch it: It's not their problem. Maybe it's just in my nature to want to be in control.
When I fly my own airplane, I perform a through preflight. I check every control surface, make sure all the bolts and screws I can see are tight. I check the fuel quantity and drain a bit to check for water. When I am a passenger on a commercial flight I can't exercise that responsibility. Instead I have to trust the pilots in command of that airplane, which is actually very difficult for me to do. Commercial flights annoy me because I'm not controlling the factors that may spell doom, I'm just along for the ride with my fingers crossed. I can't imagine taking the same attitude with my body.
So, diet and exercise are way down the list. The root of it all is a commitment to being personally responsible for your health. Next time I'll talk about the steps that come after that. It's all a pretty natural progression and eventually I'll get to the branches of diet and exercise but there are a few more pieces first.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
My Dog
Yesterday I chose to have my dog, Aerial, put to sleep.
It's difficult to even type those words, and the emotions that come and go during this time are varied and powerful.
But saying I've learned a lot from the process is a poor way to describe how I've been impacted by the last 11 years and my experience with a sweet and wonderful dog. So I'll instead just let the words flow and meander and see where it takes me.
First, I'll start with Aerial herself. It was about 11 years ago that I looked up from my computer and told my wife that I thought we should get a dog. She was pretty surprised by this because I typically don't like change. I don't like disruption in my life, in particular in ways that feel like I'm am being limited or restricted. Getting a dog creates restrictions. It just does. It's one more thing to be responsible for, and I already had 4 kids so I wasn't experiencing a lack of things to take care of in my life. :)
But the need just hit me, so I went into dog acquisition mode. First, what to get? Well, I can't stand dog hair and fur on me, clothes, and furniture. My younger son, Mitch, had some allergies to contend with as well, so I just searched the internet for a database of dog types with the criteria I needed. Some of the database fields included "hypo-allergenic", "sheds", "good with kids", and "indoor/outdoor".
I sorted the database to find a dog that didn't shed, didn't activate common allergies, was good with kids and was both a good indoor and outdoor dog. I started from the top and read the descriptions, ignoring the names and pictures, and somewhere in the top 3 was the perfect dog. The description included details about how great the breed was with kids, how they enjoyed playing games, and figuring things out. It described the need to keep them occupied with challenges, and how they made great "working" dogs because of their fierce loyalty and natural willingness to engage with their owner.
All of that sounded perfect, so I made up my mind. Only then did I look at the breed name. My wife has to put up with a lot, and from her perspective I'm sure I seem crazy. One minute I tell her I want a dog, next I tell her I'm going to analytically pick the best dog for us, and then I'm looking up from the computer again minutes later asking "What the hell is a Portugese Water Dog?"
She didn't know either, but the choice was made and Becky took it from there. I still remember being stunned when she told me they were (at the time) a pretty rare breed, and a dog was going to cost $1200-$2000! Wow, that made me pause. But for me it was either get the 'perfect' dog or spend less on one that was clearly inferior. Computers and databases don't lie, so the choice was still clear. (I'm chuckling as I type that.)
Becky found a breeder and we were told that if the next litter had a "pet quality" dog that we could purchase one. It turned out that the next litter did indeed have a female that was not considered show quality due to an underbite, and the breeder asked us to name her with the theme of her litter, which was aviation. What are the odds? As an avid private pilot, and total airplane nut, nothing seemed more of a sign that we had picked the right dog than this.
We needed to pick two names, like a first and middle name, and a conversation with the kids eventually got us to "Aerial" for a first name. Some of the meanings of Aerial include "occurring in the air", "high in the air", and "of or relating to aircraft." So Aerial definitely fit the aviation theme the breeder had picked for this litter, but what for the second name? My younger daughter, Katie, was asking what Aerial meant and I was describing aerial displays, acrobatics, etc. At some point I remember she asked what that looked like, and I said it was like an airplane dancing through the sky. I don't recall now who then suggested "Skydancer" as the second name, but before long the name was settled on. The reference to the breeder is shown as a possessive, so the registered name ended up being "SaltyDawg's Aerial Skydancer."
And just in writing this, I've googled her name. I can save you the time if you want to google her, and show you some info on her here http://www.offa.org/display.html?appnum=1065646 and here http://www.saltydawgpwds.com/Whoarewe.html where her show dog championship is mentioned. But that's jumping way ahead, I suppose. I'll sidetrack a moment though and say it makes me smile now to see the information in the first link. We eventually bred Aerial and asked the owners of those puppies to continue the aviation them themselves. Apparently they did since I see the registered names now. Aerial's legacy lives on through "Soaring Thru Space", "Sky Princess", and "Grace Spitfire." I can imagine dogs responding to "Grace" or "Princess" but I don't know what the owners call out when they want "Soaring Thru Space" to come.
So back to the story as I ramble along. We got Aerial when she was around 10-12 weeks old. And while I was the one who decided to have a dog, my ever-patient wife had to deal with me freaking out a bit. Suddenly we were bound to the house. We couldn't just leave all day without planning on someone to let Aerial out. And she was a puppy. My last experience with a puppy seemed like it was all play and no work, no doubt because I was a little kid and the work fell on my parent's shoulders. It truly was all play for me. Only after getting Aerial did I realize the work involved. Hey, puppies are work.
Fast forward 9 months or so, and a few things have occured. First, the puppy has become an easily excitable dog, and her underbite has spontaneously corrected itself. I joked briefly with the breeder that I had fabricated braces and headgear for the dog, but the horrified response quickly turned off my sarcastic sense of humor. Instead the breeder asked if we would be willing to "show her." Initially we had no interest but the breeder really wanted us to consider it so we finally agreed to do so. Working with the breeder was great, and while I could never keep a straight face when someone at a show said "you have such a beautiful bitch" it was fun to see Aerial being shown. She would be a total spaz right up to the point of her handler taking her in the ring, and then she would walk around like she knew she was the greatest dog ever! She exhibited total poise and composure. Upon exiting the ring she would freak out and lick us and spaz out all over again. It was very fun to watch and I'm convinced she loved it.
She won several shows in her category, eventually acquiring the points to earn her championship, and we retired her from dog shows. It was a fun phase, but one we were glad to finish and let her resume just being a pet. And that's exactly what she did for the next 10 years. True to the original database description, she was the best...dog...ever. She didn't shed, she was good indoors or out (though clearly wanted to be indoors!), was great with kids, loved to play fetch, do tricks, you name it. And she learned things so easily and quickly.
She loved toys. Loved to get a dog-toy and tear it apart to find the squeaky thing inside. Sometimes that was accomplished within an hour of giving her the toy, and other times she kept toys for a long time. She kept this mangy duck for years, and she wouldn't touch the elephant that trumpeted when it was bounced. If you were playing with her and said "Go get your toy!" she would search the house until she found one and brought it to you. I don't know how she learned it, she just did it the first time we told her to.
One time I went upstairs with her and happened to see her toy and decided I would throw it over the balcony to her. I told her "Go downstairs" and she bolted down the stairs to the first landing. I said "go all the way down!" and she ran down to the first floor and I threw her the toy and she caught it and bolted back up the stairs. I have no idea how she learned it, but from that day on, we could play that game and she would do exactly the same thing. "Go downstairs" would send her to the first landing. Sometimes I'd throw her the toy there, and other times I'd say "All the way down" and she'd run downstairs and sit under the balcony for me to throw her toy to her.
She was gentle and never snapped at me or bit me. But if I got down on the ground and played rough with her she would growl and pretend to bite me while just barely putting her mouth on me. She'd put her mouth on my arms and hands and barely leave little red marks while I would tackle and shove her away. We fought hard, and to a stranger it would look like she was attacking me. We would fight like this until I was exhausted, and the first time we did it when I was ready to stop I said "Okay, cool it." and she just sat down and waited to be petted. I'd like to claim I trained her, but she just seemed to know.
My kids loved for me to show their friends this trick, and Aerial and I did it often. One minute we would be rolling around on the ground with her appearing to bite me and attack me while I shoved her away and she slid across the floor only to jump back up and pounce on me, looking for an exposed arm or leg to latch onto. Then I would say "Cool it." and without a second's hesitation she would drop into a sitting position and wait for me to scratch her chin.
As I mentioned earlier, we bred Aerial as well, and while there were some healthy pups from the first litter, and one from the second litter, it was also about the time that some health problems began to surface. Shortly after the second litter, she began taking medication for some hormonal imbalances that lasted the rest of her life. There were also a few lumps/tumors removed over the years, and she seemed to have a new lump or growth every year or two. Other than that she was vibrant, energetic, and healthy.
A few months ago she suddenly developed glaucoma in her left eye and went blind in that eye before we caught it and began treatment. We caught it in time in her right eye just about 6 weeks ago and saved her vision. Then in the last 10 days she started eating less, but we thought it was related to a lump she had removed from under one of her teats during that time. On Monday evening she suddenly seemed to be having trouble rising to a standing position, and by Monday night she was degeneratng rapidly enough that we took her to the emergency pet hospital. Her bloodwork and vitals seemed okay, so we took her to our normal vet Tuesday morning.
Wednesday afternoon a surgical specialist doing ultrasound and x-rays determined she had fluid on her lungs, growths on multiple organs, and a mass of what was most likely cancer on her spleen. We also noticed that a few lumps we had found on Monday behind her ears and under her chin had almost doubled in size. She couldn't lift herself up, and her body was obviously being overtaken by cancerous growths. The vet explained that the growth on the spleen typically creates internal bleeding, which explained the edema, anemia, and sudden onset of symptions, but said she was too weak to survive a surgery to try to correct the acute issue.
Never in my life has such a clear decision been such a difficult decision. My girls and I met my wife at the surgical center and we arranged to say our goodbyes. They brought Aerial in to see us on a wheeled table, because she could barely lift her head and needed oxygen to stay awake. In spite of all of that, as soon as she came through the door she lifted her head and her tail began banging up and down on the table. She tried to get up a few times, but it was obvious she wasn't going to be able to, so we just encouraged her to lay down and each of us took a few minutes to pet her and comfort her.
She was a great dog and I'm glad I got to say goodbye. I know she understood me when I said "Go downstairs" and she knew what to do when I said "Cool it." I like to think that she similarly intuited what I meant when I thanked her for being such a great dog and for sharing her life with us. I thanked her for being in our family, and for the joy she brought us. And then I laid my head on her chest and broke down and sobbed.
The sadness was all being created from the sense of loss, and the loss only exists because something is treasured. So with a deep breath I regained my composure and told her she could go to sleep soon and it wouldn't hurt any more. As we left she tried to get up, but was so weak that we readily convinced her to just lay back down. It appeared she was close to falling asleep when the assistant came to take her.
