SmarterFitter Blog Less diet, more brain

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A reader sent me a link to this article in the times:

Evolutionary Fitness: the diet that really works

It’s about the diet and fitness regime espoused by 71-year old Arthur De Vany, who “has the physique of a very fit young man and the springy, energetic demeanour of somebody who has cracked most of life’s outstanding problems.” His “Evolutionary Fitness” concept draws on many qualities of the “Paleolithic Diet”, based on the diet of early man. He’s trying to create a lifestyle that blends our “primal natures” with the reality of modern life.

People in the wild – isolated tribes – do not get fat and neither do other omnivores and predators. But, of course, they die younger. We can’t drop the comforts and protection of modernity. But we can fight its sugary seductions.

His diet is heavy on meat, vegetables, fruits and exercise. Sounds interesting. Sound, at the very least, based on REAL food and our real potential as human beings who, at one point in our evolutionary history, were fit because we had to be. Still, I don’t know about this whole thing. There are a few strange habits of primal man that Arthur embraces, habits I would think we’d be happy to leave to the Neanderthals:

“Don’t eat three square meals a day. Skip meals now and then. Work towards an extended overnight period of no eating. This means eat sometime before you sleep and don’t be in a hurry to eat breakfast… Do not fear hunger. Nothing but good will come of it, but it must be episodic, not chronic.”

Given his stance on vegetarianism, I can’t say I would ever follow the way of Arthur, but I do think it’s interesting. It may not be for me, but it’s worth some consideration. There are some bits of wisdom there that everyone can take away:

“First, everybody over-trains. Don’t do it. Don’t trudge away on a treadmill, count sets or repetitions, or work out according to a top-down Soviet model. You will hate it and it does not produce results. You must let it happen. You must have a playful, intermittent form of exercise. And you must exercise. The benefits are profound…”

If you do click through to the article, I should add that I’m not posting it because the article is particularly well written: the journalist is an ass-kisser who makes me want to puke. But the concept is interesting. I’ll give him that!

Your thoughts? Post em’ in the comments!

Evolutionary Fitness: the diet that really works
Aurthor De Vany’s website

In this commentary in Wired Magazine, Clive Thompson equates the Weight Watchers program to a role-playing game (RPG).

The Weight Watchers program is designed precisely like a role-playing dungeon crawler. That’s why people love it, stick to it and have success with it. And it points to the way that we could use game design to make life’s drudgery more bearable.

I’ve never used Weight Watchers but I know people who have lost weight with the program, both through diet and exercise. Most of these people have been women - I wonder if Weight Watchers could gain a whole new market by targeting overweight gamers? Of course, this isn’t a marketing blog, this is a fitness blog, and this article highlights a very important point:

The key to getting fit is to have fun while you’re doing it.

Believe it or not, people can get as hooked on fitness as they do to RPGs like Everquest and World of Warcraft.

I’m in awe of the sheer brilliance of Weight Watchers in adopting the word points as its metric for measuring food. The word immediately shoves the user into the semantics — and fun — of gameplay. You regard losing weight as an intriguing challenge, as opposed to a mere grind.

As J.D. points out on Get Fit Slowly, the one hundred pushups challenge operates on this principle.

…make the gradually increasing pushups into a challenge in order to motivate participants. It works.

It’s true. I’ve been having loads of fun with the one hundred pushups program and look forward to “beating my max” at the end of a set (if I can). It’s amazing how these little “semantic” tricks work to keep me motivated through each set. None of this feels like “exercise” to me. Sure, it feels like hard work, but it’s definitely not a chore. And isn’t that the point?

Exercise shouldn’t feel like “work”. Life is short, and we already spend too much time working and doing chores as it is. Shouldn’t we spend our precious free time doing things that contribute to our happiness? Exercise can be one of those things, the trick is finding a way to make it fun that works for you. Some use Weight Watchers, others keep a journal, others run with friends.

How do you make exercise fun?

Fun Way to Lose Weight: Turn Dieting Into an RPG [via Get Fit Slowly]

Here I was all set to blog about my current moratorium on caffeine when I noticed this article in the New York Time’s, Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions. The article highlights a report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest which reviews the general findings of scientific research on caffeine. Inspired by the general public’s misguided information, the report aims to dispel some of the myths surrounding caffeine.

