I'm (still) not dead!

So, I decided it was time for an update if for no other reason than to keep from falling of the face of the (blogging) Earth all over again.

There isn't much to say, except that I have been bad about a few things... I ate a lot of MnM's recently, and also a couple of those cheesy drumstick ice cream cones.  But other than that I've been pretty good.  I have also been mostly good about drinking less milk... It is sad, indeed, but I have been replacing it with cream, which is cool.  Whipping cream in a blender with ice is basically like unsweetened ice cream, and it's at least as awesome as it sounds.

Food adventures have been minimized because of busy-ness in school and life, but I did try a cold cut in the deli section of the grocery store called "liver cheese."  There is no cheese in liver cheese.  It is basically liver sausage with a layer of pork fat around the outside (Yum!).

Also, I have taken to doing wind-sprints at the gym instead of just running around the track for what feels like forever (even if its only 3 or 4 laps).  It's way more fun, and you get to feel like you're going fast for a little while, and then not kill yourself for a little while, and then start the process all over again.  If they told me to come up with names for particular exercises, I'd be more creative.  Instead of "wind-sprints" it would be "winded-sprints" and I could let out a nervous chuckle every time I told someone about it because I enjoyed the pun so much.  Maybe even ask someone if they got the joke, and make it especially awkward.  Maybe that's a bad idea after all...

I've been seriously considering shaving my head too.  I've been buzzing it pretty short since about mid-January, and it might just be me, but it seems like the hair is just thinning more and more.  Pretty soon I'm just gonna have a patch at the top of my forehead and a ring of baldness.  I'd rather just get rid of it all, especially if my head could be really shiny hahaha.

Well, that's all I can think of for now.  Until next time!

Raw food and other hippy crap

Funny story - this Friday was 4/20 - the infamous pot-smoker's holiday.  I am not a pot smoker, so I went to the gym and worked my tail off on Friday.  Considering this was around 4 o'clock (well, closer to 4:20...), when you generally can't find a parking spot at the local YMCA, I was overjoyed to discover nary a single high-school/college kid at the gym (there was one, actually, who spotted me on the bench whose named turned out to be the same as mine...).  Considering it was a Friday at 4:30, the place was a ghost town.  Needless to say, I loved seeing yet another stereotype confirmed (males in high school or college are potheads - math majors exempted).  I was also pretty happy not to deal with the usual traffic jam that is the weight area at that time.

Anyway, onto the discussion of other hippy crap.  Today's discussion is about raw food.  I know next to nothing about it.  In fact, in most cases I haven't even heard arguments for it.  I know that they say cooking vegetables cooks vitamins out of it, and I know that there is some reason to believe that - but there is also reason to believe that without cooking vegetables you won't be getting through much of the cellulose to get many of those vitamins in the first place - not that it matters, I eat meat and eggs so I get enough vitamins.  I generally think cooked vegetables taste better, though there are exceptions, like many greens.  I like sushi, and I understand why it is mostly safe to eat (If I am not mistaken, with the exception of tuna, sushi sold in the US has to be frozen beneath a certain temperature for a certain period of time - this kills any marine parasites that may be present and many other pathogens).  I don't believe any of the arguments that it's healthier for you, unless you burn it - but I'm a good enough cook that I usually don't have an issue with that - and burnt fish tastes bad besides.  I know for a fact that cooked eggs, in addition to being safer to eat than raw eggs, are actually more nutritious if cooked (denaturing the proteins in the whites tends to make them easier to absorb - to the point where a raw egg white has what they call poor bioavailability, and a cooked egg white has near perfect bioavailability).  Ditto for the burning them issue, but the same rule applies here.  Burnt eggs taste like garbage; even scorched eggs are nearly inedible.

So then we come to the real raw food arguments that I neither understand nor know much about.  I know that some people like to eat raw, non-fish meats.  In the case of an omnivorous or carnivorous animal, I know that this is generally bordering on stupid beyond measure because you risk contracting a parasite that is likely to kill you before you can do anything about it (read about trichinosis - If you get enough trichina worms in your system you can die.  That or they just end up in your spinal cord or brain and you die.).  But then there are herbivores.  I am terrified of parasites, so I wouldn't want to eat them raw, but I also understand that in the US at least you are very unlikely to contract a parasite from raw herbivore meats (or from pork, come to think of it).  And I do occasionally have my steaks a little rare.  The risk of bacterial infection is also there, but not so much in a rare steak as in completely raw meat.  Beside these arguments, I prefer the flavor and texture of meat that is at least cooked somewhat, and so I don't care too much for the arguments for raw non-fish meats.

