Gee whiz…what’s a fellow gotta do just to get some accessible open water this time of year?
My odyssey began at 7:30am, and I was really excited. Clear and sunny skies coupled with no wind is typically a formula for perfect outdoor swimming. So imagine my dismay when I scurry out to Ladder #1 in my IGO car only to discover this:
I had two choices at this point:
1) Use the prepaid three hours to do some extemporaneous grocery shopping
2) Go on a lakefront quest in search of an accessible patch of open water
Those who know me personally or through this blog can easily guess which option I took…
I decided to head south to see if Ohio Street Beach was accessible. OSB is definitely NOT my choice for a decent swim venue, but I figured that I couldn’t be choosy at this point. Fat chance – OSB was also iced over (plus parking is terrible!).
Heading further south, I made a stop at 31st street beach. I used to train there with my triathlon group, and it’s actually a really great swimming area (plus they serve Connie’s Pizza during the summer). Once again, everything was iced over.
I hiked a few blocks south on the lakefront path to check out the 35th street kayak launch area. I had promised Dave at Envirosports that I would keep checking this site to see how accessible it would be for an organized open water swim start. An earlier outing a few weeks ago proved inconclusive as I had to navigate HUGE swells in the icy water. There were no waves this time, but it was all one big skating rink just like Ladder #1.
Feeling thwarted but determined, I jaunted down to Promontory Point in Hyde Park. I had never been there for a swim, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Much to my surprise and delight, the south end of the point was 95% clear with only a small and thin (i.e. easily breakable) layer of ice bordering the edge of the rocky beach.
Bottom line, another successful winter swim adventure:
While this probably fall under the “already-heavily-dissected-by-the-blogosphere” category, it’s worth revisiting in light of my prior post.
At the November 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Nephrology, Dr. Diana Jalal from the Colorado Denver Health Sciences Center presented the results of a research survey of 4500 participants that concluded the following.
Consuming 74 grams or more of fructose per day — equivalent to about 2.5 12-ounce cans of sugary soda — correlated significantly with blood pressure of at least 135/85 mm Hg; the relation grew stronger as blood pressure rose. The survey participants had no history of hypertension.
Nephrologists have a vested interest in this type research since persistent high blood pressure is a leading cause of chronic kidney failure. Hypertension is also one of the more predictable risk factors for strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, and arterial aneurysms – to name just a few niceties.
While I believe that HFCS consumption played a role in these results, it’s also important to note that added sugars in general could easily have led to these results.
Remember, whether it’s high fructose corn syrup or “organic evaporated cane juice,” it’s still going to spike your insulin and raise your blood pressure.
What we believe is the sugar in the soft drinks is increasing the insulin level in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth. That increase in insulin is what may be leading to the development of the cancer.
This 2007 study, led in part by Dr. Laurence N. Kolonel of the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, was just one of a series of studies on the food-based risks of pancreatic cancer. Also quite notable was a 2006 study implicating red and processed meat.
Two items to note with this latter study:
The strongest association was with processed meat.
and
There were no associations of pancreatic cancer risk with intake of poultry, fish, dairy products, eggs, total fat, saturated fat, or cholesterol.
So it doesn’t appear that animal-source proteins and fats per se are the culprit. Rather, it’s the man-made junk – i.e. the processed meats and refined sugars – that are most likely triggering the insulin overload and subsequent pancreatic distress.
And on a side note – while I don’t know Dr. Kolonel personally, if he gets to come to the office like this each day, I want to work where he does:
The NYT published the article “Slimmer Doesn’t Always Mean Fitter” last week which brings up the very important topic of weight loss and endurance training. It discusses the quite common practice among endurance athletes of cutting more and more weight in favor of achieving a faster PB (personal best) – the idea being less body mass = faster racing results.
This folly is actually quite common, unfortunately. I’ve listened to many serious runners tell me about how they need to “cut more weight to qualify for Boston.” In fact, I recall one particularly emaciated woman who switched to a vegetarian diet and stopped strength training altogether because she didn’t want to “bulk up.” And while this certainly helped her lose weight, it also harvested most of her lean muscle tissue and required her to adopt a high-carb (read high sugar) diet to fuel her “PBs.”
And while this is a rather extreme example, here’s an excerpt from the article that highlights the phenomenon:
When Dr. Tarnopolsky was in graduate school, he saw the delicate balance between losing just enough and too much. He and his friends would experiment, losing or gaining a few pounds and testing their VO2 maxes, a measure of the body’s ability to get oxygen to muscles during exercise. In theory, the less you weigh, the higher your VO2 max should be, relative to body weight.