For instance, many folks believe that caffeine can aid weight loss, but so far there isn’t any research to back this up…

Although caffeine speeds up metabolism, with 100 milligrams burning an extra 75 to 100 calories a day, no long-term benefit to weight control has been demonstrated. In fact, in a study of more than 58,000 health professionals followed for 12 years, both men and women who increased their caffeine consumption gained more weight than those who didn’t.

The news isn’t all bad though…

For the active, caffeine enhances endurance in aerobic activities and performance in anaerobic ones, perhaps because it blunts the perception of pain and aids the ability to burn fat for fuel instead of its carbohydrates.

Recent disease-related findings can only add to coffee’s popularity. A review of 13 studies found that people who drank caffeinated coffee, but not decaf, had a 30 percent lower risk of Parkinson’s disease.

Another review found that compared with noncoffee drinkers, people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, had a 28 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. This benefit probably comes from coffee’s antioxidants and chlorogenic acid.

So caffeine might have some benefits, but I’m still not convinced that it’s an addiction worth keeping. I’ve been caffeine free for THREE MISERABLE DAYS (ok it hasn’t been that bad) and while I’m not exactly trembling for coffee, I have definitely suffered headaches and a tightness in the head that I can only assume is withdrawal. Do I really want to be dependent on a substance that makes me feel like poop without it? I’m excited to find out how I feel once this weird withdrawal period wears off. Sound sleep here I come!

Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions

You might be interested in this from Peta Bee at The Guardian:

“We evolved from hunters - we had to run and chase animals on the hot African plains. We didn’t have time to pause for a drink,” he says. “Physiologists developed an unproven hypothesis that to become even the slightest bit dehydrated during exercise would kill you. The sports drinks industry then used this bad science to market their products.” Runners have died from hyponatraemia, but Noakes says he “has yet to find a death from dehydration in the history of competitive running”.

The article talks about different rates of dehydration for different people and a bit about how to predict how much water you should drink based on your weight difference before and after running.

Link to full article

Last June I blogged about the 100 Pushup Challenge with the sincere intention of joining you all in the effort. Well, after a summer of silly mishaps*, I’ve finally recuperated enough to hit the floor and push my way up to a hundred. I’m currently on my second round of week 2 (I wasn’t ready for week 3 after the second exhaustion test) but I’m not discouraged. In fact, I’m totally digging the program. I love that the plan is laid out for me, all I have to do is show up, and it’s super easy to fit a few push-ups into the day. I guess it’ll be a little time consuming once I’m up to sets of 15+, but my brain seems to like the singular challenge of doing one type of exercise in a session. The time commitment doesn’t really phase me.

The ultra nice thing is that I don’t really see the pushups as exercise; it’s actually kind of fun, especially when I’m well rested and feeling gung-ho. And doing push-ups is a total mind-trip. When I first did the max pushup test, I could barely muster a few. But once I had a few goals put in front of my face, it was far easier to crank out a few more. Getting fit is all about these Jedi mind tricks, isn’t it? I think I can… I think I can… I think I can…

I’m just stoked that I’m doing some resistance exercise again, something I’ve barely touched since I quit the gym. Go me.

Speaking of push-ups, MizFit has a nifty vid on her blog for all you folks who are looking for a challenge. Her advice: get some balls!

* I fell off my bike - ouch! - and then I fell on the pavement - double ouch! The result: bruised ribs and a sad Monica. But I’m all better now!

Signal vs. Noise is a blog about business and design, but this recent post has some interest parallels to fitness that are worth mentioning.

David writes that the success of the popular “for Dummies” books demonstrates that people identify with being an idiot. This is as true for fitness as it is for plumbing, car repair, C++, and banjo.

How many of us have put off a run or avoided the free weights simply because we don’t consider ourselves to be a “runner” or a “weightlifter”? We feel like we don’t know what we’re doing and, therefore, we don’t do it, thus failing before we’ve even begun! But as David points out, success is not intangible:

I’ve met far too many people who seem so certain of their lack of abilities that they curb their chances of success before they’ve walked the first step…Just because you don’t know how to program or design or lead or do anything doesn’t make you a dummy or an idiot. Mastery is probably closer than you think.

David’s advice is as good for entreprenuers as it is for all of us wanna-be athletes:

If there’s something you don’t currently know how to do, please decide not to be a dummy or an idiot. You’re as smart as you always were, you’re just looking to learn something new. Set your ambition to that of equality: There’s no reason I couldn’t be as good as that guy or girl doing what I want.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to learn the banjo!