I've broken down and sobbed more than a handful of times since. I miss my dog. And while she loved us all, she was MY dog. For most of her life she refused to be in any room other than where I was. She would leave someone else to check to see if I would pet her, yet when she was with me no one else could get her to come to them. Many times I would tell her to go, and even then she had a hard time leaving my side. She was my dog. Wow, I'm going to miss her.
I've always cringed when I've heard people say they love their pets like I love my children. Invariably, these are people who don't have kids, and therefore don't realize how wrong they are. As much as I will miss Aerial, she was my dog. And perhaps for that reason it's easier to see past the loss and realize just how thankful I am for having had her in our family. So while I feel my ramblings coming to a close, and perhaps upon completion of this I can actually sleep, I think what's really left for me to express is the gratitude.
I learned a lot from Aerial, and I'm grateful for the lessons. I learned that when you do something you shouldn't, the best thing to do just might be to hang your head and tuck your tail between your legs. But don't just wallow in it. Periodically check to see if you've been forgiven. And when it's clear that all is forgiven, spring back and jump into the joyful relationship you had prior to the transgression. Wag your tail again. If you're forgiven, forgive yourself and don't walk around with your head low and tail tucked any longer.
I learned to unabashedly show joy at seeing the ones you love, the ones you know, and maybe the people you've just met. Why not? Until the last month or so, Aerial ran to the door every time I came home. If she thought I might come to the front door she often laid her head on the window sill and just watched and waited. I knew I was loved by the greeting I got. I learned to really tell people that it's good to see them, that it's good to talk to them, and that I enjoy their company. Good stuff shouldn't go unexpressed.
I learned that if I'm not willing to fight to protect my kids then I'm certainly no better than a dog. She was protective of each litter, sometimes fiercely so. The only time she ever bit anyone was when she bit my friend Jim because he came in the house when we weren't inside. Aerial was growling at anyone except our family if they came near her litter, and she chased Jim back out the door. He almost made it before she drew blood. It was my mistake, and Jim was generous to forgive her completely. And once I came in the house, 30 seconds later, she was wagging her tail at Jim. When we weren't in the house, she wouldn't let anyone else in, and having puppies took her protective stance to another level.
I liked her example of confronting the unknown head-on. When she heard a noise outside, she charged out the dog door at full steam, barking and saying "It's on!" as she went. When she cornered a possum at 3am one morning, she ran in and out of the dog door, keeping the possum cornered and waking me up to join the fight. She was fearless, but when I stuck my head out the dog door and saw the possum a few feet away in my flashlight beam it scared the heck out of me.
Finally, I feel tremendous gratitude for everything surrounding yesterday's experience. In the last 24 hours I've experienced a lot of emotion, so I'm just going to start listing all the things for which I have felt grateful.
I am tremendouly grateful for my friends who showed their support and care during a difficult time. I felt loved.
I am grateful for my family, in particular my wife and kids. They created the family in which we welcomed Aerial 10 years ago, and the family in which we mourned her loss. I'm surrounded by loving people.
I am grateful for the financial ability that allows me to know that my decision was completely based on what's best for Aerial and my family. Surgery would have been very expensive, and I am blessed beyond description that I did not have to take that into account in my decision. I told my daughter yesterday that it was the best thing, and I said so confidently. If I had to make that decision because I couldn't afford the surgery I couldn't look my daughter in the eyes. I'm under no illusion that many families are faced with those difficult decisions and don't have the options I did. I am truly, incredibly, overwhelmingly blessed. Abundance shows up in the weirdest places.
I am grateful for the abundance that allows me to have a pet in the first place. I've said for many years the difference between pet and prey is how hungry you are. It's incredible that I live in a society so abundant that we can have pets. If there is a scale ranging from scarcity to abundance, most of the people reading this, like me, are so huddled together on the abundance end that they don't realize the size and scope of the scale that exists. I have an abundant life.
Finally, I'm grateful for the puppy that just jumped up next to me. We got Gracie, another portugese water dog, just a couple of months ago. She played hard with Aerial, and I'm glad they got some time together. Aerial acted younger in those couple of months, and seemed to be having a blast right up until the end.
My challenge will be to not expect Gracie to be another Aerial. Aerial was my favorite dog ever. Gracie may be my next favorite dog, maybe not. She's definitely different. Aerial tried to avoid the shower, whereas Gracie won't stop throwing herself against the shower door until I let her in. She starts almost every morning soaking wet. Weird dog.
But, that's what we said about Aerial. We always said she was a weird dog.
I'll sure miss that weird dog.
It's difficult to even type those words, and the emotions that come and go during this time are varied and powerful.
But saying I've learned a lot from the process is a poor way to describe how I've been impacted by the last 11 years and my experience with a sweet and wonderful dog. So I'll instead just let the words flow and meander and see where it takes me.
First, I'll start with Aerial herself. It was about 11 years ago that I looked up from my computer and told my wife that I thought we should get a dog. She was pretty surprised by this because I typically don't like change. I don't like disruption in my life, in particular in ways that feel like I'm am being limited or restricted. Getting a dog creates restrictions. It just does. It's one more thing to be responsible for, and I already had 4 kids so I wasn't experiencing a lack of things to take care of in my life. :)
But the need just hit me, so I went into dog acquisition mode. First, what to get? Well, I can't stand dog hair and fur on me, clothes, and furniture. My younger son, Mitch, had some allergies to contend with as well, so I just searched the internet for a database of dog types with the criteria I needed. Some of the database fields included "hypo-allergenic", "sheds", "good with kids", and "indoor/outdoor".
I sorted the database to find a dog that didn't shed, didn't activate common allergies, was good with kids and was both a good indoor and outdoor dog. I started from the top and read the descriptions, ignoring the names and pictures, and somewhere in the top 3 was the perfect dog. The description included details about how great the breed was with kids, how they enjoyed playing games, and figuring things out. It described the need to keep them occupied with challenges, and how they made great "working" dogs because of their fierce loyalty and natural willingness to engage with their owner.
All of that sounded perfect, so I made up my mind. Only then did I look at the breed name. My wife has to put up with a lot, and from her perspective I'm sure I seem crazy. One minute I tell her I want a dog, next I tell her I'm going to analytically pick the best dog for us, and then I'm looking up from the computer again minutes later asking "What the hell is a Portugese Water Dog?"
She didn't know either, but the choice was made and Becky took it from there. I still remember being stunned when she told me they were (at the time) a pretty rare breed, and a dog was going to cost $1200-$2000! Wow, that made me pause. But for me it was either get the 'perfect' dog or spend less on one that was clearly inferior. Computers and databases don't lie, so the choice was still clear. (I'm chuckling as I type that.)
Becky found a breeder and we were told that if the next litter had a "pet quality" dog that we could purchase one. It turned out that the next litter did indeed have a female that was not considered show quality due to an underbite, and the breeder asked us to name her with the theme of her litter, which was aviation. What are the odds? As an avid private pilot, and total airplane nut, nothing seemed more of a sign that we had picked the right dog than this.
We needed to pick two names, like a first and middle name, and a conversation with the kids eventually got us to "Aerial" for a first name. Some of the meanings of Aerial include "occurring in the air", "high in the air", and "of or relating to aircraft." So Aerial definitely fit the aviation theme the breeder had picked for this litter, but what for the second name? My younger daughter, Katie, was asking what Aerial meant and I was describing aerial displays, acrobatics, etc. At some point I remember she asked what that looked like, and I said it was like an airplane dancing through the sky. I don't recall now who then suggested "Skydancer" as the second name, but before long the name was settled on. The reference to the breeder is shown as a possessive, so the registered name ended up being "SaltyDawg's Aerial Skydancer."
And just in writing this, I've googled her name. I can save you the time if you want to google her, and show you some info on her here http://www.offa.org/display.html?appnum=1065646 and here http://www.saltydawgpwds.com/Whoarewe.html where her show dog championship is mentioned. But that's jumping way ahead, I suppose. I'll sidetrack a moment though and say it makes me smile now to see the information in the first link. We eventually bred Aerial and asked the owners of those puppies to continue the aviation them themselves. Apparently they did since I see the registered names now. Aerial's legacy lives on through "Soaring Thru Space", "Sky Princess", and "Grace Spitfire." I can imagine dogs responding to "Grace" or "Princess" but I don't know what the owners call out when they want "Soaring Thru Space" to come.
So back to the story as I ramble along. We got Aerial when she was around 10-12 weeks old. And while I was the one who decided to have a dog, my ever-patient wife had to deal with me freaking out a bit. Suddenly we were bound to the house. We couldn't just leave all day without planning on someone to let Aerial out. And she was a puppy. My last experience with a puppy seemed like it was all play and no work, no doubt because I was a little kid and the work fell on my parent's shoulders. It truly was all play for me. Only after getting Aerial did I realize the work involved. Hey, puppies are work.
Fast forward 9 months or so, and a few things have occured. First, the puppy has become an easily excitable dog, and her underbite has spontaneously corrected itself. I joked briefly with the breeder that I had fabricated braces and headgear for the dog, but the horrified response quickly turned off my sarcastic sense of humor. Instead the breeder asked if we would be willing to "show her." Initially we had no interest but the breeder really wanted us to consider it so we finally agreed to do so. Working with the breeder was great, and while I could never keep a straight face when someone at a show said "you have such a beautiful bitch" it was fun to see Aerial being shown. She would be a total spaz right up to the point of her handler taking her in the ring, and then she would walk around like she knew she was the greatest dog ever! She exhibited total poise and composure. Upon exiting the ring she would freak out and lick us and spaz out all over again. It was very fun to watch and I'm convinced she loved it.
She won several shows in her category, eventually acquiring the points to earn her championship, and we retired her from dog shows. It was a fun phase, but one we were glad to finish and let her resume just being a pet. And that's exactly what she did for the next 10 years. True to the original database description, she was the best...dog...ever. She didn't shed, she was good indoors or out (though clearly wanted to be indoors!), was great with kids, loved to play fetch, do tricks, you name it. And she learned things so easily and quickly.
She loved toys. Loved to get a dog-toy and tear it apart to find the squeaky thing inside. Sometimes that was accomplished within an hour of giving her the toy, and other times she kept toys for a long time. She kept this mangy duck for years, and she wouldn't touch the elephant that trumpeted when it was bounced. If you were playing with her and said "Go get your toy!" she would search the house until she found one and brought it to you. I don't know how she learned it, she just did it the first time we told her to.