So then there is raw dairy.  I can honestly say that I know very little about this for certain.  I believe that the argument for pasteurization is strong - regardless of what you do with the milk, or how the cows are raised, pasteurization reduces the likelihood of a consumer contracting a foodborne illness from the product.  This is independent of the cows being grass-fed, or organic, or being happy or what-have-you (if you aren't convinced, imagine that the only difference between one dairy and another is pasteurization.  Even if such a situation does not exist, without doubt, the dairy that pasteurizes its milk has fewer pathogens and consumers of its product are less likely to contract a foodborne illness, even if the difference of these chances is insignificant.).  Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that one is likely to get sick from drinking raw milk, but if the benefit doesn't outweigh the risk, I can see no reason to increase my chance of an uninvited "cleanse," or potentially something worse.

As you may recall, I like having solid, definitive proof of things before I believe them.  This stems in part from the fact that I study mathematics, and as an undergraduate (and actually, before that, as a high school student) I am only allowed to give answers that I know and can show.  Because of this, when some asshat with a pH.D "performs" an epidemiological study and concludes that drinking raw milk will make you live forever, I feel cheated AND superior at the same time, because I know he is either wrong or he got extremely lucky, not to mention the fact that he went into a soft-science field and isn't required to actually do any hard work.  Now that I'm off my soapbox though, I can actually make a point.  Everything you read about raw milk either claims that it will kill you or turn you into the embodiment of perfect health.  While I can't definitively say that either of these is untrue, I can conclude that if either is, it is only because the researcher who said so got lucky - the research that could suggest this either way just hasn't been done yet.  In addition to this, it probably won't be done in any reasonable amount of time (probably because both the raw milk people and the pasteurization people don't want the real facts to come out).

With these in mind, I can't justify the cost of such a product without a guarantee that its benefits outweigh its risks.  It's not that I'm not interested in trying to learn more, but I do face the issue of it just sounding a little too granola for me.  Not to mention the fact that if I started drinking raw milk, I'd probably have to cut off my internet or something.

Until next time.

The foray into the worlds of the "Bros"

Now, I know most of you reading this know me fairly well, and for many of you this involves having known me for a long time.  For those who either haven't known me for a long time, or simply don't know me well, know this: I am a nerd.  I find no shame in this fact - being a nerd is awesome.  There are some people who don't quite understand this though, and I'm okay with that, and there are definitely aspects of normal life that I don't understand because I am a nerd.  I am unathletic and uncoordinated.  I am not good at any sport (video games don't count).  I don't enjoy watching sports of any kind (with the exception of world cup soccer, and the super bowl).  I don't understand the appeal of dancing.  I generally don't understand the appeal of going out at all, come to think of it.  I would rather drink for cheap or not at all than go to a bar and get blasted while listening to music that is too loud.  I clam up around groups larger than about 6 (even among my own friends sometimes) and delve into the realm of the socially awkward.  I am not a conversationalist, unless the topic is something I am passionate about.  I am good at listening, and do not like the sound of my own voice.  My idea of a good time is hunching around a tiny table with 3 or 4 friends and playing an obscure card game over beer and pizza (though lately, that would have to be converted to the no-homo version of wine and cheese) or watching a movie that we may or may not enjoy, frequently pausing it (or skipping that step) and making critical comments about it - best if it is sci-fi or fantasy related, but it doesn't have to be.  One of my hobbies is looking up things I think might be interesting on Wikipedia to see how biased its assessment is - and relishing in every discovered grammar/spelling error.  I am a gamer, and I tend to play games until there's nothing left in them - usually playing through long games multiple times just to try something new.  I also love to discuss games with people - you see, as a nerd, I view (some) games as a form of art, and not merely entertainment.  Some games have themes as much as any good movie does (though often interrupted by long bouts of "kill this monster 100 times until you get what you need") and dissecting the intricacies of these themes is often as rewarding - if not more-so - than the game-play.  I don't understand the appeal of going to a concert.  I enjoyed math in high school.  I love to play chess.