Dr. Tarnopolsky said that he got his best VO2 max — 86 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight — when he weighed 156 pounds. “Like everyone else, I said, ‘Maybe if I drop some body fat, it will go higher,’ ” Dr. Tarnopolsky said. So he got his weight down to 152 pounds. But to his surprise, his VO2 max decreased, to 82.
The likely reason, he said, was that he had reached a point where his body began burning its own muscle protein for fuel. He was weaker, and his performance was worse, even though he weighed less.
The key is, when you lose weight while endurance training there is a point of diminishing returns. And once you start burning lean muscle tissue and becoming a “glucose junkie,” you know you’ve passed it.
I’ve been following Mark Sisson’s blog, Mark’s Daily Apple, for quite some time. I first heard about it a few years ago, and I was quite surprised when I read a bit more about his background.
As it turns out, he’s a former competitive endurance athlete with a storied career that includes a 4th place Hawaii Ironman finish and a 5th place finish in the 1980 US National Marathon Championships. But he is now one of the most vocal critics of a fitness and endurance sports community that constantly pushes “chronic cardio” along with unhealthy, carbohydrate-driven diets.
And it is this aspect of his background that really resonates with me personally.
Background Notes
Starting in 2004, I became quite active in endurance sports – mostly triathlons. Like many athletes afflicted with the “tri bug,” I got caught up in both the sport and the community and began to “ramp up” pretty intensely over the years. And all this time I was convinced that what I was doing was keeping me in optimal physical shape.
So you can imagine my surprise and disappointment when I discovered that I had borderline high blood pressure – as well as lousy triglyceride and blood cholesterol levels – despite all of my heavy endurance training. It just didn’t make any sense.
But as I began to examine my food consumption and physical activity patterns and cross-reference this with some of the “non-traditional” information available online, I was forced to face an emerging truth. Namely, these poor health results weren’t happening despite all my heavy endurance training. They were happening because of all my heavy endurance training. I shall explain.
Why the Need for a New Approach?
Based upon my own experience and observations, I’ve come to the conclusion that most endurance athletes have bought into two very fallacious beliefs:
1. Heavy and sustained endurance training will lead to optimal health
2. Heavy and sustained endurance training will negate the consequences of an unhealthy diet and lifestyle
The bottom line is that many endurance athletes (myself formerly included) cultivate an attitude of “more is better” when it comes to training. And they use this sustained and heavy exertion as an excuse to justify poor – or even downright trashy – behaviors and eating habits.
Fortunately, Mark does an excellent job dispelling these two beliefs in his new book, The Primal Blueprint.
He also provides a roadmap for cultivating and maintaining optimal physical health based upon hard science and time-tested common sense – both of which seem to have been eclipsed over the past 20 years by the half-truths and “conventional wisdom” of the health and fitness industry.
So let’s dig in a bit further, shall we?
The Ten Primal Blueprint Laws
The Primal Blueprint starts out with an introductory chapter that examines and challenges some of the Conventional Wisdom (CW) we currently follow with regards to diet, exercise, and lifestyle. Areas of particular examination include the current CW regarding grains, saturated animal fat, cholesterol, fiber, and meal habits. On the exercise front, the book examines the current dominant attitudes and beliefs regarding cardio exercise, strength training, and weight loss among other items.
The cardinal point of The Primal Blueprint is that the majority of what we deem to be CW when it comes to consumption and activity is actually ineffective at best – or deleterious at worst. It is at this point that Mark introduces his 10 Primal Blueprint Laws:
1. Eat Lots of Plants and Animals
2. Avoid Poisonous Things
3. Move Frequently at a Slow Pace
4. Lift Heavy Things
5. Sprint Once in a While
6. Get Adequate Sleep
7. Play
8. Get Adequate Sunlight
9. Avoid Stupid Mistakes
10. Use Your Brain
The remainder of the book examines each of these laws in greater detail, but not before providing a clever “compare and contrast” case study.
Grok and Korg
Using the Primal Blueprint framework, Mark details the likely consumption and activity patterns of the “Grok” family, a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer clan living 10,000 years ago. He then examines the consumption and activity patterns of the “Korg” family (“Grok” spelled backwards), a typical contemporary family living the average American lifestyle.
This explicit, and rather eye-opening, comparison puts all of the 10 Primal Blueprint Laws into context and gives the reader a reality-based anchor point that helps him or her understand the real science underpinning the concepts of The Primal Blueprint. It also serves to highlight the relatively recent external factors in our environment which have contributed to our current crisis of poor overall health.
It’s All About Insulin
After setting up the reader accordingly, Mark devotes 100 pages – more than one-third of the book – to the Primal Blueprint eating philosophy. In the first of three chapters, he introduces the key concept of moderating insulin production, something which he cites as “the most health-critical concept in the book.” He then goes on to debunk the conventional wisdom surrounding cholesterol and fat consumption – instead citing the more definitive role of oxidation and inflammation in fomenting heart disease and systemic disorders.