One time I went upstairs with her and happened to see her toy and decided I would throw it over the balcony to her. I told her "Go downstairs" and she bolted down the stairs to the first landing. I said "go all the way down!" and she ran down to the first floor and I threw her the toy and she caught it and bolted back up the stairs. I have no idea how she learned it, but from that day on, we could play that game and she would do exactly the same thing. "Go downstairs" would send her to the first landing. Sometimes I'd throw her the toy there, and other times I'd say "All the way down" and she'd run downstairs and sit under the balcony for me to throw her toy to her.
She was gentle and never snapped at me or bit me. But if I got down on the ground and played rough with her she would growl and pretend to bite me while just barely putting her mouth on me. She'd put her mouth on my arms and hands and barely leave little red marks while I would tackle and shove her away. We fought hard, and to a stranger it would look like she was attacking me. We would fight like this until I was exhausted, and the first time we did it when I was ready to stop I said "Okay, cool it." and she just sat down and waited to be petted. I'd like to claim I trained her, but she just seemed to know.
My kids loved for me to show their friends this trick, and Aerial and I did it often. One minute we would be rolling around on the ground with her appearing to bite me and attack me while I shoved her away and she slid across the floor only to jump back up and pounce on me, looking for an exposed arm or leg to latch onto. Then I would say "Cool it." and without a second's hesitation she would drop into a sitting position and wait for me to scratch her chin.
As I mentioned earlier, we bred Aerial as well, and while there were some healthy pups from the first litter, and one from the second litter, it was also about the time that some health problems began to surface. Shortly after the second litter, she began taking medication for some hormonal imbalances that lasted the rest of her life. There were also a few lumps/tumors removed over the years, and she seemed to have a new lump or growth every year or two. Other than that she was vibrant, energetic, and healthy.
A few months ago she suddenly developed glaucoma in her left eye and went blind in that eye before we caught it and began treatment. We caught it in time in her right eye just about 6 weeks ago and saved her vision. Then in the last 10 days she started eating less, but we thought it was related to a lump she had removed from under one of her teats during that time. On Monday evening she suddenly seemed to be having trouble rising to a standing position, and by Monday night she was degeneratng rapidly enough that we took her to the emergency pet hospital. Her bloodwork and vitals seemed okay, so we took her to our normal vet Tuesday morning.
Wednesday afternoon a surgical specialist doing ultrasound and x-rays determined she had fluid on her lungs, growths on multiple organs, and a mass of what was most likely cancer on her spleen. We also noticed that a few lumps we had found on Monday behind her ears and under her chin had almost doubled in size. She couldn't lift herself up, and her body was obviously being overtaken by cancerous growths. The vet explained that the growth on the spleen typically creates internal bleeding, which explained the edema, anemia, and sudden onset of symptions, but said she was too weak to survive a surgery to try to correct the acute issue.
Never in my life has such a clear decision been such a difficult decision. My girls and I met my wife at the surgical center and we arranged to say our goodbyes. They brought Aerial in to see us on a wheeled table, because she could barely lift her head and needed oxygen to stay awake. In spite of all of that, as soon as she came through the door she lifted her head and her tail began banging up and down on the table. She tried to get up a few times, but it was obvious she wasn't going to be able to, so we just encouraged her to lay down and each of us took a few minutes to pet her and comfort her.
She was a great dog and I'm glad I got to say goodbye. I know she understood me when I said "Go downstairs" and she knew what to do when I said "Cool it." I like to think that she similarly intuited what I meant when I thanked her for being such a great dog and for sharing her life with us. I thanked her for being in our family, and for the joy she brought us. And then I laid my head on her chest and broke down and sobbed.
The sadness was all being created from the sense of loss, and the loss only exists because something is treasured. So with a deep breath I regained my composure and told her she could go to sleep soon and it wouldn't hurt any more. As we left she tried to get up, but was so weak that we readily convinced her to just lay back down. It appeared she was close to falling asleep when the assistant came to take her.
I've broken down and sobbed more than a handful of times since. I miss my dog. And while she loved us all, she was MY dog. For most of her life she refused to be in any room other than where I was. She would leave someone else to check to see if I would pet her, yet when she was with me no one else could get her to come to them. Many times I would tell her to go, and even then she had a hard time leaving my side. She was my dog. Wow, I'm going to miss her.
I've always cringed when I've heard people say they love their pets like I love my children. Invariably, these are people who don't have kids, and therefore don't realize how wrong they are. As much as I will miss Aerial, she was my dog. And perhaps for that reason it's easier to see past the loss and realize just how thankful I am for having had her in our family. So while I feel my ramblings coming to a close, and perhaps upon completion of this I can actually sleep, I think what's really left for me to express is the gratitude.
I learned a lot from Aerial, and I'm grateful for the lessons. I learned that when you do something you shouldn't, the best thing to do just might be to hang your head and tuck your tail between your legs. But don't just wallow in it. Periodically check to see if you've been forgiven. And when it's clear that all is forgiven, spring back and jump into the joyful relationship you had prior to the transgression. Wag your tail again. If you're forgiven, forgive yourself and don't walk around with your head low and tail tucked any longer.
I learned to unabashedly show joy at seeing the ones you love, the ones you know, and maybe the people you've just met. Why not? Until the last month or so, Aerial ran to the door every time I came home. If she thought I might come to the front door she often laid her head on the window sill and just watched and waited. I knew I was loved by the greeting I got. I learned to really tell people that it's good to see them, that it's good to talk to them, and that I enjoy their company. Good stuff shouldn't go unexpressed.
I learned that if I'm not willing to fight to protect my kids then I'm certainly no better than a dog. She was protective of each litter, sometimes fiercely so. The only time she ever bit anyone was when she bit my friend Jim because he came in the house when we weren't inside. Aerial was growling at anyone except our family if they came near her litter, and she chased Jim back out the door. He almost made it before she drew blood. It was my mistake, and Jim was generous to forgive her completely. And once I came in the house, 30 seconds later, she was wagging her tail at Jim. When we weren't in the house, she wouldn't let anyone else in, and having puppies took her protective stance to another level.
I liked her example of confronting the unknown head-on. When she heard a noise outside, she charged out the dog door at full steam, barking and saying "It's on!" as she went. When she cornered a possum at 3am one morning, she ran in and out of the dog door, keeping the possum cornered and waking me up to join the fight. She was fearless, but when I stuck my head out the dog door and saw the possum a few feet away in my flashlight beam it scared the heck out of me.
Finally, I feel tremendous gratitude for everything surrounding yesterday's experience. In the last 24 hours I've experienced a lot of emotion, so I'm just going to start listing all the things for which I have felt grateful.
I am tremendouly grateful for my friends who showed their support and care during a difficult time. I felt loved.
I am grateful for my family, in particular my wife and kids. They created the family in which we welcomed Aerial 10 years ago, and the family in which we mourned her loss. I'm surrounded by loving people.
I am grateful for the financial ability that allows me to know that my decision was completely based on what's best for Aerial and my family. Surgery would have been very expensive, and I am blessed beyond description that I did not have to take that into account in my decision. I told my daughter yesterday that it was the best thing, and I said so confidently. If I had to make that decision because I couldn't afford the surgery I couldn't look my daughter in the eyes. I'm under no illusion that many families are faced with those difficult decisions and don't have the options I did. I am truly, incredibly, overwhelmingly blessed. Abundance shows up in the weirdest places.
I am grateful for the abundance that allows me to have a pet in the first place. I've said for many years the difference between pet and prey is how hungry you are. It's incredible that I live in a society so abundant that we can have pets. If there is a scale ranging from scarcity to abundance, most of the people reading this, like me, are so huddled together on the abundance end that they don't realize the size and scope of the scale that exists. I have an abundant life.
Finally, I'm grateful for the puppy that just jumped up next to me. We got Gracie, another portugese water dog, just a couple of months ago. She played hard with Aerial, and I'm glad they got some time together. Aerial acted younger in those couple of months, and seemed to be having a blast right up until the end.
My challenge will be to not expect Gracie to be another Aerial. Aerial was my favorite dog ever. Gracie may be my next favorite dog, maybe not. She's definitely different. Aerial tried to avoid the shower, whereas Gracie won't stop throwing herself against the shower door until I let her in. She starts almost every morning soaking wet. Weird dog.
But, that's what we said about Aerial. We always said she was a weird dog.
I'll sure miss that weird dog.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Sayings I hate, Part 4
"It won't kill you."
Grrr. This one gets me.
It's usually tacked on at the end of some string of statements burbling forth from a round face with splotchy cheeks and fat lips. Something like "Oh come on! You can at least try a piece of cake. It won't kill you."
Listen, I don't give a crap if you baked it. I don't care if you think it's so awesome that I just HAVE to share it with you, if I don't want it then shut...the...hell...up. Seriously.
If I want to splurge, I will. If it's a cheat meal then don't get your hands close to my ice cream. But if I don't want to eat your crap right now, telling me that it won't kill me is just annoying and slightly offensive.
I've tried explaining my thoughts in the moment to these pushers of metabolic destruction, but it seldom works. So these days I just have fun with it. If you're in the same situation, try a few of these:
"Holy crap? Really? You mean I've been passing up all the cake and cookies because I thought it would kill me and it won't? Wow, I've got some catching up to do!"
"Are you sure? Remember that dude in Scarface who snorted a bunch of powdered sugar up his nose? It killed him."
"Yeah, that's the whole problem. I'm such an adrenaline junkie that I just don't feel any enjoyment from something unless there's some chance it will kill me. Want to go skydiving?"
Or perhaps you could just tell them that you will, but you have a rule that any time you eat crap like that you have to go run ten 100 meter sprints and you want them to join you. When they protest, remind them it won't kill them.
The problem is, depending on the person asking, it just might!
Grrr. This one gets me.
It's usually tacked on at the end of some string of statements burbling forth from a round face with splotchy cheeks and fat lips. Something like "Oh come on! You can at least try a piece of cake. It won't kill you."
Listen, I don't give a crap if you baked it. I don't care if you think it's so awesome that I just HAVE to share it with you, if I don't want it then shut...the...hell...up. Seriously.
If I want to splurge, I will. If it's a cheat meal then don't get your hands close to my ice cream. But if I don't want to eat your crap right now, telling me that it won't kill me is just annoying and slightly offensive.
I've tried explaining my thoughts in the moment to these pushers of metabolic destruction, but it seldom works. So these days I just have fun with it. If you're in the same situation, try a few of these:
"Holy crap? Really? You mean I've been passing up all the cake and cookies because I thought it would kill me and it won't? Wow, I've got some catching up to do!"
"Are you sure? Remember that dude in Scarface who snorted a bunch of powdered sugar up his nose? It killed him."