Don’t be so quick to embrace your own ignorance [via Tim]

An quick read at the NYT discusses the US Olympic training programme’s use of hill training on “the Incline”.

“It’s not running,” the Greco-Roman wrestling gold medalist Rulon Gardner said. “It’s not walking. It’s surviving.”

This sounds like it is just going to make you hard.

“No matter how many times you do it, the ending never changes,” Petkovic said. “Every time it kicks your butt.”

Link to the Times’ article

Link to the Incline Club

This is a guest post by Heather Ashare. Heather has been a dedicated practitioner and instructor of Ashtanga yoga for the past six years and is a staff member of the website, Diets in Review. Read her previous guest blog: Yoga: Not Just For the Flexible.

OK, so you love yoga, but perhaps you have a difficult time getting to a class or maybe, the group dynamic is just not your thing. Rather than trying to rearrange your schedule for the hundredth time or testing out another yoga studio to see if you connect with it, you have made the firm decision to start doing your own self-yoga practice at home.

A self-yoga practice can be rewarding for many reasons. Self-practice engenders a tremendous amount of discipline and motivation. It also prevents the potential of numerous distractions that can easily sabotage any hope for a good yoga practice, like chatting with other yoga buddies or comparing outfits of your fellow classmates.

But it also poses some challenges as well. Making the decision to practice yoga at home should only come after you’ve received significant instruction inside the yoga studio under the guidance of trained yoga teachers. Developing your self-practice at home too early without proper basic instruction, can lay seeds for injury or burnout.

So before you start to roll out your yoga mat on your living room floor, here are a few things to keep in mind that will help you to get the most out of your home practice.

1. Commit to a time: Just like yoga studios have a set schedule of classes that all students adhere to, do the same with your self-practice. Make a regular class time and stick to it. Mornings are a great time to get in your yoga practice. Many of the Indian sages regard morning as the most optimal time to complete your yoga practice. Your mind is at its clearest and practicing in the morning, ensures you that you’ll get your yoga in before the day’s distractions gobble up your freedom.
2. Choose an Open Space: Even if you live in a small, one-bedroom apartment, do your best to clear out as much clutter as you can for a space large enough to fit your yoga mat and about three feet of open space behind, in front, and to the sides of your mat. Don’t practice near the television set or your computer. Even if they are turned off, they will serve as subtle reminders of things to do or watch as they tempt your mind to wander. If possible, practice on a hard floor, which will give you more support and footing than carpet.
3. Provide the Right Setting: Even if you’re pressed for space, your objective is to create a sacred space for yourself. Light a candle, burn some incense, dim the lights, the idea is to create a setting for yourself that cultivates a sense of peace and tranquility similar to the quietness of a yoga studio.
4. Set the Thermostat: Maintaining a proper temperature is key to a successful self-practice. An appropriate amount of heat will help to soften your muscles and joints, making it easier to move in and out of postures. But too hot of a room can give you a false sense of your flexibility and can inevitably lead to injury. Too cold a room will make it hard to assess your body completely. Space heaters are great for heating up a small area, but be careful to not set them too high and make sure to turn them off once you’ve completed your practice.
5. Pace Yourself: One of the potential dangers of having a self-yoga practice is that you miss the expertise of a trained teacher who can safely monitor your practice and correct any misalignments. Often, when we’re left to our own privacy, we push the envelope and perform advanced movements and postures that we may not be prepared to do. This can lead to injury and sometimes, a very serious one. In order to prevent this, always use caution when you practice at home and move slowly. When you feel ready to take on more, consider heading back to the yoga studio to receive important direction and instruction from a qualified yoga instructor.

Maintaining your own self-yoga practice takes a good deal of discipline and motivation. Even though nothing can take the place of learning yoga from an astute yoga teacher, a self-practice offers many rewards. As long as you exercise caution and sound judgment, those rewards can be yours for the taking.

You can read more from Heather at the DietsInReview.com Diet Blog.

I’m not one for “memes”, but the latest thread about vices is kind of interesting. Quick To Fit asks:

What is your biggest health or fitness vice?

I wish I could say I never thought about vices. I wish that moderation were so ingrained into my soul that my indulgence of the odd treat was so rare that it could hardly be termed a “vice”.

The truth is, I think about vices a lot, more than I would say is “healthy”. And even though I’m fairly moderate about my vices, my thinking around them is anything but. But I’m skirting the question. What’s my biggest vice?

My biggest vice falls into two categories, both liquid: diet soda and alcohol.