What's the point of all this?  Well, it's something that I haven't discussed much (though may have touched on).  The gym is a weird place for me.  It's crowded, and most of the people there are not nerds.  The things you do at the gym are not nerdy things, so they don't feel very natural for me (especially the movements).  People try to start conversations with you about things you don't feel comfortable talking about, like football, or your bench-press form (No one has brought up the subject of diet with me yet, but probably because that would be something I would feel comfortable discussing).  Some of the people wear douchebag cologne while working out, which I always find really distracting because it seems kind of comical to smell like anything but BO at the gym.  Others are simply douchebags in other ways and are literally walking stereotypes (complete with blaring bro-rock from their iPods).  Old men walk around naked in the locker rooms.  Whenever anyone spots you on bench, they practically shout empty words of encouragement like, "Baby weight, you got this!" when I just died on the last set doing fewer reps than they expect me to get (I find this especially funny because when I spot people I usually say nothing until afterwards, when it feels abnormal to not give them some sort of bro-ish message of encouragement - usually a simple, "that was good.") [I'm not kidding].  Crossfit people go to normal gyms sometimes and do box jumps and funny pullups (that's how you can spot the crossfitters). 

I don't mean to bring up any of this to complain, but I think it's important to understand this idea of unfamiliar territory.  It feels abnormal, pointless, uncomfortable, and intimidating.  It hurts and it makes you smell bad and it sucks up your time.  But its not all bad news - it helps me sleep like a rock, and when I do have to run to catch a ferry, I don't collapse on the first available seat and practically black out anymore.  Even so, I had a hard time going to the gym for the first few months (this is some time in the past now).  In fact, back in January the only reason I really started going regularly again was because my brother promised to work out with me...  Then he had to go and get a job - I tried to tell him his kids could fend for themselves, but he just wouldn't listen.

Anywho, it's time to turn down the self-pity.  The gym isn't really that bad.  Even for the socially awkward, all you have to do is crank up your iPod and start running.  And putting all the uncomfortable stuff aside, there is occasionally a conversation to be had that's actually worth having.  I've seen lots of friends from high school that I haven't seen in years, and lost track of how many laps I've walked while chatting with them.

Plus, when you actually start noticing results, especially when you can quantify them, it's really cool.  This past Thursday (that's the 12th of April for posterity's sake) marks the first time I have ever bench-pressed more than my body weight - 165lbs, 5 times (7 with help from a spotter).  The same day I also did 10 pullups in one go.  Some time before that, I ran an 8-minute mile (I could have run it faster, quite easily I think.  The 8 minute mile hardly even phased me).  I've also a gained a little weight... I'm at 162lbs now, which puts me 7 pounds over where I started this diet thing (I think?).  Like I've said before, I couldn't actually say for certain whether or not it's fat... but I think it is likely not primarily fat...  Let's hope not at least XD

Onto our next subject...

I'm not fantastic at cooking vegetables.  I have about one fewer year of veggie-cooking experience among other things...  But veggies have always seemed to me to be a bit of an after thought, so cooking with them has never seemed to come naturally.  They are a side-dish.  You don't make a broccoli dinner, you steam it and serve it with a steak.  You rip up some leaves and put them on a plate and call that a "salad."  Sometimes there's not even any preparation at all - "eat these carrots kid, they're good for your eyes."

Well anyway, I mentioned last time that I intended to add (some) veggies into my diet, and I have indeed done so.  I have eaten some broccoli and some asparagus and some celery since then (and also some peanut butter).  Not too much, I'm trying to keep it normal, of course.  I also haven't been taking my multi-vitamins (technically, with the veggies, I shouldn't need them - and should barely need them at all anyway). Of course, the broccoli was always drenched heavily in sour cream, the asparagus was almost literally swimming in bacon grease (it sprouted arms and legs, but couldn't figure out the motions) and the celery was really just a vessel for sour cream or peanut butter (and that's all celery is anyway, unless you're using it's juices to get some tasty nitrites into meats and soups).  Also, no benefits from fiber have been noticed.

I also may be turning into a hipster...  I bought those funny toe shoes, Vibram five-fingers aka Hipster shoes for the hipster who's into barefoot running  (I got them on special sale for 50 bucks - there's no way I'd pay full price).  I'm not into barefoot running because I'm afraid I will get hepatitis or worms or AIDS, but I decided to try these shoes almost out of desperation.  My old walking shoes were falling apart, and my running shoes fit me poorly and make my feet hurt besides.  I have wide, flat feet, so my old running shoes were about a half size too large, and my feet just kinda shifted around inside of them when I ran.  When I tried on the Vibrams, they fit snugly, without crushing my forefoot every time I took a step.  It was sort of a eureka moment - shoes can actually fit one's feet?!  Impossible!  It's almost enough to make me change my opinion of runners... Wait -who am I kidding?  You and I both know that anyone who actually enjoys running around for more than about 10 minutes at a time is literally insane.  But at least now I feel like I could do that without having to baby my feet for the next couple of days.

