Before I went to PaleoFX as a speaker, I too worried.

Would I pass muster? Would I be lean enough? Smart enough? Would I get to be part of this fun club? What happens if people judge me and — inevitably — find me lacking?*

And then I thought: Judge me, assholes. Judge the hell out of me. Let me know when you’re done. I’m going to go get a coffee.

Because I have other business in this world.

That business, dear reader, is healing your busted shit. That business is flicking a tiny spark on to your psychic sawdust pile. That business is getting you off your ass and out of your head and in to the gym or wherever else you choose to move your body.

That business is not debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, and exactly what they should look like in bikinis. That business is not pleasing you or Big Fitness or Daddy. That business is speaking truth.

That business is not clique-building or sooper-sekrit-club-having. In fact, I’m not picky in the least.

So give me your poor, your tired, your weak of spine and crumbling of bone. Give me your mushy of muscle and burbly of digestion and bored of treadmill-hamstering.

Give me your old and young and everything between early bipedalism and death. And while you’re at it give me your non-bipedal: your limps and gimps and wimps and wheeled and caned and casted and bandaged. Untangle your sweaty hospital sheets and IV tubes and tentacles of fear and shame and move whatever isn’t strapped down. A finger, a leg, an eyelid. Whatever you can move, keep moving it. Next week, add some weight to that.

Give me your saggy, your baggy, your faggy, your haggy. Give me your freaks and geeks; steers and queers; sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, preppies, jocks, stoners, poindexters, punkers, rockers, hicks, drama dorks, superstars, homebodies, farmers, New Wavers and socs.

Give me your bodies wracked with life’s whims; your hormonally challenged; your rattling bottles of pills like morbid maracas; your diseases of disuse. Your old knee injury from when you tried drunken trampolining.

Give me your your shit-talkers and funk-walkers; the voices in your head who sing the Rocky training montage; your sniveling inner toddler who stamps and says “No!”. Leave your inner critic at the door, or do five pushups every time you speak to yourself seriously in her voice.

Give me your clueless big-eyed newbies and grizzled gray-prickly veterans. Give me your squashy and scrawny. Give me your chickenshits; you people hunting for your fighting spirit and tending the tiny flame of Yes we can inside your ribcage.

It doesn’t matter who kicked the sand in your face. Spit it out and let’s get to work.

You can all apply for this job of awesome. No resumé required. The universe will be your hiring committee, and we need a lot of staff.

All are welcome in this house that strength built.

I mean the strength that moves the barbell and the strength that tries to move the bar and the strength that gets you to go near the bar in the first place when you are bowel-loosening scairt and intimidated as shit in that small grimy weight room full of grunting furry manpeople who smell like cheese and wet dog and old sweaty leather.

I mean the strength of putting one foot in front of the other. Or simply standing still when the winds of life are shoving you backwards like a schoolyard bully.

I mean the strength that sometimes looks like madness. The strength that sometimes looks like baby-weakness. The strength that is a tiny nugget of steel inside you. The strength that is compassion big enough to cuddle the world… even if you don’t yet know it is there, and certainly cannot yet turn it on yourself. The strength that 2 million years of evolution have given you, in your standard-issue package of human DNA.

I mean the strength of getting up off the floor and trying again. I mean the strength of having a good cry in the fetal position, drowning yourself in slithery snot and shame, and then uncurling, wiping your nose, and getting on with it.

Here, we do not build altars to shamed starvation; to the stimulant-addled; the sodium-depleted; the surgically caricatured and Photoshop-glazed puff pastries that pass for images of “fitness”.

Here, we do not glorify masochism wrapped in a sticky-sweet package of “inspiration” and “reaching your goals”. Fuck goals. Life laughs at goals. Fuck 8-week programs and accountancy. Fuck “pain is weakness leaving the body”. Deep kindness is braver than bashing and berating.

Here we set aside, for a moment, the demons that drive you to be better, thinner, prettier, perkier, painting and panting by numbers, wrapping yourself in the barbed-wire security blanket of mathematics, jumping through the ever-higher flaming hoops of social approval. Here we graduate from high school.

Here we don’t rebel against anything. Because we know that rebelling against something still makes that other thing the boss of us. We drive away into the sunset, following our own path.

Here, we don’t justify ourselves with “___ is the new sexy”. Your sexy is your own goddamned business. Have two orgasms in whatever way floats your boat, and call me in the morning.

Here, there are no invincible superwomen. We creak. We crunch. We sweat and stink. We have lumps and bumps. We slam our fingers between weight plates by mistake and conk our foreheads when we bend down to unload the barbell. We fart. Sometimes, if we have made babies, we pee ourselves. Just a little bit. We shrug and keep on deadlifting or doing jumping jacks or laughing deep in our jiggling bellies.

We know our insides have their own agendas. We take our bodies by the hand and keep going, till death do us part.

We know that action is the enemy of fear. As is a gut-busting giggle, a real exuberant screw-you HA HA HA.

We do our best to lighten the fuck up. To stay real. After all, if we argue with reality, we will always lose. We might as well fist-bump reality and become buddies.

Some days we have workouts so lousy that we want to leave the gym with a paper bag over our heads. Some days we have workouts when heavenly choirs sing and gently hoist our barbell with shining fingers. Some days we have workouts only in the sense that we put on running shoes. Some days we have workouts after which we double-dog-dare the world to fuck with us.

Wherever you are in your journey of strength, you are welcome here. This place is for you.

*Irony: Nobody judged me. Or at least, if they did, they didn’t say anything. Instead, they were all terrifically nice. Must be all the fresh air and good livin’.

“If you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated!”

Sound familiar? Sure, of course. If you’re into running and other endurance sports, you might even own one of those bandolier-style fuel belts, like this:

And this might look like you during or after training:

Well guess what: That’s probably BS, like 95% of the mainstream information about what counts as “good” nutrition and exercise. And in fact, over-drinking might even be dangerous.

Fluid balance and health

The balance of fluid and electrolytes (dissolved mineral ions) in our bodies is critical to health and proper function. Sodium is one of the most important ions in our bodies, and is critical for regulating things like blood pressure. Hyponatremia is a condition of electrolyte imbalance, in which there is too little sodium relative to water. (Sodium has the chemical symbol “Na”, and “hypo” means “under”; hence “hyponatremia” = “too little sodium”.)