"Yeah, that's the whole problem. I'm such an adrenaline junkie that I just don't feel any enjoyment from something unless there's some chance it will kill me. Want to go skydiving?"
Or perhaps you could just tell them that you will, but you have a rule that any time you eat crap like that you have to go run ten 100 meter sprints and you want them to join you. When they protest, remind them it won't kill them.
The problem is, depending on the person asking, it just might!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Rules of Paleo - #1
In order of my thinking of them, as opposed to any importance, I present the first rule in what will be my Rules of Paleo series.
Rule #1:
If it's difficult you're doing something wrong
There it is, short and sweet. If it feels like a chore, if you're hungry all the time, if you find cooking to be a pain, or if you don't enjoy your food then you're doing something wrong.
I must mention here my eight word description of my diet: "I eat real food that satisfies my hunger."
That should be easy. Protein and fat satisfy, so those better be in there. And real means that the most processed thing you'll eat is ground meat.
If instead you are scouring the internet looking for the latest Paleo Banana Nut Bread recipe then spending hours combining coconut flour, almond meal, banana chips and eggs into some weird production so you "have something to eat" then you're doing it wrong.
Am I saying you can never try those things? Of course not! I'm saying that those types of meals shouldn't form the foundation of your diet, and I'm saying it for two reasons: First, recreating a crappy diet with "Paleo" ingredients is a waste of time and will result in less than optimal nutrition and thus less than optimal results. Second, it's too much work to do that for every meal and if you are trying to do it that way you'll probably fail.
Work to create a foundation for your diet that is:
It should be easy to make, requiring a minimum of time. A few simple examples:
Enjoyable
The meals I described above are enjoyable to me. They're very satisfying and they taste great. They also are enjoyable to create. It's very little work to cube a sweet potato, chop an onion, etc., and they need a minimum amount of supervision while cooking. It is also enjoyable to experiment with different tastes. I had never used fennel seed until I just bought a handful of spices I recognized and played with them. Now I use fennel seed in many dishes.
Duplicable
These meals are easily duplicated. If I need a post workout meal a pound of sweet potato and pound of ground beef is something I can cook in my sleep. I have about a dozen meals I can create on auto-pilot. It's still fun to experiment, but if the experiment is a bust or if you just need something you can count on then you need some meals you can cook without much thought.
One other thing that emerges if you create this type of foundation for your diet is you'll have less reason to eat out. If you dread cooking because you've complicated it and feel you don't have time, you'll rationalize just grabbing something. And once the compromise starts it's just a question of how far it goes. Sure, tell yourself you'll just eat some beef fajita meat, but then you get to the restaurant and ENCHILADAS SOUND SO GOOD!!!
Cooking isn't a pain once you get the hang of it. It's quick to make an omelette or some beef and veggies, so no need to run out for something. And if you are cooking and eating the right things you're not going to be hungry.
Every once in a while, if you enjoy it, find some strange paleofied version of an old food you enjoyed and whip up your own version. For me, it's a hamburger, and I make a mean hamburger bun by modifying the recipe for paleo pancakes to create a thicker batter. It's a nice change of pace, but it's tedious compared to everything else I cook and eat. Check it out at the bottom of this page.
One more point to cover. Just like I recommend you have a dozen or so meals that you know you can prepare quickly, define at least a handful of options that are okay if you need to eat out. Typical eat-out meals for me:
And it should be easy, or at least no more difficult than you decide to make it.
Rule #1:
If it's difficult you're doing something wrong
There it is, short and sweet. If it feels like a chore, if you're hungry all the time, if you find cooking to be a pain, or if you don't enjoy your food then you're doing something wrong.
I must mention here my eight word description of my diet: "I eat real food that satisfies my hunger."
That should be easy. Protein and fat satisfy, so those better be in there. And real means that the most processed thing you'll eat is ground meat.
If instead you are scouring the internet looking for the latest Paleo Banana Nut Bread recipe then spending hours combining coconut flour, almond meal, banana chips and eggs into some weird production so you "have something to eat" then you're doing it wrong.
Am I saying you can never try those things? Of course not! I'm saying that those types of meals shouldn't form the foundation of your diet, and I'm saying it for two reasons: First, recreating a crappy diet with "Paleo" ingredients is a waste of time and will result in less than optimal nutrition and thus less than optimal results. Second, it's too much work to do that for every meal and if you are trying to do it that way you'll probably fail.
Work to create a foundation for your diet that is:
- Simple
- Enjoyable
- Duplicable
It should be easy to make, requiring a minimum of time. A few simple examples:
- Pour a can of coconut milk into a large pan and turn on the heat. Throw in some seasonings, such as curry, salt, oregano, basil, fennel seed, etc. Dump in some veggies and once it's boiling turn it down and dump in some meat. Cook it for a while, stirring occasionally.
- Throw some cubed sweet potato in a pan with about 1/4" of water. Bring it to a boil while adding salt and fennel seed. Turn it to simmer, throw in a pound of ground beef and let it cook until the potato is soft and meat is done. Turn off the heat and let it sit for a bit.
- Chop up some bacon and put it in a pan on medium heat. Add a chopped onion on top of that. Let it cook until the bacon has rendered out a good amount of grease, then stir it all together and keep cooking until the onions are soft. Add 3 to 7 whisked eggs and move to the oven set for 400 until eggs are solid.
Enjoyable
The meals I described above are enjoyable to me. They're very satisfying and they taste great. They also are enjoyable to create. It's very little work to cube a sweet potato, chop an onion, etc., and they need a minimum amount of supervision while cooking. It is also enjoyable to experiment with different tastes. I had never used fennel seed until I just bought a handful of spices I recognized and played with them. Now I use fennel seed in many dishes.
Duplicable
These meals are easily duplicated. If I need a post workout meal a pound of sweet potato and pound of ground beef is something I can cook in my sleep. I have about a dozen meals I can create on auto-pilot. It's still fun to experiment, but if the experiment is a bust or if you just need something you can count on then you need some meals you can cook without much thought.
One other thing that emerges if you create this type of foundation for your diet is you'll have less reason to eat out. If you dread cooking because you've complicated it and feel you don't have time, you'll rationalize just grabbing something. And once the compromise starts it's just a question of how far it goes. Sure, tell yourself you'll just eat some beef fajita meat, but then you get to the restaurant and ENCHILADAS SOUND SO GOOD!!!
Cooking isn't a pain once you get the hang of it. It's quick to make an omelette or some beef and veggies, so no need to run out for something. And if you are cooking and eating the right things you're not going to be hungry.
Every once in a while, if you enjoy it, find some strange paleofied version of an old food you enjoyed and whip up your own version. For me, it's a hamburger, and I make a mean hamburger bun by modifying the recipe for paleo pancakes to create a thicker batter. It's a nice change of pace, but it's tedious compared to everything else I cook and eat. Check it out at the bottom of this page.
One more point to cover. Just like I recommend you have a dozen or so meals that you know you can prepare quickly, define at least a handful of options that are okay if you need to eat out. Typical eat-out meals for me:
- Chiptole - 3 sides of steak in a bowl and a side of guacamole
- Saltgrass - 12 ounce top sirloin with double asparagus (and don't let them leave bread on the table!)
- Rockfish - Grilled tuna (rare) with sides of asparagus
And it should be easy, or at least no more difficult than you decide to make it.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
An Anonymous Objection
Here's an interesting comment I received on my post about the conclusion of a 45 day paleo challenge.
But, being an analytical person, I'll take the time to respond. Point by point.
What does the toilet smell like after I have a dump?
It's smells like a toilet. What else can a toilet smell like? Perhaps you meant the contents of the toilet, in which case the odor is that of human fecal matter. I don't notice any difference between that odor now versus when I was vegan, vegetarian, or low-fat high carb. I do notice a difference when I eat asparagus, but I'm straying off topic. Is there an embedded claim in your question that would indicate a proper diet results in crap with no odor?
What about all the cholesterol/saturated fat/uric acid/animal metabolic waste products/heterocyclic amines/benzopyrenes etc?
What about them?
Cholesterol - fine. I enjoy my precursor hormones to testosterone and enjoy the testosterone even more.
Saturated fat - Great! Just like the fat stores my body uses to buffer transfer of energy between food and output, my body loves to run on saturated fat.
If you're curious about the impact from these two evils, consider my blood pressure was 100/53 and my pulse was 46 this morning. These are probably more meaningful measurements than the smell of my poop.
Uric acid - fine. That's why I pee. It's also why it's called urine. My kidneys are healthy, and I don't eat large amounts of sucrose or fructose, which are known to elevate serum levels of uric acid beyond healthy levels.
Animal metabolic waste products - Well, that's why I poop. :) My body will have some waste products from anything it uses for fuel and building blocks. To show concern in this area is the equivalent of showing concern that a gas-burning car has exhaust. And I don't mean some silly environmental concern, I mean the fundamental concept that to use anything for fuel will result in byproducts of the chemical reactions necessary to extract that energy.
Heterocyclic amines - Which ones? That term covers compounds that range from vitamins to carcinogens. I assume from the negative tone of your inquiry that you mean the carcinogenic compounds most people refer to that may be produced by cooking meat at high temps. Simple, I don't cook at high temps. I don't grill meat. Most of the meat I eat is cooked at temps very close to boiling. I slow cook the meat along with the veggies, and it only requires a temp above about 170f to get the job done. So, no concerns. Oh, that reminds me, the data that shows these are carcinogenic is based on human models. There has not been any population study or otherwise to demonstrate it actually is a risk.
Benzopyrenes - Uhhh. Well, I don't smear coal tar on myself, live near an active volcano, smoke cigarettes. Oh, you must mean the little tiny bits from charring/grilling meat. I don't do that either, mainly because I don't like the taste. I occasionally sear it in clarified butter, but never on a flame. So, no concerns there.
Okay, I addressed the totally open-ended "what about" questions. That was tedious. On to the last one:
Look what is happening to Robb Wolf. His health is falling apart judging by his latest blood pathology. :(
Have you ever been around Robb Wolf? I have. So having actually seen him in person I can say he's a pretty healthy-looking dude. I'm envious of his performance numbers in many areas. But you can't really tell too much from just looking at someone, so can you share the information about his latest blood pathology?
See, there was no substantiation, no explanation, just a stab at Robb Wolf.
So, I don't know what your objective was with that comment, but throwing out a bunch of open ended "what about" style questions combined with random and unsubstantiated stabs at well known people doesn't achieve much.
Anonymous said...Well, that's an interesting way to raise an objection. Start with a meaningless question, follow that up with a "what about" a bunch of stuff, then say something with no reference and no substantiation. Quite the technique.