My favorite thing about the shoes though is whenever I catch someone staring at them - it reminds me of the old Norwegian saying: "How do you spot the extroverted Norwegian?  He's the one looking at your shoes!"  [For those who don't get the joke, the rest of us Norwegians are so introverted that we regularly look at our own shoes, but when we are feeling adventurous, we may glance at another's footwear.  The joke will make sense if you are Norwegian.]

Aside from being nice to run in, the Vibrams also suck if it is even remotely damp outside.  They may have been a fine investment for exercising, but I may have to find an alternative shoe for rainy weather...

I do have a food adventure to share!  Ever had liver sausage?  It sounds kinda gross, I know, but it is an animal product with vitamin C, and it's not as nasty as my own attempts at preparing liver.  Plus it's loaded with vitamins that aren't exactly easy to get from other (non-animal) sources [admittedly, if you are a meatetarian you probably don't have fat-soluble vitamins worries - or any micronutrient worries, come to think of it].  But it does come in a nasty tube.  Kinda gives me the heebie-jeebies to scrape it out with a butter knife and smear it on (lol) salami.

I'm out of ideas and this post is more than long enough.  Until next time!

A full year... A summary of the year, future plans, and pi day!

So, as of about a week ago I have been on the meat diet for an entire year... I guess I never really got around to explaining that point in my blog... lol.  I celebrated this pi day as the unofficial anniversary of the self-experiment, with (of course) a meat pie (I had one last year too, but this time there are more pictures, and I intend to post them).  I also intend to make some changes to the meat diet and continue it - for at least another year.  I have yet to get a blood test done :/  I apologize.  I am a little too cheap to spend money on unnecessary medical procedures, however minor.

I want to try to sum up the experience as best I can, and try to be unbiased about it...  However possible that is...  What has shocked me the most about the experience as a whole is how not abnormal it has been.  I haven't really felt any different, with the possible exception of some digestive differences - most of which were not even very unpleasant, or significant.  I didn't lose much weight, which didn't surprise me too much (I don't have a great deal of it to lose though, so I'm not exactly complaining) - and though I don't have (or ever intend to take) before and after pictures, you're simply going to have to take my word for it when I say that I am now at least less fat than I was when I started (though this likely has something to do with the fact that I have been working out).  It has been very inconvenient to try to eat at restaurants or people's houses though.  I usually try to simply be polite and eat what I am offered, or choose restaurants that suit my needs, like sushi bars or steak houses.

I do want to get into the details of the digestive stuff though, so please skip this part if you aren't interested...

And it actually gets a bit gross if you thought you had the stones but want to change your mind...

It's not too late...

I may have mentioned this before, but one of the strangest things I've noticed is that I just don't pass a great deal of poop these days... In fact, it seems like a tiny amount in comparison to what I've been eating.  When I first noticed this it got my hypochondria acting up, Which of course led to me being utterly convinced that I had a blockage and was going to die (which... led to a laxative... which of course convinced me that my fears were entirely unfounded).  After that, I decided to go with it, and however unusual it seemed to not poop much, the movements were regular - perhaps even more-so than they had been before.  In addition to that small issue, I have also dealt with occasional bouts of diarrhea.  Considering that this happens to most people on normal diets I wouldn't consider it too abnormal - except that it has a tendency to last a little longer than expected...  As I have noted before, there is a reason to believe that this will result from not consuming enough fat, and there is also some evidence to suggest that adding salt to the diet can prevent it (weird...).  I have personally noticed that I tend to have this problem when my diet is mostly boiled eggs (or when I am simply stressed out) - boiled eggs are lower in salt and fat than what I generally consume, and when I have free range of things like butter and heavy cream and thoroughly fatty ground beef, this problem entirely vanishes.  I haven't really been constipated at all on this diet - pooping is never something difficult, though occasionally I expect to poop, or expect to poop more and there is no more [This goes back to the first digestive change, of course - the belief that I ought to be pooping more than I am has led me to occasionally, at least temporarily, conclude that I am constipated, then I turn out to be wrong] (This has been an improvement for me - I actually dealt with occasional constipation before, and considered it unpleasant, naturally) {TMI?}.  Anyway, I have also noticed the occasional acetone-smelling urine that is common among those on high fat, low everything-else diets {I warned you that this part maybe should be skipped!} (Some say this is a sign of dangerous ketoacidosis, but that is simply untrue - dietary ketosis, which is a much safer biological state, can lead to this as well).  The smell is unnerving and immediately makes me assume something is wrong, but it's really no big deal.