Hyponatremia is not widely known but it’s more common than people realize, and it can be deadly. Blood pressure and volume are thrown off. Cells in the brain swell with water but there is no place for the extra volume to go — your skull is a pretty tight helmet. The result: Neurological symptoms ranging from mild (dizziness and disorientation) to severe (the brain centres that handle important stuff like breathing and heart rate shut down).

Here’s the critical point: In otherwise healthy people, most of the time hyponatremia is caused by simply drinking too much.

Unfortunately, hyponatremia is often not well recognized or understood. Data on hyponatremia are hard to come by, because often hyponatremia looks like other things, especially in athletes.

For example, heart failure can just look like, well, heart failure. I mean c’mon, is anyone really surprised when someone who puts their body through a grueling physical challenge has a heart attack? It seems like a tragic but sensible explanation, especially in a culture where the bulk of the population (so to speak) is generally unaccustomed to tough physical labours. This also holds for things like seizures, muscle cramping, fatigue, nausea, etc. Throwing up in the fourth hour of an Ironman just seems pretty normal. (Heck, I kind of want to upchuck just thinking about it.) Thus, few medical personnel might think to look for hyponatremia as a root cause — yet fluid and electrolyte imbalance might be the most important factor.

And of course we’re all supposed to stay hydrated right? So maybe if a runner comes to us with dizziness then we should give them more water, right? Wrong, says legendary sports scientist Dr. Tim Noakes, author of The Lore of Running, and now author of a new book, Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports (Human Kinetics, 2012). In fact, argues Dr. Noakes, many  hyponatremia deaths were likely caused by well-meaning medical personnel who simply didn’t expect to see hyponatremia signs in an exercising population.

So here’s the situation: Too much water causes a dangerous imbalance, and there have been many cases in which athletes have even died from over-hydration. Yet runners and other athletes are encouraged to drink more, more, more. We’re all terrified of being dehydrated, and constantly told that we have to drink water and sports drinks to be “healthy”, to “lose fat”, and to achieve optimum performance. What gives?

The “hydration industry”

In the last few decades, a “science of hydration” has sprung up around the sports drink industry, which is deeply invested in creating and promoting products. This is the so-called “hydration industry”: the folks who convinced us that chugging Crayola-coloured chemical-tasting water is good for our health.

Dr. Noakes is deeply critical of the “hydration industry” and the commercial products that imply that somehow, humans were unable to sort out that pesky fluid balance thing for the first several million years of evolution, even though single-celled organisms actually seem to handle fluid self-regulation just fine without consuming anything ending in “-ade”.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Noakes about his new book Waterlogged. It was a deeply revealing interview, covering topics such as:

• how and why hyponatremia is a serious problem in sports;
• the history of the “hydration industry”;
• why the “science of hydration” that brought you “sports drinks” is bad science;
• why women in particular are at risk for hyponatremia;
• our evolutionary past; and
• the role of South African sports science — a culture of runners and a climate of heat — in exploring these questions.

Download this interview in MP3 format (right-click to save to your computer).

And once you’ve listened, head on over to Human Kinetics and check out more about Tim’s book, available in May 2012.

In the meantime, enjoy some PowerThirst:

But usually, once you get past the immediate event and the first few days of acute pain, the worst part of any injury/illness is psychological.

You’re scared. You’re thinking, “Will I ever play the violin again?” You’re wondering who you are if you aren’t “healthy person” any more. You’re crying on the living room floor at 3 am because your back hurts so goddamned much and all you want to do is fucking sleep but your angry spine won’t let you waaaahh!!

With any serious injury or illness, once the immediate fear and pain subside, you’re left with larger existential questions.

Along with a good program of rehab and pain management, you need a mental game as well. Here are some tips for bouncing back.

1. Understand that the mind-fuck and emotional roller coaster are both normal.

Whatever you feel, it’s normal. Your identity, your sense of “OK-ness” and safety, your worldview, your daily routine… all will be challenged.

2. Remember: Resilience is a skill.

You can learn it and practice it. The more you practice it, the better you get.

Bounce is great starter reading while you heal.

3. Allow and accept.

Allow the pain/illness/limitation to be there. Accept its presence. You don’t have to like or love it. You can hate the hell out of it. But you can hate it and still allow it to be there. It’s a kind of “this sucks, but here we are” perspective.

When you are able to allow, you eliminate resistance, which contributes to and worsens pain, stress, and suffering. Much about a chronic/serious injury is really this attachment to “healthy functional person”. Once you get past the acute pain and initial fear, this fog of emotional and psychological distress is really what does the damage.

4. Be mindful and aware.

Be present with the pain and limitation. Again, allow it to be there. But also note and observe the experience in its fullness. View it as an interesting curiosity that requires careful observation and awareness.

What are you learning about yourself, your body, and the world in this moment?

See if you can get out of your head a little bit. Notice where you feel both pain/limitation and emotions in your body. For instance:

• You may feel physically tense and anxious when you try to move the owchy part. You may notice how much you go rigid with fear as you perform certain movements.
• You may feel physically lethargic and empty if you are sad about the injury/illness. You may feel a hollowness or heaviness in your chest.
• You may notice other parts compensating for the injury.
• You may feel your face and neck tensing up if you are angry about the injury/illness. Etc.

Again, try to get out of your head and into your body. Be a thoughtful observer of your physical state, from head to toe.

5. Soften towards yourself.

Practice compassion. A common approach is something like this.

Think about being your own best friend in this moment of pain. Imagine your body and spirit being like a frightened little child. Comfort yourself. Give yourself a little hug. Your body needs love and care right now, not criticisms like “How could you be so stupid!” or “How could you let me down like this!?” If you wouldn’t say it to a lost and scared little girl who’s just fallen down and scraped her knee, don’t say it to yourself. Ever.

Yes, compassion sounds woo-woo, but it’s based on good solid neuroscience and it works.

More on compassion — I highly recommend the book.

6. Allow yourself to grieve the loss.

Yes, they are real losses.

Loss of function; loss of health; loss of a coach… these and all the other small pains that go with injury are losses. Allow yourself to grieve and be present with this grief. It’s important to metabolize grief properly, and you can only do that by spending a bit of time with it.