Diet soda doesn’t trouble me as much as beer. I try not to drink it very often, and when I do, I don’t get too bent out of shape about “failing”.

When it comes to alcohol, however, I definitely have (or at least used to have) a horrible tendency to drink WAY too much. I’m a fast drinker, and can finish a pint at the same pace as my boyfriend. It may not seem like a big deal, but I’m about half his size, and half the size of most people, so it’s an effort not to drink so fast that I basically get drunk immediately.

The trouble is, I really like beer and wine. Especially beer. I think I have pretty good taste in beer, too. I’d like to drink it every day. I know, I know - studies have shown that small amounts of alcohol every day is good for the heart. But screw the research. For someone like me who’s done her time at the college watering holes, drinking every day is simply not healthy no matter how much or how little I drink. I don’t quite have the self control to limit myself to “just one”. So for me, one drink a day just isn’t healthy: I’ll only want more.

I’ve been pretty good in recent years about limiting my alcohol intake. But I still think about it all the time, and I still have to remind myself to slow down, drink water, and be moderate, every time I go to the pub. I miss the days when I drank without reservation - it was much more relaxing! But I don’t miss being a lardo who could never remember her Friday nights. Sometimes I wonder if I should just quit drinking altogether.

One of my favorite bloggers, Sally Parrot Ashbrook, left this comment on Get Fit Slowly, where JD also cited alcohol as a vice:

I was thinking just this morning about how my alcohol consumption has increased lately and maybe isn’t at a healthy point (not just how it relates to calories, but also emotionally). Then I was thinking, when you are utilizing (not necessarily abusing) a glass of wine or whatever to help you chill out a bit, and you decide to cut back or cut out alcohol, you have to figure out how else to offer yourself support for what the alcohol is offering you in your life. I’m intending to try yoga and a couple of other things; I’ve been thinking about it today. . . .

This made me think: If booze causes me more worry than relaxation, maybe I should trade it up for something else? The trouble is, there’s nothing that’s so ingrained in the social culture as alcohol (not in London anyway). And I want my social life to be relaxing. All too often the two collide and I’m left wondering where the happy medium is.

I’m hoping to one day be able to be around alcohol and not worry about this crap. The whole point here is to be healthy, and worry is far less healthy than alcohol (in moderation!).

I am supposed to tag someone else to post on this meme. How about NCN at No Calories Needed and Ali at The Office Diet?

Tim and I have rented a car and at this moment we are packing up for ten days of camping on England’s southwest coast. As opposed to our trip to California, where we crafted the Ultimate Car Camping Checklist, this time we’re trying to keep it pretty light. Lo and behold, the Minimalist Car Camping Checklist was born!

I’m sure I’ll be adding or removing items throughout the following day/week/months as we discover all the obvious things we forgot or realize that we didn’t really need fresh underwear after all (not bloody likely!). I’ll keep the following Google Document published with any updates:

Minimalist Car Camping Checklist

Here’s where we’re at as of 9:19AM. Any obvious omissions? The minimalist car camping checklist is surprisingly long!

Minimalist Car Camping Checklist

Cooking Supplies

* Knife
* Pots and pans
* Cup
* Plates
* Cutting board
* Cutlery
* Baggies
* Wet wipes
* Sponge and soap for washing up
* Dish towels (2)
* Camp stove (we like the MSR Pocket Rocket)
* Gas for camp stove
* Lighter

Clothing

* Wind/waterproof wear
* Thermal underwear
* Wool socks
* Bathing suit
* Towel
* Warm hat, gloves, scarf
* Warm fleece
* Underwear
* Sunhat
* Gaiters

Camping Gear

* Tent
* Sleeping bags
* Thermarest air mattress

Campsite Accouterments

* Headlamps
* Flashlight
* Lighter
* Platapus water bag
* Garbage bags
* Picnic blanket (preferably with a waterproof bottom)
* Bugspray/Insect Repellent

Personal Items

* Toilet Paper
* Sunglasses
* First aid kit
* Toothbrush/toothpaste
* Nail clippers
* Lip balm
* Face wash
* Hand/body soap
* Sunscreen
* Camera
* Diary/pen
* Field/travel guides
* Maps
* Vitamins
* A good book

Extra stuff for off-campsite activities

* Camelback
* Daypack
* Mountain/Road bike and cycling kit
* Hiking boots/shoes
* GPS

Car Stuff

* Inverter
* Road atlas
* Campsite Directory
* Emergency Car Kit