It's done.

You can start reading the blog again.

It's interesting again without being gross - really.

I didn't know to expect this when I started, but there is some debate about the body's ability to function without glucose.  I haven't noticed a significant difference, to be honest, but according to Dr. Peter Attia (I briefly mentioned him before - fitness fanatic and ketogenic diet advocate) it should be expected that high-intensity, short duration exercise (like lifting weights) should be slightly negatively impacted by a ketogenic diet, and aerobic exercises should be positively impacted by such a diet.  I can't run to save my life, and the numbers I've been putting up on the weights have gone up... so either the diet hasn't affected me much, or I haven't been truly ketogenic (Either is possible, really.  According to him, the impact on high-intensity exercise is quite small - and considering that I couldn't run to save my life before, if you increase that capability by - say - 150%, I still can't run to save my life!).

I've been surprised by my own ability to change my tastes more than anything else.  I mentioned long ago that I am practically addicted to milk, I have a serious sweet tooth, and I do not prefer fatty cuts of meat.  Well, I've been able to change all of those.  I have recently made the decision to wean myself off of milk.  I know it sounds sad, as I may never be capable of going back - but really, what am I missing out on?  The lactose intolerant can still consume a wide variety of dairy products since only milk and ice cream (and maybe a few others) are actually high in lactose.  There's also the fact that the lactose intolerant are supposed to still be able to tolerate some lactose, just not the nearly limitless quantities those of us with working digestive systems can handle.  I have replaced most of the milk in my diet with cream (I'll get to why in just a minute), though I still cut it with a little milk because it's too thick otherwise.  As for the sweet tooth, I literally don't have cravings anymore.  I can smell waffles in the morning and think, "Damn those smell good!" while I dive into a plate of ground beef and scrambled eggs, perfectly content not to eat a half a cup of syrup.  Of course, if I do get started on eating something sweet, I usually can't stop myself...  Some time ago I decided to have one piece of toast with honey.  And a cupcake.  And another piece of toast.  And another cupcake... I had a good excuse, but it was still inexcusable.  As for the fatty cuts of meat - that just took realizing the difference between fats that taste good and those that don't.  The fat that is marbled throughout a tri-tip steak as beautifully as if the cow were descended from heaven into the feedlot to be slaughtered especially for me tastes fantastic.  Whereas if you try to saute the 3/4 inch of fat from around the corner of a pork shoulder blade steak, it feels like rubber and is virtually inedible.  Either kind of fat is desirable when slow cooked until it is like butter stuck to meat.  Come to think of it, sticking butter to meat is also a fine way to make it taste butter... better.

I've been delighted by the fact that the diet is a fantastic conversation starter - even if it does make me a hipster to use it in that way.  Though I do occasionally run into someone who simply cannot be swayed, most people are open to hearing what I have to say (and most of them still think I'm going to die).  I do occasionally struggle to explain why epidemiological studies aren't solid proof of anything, or how hormones work, or what studies actually show about people on high-fat diets (mostly because, except for being able to explain away epidemiological studies, I know very little about the other two areas of scientific research - and the reason I struggle with epidemiological studies is that people tend to believe them anyway...).