Notice especially where grief manifests in your body. (Again, this sounds woo-woo, but it’s quite pragmatic somatic psychology.) It’s not ”wallowing in self pity”. It’s real grieving for real losses, and must be done before you can move on.

If you’re concerned about being stuck “in the downer” for too long, make a deal with yourself — give yourself a set amount of time to feel badly, and then promise yourself you’ll move on after that. I recommend you allocate 48 hours to the initial stages of irrationality, grief, anger, etc. Those kinds of feelings will often last longer than that, but if you dedicate 48 hours specifically to allowing yourself to feel crappy and to fully exploring the depths of these emotions, the rest will go much quicker when it emerges later.

If you’re a “stiff upper lip” kind of person, guess what — part of your brain still feels sad, angry, fearful, etc. Allow yourself to be in that shitty place for at least a little while. Trust me; you will move through it and won’t stay there forever. You must first allow the negative feelings to be present. They are there for a reason. They help you heal. Then, and only then, should you move on to the next step of reframing.

7. Reframe.

Again, don’t leap to this step right away. It’s important to go through the steps above first.

Once you’re ready, think about how to reframe this experience.

• Is it a moment of learning?
• A moment to go deeper into learning about pain and limitation, so that in future you can be more understanding with others?
• A time to indulge in more sedentary things that you always wanted to do, like reading through a stack of books?
• A time to learn a new activity?
• A time to reconsider your life’s priorities?
• A time to mack on your cute physiotherapist? Etc.

8. Refocus.

Once you’ve gone through the above steps, and have somewhat successfully reframed the situation, consider how to refocus your energy.

Understand the difference between your attention being PLACED vs PULLED. Don’t allow the injury to PULL your attention. Deliberately and purposefully PLACE your attention.

This takes practice, of course. You’ll probably have to work on it. (See #1.)

9. Come up with a new game plan.

Athletes don’t deal in “shoulds”. They deal with what is, right now.

Football, basketball, and hockey players must constantly respond to what awaits them on the field. They can’t just keep running or skating in a straight line because that’s where they feel they should go. They are always correcting, microsecond to microsecond, for the movements of their opponents. So, think — or even better, feel — like an athlete, and stay dynamically responsive.

Come up with a new game plan as needed, and don’t be afraid to throw out the old one. Your “job” right now is to heal.

10. Do what you need to do.

Don’t fuck around with skipping your physio exercises, or sneaking out for prohibited runs, or whatever. Follow the instructions your rehab people give you, no matter how dumb or tedious you think they are.

Remember, it’s your job to get better — as much as you reasonably can. Help your body heal. If you’ve now got a life-altering disability, then you won’t obviously be back to where you were before. But you can still be a whole lot better than you’d be if you just gave up and did nothing.

Invest the time now and you’ll reap the benefits in the long run. 2 weeks off now can save you 6 months off later. A few days of aggressive icing could put you back in the game a month sooner. Etc.

Don’t try to be a hero. Nobody will be impressed unless they’re idiotic teenage MMA fans who throw around grandiose terms like “warrior” and “honour”. True courage involves thoughtful humility and being fully present with fear, rather than arrogant, ego-satisfying pigheadedness.

11. Understand that this is not forever.

A bad play, a bad game, a bad season, whatever. Each day is a new day. This is not forever. You’ll always have the chance to “reboot” later on. Good athletes are able to bounce back from setbacks. Many athletes even have a little “letting go” ritual, such as touching the bench or wiping the dirt off their hands. See if you can come up with a little “moving on” ritual that helps you symbolize starting fresh. (I like getting a haircut. All my old problems seem to fall to the floor along with the hair.)

12. Above all, understand that this is normal.

It’s a shared experience. We have all been there, or are going to be there at some point.

I watched at least three players get seriously injured during the Super Bowl. No doubt others are sitting on ice packs right now too. So think about this… you and, say, dozens of NFL players (and hundreds of other pro athletes) right now are sitting in whirlpools or on ice packs or on some physio’s table, thinking “Ah, shit.”

You’re in good company! If it’s good enough for million-dollar bodies, it’s good enough for you. No matter how much of a badass you think you are, no matter how athletically talented or enthusiastic, your body isn’t made of titanium. You’re soft and pink and mushy on the inside, and all wonders of engineering have limits. That’s reality. And it’s OK.

The world’s truly oldest profession, fasting, is making the news lately. Exciting evidence suggests that periodic fasting carries a number of health benefits. (More on this in a future article, but for now, check out the free e-book Experiments with Intermittent Fasting from John Berardi, to which I humbly contributed my own perspective.)

Leaving aside the current state of the research, let’s accept for now the premise that fasting does, in fact, have significant health benefits.

The question is: Why?

We certainly don’t have all the answers just yet. But one clue may come from an intriguing place: the role of PPAR-ƴ (pronounced “pee-par-gamma”; yes, I know, just like my Ukrainian grandad used to joke, “It sounds just like it’s spelled”).

PPAR is an acronym for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor. The ƴ, or “gamma”, is one of three known subtypes. PPARs are nuclear receptor proteins, which means basically that they’re proteins that are active within a cell, and their job is to regulate the expression of genes.

Side note: PPARs are one of the reasons that your genetic “blueprint” is not your destiny. Genes are not an unbreakable plan for an inevitable march towards doom or elite performance; they’re simply a set of instructions that may or may not get executed, depending on other factors. Same thing happens in a big company, right? Sure, your expense reports might be rock-solid, but Marge in accounting stands between you and getting that fast return. Don’t piss her off, or getting your expense reports through will be like trying to push Homer Simpson through a pneumatic tube.

These little PPAR folks are part of the army of proteinous squiggles that act sort of like gatekeepers and gofers between the fundamental building blocks of “you” and everything else. And just like Marge and your wages, PPARs can affect some of the major functions of your cells.

Bear with me for a second through this biochem, because I’m going to simplify (and potentially ridiculize) it even more in a second.

OK, so, we’ve got our PPAR-ƴ guys. They’re found in adipose tissue — aka fat. PPARs do a bunch of things, including regulating fatty acid storage and glucose metabolism. They can affect lipid uptake (how we use fat) and adipogenesis (the creation of new fat cells). And they’re also important in cellular differentiation (cells deciding to grow up, get a haircut and a job), general metabolism, and… now this is cool… tumourigenesis (aka the birth and growth of tumours).