What does the toilet smell like after you have a dump man! What about all the cholesterol/saturated fat/uric acid/animal metabolic waste products/heterocyclic amines/benzopyrenes etc?
Look what is happening to Robb Wolf. His health is falling apart judging by his latest blood pathology. :(
But, being an analytical person, I'll take the time to respond. Point by point.
What does the toilet smell like after I have a dump?
It's smells like a toilet. What else can a toilet smell like? Perhaps you meant the contents of the toilet, in which case the odor is that of human fecal matter. I don't notice any difference between that odor now versus when I was vegan, vegetarian, or low-fat high carb. I do notice a difference when I eat asparagus, but I'm straying off topic. Is there an embedded claim in your question that would indicate a proper diet results in crap with no odor?
What about all the cholesterol/saturated fat/uric acid/animal metabolic waste products/heterocyclic amines/benzopyrenes etc?
What about them?
Cholesterol - fine. I enjoy my precursor hormones to testosterone and enjoy the testosterone even more.
Saturated fat - Great! Just like the fat stores my body uses to buffer transfer of energy between food and output, my body loves to run on saturated fat.
If you're curious about the impact from these two evils, consider my blood pressure was 100/53 and my pulse was 46 this morning. These are probably more meaningful measurements than the smell of my poop.
Uric acid - fine. That's why I pee. It's also why it's called urine. My kidneys are healthy, and I don't eat large amounts of sucrose or fructose, which are known to elevate serum levels of uric acid beyond healthy levels.
Animal metabolic waste products - Well, that's why I poop. :) My body will have some waste products from anything it uses for fuel and building blocks. To show concern in this area is the equivalent of showing concern that a gas-burning car has exhaust. And I don't mean some silly environmental concern, I mean the fundamental concept that to use anything for fuel will result in byproducts of the chemical reactions necessary to extract that energy.
Heterocyclic amines - Which ones? That term covers compounds that range from vitamins to carcinogens. I assume from the negative tone of your inquiry that you mean the carcinogenic compounds most people refer to that may be produced by cooking meat at high temps. Simple, I don't cook at high temps. I don't grill meat. Most of the meat I eat is cooked at temps very close to boiling. I slow cook the meat along with the veggies, and it only requires a temp above about 170f to get the job done. So, no concerns. Oh, that reminds me, the data that shows these are carcinogenic is based on human models. There has not been any population study or otherwise to demonstrate it actually is a risk.
Benzopyrenes - Uhhh. Well, I don't smear coal tar on myself, live near an active volcano, smoke cigarettes. Oh, you must mean the little tiny bits from charring/grilling meat. I don't do that either, mainly because I don't like the taste. I occasionally sear it in clarified butter, but never on a flame. So, no concerns there.
Okay, I addressed the totally open-ended "what about" questions. That was tedious. On to the last one:
Look what is happening to Robb Wolf. His health is falling apart judging by his latest blood pathology. :(
Have you ever been around Robb Wolf? I have. So having actually seen him in person I can say he's a pretty healthy-looking dude. I'm envious of his performance numbers in many areas. But you can't really tell too much from just looking at someone, so can you share the information about his latest blood pathology?
See, there was no substantiation, no explanation, just a stab at Robb Wolf.
So, I don't know what your objective was with that comment, but throwing out a bunch of open ended "what about" style questions combined with random and unsubstantiated stabs at well known people doesn't achieve much.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The Best Supplement for Vegetarians
I have a few vegetarian friends, so imagine how happy I am to have finally found a good supplement for them to round out their diet. I take this supplement almost daily and actually recommend it for everyone, but vegetarians in particular stand to benefit.
While I won't endorse the grains, legumes, and some other stuff most Vegetarians eat, I heartily support their consumption of actual vegetables. Spinach, broccoli, sweet potato, squash, the list goes on and on. All yummy stuff. All certainly beneficial. But there are certain nutrients that are just not provided by the veggies and fruit and those nutrients are critical to health.
Luckily there is a manufacturing process most people are unaware of that harvests large amounts of green leafy plants (mostly grass) and concentrates their nutrients into an easy to take supplement. There's no way for a human to eat and digest this much plant material, so the concentration process is not just important, it's required.
But the best part is this supplement, unlike so many others, tastes great! I know, it's hard to imagine that the end product of processing that much grass into a supplement could taste good, but it does! And it tastes good in spite of the fact that the concentration ratios are approximately 1 to 1.5 pounds of leafy plant material for just a 10 gram supply of the supplement!
Unfortunately, this particular supplement is more difficult to find than most. I've never seen it in my supermarket or grocery store, nor is it stocked at GNC. You will either have to order it online, or find a local supplier who deals directly with the consumer. In some rare cases it is stocked in stores that specialize in higher-end foods, like Whole Foods, Sprouts, Sunflower, etc.
It comes in two primary forms, large solid pieces, and a ground-up version. If you receive your supplement in solid pieces, I recommend cutting it into portions of 6 to 10 ounces each, marinating in some simple spices and cooking it until the outside has browned but the inside remains pink. This can be done over a grill, or in a skillet with some butter.
If you receive a ground-up version then I suggest you slice a couple of onions and sweet potatos, cook those in a skillet with some coconut oil and add the supplement once the veggies are cooked. Cook the entire mixture until there is no pink left.
Recommended dosage is .5 to 1.5 pounds/day. If you are vegetarian you may notice renewed energy, better muscle tone, and a host of other improvements to your health.
If you decide to give it a shot, realize that you must verify that the supplement is produced from 100% grass processing. Some manufacturers produce a completely different product with a nearly identical name by processing grains as opposed to leafy greens. When searching for it online use a search term such as "Grass fed and finished beef" or ask your health food store if they have "100% grass fed and finished beef" to ensure you get the real deal. It's as easy as that!
Let me know how this supplement works out for you!
While I won't endorse the grains, legumes, and some other stuff most Vegetarians eat, I heartily support their consumption of actual vegetables. Spinach, broccoli, sweet potato, squash, the list goes on and on. All yummy stuff. All certainly beneficial. But there are certain nutrients that are just not provided by the veggies and fruit and those nutrients are critical to health.
Luckily there is a manufacturing process most people are unaware of that harvests large amounts of green leafy plants (mostly grass) and concentrates their nutrients into an easy to take supplement. There's no way for a human to eat and digest this much plant material, so the concentration process is not just important, it's required.
But the best part is this supplement, unlike so many others, tastes great! I know, it's hard to imagine that the end product of processing that much grass into a supplement could taste good, but it does! And it tastes good in spite of the fact that the concentration ratios are approximately 1 to 1.5 pounds of leafy plant material for just a 10 gram supply of the supplement!
Unfortunately, this particular supplement is more difficult to find than most. I've never seen it in my supermarket or grocery store, nor is it stocked at GNC. You will either have to order it online, or find a local supplier who deals directly with the consumer. In some rare cases it is stocked in stores that specialize in higher-end foods, like Whole Foods, Sprouts, Sunflower, etc.
It comes in two primary forms, large solid pieces, and a ground-up version. If you receive your supplement in solid pieces, I recommend cutting it into portions of 6 to 10 ounces each, marinating in some simple spices and cooking it until the outside has browned but the inside remains pink. This can be done over a grill, or in a skillet with some butter.
If you receive a ground-up version then I suggest you slice a couple of onions and sweet potatos, cook those in a skillet with some coconut oil and add the supplement once the veggies are cooked. Cook the entire mixture until there is no pink left.
Recommended dosage is .5 to 1.5 pounds/day. If you are vegetarian you may notice renewed energy, better muscle tone, and a host of other improvements to your health.
If you decide to give it a shot, realize that you must verify that the supplement is produced from 100% grass processing. Some manufacturers produce a completely different product with a nearly identical name by processing grains as opposed to leafy greens. When searching for it online use a search term such as "Grass fed and finished beef" or ask your health food store if they have "100% grass fed and finished beef" to ensure you get the real deal. It's as easy as that!
Let me know how this supplement works out for you!
Vegetarian? Really?
One might conclude that a person who labels himself a vegetarian will actually eat vegetables. It doesn't seem like a silly conclusion to draw, does it?
But I've noticed over many years that the vegetarians I've met don't eat many vegetables. Teenage girls are the worst in this regard, and I've observed many of them who claim to be vegetarian while living on bread, rice, french fries...you get the idea. And they're skinny-fat.
So by what right do they call themselves vegetarian? When did "I don't eat meat" become nearly synonymous with "I'm a vegetarian"?
I'm willing to wager that I eat more non-grains than 95% of all vegetarians. I looked at what I ate in the last week. 5+ pounds of sweet potato. Just over 2 pounds of spinach. 2+ pounds of onion. A little more than a pound of zucchini. I ate at least 10 pounds of non-grain plant food last week, and that's a typical week. I'm averaging close to 1.5 pounds per day.
For my daughter's teenage friends, I estimate they don't consume 1.5 pounds of non-grains in an entire week if you discount the french fries.
So, for those people, I think I'll refer to my diet as "Vegetarian Plus!" just for grins. I like it. It's like all the good stuff from a true vegetarian diet with the extra added kick of a pound and half a day of meat supplementation.
It's like playing diet poker. You open with a vegetarian wager? I'll see your vegetable consumption...and raise it by a pound of grassfed beef, 6 eggs, and 4 ounces of salmon.
Now would be a good time for you to fold. :)
But I've noticed over many years that the vegetarians I've met don't eat many vegetables. Teenage girls are the worst in this regard, and I've observed many of them who claim to be vegetarian while living on bread, rice, french fries...you get the idea. And they're skinny-fat.
So by what right do they call themselves vegetarian? When did "I don't eat meat" become nearly synonymous with "I'm a vegetarian"?
I'm willing to wager that I eat more non-grains than 95% of all vegetarians. I looked at what I ate in the last week. 5+ pounds of sweet potato. Just over 2 pounds of spinach. 2+ pounds of onion. A little more than a pound of zucchini. I ate at least 10 pounds of non-grain plant food last week, and that's a typical week. I'm averaging close to 1.5 pounds per day.
For my daughter's teenage friends, I estimate they don't consume 1.5 pounds of non-grains in an entire week if you discount the french fries.
So, for those people, I think I'll refer to my diet as "Vegetarian Plus!" just for grins. I like it. It's like all the good stuff from a true vegetarian diet with the extra added kick of a pound and half a day of meat supplementation.
It's like playing diet poker. You open with a vegetarian wager? I'll see your vegetable consumption...and raise it by a pound of grassfed beef, 6 eggs, and 4 ounces of salmon.