That about sums up the experience - it has been not as difficult and far less expensive than I expected it to be.  It's been fun, and it seems like it hasn't killed me - so naturally I intend to keep it up.  I do want to make some changes though.  I want to start including non-starchy vegetables.  Why?  Variety is definitely a huge issue, but another one (believe it or not) is that I want to try to up my fat intake even more.  How to non-starchy vegetables help with that?  Simple - how do most people eat non-starchy veggies?  If you can't come up with the answer, think of a salad or a raw veggie tray - what is it that sit in the middle of either one?  That's right!  A giant blob of salad dressing.  What are the components of any (good) salad dressing?  Right again!  Some sort of fat, and some sort of acid, usually with salt and pepper.  So that's the idea in a nutshell - I will eat non-starchy veggies like broccoli and celery and asparagus and drench them in homemade dressings or hollandaise sauce or peanut butter and try to incorporate that into the meat diet in an effort to eat more fat.  A plus side of this is the purported beneficial effects of fiber ( mentioned before that I haven't had too much trouble with that area of digestion).  Since the veggies will have some vitamins in them (not that I haven't been getting most of what I need from meat and eggs) I am going to stop taking my multi-vitamin, but I will continue to take my vitamin D unless there is a miraculous change in the weather and I turn into some douchebag who walks around shirtless in the sun (protip: not gonna happen).  I do want to get a blood test done too, but I just think it isn't going to happen :/

The last topic to discuss is pi day (March fourteenth, aka 3/14 for the uninitiated)!  Last pi day, my brother and I celebrated the commencement of my meat diet with a glorious meat pie (I had actually been on the diet for a bout a week or so at that point, but whatevs).  A meat pie in our case was essentially a meat loaf, with no breadcrums, topped with a bacon weave lattice as a sort of "crust."  We basically used a meatloaf recipe by Alton Brown (of Food Network fame) and removed any offending ingredients, and added extra bacon, and baked it in a pie plate.  Needless to say it was basically the most fantastic thing I had ever tasted.  It also looked beautiful.  I took pictures, and a giant slice of it was my facebook profile pic for a while.

The obligatory bacon

Well, this year I had to outdo myself, so I made two pies (and you thought that was for tau day!)!  They were, once again, the most fantastic things I had ever tasted.  I also took pictures, and if I can figure out how to post them you will get to see them!  [Note that the cigarettes in the picture are not mine - I do not smoke cigs]

The meat pie, sans bacon weave

That about sums it up for now!  Until next time!

The finished product, artfully displayed

More on Essentail Readings: Update

Some time ago I posted about essential readings.  I intend to add to that post by updating from time to time.  As you can imagine, I am likely to add Good Calories, Bad Calories to that list, but first I need a more condensed summary.  It'll happen.  I also want to add another blog to this list - it's by some guy who is a fitness fanatic and also eats a ketogenic diet - he and Taubes are associated in some way.  I've read a bit of his blog and he has some useful information there, some of which I would like to try to summarize at some point.  One large point he makes is that he was able to lose weight while actively reducing the amount of time he spends exercising, and I think that's interesting (you may recall that I lost weight this summer after ceasing the gym trips... more on that later).  No time right now to finish this, I will edit it later, I just wanted to get some thoughts down.

More things I've been lying about...

I mentioned a long time ago that I wanted to keep a weekly update of my weight - for whatever reason. Anyway, I have not been doing so... partly because for the past 4 months I haven't had a scale (although that's no excuse since I think I only recorded my weight here one time). Anyway, I'm up to about 156 right now. I'm okay with that - it's a pound heavier than where I started, but I'm not as fat as I used to be, which is cool. I should have taken before and after pictures so that I could talk about posting them and then never follow up on it.

I finally got around to taking my blood pressure! And boy was it weird... the first measurement was something like 150/80 which spooked me a bit. So I repeated it: 140/75. Again: 130/70 [these are approximations]. Now, I know that taking your blood pressure repeatedly on the same arm can yield decreasing results like that, so I switched arms. This measurement was about 110/60. This shocked me for a number of reasons. First, why did it start so high? Second, why did it come down so low? And third, why did this all happen in about 5 minutes? Makes me wonder how accurate actual blood pressure readings are, and if we might want to start averaging blood pressure over the course of like an hour to really get a more accurate reading.

I also butchered a pork shoulder recently! Costco had a slab of pork shoulder, bone removed, weighing in at 25 pounds for about $1.70 a pound... I couldn't resist. I did not, however, manage to do a good job of chopping it up. I should have checked a guide online, but instead I just went at it with a carving knife. I got a few good steaks and several chunks of pork roast though. I still think I prefer getting my meat nicely packaged in meal-sized portions (don't reread that...).

I think I'm going to retire input/output. I watched a special about a "condition" called orthorexia, where people become obsessed with keeping track of what they eat for whatever purpose, and I've come to realize that it's not worth the effort. Besides, you know what I eat most of the time: eggs, cheese, meat, a bit of milk, occasional walnuts/pecans. And butter. Lot's of butter. And then I will share with you what is actually interesting. Same with the output - you know the details of what I have told you - it's usually not very interesting, and when it is I will say so.