We want PPAR-ƴs to be fired up. When PPAR-ƴs are going gangbusters, inflammation goes down. Tumour growth appears to go down. Our insulin and glucose is better regulated. (In fact, PPAR agonists — which help activate PPARs — are one class of new diabetes drugs.)

All good. Oh, and we make more fat cells.

Wait… what? How the hell is that good?

Well, my pretties, get ready for your head to expand. Think of fat like radioactive material. It’s really useful stuff. It gives us power and energy. It’s naturally occurring. But in the wrong hands (hello, Iran), nuclear material is dangerous. It can be chemically active in problematic ways. And you sure as hell don’t want it wandering around where it shouldn’t be.

Our relationship with fat is complicated, to say the least. Never mind the fashion magazines; we grapple with fat issues at the cellular level.

Metabolic health includes proper storage and transport of fat. Normally our bodies are perfectly capable of handling fat. They love it, they know what to do with it, and everything is great. When fat can’t or won’t be stored properly, that’s when we have problems. So what this means is that more efficient fat storage and transport means better health.

Um. Wow.

Now, I’m not saying go run off and start stockpiling and shipping fat. What I mean is that in a healthy body, our system knows what to do with fatty acids and triglycerides. It tidies them away, tucks them into little cubbyholes, and releases them promptly when required. (This would be like Marge when she’s in a pleasant mood and her bureaucratic spirit is harnessed for the side of good.)

And I’m saying that proper and prompt fat storage is important. Yes, that means sometimes growing new fat cells.

Because when you can’t store fat effectively (which is what insulin helps us do), the fat still has to go somewhere. Since you’re fairly well contained by your bag of skin, you can’t exactly start flinging fat like snotballs away from yourself (although you do poop out some fat-based stuff, which is one reason why dietary fibre is a good idea). The fat ends up cruising your circulation, looking for skinny nerds to beat up and things to inflame.

Here’s where periodic fasting comes in.

Recent evidence suggests that fasting may be beneficial in part because of its effects on fatty acid and glucose metabolism along with insulin and PPAR-ƴ  (which seems to increase with intermittent fasting). These effects include helping the body properly transport, store, and use bodyfat, which also means that glucose and insulin metabolism operates properly.

As the authors of a recent study conclude,

It can be further hypothesized that periodic FW [feed withdrawal, aka fasting] may produce comparable effects as severe calorie restriction or bariatric surgery, where fasting glucose levels declined significantly in type 2 diabetics prior to significant weight loss and eventually leading to reversal of type-2-diabetes. Similarly periodic FW for a determined time may delay development of type-2 diabetes especially if prudence in food consumption and energy utilization is exercised between FW. (Mir et al, 2012)

Thus, paradoxically, intermittent fasting may help us get healthier and leaner because it makes nutrient transport and storage more efficient and effective, which helps other things to do their jobs properly. If the fat can get to where it needs to go more easily, you might actually end up leaner and healthier in the long run.

Remember, we don’t know all the pieces yet — the study above used pigs as a human model, for instance. But this may be one of the things that make you go hmm.

What does this mean in the real world? Well, it means that missing a meal occasionally might not be such a bad thing.

And if you’re struggling with insulin resistance and poor glucose management, or even more advanced Type 2 diabetes, you probably don’t have to go on a horrible restrictive diet — you might see health benefits from fasting for 14-36 hours now and again. This can be as easy as waiting a few more hours to eat breakfast, or having an early dinner and then no “evening snack”.

Remember that what makes the magic about intermittent fasting is the “intermittent” part — we aren’t talking about chronic restriction here. Nor should this be overly complicated. Just eat… and then occasionally not-eat for a while… and then eat again.

Combine the occasional period of not-eating with a healthy diet that aims to reduce inflammation, and optimize your body’s natural healing processes, and you might just stave off a cripping disease or two. (What is this diet, you ask? Well, see here.)

References

Fasting weakens cancer in mice. ScienceDaily Feb 8, 2012.

Hegarty, Bronwyn, et al. Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor (PPAR) Activation Induces Tissue-Specific Effects on Fatty Acid Uptake and Metabolism in Vivo—A Study Using the Novel PPARα/γ Agonist Tesaglitazar. Endocrinology 145 no.7 (July 2004): 3158-3164 doi: 10.1210/en.2004-0260

Matsusue, Kimihiko. PPAR
/ potentiates PPAR-stimulated adipocyte differentiation. FASEB Journal 18 (Sept 2004).

Mir, Priya, et al. Periodic 48h feed withdrawal improves glucose tolerance in growing pigs by enhancing adipogenesis and lipogenesis
Nutrition & Metabolism 2012, 9:10 doi:10.1186/1743-7075-9-10

Moran M. The evolution of the nutritional management of diabetes. Proc Nutr Soc 2004, 63:615-20.

I remember, as a child going to the Royal Agricultural Fair, sitting on a rough wooden bench amidst the scent of cow crap and funnel cakes, staring at a wall upon which this slogan was emblazoned, puzzling over the vibrations in my eyeballs that the complementary-colour green maple leaf presented when juxtaposed with the giant quasi-cursive red “D” in the logo. (Was it accidental that this slogan was chosen, in light of the suggestion that according to Biblical tradition, Old Man Upstairs gave humans “dominion” over the animals? And low, low prices every day?)

Some years later, I watched the deliciously atrocious 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special on a bootlegged videocassette. (Younglings: “videos” were once plastic boxes containing long flat tapes upon which movies and home pornography attempts were inscribed.)

Aside from Carrie Fisher’s cracked-out coke glaze and the peculiar social interactions of Wookiee families, what struck me most wasn’t the show itself, but the ads. Watching the episode a decade later, in the chilly and paranoid depths of the Reagan years, it seemed like an innocent anachronism: ads to “buy union”.

Yes, dear readers, this was a time when unions were viewed not as a charmingly naive anachronism or Commie plot, but rather, a way of life for millions of average North American schmoes who punched a clock with the secure knowledge that no matter how shitty life could be at the widget factory, they had enough money for a cold Molson Golden and a TeeVee upon which to enjoy episodes of Barney Miller.