Now would be a good time for you to fold. :)
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Willpower and Diet
Willpower can't be the basis for controlling how you eat. Don't belive me? Try this simple experiment:
Hold your breath until you pass out. Don't worry, once you do you will start breathing again and wake up in a bit. Go ahead, try it for yourself right now. I'll wait.
I bet most of you didn't bother with the experiment. And I also bet most of you doubt that you would be capable of doing it.
It's hard to imagine overriding a fundamental biological need. Why is the need for nutrients any different from the need for air? It's not. Which is why it's critical to follow a diet that doesn't require you to force yourself to eat a certain way.
I said in my post on describing my diet that I ate real food that satisfies my hunger. Because my hunger is satisfied, I don't need to employ willpower to deal with it.
Do I have occasional cravings? Sure. Are those more often triggered by emotional as opposed to physical factores? Yes, in my experience.
So I will employ willpower occasionally to keep myself from giving in to the random impulse. I might be driving down the street and see a frozen yogurt store and have an impulse to stop and indulge, and willpower is required to handle that random impulse.
Where willpower is not required (and thus not being exhausted since willpower is limited in supply) is in a constant driving desire for more or different food. I've followed vegetarian and vegan diets briefly and the one thing I noticed was having to force myself to stick to the diet. I truly was wearing out my willpower in sticking to the diet. It was exhausting.
Which tells me that they can't be that good for me. Likewise the standard American diet. Try eating like most Americans do, drinking soft drinks, eating burgers and fries, etc. Then try to just cut back on the calories and you'll find your willpower being exhausted as well.
Now try a sensible "paleo-realistic" approach. I don't like the term "paleolithic diet" so much any more, so I target what I call paleo-realistic. The difference being that the "paleo" part is a guideline, and the "realistic" part is how that ends up being expressed in today's world.
So the guideline part means avoiding neolithic foods that cause disease. Hydrogenated oils, seed oils, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, grains, legumes. That about covers what to avoid. You might add dairy to that list but you'll need to experiment.
So avoid that. Eat this: Quality meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, roots, tubers, some fruit, few seeds and nuts. Focus on getting your fats from animal sources, preferably fish and grass fed beef.
Unless you do something really strange you'll find your hunger satisfied. Try eating that way for 30 days and you'll probably find it very easy to stay on the diet. And knowing how good you feel when on the diet makes it easy to get right back on if you have a few meals that are in the "avoid" category.
You can use the willpower to do something else, which is one more reason to follow a good diet. That willpower can now be applied to push you through intense workouts, learn something new, pursue a new hobby, whatever else it is you value.
When your diet is more or less on auto-pilot you have more energy, both physical and mental, to devote to living a life you love. What more can you ask of a diet?
Hold your breath until you pass out. Don't worry, once you do you will start breathing again and wake up in a bit. Go ahead, try it for yourself right now. I'll wait.
I bet most of you didn't bother with the experiment. And I also bet most of you doubt that you would be capable of doing it.
It's hard to imagine overriding a fundamental biological need. Why is the need for nutrients any different from the need for air? It's not. Which is why it's critical to follow a diet that doesn't require you to force yourself to eat a certain way.
I said in my post on describing my diet that I ate real food that satisfies my hunger. Because my hunger is satisfied, I don't need to employ willpower to deal with it.
Do I have occasional cravings? Sure. Are those more often triggered by emotional as opposed to physical factores? Yes, in my experience.
So I will employ willpower occasionally to keep myself from giving in to the random impulse. I might be driving down the street and see a frozen yogurt store and have an impulse to stop and indulge, and willpower is required to handle that random impulse.
Where willpower is not required (and thus not being exhausted since willpower is limited in supply) is in a constant driving desire for more or different food. I've followed vegetarian and vegan diets briefly and the one thing I noticed was having to force myself to stick to the diet. I truly was wearing out my willpower in sticking to the diet. It was exhausting.
Which tells me that they can't be that good for me. Likewise the standard American diet. Try eating like most Americans do, drinking soft drinks, eating burgers and fries, etc. Then try to just cut back on the calories and you'll find your willpower being exhausted as well.
Now try a sensible "paleo-realistic" approach. I don't like the term "paleolithic diet" so much any more, so I target what I call paleo-realistic. The difference being that the "paleo" part is a guideline, and the "realistic" part is how that ends up being expressed in today's world.
So the guideline part means avoiding neolithic foods that cause disease. Hydrogenated oils, seed oils, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, grains, legumes. That about covers what to avoid. You might add dairy to that list but you'll need to experiment.
So avoid that. Eat this: Quality meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, roots, tubers, some fruit, few seeds and nuts. Focus on getting your fats from animal sources, preferably fish and grass fed beef.
Unless you do something really strange you'll find your hunger satisfied. Try eating that way for 30 days and you'll probably find it very easy to stay on the diet. And knowing how good you feel when on the diet makes it easy to get right back on if you have a few meals that are in the "avoid" category.
You can use the willpower to do something else, which is one more reason to follow a good diet. That willpower can now be applied to push you through intense workouts, learn something new, pursue a new hobby, whatever else it is you value.
When your diet is more or less on auto-pilot you have more energy, both physical and mental, to devote to living a life you love. What more can you ask of a diet?
What I Measure and Why
Having just posted What I Track and Why I decided I'd mention what I measure, since that's the flipside of what I track.
In this context I mean what I measure when it comes to food. I once followed the Zone Diet very strictly, and performed more than my fair share of weighing and measuring. That was a pain, especially since I was trying hard to eat 5 to 6 times per day.
In fact, it all seems pretty crazy looking back on it. I would prepare food for the day, carefully weighing and measure proteins, carbs and fats. I remember packing a cooler so I would never be without food. I was once so proud of how I could get a days worth of food in the cooler and be assured I would not have to resort to eating anything else.
Wow, how frail we humans must be if that is required for optimal health. I sure don't see anything similar in the rest of the animal kingdom. Perhaps the dinosaurs died off because they ran out of coolers...who knows?
In most ways I'm now at the opposite end of the spectrum. I eat once or twice or very occasionally three times per day. And my weighing and measuring occurs very rarely and is mainly there to support certain minimums I want to achieve in protein and carbs versus an obsessive need to achieve some exact ratio.
As an example, I try to get about 80% of my daily carbs in a post workout meal. A pound of sweet potato fits the bill nicely. So when I cook my post workout meal, I weigh the sweet potato to make sure I get at least that. I'm not anal about it, I just shoot for between 16 and 20 ounces of raw sweet potato, and then start cooking that amount.
As far as protein, I like to get a big chunk of protein in my post workout meal as well so a pound of grass fed beef works perfectly. Most times I don't even need to measure it, since the packages we get are usually between 16 and 20 ounces.
So for that meal, I weigh the sweet potato to make sure I get enough and throw it in with a package of beef. If I want some onion in there as well, I'll just slice some up. It's more carbs, but who cares? It just doesn't have to be that precise.
It is, however, easy for me to under-eat when it comes to carbs and weighing it is my way of making sure I don't start cutting back unintentionally. Old habits die hard, and without keeping some checks and balances it would be easy to start eating too little, especially since I'm seldom hungry.
Other than that, I don't weigh or measure much. On my rest days, I still eat some sweet potato, but just eyeball it to be about 1/3-1/4 of what I eat on workout days. It's not uncommon to make a fritata with half an onion, some sweet potato and 4-7 eggs. I might throw in some leftovers as well, since that's an easy way to use up some leftover meat.
Again, the goal in all this is to meet some minimums, not to try to achieve some weird balance of carbs and protein. Since this mainly applies on days that I cook a post workout meal, that means I'm turning to the scale 4-5 times a week to weigh one thing. In the past, I'd have done double that on a single day, and it was very strictly applied as well.
It's not neurotic, time consuming, or obsessive.
I can't say the same thing about weighing lunch meat, measuring berries, and counting out exactly 12 almonds just to make one meal. And to be clear about the almonds, it was never 11 or 13, it had to be 12! Any ex-Zoners out there know what I'm talking about?
Simple is good.
In this context I mean what I measure when it comes to food. I once followed the Zone Diet very strictly, and performed more than my fair share of weighing and measuring. That was a pain, especially since I was trying hard to eat 5 to 6 times per day.
In fact, it all seems pretty crazy looking back on it. I would prepare food for the day, carefully weighing and measure proteins, carbs and fats. I remember packing a cooler so I would never be without food. I was once so proud of how I could get a days worth of food in the cooler and be assured I would not have to resort to eating anything else.
Wow, how frail we humans must be if that is required for optimal health. I sure don't see anything similar in the rest of the animal kingdom. Perhaps the dinosaurs died off because they ran out of coolers...who knows?
In most ways I'm now at the opposite end of the spectrum. I eat once or twice or very occasionally three times per day. And my weighing and measuring occurs very rarely and is mainly there to support certain minimums I want to achieve in protein and carbs versus an obsessive need to achieve some exact ratio.
As an example, I try to get about 80% of my daily carbs in a post workout meal. A pound of sweet potato fits the bill nicely. So when I cook my post workout meal, I weigh the sweet potato to make sure I get at least that. I'm not anal about it, I just shoot for between 16 and 20 ounces of raw sweet potato, and then start cooking that amount.
As far as protein, I like to get a big chunk of protein in my post workout meal as well so a pound of grass fed beef works perfectly. Most times I don't even need to measure it, since the packages we get are usually between 16 and 20 ounces.
So for that meal, I weigh the sweet potato to make sure I get enough and throw it in with a package of beef. If I want some onion in there as well, I'll just slice some up. It's more carbs, but who cares? It just doesn't have to be that precise.
It is, however, easy for me to under-eat when it comes to carbs and weighing it is my way of making sure I don't start cutting back unintentionally. Old habits die hard, and without keeping some checks and balances it would be easy to start eating too little, especially since I'm seldom hungry.
Other than that, I don't weigh or measure much. On my rest days, I still eat some sweet potato, but just eyeball it to be about 1/3-1/4 of what I eat on workout days. It's not uncommon to make a fritata with half an onion, some sweet potato and 4-7 eggs. I might throw in some leftovers as well, since that's an easy way to use up some leftover meat.
Again, the goal in all this is to meet some minimums, not to try to achieve some weird balance of carbs and protein. Since this mainly applies on days that I cook a post workout meal, that means I'm turning to the scale 4-5 times a week to weigh one thing. In the past, I'd have done double that on a single day, and it was very strictly applied as well.
It's not neurotic, time consuming, or obsessive.