I wanted to keep this brief, so I'm going to wrap it up now. I did want to mention the hipsters though. I've noticed a trend among the hip that can help to identify them during the winter. You know the skinny jeans? The skinny jeans that are also usually too short? Coupled with the fact that the bottoms are generally rolled up? So you can see their socks below their skinny little ankles? Yeah... that's how you can ID the hip during the winter months. It takes some work though - even some of the most hip won't risk that cold on their ankles.

Anyway, till next time.

A (not-so) Brief Update, Focusing on the Gym

Hey, so my last post talked almost exclusively about Gary Taubes' book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. I will repeat my praise of the book here, and I highly recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in diet/health/obesity/diabetes/weight loss/what have you.

But there are other things to talk about. For example, I don't believe I uttered a single word last time about the workout situation! Things are finally (and really this time!) back to normal. Starting in about mid-January, I got a membership at the YMCA, since they waived the joining fee for the new people in January. They also have this financial assistance program for people who are poor, or underemployed, or college students (simply a combination of the previous two) so it actually costs me quite a bit less each month than my old gym membership ever did.

Plus, the facility is really nice - they have an indoor track and everything. My old gym was a snap fitness, and they didn't have a real bench or a rack or anything for weights, so I didn't do bench or squat, or really anything that I couldn't do with dumbbells. Now I'm doing them regularly, and unashamedly begging for spotters whenever I bench (my bench is really pretty pathetic, so it's almost embarrassing asking for a spot - but that's not my style to be embarrassed about anything - except dancing). In fact - and I don't mean to brag - I'm hittin' it pretty hard. The indoor track is a huge part of it... I hate running, and I hate running on a treadmill even more, and I have short, poorly coordinated legs, so the elliptical machine makes me feel like my hip is going to fly out of my pelvis. But the indoor track is cool - you get to run past people who are walking to make yourself feel fast, and with the right music it's actually kinda fun to try to run with the rhythm (if it's too slow or too fast I can't keep it up for too long though).

Speaking of which, I definitely listen to the Black Mages at the gym. In case you are unaware, the Black Mages are a Japanese progressive metal band led by Nobuo Uematsu, of Final Fantasy fame, which does covers of music from the Final Fantasy series. It's fantastic - and for someone like me who is used to getting a lot of work done listening to battle themes there's nothing like it to get my blood pumping for a workout. Apparently they have a relatively new album which I am thinking about investing in... Anyway, it almost makes me wish people could hear what I'm listening to at the gym, as I run around the track in old nerdy t-shirts. Now that I'm actually making some money, I may try to get some new ones :)

As for the details of my routine: I try to go for a nice warm-up with a few laps around the track, usually about a half mile at a decent pace, followed by a walked lap then straight to the weights (if I'm gonna be doing squats I take it easier on the running). After that, I split up my workout into two days, so one day I might do back and chest, and the next shoulders and legs (or some similar combination of those) and I throw in little things here and there, going for about 5 or 6 days a week at the gym, occasionally throwing in a much easier day, or a day of just running (if it sounds like a lot, its not - I'm usually in and out in about an hour). I aim for three sets of about 10 reps each for each exercise, after a warm-up set, and usually dropping the weight down because I can't maintain it yet. I figure I'm not working out hard enough to really worry too much about over-training at this point, so I'm not too worried about that. I also haven't been doing deadlifts - although I want to do them... I admit I've tried to do them before, and they make me sore in a bad way, which means I'm doing something wrong. Don't try to give me advice - I've watched youtube videos all about doing them right and I just can't get it... I'm too awkward. I'm avoiding the risk of injury by doing other things while I wait for an opportunity to have someone show me how to do them and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Also, if you have read Gary Taubes other book, How We Get Fat you will recall that he details an entire chapter to the "elusive" benefits of exercise. Basically his point is that if we envision exercise as a way of increasing the calories out part of the calories in/calories out dynamic, then we must realize how hopeless things are - the calories in/calories out idea is simply untrue. This is why I don't get to the gym and run for 20 miles or some other such nonsense (and because I'd give up and say eff that by about mile 1.5). However, exercise does have a tendency to reduce insulin resistance, which does help people lose weight. And if you lift weights it has a tendency to make you stronger, so you don't end up fat, old, bald, poor, and short (I remind myself whenever I don't want to go to the gym that I am already short, I am balding, I will one day be old, and I will never be fabulously rich - so if I can't at least avoid being fat I won't have much going for me - except for my charming personality, of course... and shocking good looks... and razor sharp mind and...). Uh, anyway, if the goal is weight loss, then the key to exercising is intensity. Intense workouts cause a shift in hormones that tends to make you lose fat when compared to lower-intensity workouts. All exercise will increase your production of cortisol, which, put simply, makes you fat. But more intense exercise also increases your production of glucagon, testosterone, adrenal hormones, and human growth hormone - which all have a tendency to make you less fat (women, don't worry about testosterone making you bulky - if it were that easy for guys they wouldn't workout) [I also want to do a post about glucagon someday and how it is basically the counter to insulin, but now is not the time]. In other words, the net hormonal effect on weight loss is more positive for intense workouts than for less-intense workouts. The details of it aren't entirely clear to me, but I do know that the calories in/calories out aspect of exercise isn't what makes you lose weight, and the hormonal explanation makes more sense. So it makes sense to go with what makes more sense.