Anyway, much like stubby beer bottles, plaid Chesterfields (that’s “sofa” for you Americans), culturally celebrated labour organizing, and Hollywood women having their own boobs, meat-eating as a point of pride seems like a relic from a previous age. It’s hard to imagine a mainstream supermarket now trumpeting its carnivorous wares.

These days, we’re often uncomfortable with our meat-eating history. It’s a bit itchy for many of us now. We all grapple with it in our own ways.

And we struggle particularly with the “truth” of human needs: What, as a species and as individuals, is “best”? What is “healthy”? How do we balance competing desires and slog our way through the mucky, emotion-muddied morass of this decision? Etc.

Recently I posted about protein sources and the importance of “quality protein”. Here’s another layer to this discussion. In an upcoming article in the American Journal of Human Biology, researcher Staffan Lindberg reviews the diets of modern hunter-gatherers to see what they can tell us about Paleolithic diets.

Why study these diets? As Lindberg explains:

Paleolithic diets are increasingly acknowledged as templates for healthy diets, partly because very low age-adjusted rates of cardiovascular disease and other nutrition-related disorders have been observed among contemporary hunter-gatherers and traditional horticulturalists. Another reason is that the majority of Westerners are affected by atherosclerosis and associated abnormalities, and our understanding of the main underlying causes is very limited. If there is a healthy diet for humans in general, irrespective of ethnicity, it makes sense to focus on the time period up to the emergence of fully modern humans in Africa.

The article covers a lot of ground, which I won’t go into here, but one point stuck out at me: meat consumption. Lindeberg writes that meat:

…is consumed in considerable amounts by the chimpanzee. In one observational study, adult chimpanzees consumed an average of 65 g meat per day in the dry season. For humans, available archaeological evidence is consistent with, but does not prove, regular high-meat intake in the last 2 million years. Contemporary hunter-gatherers have generally been able to eat large amounts of meat or fish, although the figures are based on rather imprecise ethnographic data. Of the 229 hunter-gatherer populations studied during the 20th century, the majority (73%) were estimated to get more than half their caloric intake from meat, fish, and shellfish.

Among those five African populations, for which more exact, quantitative data were available, meat and/or fish constituted on average 26, 33, 44, 48, and 68% of the food.

Now bear in mind that “meat” isn’t just the proverbial woolly mammoth steaks, but also includes small game such as turtles and rodents. (In the case of the chimpanzees, “meat” often includes “other chimpanzees”. Humans have a similar self-nibbling streak, and in fact cannibalism persisted in isolated regions until the 1960s or so. Don’t think you’re so evolved, Europeans — you were eating people regularly in the Middle Ages, FYI. Soylent Green!!)

Nevertheless, the numbers are very interesting. OK, so, are these folks a heart attack waiting to happen? Apparently not.

Hunter-gatherers have had exceptionally favorable levels of serum cholesterol, blood pressure, and other cardiovascular risk factors, even with very high-meat consumption.

Truswell and Hansen found no evidence of sudden, spontaneous death when interviewing 96 adults among the San tribe, hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari desert, Botswana, South Africa. However, wild game meat has a lower fat content and a higher percentage of omega-3 fatty acids than domestic meat. Animal experiments do not suggest that meat causes atherosclerosis, the main underlying cause of cardiovascular disease. The notion that “animal protein” causes atherosclerosis is based on studies with milk proteins, typically casein. In Western human populations, an association between coronary heart disease and reported consumption of meat/meat products has been found in a few case–control studies, while other epidemiological studies have been less convincing.

One problem with knowing the “truth” about meat consumption is that we simply are not eating “meat” like our ancestors did. There is a huge difference between a wild-caught game animal (especially one you caught yourself, expending physical effort in the process) and a piece of baloney.

Still, it’s food for thought. Are we still, as a species, who we are “mainly because of the meat”?

But unlike the chronophobic youth fetishizers who have an existential crisis when they hit 25, or the media who think that adolescents with partially formed frontal cortexes should drive the bus of cultural currents, I’m cool with aging. After all, as challenging as aging can be, it sure beats the hell out of the alternative.

For one thing, many of us are getting smarter.

Forget all that bullshit about how infants are learning geniuses while old people cling to their timeworn ruts like paranoid cat ladies of cognition. Have you seen babies lately? C’mon, they still crap their pants and think Barney is cool. I can beat a baby at chess at least 50% of the time.

Yes, we do lose brain cells as we age. But here’s the cool thing: when it comes to brains, size doesn’t always matter. OMGBFFA used to have a couple of tiny Yorkshire terriers. Each one weighed about 4 lb. Now, these things have brains the size of a chickpea. Yet somehow, everything dog-like was condensed into these little cranial legumes. Those dogs, fruity as they were (especially when wearing little sweaters), could still execute all the dog-required tasks that, say, a German shepherd could.

Let me go one better. Consider the octopus. That thing doesn’t even have a “brain” in the way we think of it; it’s really more like Jello and rubber formed into an amusingly creepy prehensile shape. But octopuses are freaky smart. And those cephalopod fuckers beat me and the baby at chess 100% the time.

Hell, even fungi can be brilliant. Check this weird shit out.

I digress. The point is that thanks to neuroplasticity and the ability of our brains to form new connections, we’re getting smarter despite fewer neurons. And often, cleverness and cunning mixed with a good ol’ age-related dose of cynicism beats vigour and brute force.

Just like every boxing gym has that old dude with the porkpie hat that speaks in vulgarity-laced proverbs, nearly every traditional martial arts school has that ancient guy who looks and talks like Yoda, and claims his knees are no good, but who can still kick you in the face from every possible angle.

I remember when I first started judo. I did some classes with an instructor who got his black belt in 1958. By now he’s like a zillionth-degree black belt, so black belt he’s gone right into red belt. In person, he’s not very scary. He’s a kindly, affable short guy who moves slowly and creakily, and talks about how he’s not very good at throwing these days. Yeah right. All he does is stand next to you, and you fall down. He scratches his ear, and your face slams the mat. He wiggles his toe, and you end up with your kidneys smashed into your nose, wondering why you didn’t take up competitive shuffleboard instead of judo.

That’s the power of age-related skill and smarts.