I can't say the same thing about weighing lunch meat, measuring berries, and counting out exactly 12 almonds just to make one meal. And to be clear about the almonds, it was never 11 or 13, it had to be 12! Any ex-Zoners out there know what I'm talking about?
Simple is good.
Monday, April 4, 2011
What I Track and Why
I measure my weight in the morning after going to the bathroom. I also measure my blood pressure and pulse, and I write down notes for the previous day's food if it is unusual.
I've heard many people say to throw away the scale, and I can certainly see that point if it is something over which one obsesses or if any upward movement on the scale results in resignation. Neither is the case for me. I find my weight fluctuations interesting, and I enjoy it because it provides data that is easily analyzed.
I tend to be analytical. :)
Since I know I want to be leaner I am seeking a steady decrease in weight. Steady can't be defined as daily though. In looking at the data I've settled on a 10 day rolling average because it appears that my 10 day average (or even 7 day average) tends to show progress when I'm eating and exercising according to plan.
So what does this process actually look like for me? It's pretty simple: I weigh myself and write it down on a legal pad I keep in the bathroom. Next to that I write down any notes about what I ate the previous day if it was out of the ordinary. Then I add my blood pressure and pulse to that and I'm done. A minute or two each morning.
That's my source of raw data. No stress, no freaking out if I gained weight, it's just a measurement.
Each entry on a single line, and a typical one may look like this:
185.0 112/60 50...Ate half a gallon of ice cream last night.
The half gallon of ice cream is cleary "unusal" so I write that down as my note after writing that my weight was 185.0, blood pressure was 112/60 and my pulse was 50.
Then about once a week I'll sit down on my computer and add those numbers into a spreadsheet I've maintained since November 2010. From that spreadsheet I can easily see a graph of my 10 day rolling average. And THAT is interesting to look at, especially in light of the notes I took.
If my average for any 10 days isn't lower than the 10 days one day before that, it's worth looking at my diet and exercise to see why not. And because I make notes on my weight every morning, that's easy to do. Obviously this pattern will break down as I approach my desired body composition, and then I'll probably just look at my performance as a marker instead.
It took a little while to get the movement I wanted, but the last half of the challenge was fantastic. And if you read any of my food journals you know I wasn't starving myself to do this, I was stuffing myself. Never hungry, felt great...what a difference 6-7 pounds makes. I don't think it will be more than another month or two before I no longer desire any further decrease in body fat.
I've heard many people say to throw away the scale, and I can certainly see that point if it is something over which one obsesses or if any upward movement on the scale results in resignation. Neither is the case for me. I find my weight fluctuations interesting, and I enjoy it because it provides data that is easily analyzed.
I tend to be analytical. :)
Since I know I want to be leaner I am seeking a steady decrease in weight. Steady can't be defined as daily though. In looking at the data I've settled on a 10 day rolling average because it appears that my 10 day average (or even 7 day average) tends to show progress when I'm eating and exercising according to plan.
So what does this process actually look like for me? It's pretty simple: I weigh myself and write it down on a legal pad I keep in the bathroom. Next to that I write down any notes about what I ate the previous day if it was out of the ordinary. Then I add my blood pressure and pulse to that and I'm done. A minute or two each morning.
That's my source of raw data. No stress, no freaking out if I gained weight, it's just a measurement.
Each entry on a single line, and a typical one may look like this:
185.0 112/60 50...Ate half a gallon of ice cream last night.
The half gallon of ice cream is cleary "unusal" so I write that down as my note after writing that my weight was 185.0, blood pressure was 112/60 and my pulse was 50.
Then about once a week I'll sit down on my computer and add those numbers into a spreadsheet I've maintained since November 2010. From that spreadsheet I can easily see a graph of my 10 day rolling average. And THAT is interesting to look at, especially in light of the notes I took.
If my average for any 10 days isn't lower than the 10 days one day before that, it's worth looking at my diet and exercise to see why not. And because I make notes on my weight every morning, that's easy to do. Obviously this pattern will break down as I approach my desired body composition, and then I'll probably just look at my performance as a marker instead.
What patterns have I seen in the data? Here are three points that I've seen evidence of many times:
- Going off diet may show up the next morning, or it may show up two days later in increased weight. It's not always immediate.
- Going off diet immediately after a workout results in less weight increase than the same type of meal on a rest day.
- Just before I start to feel overtrained and exhausted my morning resting pulse increases.
The second observation is more useful. I've seen many times that I return to my original weight faster and I end up having a lower 10 day average from the day I go off diet if that meal immediately follows an intense workout rather than having it on a rest day. I have theories related to insulin sensitivity, muscle glycogen repletion, etc. But once again, it doesn't matter much except in planning. If I plan to have a meal once a week in which I allow myself things like ice cream, sushi, and milk chocolate then it makes sense to plan them to follow a hard workout. I currently do not allow myself off diet foods unless I have done intense exercise within the previous two hours.
The final observation is the most interesting to me. I've seen my pulse suddenly go from a range of 50 to 54 for the previous 5 days, then jump to 70. Then jump to 74 the day after that. Over time I correlated that with feeling lack of drive for my workouts and noticed myself just crashing during a CrossFit workout. A couple of days of rest or long casual walks and my pulse would drop back down into the 50-54 range. And suddenly I felt like working out again! So I now just look for that change in pulse. If my pulse is over 60 in the morning I'll take a rest day if I had planned to go to CrossFit. By noticing the increase in pulse before I feel exhausted, I've avoided any feeling of being overtrained and worn out.
Since I recently posted my 45 day challenge results and pictures, here's my 7 day rolling averages of weight for that same time:
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Just Like Eating an Elephant
I recently started a rather large project, and I felt all sorts of emotions swirling around because of it. I have a history of losing interest in projects and moving on to something else. I didn't earn the nickname of "Tangent-Man" by focusing on one thing to completion. :)
And while I'm sure I've been exposed to the idea many hundreds of times, it suddenly became clear that all that is required is to keep moving forward and eventually I'll get there. It's that simple.
It is the old question about how you eat an elephant. A bite at a time is the answer. Just like eating a cricket, rabbit, or cow. The elephant is no different in process, only in scale.
Ultimately every task I will ever take on is no different in process. It is simply a series of actions to be taken until the task itself is complete. As long as I don't die or have some other external time constraint before I complete all the required actions that task will be completed.
So commitment to a larger task isn't necessarily commitment to different sorts of actions, it's simply commitment to more of them until the payoff occurs. The source of the initial stress, my decision to build another airplane, this time a much larger and much more complex model than my first, is simply commitment to many more actions over what will inevitably be a longer period of time. Until I framed it that way, I was freaking out a little bit.
At some point I think I must have realized this about my physical goals. I have many times set very specific goals of losing a certain amount of weight, or reaching a certain body composition. In many cases, I either failed or I rebelled against the process and gained weight!
Then I realized I just needed to make my goal to continue progressing. My goal became as simple as seeing some form of steady progress. Since I know I want to be leaner, that meant a steady change in weight. As I get leaner my definition of progress will change to focus more specifically on strength and conditioning. For now, I'm happy to maintain in that area while I address my primary goal of progressively lower body fat.
And just like eating an elephant, there's nothing different from how I focus on that now than there was 3 months ago. I shoot for 150-190 grams of protein per day. I get the bulk of my carbs in post workout meals. I try to get most of my fat from animal sources, preferably grassfed beef. In a nutshell, I eal real foods that satisfy my hunger. :)
And I focus on doing that every day. If your goal is to eat that elephant, which bite will make a step in that direction? The next one. The bites you already took have gotten you to this point. It's the next bite that creates progress, and once that bite is taken, it becomes the bite after that.
Likewise, I know my next meal is the meal that can create progress towards my being leaner. The meals I've already eaten are what have me where I am, but the next one is the one I control. That makes it simple. I don't need tremendous willpower, I don't need some incredible level of self control. I just make the best choice for the next meal and move on. Then I repeat for the meal after that, and since I usually only eat once or twice a day that means I just have to make good choices once or twice day. Seems simple enough.
Finally, this focus on the continued progress rather than the ultimate goal creates accountability. If I have a goal of weighing 175 pounds 3 months from now, just how much does one chocolate bar matter today? If I have a goal of weighing a little tiny bit less pretty much every day, the chocolate bar today will probably prevent a good outcome tomorrow morning when I step on the scale. But if I look at it that way, and avoid those bad choices for the entire 3 months my chances of actually reaching the eventual goal are significantly greater.
This is how it all works for me. My psychology may be quite different from yours. Some would say you're quite lucky if it is. But if you struggle with making the choices you know you need to make to get the results you want, I hope you'll play with these concepts and find what works for you.
And while I'm sure I've been exposed to the idea many hundreds of times, it suddenly became clear that all that is required is to keep moving forward and eventually I'll get there. It's that simple.
It is the old question about how you eat an elephant. A bite at a time is the answer. Just like eating a cricket, rabbit, or cow. The elephant is no different in process, only in scale.
Ultimately every task I will ever take on is no different in process. It is simply a series of actions to be taken until the task itself is complete. As long as I don't die or have some other external time constraint before I complete all the required actions that task will be completed.
So commitment to a larger task isn't necessarily commitment to different sorts of actions, it's simply commitment to more of them until the payoff occurs. The source of the initial stress, my decision to build another airplane, this time a much larger and much more complex model than my first, is simply commitment to many more actions over what will inevitably be a longer period of time. Until I framed it that way, I was freaking out a little bit.
At some point I think I must have realized this about my physical goals. I have many times set very specific goals of losing a certain amount of weight, or reaching a certain body composition. In many cases, I either failed or I rebelled against the process and gained weight!
Then I realized I just needed to make my goal to continue progressing. My goal became as simple as seeing some form of steady progress. Since I know I want to be leaner, that meant a steady change in weight. As I get leaner my definition of progress will change to focus more specifically on strength and conditioning. For now, I'm happy to maintain in that area while I address my primary goal of progressively lower body fat.
And just like eating an elephant, there's nothing different from how I focus on that now than there was 3 months ago. I shoot for 150-190 grams of protein per day. I get the bulk of my carbs in post workout meals. I try to get most of my fat from animal sources, preferably grassfed beef. In a nutshell, I eal real foods that satisfy my hunger. :)
And I focus on doing that every day. If your goal is to eat that elephant, which bite will make a step in that direction? The next one. The bites you already took have gotten you to this point. It's the next bite that creates progress, and once that bite is taken, it becomes the bite after that.
Likewise, I know my next meal is the meal that can create progress towards my being leaner. The meals I've already eaten are what have me where I am, but the next one is the one I control. That makes it simple. I don't need tremendous willpower, I don't need some incredible level of self control. I just make the best choice for the next meal and move on. Then I repeat for the meal after that, and since I usually only eat once or twice a day that means I just have to make good choices once or twice day. Seems simple enough.