Speaking of all this business, have you ever tried to find accurate information about exercising? I feel like it is exactly like diet/nutrition/health. Everyone is trying to sell something and promising to make you look like Suzanne Somers or Ahnold or make you lose 300 pounds in 6 days or something else that clearly requires too much plastic surgery or at least ought to have required more. I'll admit I've checked a few websites myself and almost been convinced - I have talked about Mark's Daily Apple before... He's the guy who talks about the "primal blueprint." And he was so close to being right about a lot of things - yes intense exercise is good; yes, we ought to eat fewer carbs in general; yes, most fats are not bad for you - that it's almost enough to suck you in, but his reasoning was so flawed. Just because our ancestor's ate it - even if for a long time - does not imply that it is good for us; and just because we did not eat it does not imply that it is bad for us.

Taubes showed this repeatedly in his books: The Japanese and many Asian peoples do fine on diets high in carbohydrates when they eat primarily rice, despite the fact that our ancestors likely didn't eat much rice. All people do poorly on diets high in sugar - regardless of the source of that sugar... It rots teeth, it causes heart disease, and liver diseases, and all kinds of horrible things - even though our ancestors likely ate as much sugar as possible (which didn't amount to much). Many mushrooms are poisonous when consumed raw, but are fine sources of trace nutrients when cooked - there's no way our ancestors ate them for too long. The Masai people of Africa live in a state of relative health despite subsisting on a diet of mostly cow's milk. And whey protein and fish oils - two sources of food that our ancestors likely didn't have year-round access to - have a tendency to be exceptionally healthy.

But anyway, then he went on to say that eating primal eliminated his B.O. Put bluntly, he's retarded for saying this. Put less bluntly, it discredits him greatly, and is further evidence that he is simply trying to sell something.

In a frustrated way, what I'm saying is that I'd like a definitive summary of what we know about exercise in a (relatively) concise format similar to Taubes' books so I could more easily sift through all the garbage to know what is true.

What else... I know!

*POOP WARNING*

So, I mentioned in passing in my previous post something about a bit of diarrhea... It was actually quite unpleasant - I believe this may be what was referred to in the "meat for a year" study as the factor that caused the scientists to change their plan to both subjects eating more fat than lean. I won't go into great detail - but it is interesting to note a few things. One is that it didn't seem to be severely dehydrating me - I didn't change my fluid intake much and didn't notice any ill effects. Two is that aside from an often unpleasant frequent urge to use the toilet, I didn't feel bad... there was no pain or cramping or headaches or those sorts of things that you might expect with this sort of issue. Three is that my over-consumption of cayenne pepper did cause a certain amount of unpleasantness... Combined with diarrhea it was actually really unpleasant at times... I'm trying to cut back (but it goes so well with roasts!) Four is that it went on for about a week, probably a couple days more. Since then I have been intentionally trying to eat more salt and more fat, and the problem seems to have cleared up.

I believe it may have been less severe than what the study mentioned because I was still eating mostly fat, rather than mostly lean - just not enough fat. But honestly who knows. I'm gonna try to stick to what I'm doing now though to basically avoid it. I wish I could pin down the cause more accurately, but there's no way of knowing without intentionally trying to force it to happen again - which I don't want to do.

*POOP WARNING OVER*

Anyway, I think it's time to end this post. Until next time.