Aging gives us context and the big picture. Ideally, you start to realize that little things don’t matter.

• Got a cold and can’t train for a few days? Meh. It’s a drop of water in the ocean.
• Gained a pound? Meh. In a body that has, say, 150 of those pounds, does one more here or there really matter?
• Didn’t make my squat PR today? Meh. There’s always next week.
• Crap workout? Meh. I’ve got a thousand workouts under my belt; this isn’t the workout that makes or breaks me. I know what matters most is that I just kept showing up to the gym.

Having context makes victories that much sweeter. And smaller. Which means there are more of them.

• Knees don’t hurt today? Great!
• Got upright and achieved bipedalism? Super!
• Shoulders moving happily in their sockets instead of creaking like old hinges? Awesome!
• Able to sneak a few pieces of artisan cheese or a glass of vintage malbec past my digestive system sensors? Hoohah!
• Didn’t squeak out a fart while deadlifting? The world applauds!

Shit, every day is the friggin’ Olympics when you start realizing what’s truly important and get smacked around a little bit by the universe. Aging gives you perspective and cuts your grandiosity down to size. You build healthy humility and life becomes a wonderful little charm bracelet of tiny magical moments and banal pleasures. You stop being in such a goddamned hurry.

100-year-old shot putter Ruth Frith

Aging also helps us grow into ourselves. We start to know what we like and don’t like. We stop giving a fuck what other people think of us.

Imagine, younguns, a world where you just don’t give a shit about looking stupid or what your friends think or falling down in public or impressing the Joneses or having to go along with the crowd to do things you hate. Imagine how awesome that would be. The liberation. The joyous freedom. The glorious sense of possibility. Well, if you’re lucky, that’s what getting older is.

Now, this magnificent state of karmic bliss doesn’t come without a price. Humility is rarely inherited; it usually must be earned. Unless you’re one of the lucky folks that learns from other people’s mistakes, you’ll have to endure some experiential skill building. Which is to say you’ll have to go through all the fuckups and falling-down on your own.

The other cost of the passport to Zen is that your physical body makes its presence known much more clearly when you age. Stuff starts to hurt. Stuff starts to creak. Stuff starts to grow hair (or lose it). Stuff stops making some stuff you do want, and starts making other stuff you don’t want. And gravity isn’t just a theory, it’s the law.

Bodybuilder Ernestine Shepherd, in her mid-70s

Now, these changes don’t mean that things get worse. They simply mean that things change.

Frinstance, I’ve built more muscle in the last few years than I think I’ve built in my entire lifting career. (Thank you, Dan John, deadlifts, and the good folks down at the all-you-can-eat churrasquiera.) And I intend to keep building more muscle, at least until normal clothing no longer fits me and my ass looks like two cannonballs being absentmindedly twiddled by a rock giant.

And after years of training in a variety of activities, I have exquisite body awareness and muscular control. Any new activity I take up is speedily and easily integrated into a deep and broad physical practice. (Although I did kick my salsa partner in the ankles last weekend, but hey — that’s the price of an enchufle doble with a ninja, my friend.)

My body shape has changed as my hormones have changed. I can get all pouty faced while throwing out old bras, or I can simply shrug and go hit the January sales for something new. Neither better nor worse; just different.

Still, there are some not-so-great consequences. One of those is that our bodies simply can’t endure the abuse we used to throw at them. We might develop weird digestive intolerances. (Oh red wine and cottage cheese, how I mourn your loss.)

As we age we have to train smarter. We have to think about sustainability. The long haul. Tomorrow. Next year.

We have to be willing to tap out early and walk away — thus we live to fight another day. We have to foam roll and do our mobility work. We have to take days off and mix things up. We can’t go balls to the wall (which, by the way, has nothing to do with testicles and everything to do with engineering) all the time. We can’t pump till we puke… ever. We can’t do dumbshit things, because an injury today might mean weeks or months of recovery, instead of days. We should nap more.

We have to keep it real, be authentic, and both live and lift with integrity, self-compassion, and optimistic humility. We have to stop looking for the magic solution. There is no fucking magic solution. We are already magic. We are already stupendous. Aging merely gives us a ticket to the greatest show on earth — the wizardry of our own survival. If you’re smart, and think sustainably, that show will be magnificent until you croak.

Enjoy. And pass the prunes. (For more inspiration, check out AgeOfChampions.org.)

95-year-old sprinter Ida Keeling

There are many reasons for that, one of which is the fact that the quality of your energy intake matters. 1000 calories of Twinkies is not 1000 calories of steak, no matter what idiotic single-food-focused diet you may choose to consume (see: Twinkie diet, cabbage soup, grapefruit, lemon-cayenne-maple syrup, et al).

I hope to help folks understand eventually that energy in vs energy out is not the only thing that determines body composition — your body’s response to a given food also makes a huge difference. (I’ll be harping on this a lot in future, so consider this a warning shot across the bow.)

An interesting, albeit small, recent study correlates protein quality to waist size. What is interesting here is that the researchers stipulate “quality protein”. What the heck does that mean?

Let me explain the concept of essential amino acids (EAAs).

Essential amino acids and protein quality

If there’s one thing Nature does real good, it’s make proteins. (Actually, Nature does lots of things real good.) Oh how organic systems love their proteins. You’re a big pile of protein, from your hair to your toenails.

The building blocks for proteins are amino acids. There are lots of amino acids out there. Sure, we love ‘em all, but there are some that we really need — these are known as essential amino acids. There are also amino acids that are conditionally essential, which means that sometimes we need them more than others. Frinstance, glutamine is a conditionally EAA — we need more of it during times of physical stress, which is why it’s often included in post-surgical nutrition.

Now, what you’re looking for in your diet is a good assortment of these EAAs, and generally (unless you have some kind of intolerance or genetic inability to metabolize certain AAs) getting some of the conditional AAs doesn’t hurt either. Bone broths, for instance, are rich in glycine. (And they taste great! So win-win.)

Some proteins are more equal essential than others

Problem is that not all protein sources are created equal.

Just because something “contains protein” does not mean that the protein source is optimal. Sure, we’re scavengers so we will grab ‘n’ go whatever we can get our greasy little protease enzymes on — we can extract protein from darn near anything edible.

