The Fit Nation

https://ift.tt/2VqhN9O Recently I saw Dean Karnazes, the famous ultramarathon runner and author of Ultramarathon Man (recommended reading for inspiration) , on Rich Roll’s Podcast . http://www.Amazon.com/books It was a good talk covering various recent adventures of Dean’s. But at one point Rich asked Dean what he would do if he couldn’t run anymore. There was an embarrassed silence, Dean looked uncomfortable, and basically said he didn’t want to think about that. I get it. Running was my main thing for decades (not at Dean’s level, of course). It was fun, relaxing, inspiring, and led to various adventures. During that time I would not have wanted to contemplate not running. Then in 2000 it became a reality when I got severe arthritis in my right hip . I haven’t run since. But while there were a few awkward months while transitioning to other activities, I pretty quickly came up with other things that bring me as much joy, like biking, hiking, kayaking, and canoeing. So there i...

https://ift.tt/3xdrTIB Back when I had my heart valve replacement in 2017 I did a lot of research on what lifestyle interventions might make the replacement valve last longer. I was surprised how little I could find, a lot more is known about lifestyle and heart disease (coronary artery disease) than lifestyle and heart valve disease. So I was pleased to see an update recently on Adam Pick’s heart valve newsletter . ( https://www.healthcentral.com/slideshow/natural-ways-to-strengthen-heart-valves ) “Up your dental hygiene” is a less-well known recommendation, but it makes sense to help prevent endocarditis, for which heart-valve disease patients are at increased risk. For the same reason, I have to take antibiotics before going to the dentist. First there is a slideshow from heartcentral on how to strengthen your heart valves . It confirms what I had previously believed, that heart friendly diet and exercise interventions are also heart-valve friendly. And it specifically recomm...

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https://ift.tt/2bhTWgj I Went for my usual ride on the Coyote creek trail and the “Organic Lawn Mowers” were out. The county hires this gentlemen to bring his herd of goats out to keep the grass down. They do a good job and also provide fertilizer, which helps with repeat business

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https://ift.tt/3iM19tk There are a lot of good books on healthier diets like whole-food plant-based (wfpb) with recipes. You can also find a lot online, such as by googling “oil free veggie burger recipe”. All of which is great if you are good cook. But I am here to testify you can do this anyway if you’re not (most assuredly not, in my case). It can be daunting if you’re not a good cook. I’m sure anyone who’s cooking-challenged and tried any new dietary change has encountered this. You have to go to the store, get ingredients including spices you never heard of, and not you’re not sure how it’s gonna turn out. I’ve been there, many times. And for me it usually turn out poorly. This is not specific to WFPB, as I’ve managed to screw up recipes from various cuisines. What finally worked for me was “semi-homemade” cooking, made famous by Sandra Lee . A good is example are the famous Campbell’s “back label recipes”. Buy a can of soup, throw in a couple of ingredients from the recipe, and...

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https://ift.tt/3kKTIVZ We did our out and back to Casa Loma Road and the Rancho Canada Del Oro Open Space yesterday. It was a good test of my new gears. A while back I talked about trading my Bike Friday in on a bike with full-size wheels . The only downside was the new bike did not have low enough gearing for some of the steeper hills around here. I recently fixed that by putting an 11-42 cassette in the back. That big of a range of gears required a new rear derailleur. The fine folks at my local bike shop Bike Therapy installed it all for me, and did a great job. An inexpensive and perfect fix. Last weekend I did the acid test by climbing W. Dunne Ave and Bernal Road, and was able to motor right up both of them. Yesterday there were some challenging climbs on the group ride as well, which were much more enjoyable with the right gears. There’s kind of a sinking feeling when you’re climbing a hill and you keep gearing down as it gets steeper. You’d like to gear down some more but reali...

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https://ift.tt/3rkft08 This was the title of a recent video on Dr. Greger’s website . It starts out with the depressing statistic that only about 1% of Americans reach the not overly strict dietary targets of the American Heart Association. Despite spending well over $3 trillion a year on health care, more than any other country in the world, the US has slipped to 43rd in life expectancy. And the highest risk factors come from diet, more than even smoking. As for smoking, scientific consensus was reached as early as 1964, when the Surgeon General’s warning first appeared on cigarrette packages in the US. But lung cancer deaths, largely attributable to smoking, continued to rise until 1985, after which they finally came down significantly. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-scientific-consensus-on-a-healthy-diet/ Dr. Greger argues we are in a similar situation, only it’s more like we’re back in 1964 with cigarretes. And just like there was considerable misinformation about the da...