The New Food Pyramid and the Bane of Grain
The following two chapters introduce a new Primal Blueprint Food Pyramid that is anchored by vegetables and fruits followed by animal-source fats and proteins including meats, fish, fowl, and eggs. Topping off the eating pyramid are nuts, seeds, and approved fats and oils as well as natural herbs and essential supplements.
Conspicuously absent from the Primal Blueprint Food Pyramid are grains, sugars, legumes, processed foods, and trans/hydrogenated fats – all of which fall under the category of “poisonous things” to be avoided. In fact, Mark makes a special point to emphasize the negative impact that grains (i.e. wheat, corn, oats, rice, cereals, pastas, breads, “whole grain” foods) have on human health:
Perhaps the most harmful element of dietary Conventional Wisdom is that grains are healthy – the “staff of life” – as we’ve been led to believe our entire lives. While grains enjoy massive popularity today, they are simply not very healthy for human consumption.
Indeed, when you read about how grain products spike insulin levels, store body fat, promote inflammation, and compromise immune system functioning, you will never look at a dinner roll or angel hair pasta the same way again…
Walk, Lift, and Sprint – But No Chronic Cardio
Paralleling his eating philosophy, Mark introduces the Primal Fitness Pyramid in the next chapter which is anchored by Law #3, “Move Frequently at a Slow Pace.” He recommends a regimen of walking, hiking, cycling, or easy cardio at 55-75% of maximum heart rate for up to five hours per week. This is to be punctuated by one or two brief but intense strength training sessions (30 to 60 minutes) and one “all out” 5-10 minute sprint exercise once a week.
Also in this chapter, Mark outlines his case against what he terms “Chronic Cardio,” or frequent medium-to-high intensity sustained workouts. Chronic Cardio entails exceeding 75% of your maximum heart rate for extended periods of time. This depletes glycogen (versus burning stored fat) and requires large amounts of dietary carbohydrates each day to support the energy demands. Chronic Cardio also triggers stress hormone production, inflammation, and hormonal imbalances leading to fatigue, burnout, and accelerated aging. Per Mark:
Chronic Cardio – a program I followed for nearly 20 years as a marathoner and later an ironman triathlete – is bad for your health, period.
Lifestyle Laws and Primal Weight Loss
The final two chapters of The Primal Blueprint (before the conclusion) are fairly condensed. The first one focuses on “lifestyle laws” such as getting adequate sleep and sunlight, engaging in “play” behaviors, managing environmental risks, and challenging your brain. The second chapter provides a detailed process for losing weight and includes specific dietary guidelines and plans as well as exercise recommendations.
While both chapters are highly informative, I do feel that they are somewhat lacking in detail – especially when compared to the previous three chapters. However, since food consumption and physical activity are really the foundation of the Primal Blueprint philosophy, I didn’t expect these later chapters to constitute as much of the book’s contents.
Is The Primal Blueprint Worth Reading?
The Primal Blueprint is a very thorough and fascinating review of how we as a species have substantially diverged from the healthy eating, exercise, and lifestyle habits that have allowed us to survive and thrive for over 50,000 years. And while the book does cover a variety of scientific and medical topics, it manages to remain both readable and informative through the author’s lively commentary and entertaining tone. So in this respect alone, I do recommend it.
In addition, if you’ve read any other books on “evolutionary fitness” or “paleo diet” topics, The Primal Blueprint – while incorporating much of this information – represents an even more comprehensive lifestyle guide for athletes of all levels. For one thing, the book is written from the perspective of a former competitive endurance athlete who has made a career out of studying and practicing physical fitness at very high levels. And because of Mark’s unique background, both “recovering endurance athletes” as well as less active individuals looking for a better way to optimize their overall levels of health and fitness can readily identify with the content in The Primal Blueprint.
So do yourself a favor and check out a copy of The Primal Blueprint. It will definitely make you rethink just about everything you’ve read or been told about diet and exercise. And even if you’re the most hardcore endurance sports addict, you will likely come away from the book with a renewed respect for the benefits of “ramping down” and actually enjoying the process of health and fitness.
The hope here is that this research could lead to new drugs which could instantly “switch on” the human fat burning process and address what has become a substantial public health issue. Per the lead scientist:
When there is an imbalance between what we eat and what we burn,” the outcome is obesity, said Claire Bastie of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Neuroscience. “And the problem of obesity is not going away. This is a new mechanism to help the body to burn extra energy.
My take on this is pretty straightforward – don’t hold out for some new type of “wonder drug” that offers instant results without requiring any behavioral changes.
The key is, nothing burns fat better than abundant amounts of high-energy, lean muscle tissue. And you can’t get that from taking a pill…