But that protein may not be our best choice. Frinstance, vegetarians often opt for beans/legumes, grains, and nuts as protein sources. (And others of you like to delude yourself that peanut butter is a “good protein source”. Hey man, I get it. Nothing beats scooping out that buttery goodness and feeling morally righteous and nutritionally justified as the silky, sexy, salty, peanutty velvet melts into your soft palate. Unnnngghhh.)

Now, these protein sources aren’t “bad” or “wrong”. They’re just not optimal. Let’s compare.

Here’s a sample of protein ranking according to the PDCAAs score. (Don’t worry about the acronym. Just get the idea.) The PDCAA scores proteins on two things: our amino acid requirements, and how well we can digest these particular proteins.

The higher the number, the better-quality (for us) the protein in terms of giving us the amino acids that we need.

Lab vs real world

I should point out that theoretical digestibility doesn’t always correlate to real-life digestibility.

Although, for instance, whey and casein are highly ranked, many folks actually can’t digest dairy well, and in fact consuming casein/whey is a source of other health problems. Same deal with soy — if you rely on soy as your major protein source you are in for some serious issues. And of course, if you’ve read Fuck Calories, you’ll know how I feel about wheat.

Indeed, some researchers have pointed out that the PCDAAs may over-value certain foods if it looks only at amino acid availability, noting that the PCDAAs ignores the real-world protein quality of the “protein sources which may contain naturally occurring growth-depressing factors or antinutritional factors”.

What this means is that we have to look at the big picture: How does a given food actually behave in a real human body?

Also note that not all of these are whole foods. Casein, whey, and soy protein powders are industrially processed foods that require an elaborate production chain. You know my thoughts on industrially processed foods, which is that in general we should avoid most of them. And unless we’re hardcore bodybuilders, we don’t just eat “casein”, we usually eat something like “cottage cheese”, which contains both whey and casein.

But anyway, just get the general picture here. Some foods are higher in essential amino acids than others. This is what the researchers mean by “quality protein”. More EAAs per gram of food, better protein quality.

Better protein quality means a leaner body?

The Coles Notes version here is that a higher intake of quality proteins is correlated with a smaller waist size, and by inference a leaner body.

Now, you could say the sample is too small to be of use, and that this effect is simply correlation not causation, and you would be correct on both counts from a methodological standpoint. But this general trend  (abundant protein = you get lean & strong) has been confirmed across a zillion other studies.

So again, let’s talk lab vs. real world. I can tell you from my observation of hundreds of clients (yes, real people in the real world, just like you) that it’s very, very hard to get lean and strong, to stay robustly healthy, and to perform well athletically on a low-quality, low protein diet. Period. There are always a few rare outliers who claim to kick ass while living on twigs and sprouts, and more power to ‘em. Likely, those folks are not you.

Conversely, for most folks it’s a lot easier to feel energetic, full, and psychologically satisfied — and get lean — on a diet that includes lots of high-quality protein. Mo’ protein, no problems.

If you don’t incorporate high-quality protein sources into your diet (and let’s be honest, I mean eating something that is an animal or was made by an animal), you’ll likely find it more challenging to get and stay as lean, healthy, and strong as you would like, and you’ll have to rely more on heavily processed foods such as protein powders to bring your intake up to snuff.

Feeling all a-Twitter about this post? Why not chat about it on my Facebook page?

Here’s the job ad in full:

WORKING FOR PRECISION NUTRITION
——————————-

Couple of quick notes on how we do things at PN:

* We pay in the top 10% in the world for each position
* Four weeks vacation, full benefits and the ability to work remotely
included

We’re looking for good people who are among the best in their
respective fields, and we compensate accordingly.

JOBS AVAILABLE
————–

*Web Developer (Full-Time Position)*
We’re looking for a bright and easy-to-get-along-with candidate to
join our web and application development team, help manage the website
and develop the the cutting-edge nutrition coaching and research
software that underpins all we do at PN.

* Focus: user interface design and front-end web development
* Primary tools: HTML / CSS / Javascript
* 3 years of professional experience required
* Experience with mobile development, graphic design and database
design definite pluses.

*Nutrition Coach – Lean Eating For Men (Full-Time Position)*
Our PN coaches are the best online nutrition coaches in the world.
And we’re looking to add an additional male coach to our team.
Requirements for the position include all of the following:

* Graduate degree (Masters/PhD) in exercise/nutrition/psychology
* Certification with PN (or the willingness to become certified)
* Experience as a nutrition coach or trainer
* High competency with desktop and web applications
* Excellent communication skills using the internet
* An interest in working with men of all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds

Note: this position is done exclusively online.  So only apply if
you’re prepared to work in this way.

*Nutrition Coach – Lean Eating For Women (Full-Time Position)*
Our PN coaches are the best online nutrition coaches in the world.
And we’re looking to add an additional female coach to our team.
Requirements for the position include all of the following:

* Graduate degree (Masters/PhD) in exercise/nutrition/psychology
* Certification with PN (or the willingness to become certified)
* Experience as a nutrition coach or trainer
* High competency with desktop and web applications
* An interest in working with women of all shapes, sizes, and ages

Note: this position is done exclusively online.  So only apply if
you’re prepared to work in this way.

*Feature Writer/Storyteller (Full-Time Position)*
PN communicates primarily through the written word.  So we’re looking
for an experienced writer and storyteller to help us tell the amazing
stories of our company, our team, and our clients.  Requirements for
the position include all of the following:

*Experience working for a major print (magazine/news) publication
*Portfolio of 10 or more articles in a major print publication
*Portfolio of 10 or more articles in a major online publication
*Strong references from previous editors and/or employers

Note: we’re not necessarily looking for fitness writers.  We’re
looking for true storytellers who can tell engaging, entertaining and
empathetic stories about the transformation experiences of our
clients, and about the good work PN is doing in the world.  That’s
why experience plus a strong portfolio is a must.  In fact, should
you decide to apply, please submit your portfolio pieces (above)
along with your resume and cover letter.

LIFE AT PRECISION NUTRITITON
—————————-

Keep in mind, at Precision Nutrition, we offer you the ability to:

*Make your own work schedule.*
At PN, you’re measured by what you produce, not by the time you spend
at work.  Work when you want, from where you want.  As long as your
work gets done, and done superbly, you have the freedom to set your
own schedule.