Finally, this focus on the continued progress rather than the ultimate goal creates accountability. If I have a goal of weighing 175 pounds 3 months from now, just how much does one chocolate bar matter today? If I have a goal of weighing a little tiny bit less pretty much every day, the chocolate bar today will probably prevent a good outcome tomorrow morning when I step on the scale. But if I look at it that way, and avoid those bad choices for the entire 3 months my chances of actually reaching the eventual goal are significantly greater.
This is how it all works for me. My psychology may be quite different from yours. Some would say you're quite lucky if it is. But if you struggle with making the choices you know you need to make to get the results you want, I hope you'll play with these concepts and find what works for you.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Describing My Diet
I've tried and failed in so many ways to describe my diet to people that I finally sat down and determined how to handle the question. I tend to be intentionally abrasive at times, so planning my response makes that less likely.
First, the 50,000' view:
I eat real food that satisfies my hunger.
That's pretty simple, right? In fact, it only leaves two points to discuss with my questioner:
If they probe deeper, again it's just an expansion of those two points.
Real food is meat, vegetables, some fruit, and a little nuts, spices, and added fats.
Real food does not include beans and grains. I don't believe I'm designed to eat that stuff, and I can tell I feel better when I don't consume them.
That's where I might get some pushback, and it can spin off into conversations as bizarre as being told I'd end up with deficiencies because I didn't eat grains. Yeah, I wonder how we made it until we developed agriculture. It's about then that I give in and embrace my abrasive side. :)
The other point is simple as well:
Real foods that satisfy hunger are those which don't cause rapid changes in my blood sugar. Protein and fat in every meal, and slowly absorbed carbs keep my blood sugar stable. That in turn, minimizes hunger and cravings.
Most people can identify with having sugary stuff and being hungry again an hour later. Many have experienced having cereal or pop tarts for breakfast and being ravenous long before noon.
If they're interested to know more at that point, I recommend some websites and books. If not, then at least I addressed their questions quickly and to the point.
Some will be fine with those first 8 words and never ask another question.
Fewer still will be intrigued, dig in to the information freely available on the web, and make a change for the better. And it's for those few that I think it's worth my time to develop an answer that makes that change more likely.
First, the 50,000' view:
I eat real food that satisfies my hunger.
That's pretty simple, right? In fact, it only leaves two points to discuss with my questioner:
- What constitutes real food?
- What foods satisfy hunger?
If they probe deeper, again it's just an expansion of those two points.
Real food is meat, vegetables, some fruit, and a little nuts, spices, and added fats.
Real food does not include beans and grains. I don't believe I'm designed to eat that stuff, and I can tell I feel better when I don't consume them.
That's where I might get some pushback, and it can spin off into conversations as bizarre as being told I'd end up with deficiencies because I didn't eat grains. Yeah, I wonder how we made it until we developed agriculture. It's about then that I give in and embrace my abrasive side. :)
The other point is simple as well:
Real foods that satisfy hunger are those which don't cause rapid changes in my blood sugar. Protein and fat in every meal, and slowly absorbed carbs keep my blood sugar stable. That in turn, minimizes hunger and cravings.
Most people can identify with having sugary stuff and being hungry again an hour later. Many have experienced having cereal or pop tarts for breakfast and being ravenous long before noon.
If they're interested to know more at that point, I recommend some websites and books. If not, then at least I addressed their questions quickly and to the point.
Some will be fine with those first 8 words and never ask another question.
Fewer still will be intrigued, dig in to the information freely available on the web, and make a change for the better. And it's for those few that I think it's worth my time to develop an answer that makes that change more likely.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Post-45 Day Challenge update
It's been a week since the conclusion of the 45 day challenge. In that 45 days I lost about 7 pounds, and trimmed up quite a bit. I was very surprised to see a drop in my blood pressure. It was fine before, but I noticed about 20 days in that it started dropping more. Yes, I weigh myself and take my blood pressure every day. I find it interesting.
This morning, it was 103/53. My pulse was 52. I weighed 185.6. My weight has bounced around in the 184-185 range since the challenge.
And while some might say don't weigh yourself, I enjoy the daily measurement. When I'm eating strictly I feel that it provides a nice window into what my body is doing.
For instance, I've noticed that a little goat cheese in my diet and I'll definitely weigh more the next day. I think it just makes me bloat or causes a little inflammation. Ditto for nut consumption. I don't think it's just the salt because I already consume a decent amount of salt with my normal foods.
So I find that interesting and will continue to keep a daily weight and blood pressure log.
What I'm going to experiment with now is simply eating when I want, and the amounts I want, with little to no thought to any particular amount of protein. I tried to get 180-200 grams protein/day during the 45 days, and was trying before the challenge as well. But now I think my eating patterns are pretty ingrained, and I'm just not going to worry about it.
On days that I do hard exercise , my post workout meal will be a pound of beef and pound of sweet potatos, so I'll get a big source of protein on those days regardless. The rest of the time, I'll just eat and see what happens.
I'll also allow myself a free meal after workouts one day per week. By "free" I mean that if I'm wanting something higher in carbs I'll eat it. No grains, no legumes, etc. That's just off-limits and I don't want any of it anyway. I feel like crap if I accidentally get some wheat, so it's just not on my list of foods that I enjoy.
Sushi, chips with hot sauce, ice cream...now that is still on my list of foods I occasionally want, so I'll occasionally get them. If a one day per week free meal causes my weight to head back up, then I'll change it to every other week and keep tweaking to make sure I can maintain a slow loss of weight until I get as lean as I want to be.
This feels pretty effortless with the exception of the occasional craving, which is mainly triggered by stress. Stress is a double-whammy. First, it drives up cortisol. Second, it hits emotional triggers for me that result in my wanting to medicate myself with ice cream and chocolate. So I'll continue to work on handling stress in effective ways and reducing it where possible.
This morning, it was 103/53. My pulse was 52. I weighed 185.6. My weight has bounced around in the 184-185 range since the challenge.
And while some might say don't weigh yourself, I enjoy the daily measurement. When I'm eating strictly I feel that it provides a nice window into what my body is doing.
For instance, I've noticed that a little goat cheese in my diet and I'll definitely weigh more the next day. I think it just makes me bloat or causes a little inflammation. Ditto for nut consumption. I don't think it's just the salt because I already consume a decent amount of salt with my normal foods.
So I find that interesting and will continue to keep a daily weight and blood pressure log.
What I'm going to experiment with now is simply eating when I want, and the amounts I want, with little to no thought to any particular amount of protein. I tried to get 180-200 grams protein/day during the 45 days, and was trying before the challenge as well. But now I think my eating patterns are pretty ingrained, and I'm just not going to worry about it.
On days that I do hard exercise , my post workout meal will be a pound of beef and pound of sweet potatos, so I'll get a big source of protein on those days regardless. The rest of the time, I'll just eat and see what happens.
I'll also allow myself a free meal after workouts one day per week. By "free" I mean that if I'm wanting something higher in carbs I'll eat it. No grains, no legumes, etc. That's just off-limits and I don't want any of it anyway. I feel like crap if I accidentally get some wheat, so it's just not on my list of foods that I enjoy.
Sushi, chips with hot sauce, ice cream...now that is still on my list of foods I occasionally want, so I'll occasionally get them. If a one day per week free meal causes my weight to head back up, then I'll change it to every other week and keep tweaking to make sure I can maintain a slow loss of weight until I get as lean as I want to be.
This feels pretty effortless with the exception of the occasional craving, which is mainly triggered by stress. Stress is a double-whammy. First, it drives up cortisol. Second, it hits emotional triggers for me that result in my wanting to medicate myself with ice cream and chocolate. So I'll continue to work on handling stress in effective ways and reducing it where possible.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Log 03/13 - 03/19
Final week of food and exercise logs. The week starts out weird since I was out of town on a ski trip.
Sunday 03/13
*=New low weight
And this wraps up a 45 day Paleo Challenge and my food and exercise logs. I feel like I've lost a little muscle since I stopped focusing on weight training once per week, but overall I'm happy with the changes. I've lost a few inches off my waist and bodyweight CrossFit WODs are definitely better.
I'll wait until next week sometime before I have anything off diet, and I'll probably look at adding in a weight day each week to try to get my absolute strength numbers back up. If I keep pushing to get my weight down I can see being under 180 in another month or two. Anything under 178 will put me at a weight I haven't been since junior high school!
And finally, here's my before and after pictures for the 45 days.
I think I trimmed up a bit. :)
Thanks again to John at CrossFit Richardson for pushing me.
Sunday 03/13
- No weight measurement while out of town
- Rest day, taking care of Katie
- Food: 1) Curry chicken with extra chicken. 2) Tin of sardines and oysters
- No weight measurement while out of town
- Skiing for 2 hours, and then just hanging out with Katie
- Food: 1) Beef fajitas at El Taoseno in Taos. Whole jar of macadamia nuts. 2) Tin of sardines and oysters
- No weight measurement while out of town
- Did workout at home once I got back from New Mexico
- Food: 1) Pound of beef and pound of sweet potato. 2) Tin of sardines and oysters. Estimate 150 grams protein
- 185.8
- WOD at CFR
- Food: 1) Pound of beef and pound of sweet potato with a whole onion 2) 8 ounces of shrimp. Estimate 170 grams protein
- 185.2*
- 3 mile walk
- Food: 1) 5 egg fritata with a half pound of sweet potato and a tin of sardines and tin of oysters. 2) 8 ounces salmon and a grapefruit. 3) 7 ounce beef patty with half a sauteed onion and a whole avocado on top. Estimate 190 grams protein.
- 184.4*
- Rest Day - Meant to go to CFR, but sore. Will workout tomorrow.
- Food: 1) Liver and onioins 2) Pound of beef fajitas at Blue Goose
*=New low weight
And this wraps up a 45 day Paleo Challenge and my food and exercise logs. I feel like I've lost a little muscle since I stopped focusing on weight training once per week, but overall I'm happy with the changes. I've lost a few inches off my waist and bodyweight CrossFit WODs are definitely better.
I'll wait until next week sometime before I have anything off diet, and I'll probably look at adding in a weight day each week to try to get my absolute strength numbers back up. If I keep pushing to get my weight down I can see being under 180 in another month or two. Anything under 178 will put me at a weight I haven't been since junior high school!
And finally, here's my before and after pictures for the 45 days.
I think I trimmed up a bit. :)
Thanks again to John at CrossFit Richardson for pushing me.
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