https://ift.tt/3ikoyBR I went for a 34 mile ride out to Redwood retreat road and back. It was nice and cool, in the 70s, a lot better than the 100+ temps we’ve been having. The white over the mountains (the Gavilans) is the fog creeping over, our natural air conditioner I tried to keep up near the front (not quite successfully) which was challenging and enjoyable. I don’t know if the winery has been there since 1863, but I guess the retreat on the site has Checking out the Alpacas on the way back. Cute little guys, they were recently shorn but still have the distinctive hairdo

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https://ift.tt/3hDRllR https://www.sciencealert.com/amazing-natural-experiment-in-this-amazonian-tribe-brains-don-t-shrink-like-ours The Tsimane are an indigenous people living in Bolivia near the Amazon rainforest, that still follow their traditional lifestyle, a combination of hunting, gathering, fishing, and subsistance farming. They are very active, and eat a healthy diet consisting of a large proportion of whole plant foods, about 15% animal products, and almost no “junk” (modern overly processed foods). They made the news a couple of years ago when they were found to have the lowest incidence of coronary artery disease of any population ever studied. Now it’s been found they have excellent brain health. Specifically, their brains don’t lose they volume with age as typical adults in modern societies do. One of the study authors, neuroscientist Andrei Irimia from the University of Southern California, said “The Tsimane have provided us with an amazing natural experiment on th...

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https://ift.tt/3eaYub9 This was the name of an inspiring book by Sue Reynolds. In additional to being uplifting, there are some very interesting aspects to her story. Short version: she went from sedentary and morbidly obese at sixty years of age, to a world-class triathlete in her age group a few years later. The first interesting aspect was the unusual way she got into overeating in the first place. She discovered in college that she had the tenacity to do “all-nighters” while studying for important exams, but had trouble staying awake. Constantly nibbling on snacks got her through the night, and she got good results on her tests. Later, after being happily married, she was working long hours at a nonprofit she deeply believed in, that helps underprivileged children achieve better results in school. When important deadlines came up like needing to complete a grant application, she used the same trick of staying up late while snacking to keep going. And weight piled on. She was m...

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https://ift.tt/2Vqvy8J This is the title of an enjoyable new book by authors Matt Frazier (who also wrote The No-Meat Athlete ) and Robert Cheeke (who also wrote Shred It! about burning fat and losing muscle on a plant-based diet). It dispels myths about needing to eat meat to be strong or athletic, similar to the movie The Gamechangers . But while the movie had examples and inspirational stories from a few athletes, this book has dozens, from a variety of sports like ultrarunning, triathlon, martial arts, and bodybuilding. These anecdotes don’t prove you have to be plant-based to be successful at these type of speed, endurance, or strength sports, but they certainly show it is an effective approach. One theme is constant among all the athletes: recovery. Since switching to a healthier plant-based diet, they all note that they seem to be able to recovery faster from hard efforts, whether races or hard training sessions. This is a probably due to antioxidants and other healthy phyt...

https://ift.tt/2UxrF15 I had a followup with my cardiologist, who was pleased to report I had passed all his tests. First, I got the best bloodwork results ever, triglycerides good, total cholesterol under 150, ldl low. My hdl had also dropped below normal, but he’s not worried about that if ldl is low. I remember Dr. Dean Ornish making the analogy that good cholesterol, or hdl, is like garbage trucks. After ldl has performed its proper functions, hdl transports it back to the liver for processing. When you don’t have excess ldl, you need less hdl to do the transport. That’s the theory. In any case, the evidence is that in the context of a relatively low fat healthy diet, lower hdl is not a concern as long as total cholesterol and ldl are good. The second test was that I wore a heart rate monitor continuously for over a week, and did my normal exercise during that time, including some strenuous workouts. No abnormal heart rhythms were detected. Finally, I got the result of the nuclea...

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https://ift.tt/2Tu0Ivp I periodically receive emails about health-related products because I write a blog. To stay impartial I won’t accept any compensation, and I only write reviews if I like the product. I recently got informed in this way about a smartphone app called “Dr. Muscle” to help guide you through strength training. It automatically sets up a suggested program for you and guides you through progressing workout to workout. I’ll get into the details below. First some background. Dr. Muscle is the brainchild of Dr. Carl Juneau, who has a Ph.D. in Exercise Statistics, and an interesting background. He had successfully put on a significant amount of muscle through weight training, when he had a serious health challenge. He ended up in the hospital after collapsing, with what turned out to be a bad case of parasite infection, which led to food intolerances and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). He fully recovered after changing his diet, but was back to square one, having lost all ...