*Work from home.*
If you’re in Toronto, our home town, great.  If not, no worries.  Many
of our employees work exclusively from home, from all over the world.

*Work in the fitness and nutrition industry.*
We love exercise, we love nutrition, and we love sport.  That’s why we
started this company.  If you do too, you’ll appreciate how rare it is
to do a job you really love.  For active, fit people, Precision
Nutrition is that opportunity.

*Work with fun, bright and truly talented people.*
We’re a small company, and we’re picky about who we work with, because
to us, this isn’t just a job — it’s our life.  So as a result, we’ve
put together a small group of cool, exceptional people.  And in our
opinion, that’s a very welcome departure from the large faceless
corporations we’ve all worked for.

Interested in one of these positions? Send us a resume and a cover
letter detailing why you’re the perfect fit for the position.  You can
reach us at info@precisionnutrition.com.

(Applicants for the storyteller position must also include portfolio,
as outlined above).

Know someone else that might be interested?  Do us a favor and spread
the word to your network.  And make sure they mention your name as the
person who referred them.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

JB

John M. Berardi, PhD, CSCS
Chief Science Officer

Precision Nutrition Inc.
1 Yonge Street, Suite 1801
Toronto, ON  M5E 1W7

If you’ve taken my advice and gotten your busted ass into the gym…

…there – did you survive?

Can you make it through another day? Or did you succumb to complications of terminal self-consciousness and the shame of looking like a goof?

Don’t be fooled by my intoxicating internet charisma and love of dirty jokes – in life, I’m actually quite shy, and like most shy people, I find the thought of being stared at or laughed at positively mortifying. That can make working out in public especially challenging – my body moves differently than most bodies, which tends to attract attention.

And while that attention is almost always kind and well-intentioned, hearing “Are you doing OK, ma’am?” from the sweet little knock-kneed freshman pressing 50 lbs on the next bench over kinda deflates my fantasy of looking like Grace Jones in Conan the Destroyer. Or maybe Lou Ferrigno, with better hair.

Of course, self-consciousness isn’t just the domain of the crippled. Really, anyone whose body looks different – very large or very small, older, in some way not like the manic spandexed Hitler Youth that seem to populate most gym ads – can feel a bit intimidated or awkward in the gym, especially when just getting started.

Thing is, the best way to shake that self-consciousness – the best way I’ve found, at any rate – is to confront it head-on by doing something that looks bizarre and letting the normals stare. Making a spectacle of yourself, in other words.

So, with that in mind, I’ve decided to share a few of my favorite ridiculous exercises for crips and gimps and other weirdos.

The “equipment” for each is cheap or free, and especially beneficial to crippled folks. The “exercises” are silly and fun and they will kick your ass. I have (oh GOD) included pictures to illustrate. Caveat: I’m no expert in wellness or exercise or anything else, so if you wanna try any of the dumb shit I do, please be careful.

Ball Smackin’

Whatcha need: A SOFT medicine ball, like the one here. This one’s 10 lbs, but they come lighter and heavier. I got this one for $15 on sale.

Whatcher gonna do: While sitting, toss the ball as high as you can and catch it as high as you can. When you catch it, slam it to the ground. (If you do it right, your cat should walk out of the room in disgust.)

Alternatively, try tossing as you squat (how’s that for eloquence?). (Don’t knock over the Christmas tree, or you’ll get yelled at – trust me.)

Crip Approved: Because the ball is soft, it won’t hurt you the way a traditional dumbbell or kettleball will if you accidentally hit yourself with it or drop it on yourself. I’ve bashed myself in the face with this sucker plenty of times and gotten only light bruises at worst – a dumbbell would have broken my nose.

What else can you do with it? Any exercise you’d do with the same weight dumbbell: throw and catch with a partner, terrify your pets, etc.

Lowridin’

Whatcha need: A box big enough to kneel in comfortably. Boxes are available at packing stores, warehouses, and fine liquor stores throughout the country.

Whatcher gonna do: Kneel in the box, lean forward, stretch arms and place hands on the floor in front of you, pull self across the floor. (Purple fedora optional, but recommended.)

This is also a fun one to take outside and use to scare folks at the park. (“Ooh, I gotta make it to the swings before Jimmy Tennerman or else I’ll never get a turn!”)

Crip Approved: This is great for when your legs are too weak or sloppy to use safely. Plus, you’re already on the floor, so you needn’t worry about falling.

What else can you do with it? Fill it with something heavy for lifts, get a bunch and have a box fight with a partner, bring your groceries home from Costco.

Frankenstein’s Monster

Whatcha need: A rig and a tree. This rig is something called a speed trainer – I picked it up on clearance for $20. You can also make your own rig with bungees/resistance bands and a weight belt (tie bungees/bands into a long rope, tie one end of your bungee/band rope to tree, put on weight belt backwards – flat part over your stomach, buckle in the back – and tie the other end of your rope to the belt).

Whatcher gonna do: Run/walk/shuffle away from the tree as fast as you can. As you get further away, the resistance of your rope will increase, making it harder to stay on your feet.

(“Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA? Is that what you’re telling me?!”)

Crip Approved: Walking with any sort of resistance is great for both strength and balance, and with this the resistance increases gradually, allowing you to rest or move as slowly as you need to.

What else can you do with it? Turn around and play tug-o-war, construct an ill-advised but really cool giant catapult.

There you have it, my lovelies – some activities sure to help you get strong and entertain your audience all at the same time.

Because honestly, that’s what your self-consciousness really is: stage fright. Not the fear that people are looking at you but the fear that they don’t like what they see.

If you look different, for whatever reason, folks are going to look at you – you’re always going to have an audience. So you’d better give them a good show, hadn’t you?

“To reach my lifting goals I have to believe in myself, which feels the polar opposite of setting a weight loss goal…

The new me, the one that can squat 200 pounds, comes with a bonus that the post-weight-loss-goal skinny me didn’t come with: an unshakable conviction that I can make anything happen. While I surely feel strong and powerful because I can take on 200 pounds and win, my real strength and power lie in knowing that I can overcome fear and accomplish a serious goal. If I can do that, what can’t I do?”

YEAH BUDDY! Read the rest here.