http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain
Winter weather calls for cooking a meal low and slow on the stove for a couple of hours. The spices mixed with the meat or veggies (and maybe even a splash of wine) are guaranteed to make your home smell wonderful for hours. Stews and braises are closely related, with a defining difference: the amount of liquid used. But the most important thing they have in common? How delicious they are when served up for dinner on a cold, snowy night.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
Last week, I answered a bunch of the questions readers asked at the start of the 21-Day Challenge. You guys came up with so many great questions that I couldn’t get through all, or even most of them. So today, I’m back with another round of rapid fire answers to many of your questions. I talk about the utility (or lack thereof) of window-filtered sunlight in the winter, the need (or not) for 8 glasses of water a day, how fasting can impact fitness, why someone’s sleep might be suffering, which source of glycine is best, whether chlorine in a pool is bad for you, and many, many more.
Let’s go:
Living in Canada wondering what the effects are of sun if behind glass?
Sitting at home in the sun or in the car, does a longer exposure behind glass get me anywhere close to the 15 mins of sun?
Window-filtered sunlight can certainly feel good. There’s nothing like curling up by the window with a great book on a cold, but sunny winter day. Just ask cats. They know all about it.
Unfortunately, windows do not allow UVB through, only UVA. And as UVA penetrates deep into the epidermis, which causes aging, while UVB interacts mostly with the top layers of skin and is the wavelength response for vitamin D synthesis, this is a problem. UVB counteracts the UVA damage; UVA keeps the vitamin D synthesis from getting out of hand. You need both. If we upset the balance and get too much UVA without enough UVB, as you would through a window, problems arise.
Now, hanging out by the window on a sunny day won’t give you skin cancer. I’m not suggesting that. However, you won’t be getting all the benefits you normally associate with sun exposure, and you may do damage if you rely on window-filtered sun as a vitamin D source on a regular basis.
Do you subscribe to the “8 glasses of water” or “drink half your body weight in ounces” or do you think its better to focus on high-water-content foods and nutritious drinks like bone broth and kombucha?
No, I’ve long rejected that advice, which has no actual scientific foundation.
High water content foods are almost every food you can imagine.
Well, not every food. The average Westerner eating lots of baked goods, processed junk, fried foods, and other non-Primal, low-water fare may need extra water, but you? Nearly everything on the list of Primal Blueprint-approved foods—meats, seafood, fruit, vegetables, roots, tubers—contain more water than you’d probably think. After all, every organism on earth depends on and is comprised of lots and lots of water. So long as you consume those organisms without removing too much of the water, you’ll be getting plenty of water.
And yeah, liquids like bone broth work great. If you’re training, a pinch of sea salt in water helps.
Water needs do go up with hot weather and exercise. Even then, though, you don’t need to do any calculations to determine your needs. Thirst is the guide. Thirst is an accurate predictor of water needs, even in athletes engaged in physical activity. Thirst literally triggers the part of your brain that determines “physiological need states” and motivates seeking behavior. Thirst is the best barometer we have.
How does intermittent fasting play into Primal fitness, if at all? What are your thoughts on this practice?
Fasting is primarily a healthy aging buffer and occasional tool for fat loss. It’s not really meant to improve fitness.
However, just like “train low(carb), race high(carb)” can help endurance athletes retain glycogen for the final push in races, fasted training can improve glycogen retention during physical activity by training you to burn more fat and fewer carbs. If you’re in a fasted state, you’re burning fat.
One study exemplifies this phenomenon, pitting a group of untrained, carb-fed cyclists against a group of untrained, overnight-fasted cyclists and comparing both groups’ muscle glycogen content and V02 max. The fasted group improved their V02 max by nearly 10% and their glycogen content by over 54%, while the fed group improved V02 max by just 2.5% and glycogen by a paltry 2.9%.
Anecdotally, many people report feeling energized during fasted training. This is something to play with, and if you feel good training in a fasted state, it’s probably doing you good.
Mark, I basically eat primal and get seven to eight hours of sleep a night, along with exercising 5 – 6 days a week. I still have no energy. What can I do to increase my energy levels and feel rested in the morning?
Don’t exercise 5-6 days a week! That’s too much for most people. Lack of energy is a huge tell.
I’ve been trying to make sure I get a little bit of gelatin, collagen, tendon, or bone end caps with every meal. Is one form of glycine any better than the others? Putting some dissolved collagen into my tea is the easiest, but I’ve been mixing it up just in case.
Thanks!
Glycine is glycine is glycine.
What changes is the stuff that comes along with the glycine. So straight-up collagen hydrolysate is just that, while bone end caps and tendons have that plus other bone-related nutrients. You can go even further and get your glycine—and tons of muscle protein, B vitamins, and other nutrients—through gelatinous meats like oxtail or beef shank. They all work, although straight glycine infusions in the form of the collagen in your tea are the most “reliable” route if all you care about is the glycine.
Hi Mark,
I received a Himalayan salt block as a gift recently and I was thinking about grilling up some primal fajitas on it for the Primal Celebration Dinner that is to be planned for Saturday, December 6th. Any thoughts of this style of cooking? Is it Primal?Thanks!
Never done it myself, but why not? This seems to be a great guide to using salt blocks.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for this easy opportunity to ask questions. The one that’s been floating around in my head is, “For those of us who haven’t done cardio work in many many moons, how best to reintroduce it in our exercise routines?” More specifically, I have small children, a very part-time non-desk job, and spend a good deal of time cooking. This means I move around slowly and fairly consistently all day most days, and don’t do much activity that gets my heart rate up. Happily, we’ve recently been able to join a gym, so now I have access to Zumba and a versaclimber and AMT machine. Should I do higher heart rate activity for a short duration until I get my respiratory system better conditioned, or is it fine to be red-faced and pushing my limit for a whole hour in Zumba twice a week? Thanks!
Start with high intensity intervals or sprints on the bike. For my money, they provide best ROI of any “cardio” exercise with the least amount of risk. Nearly everyone, from guys with meniscus surgery in their past to oldsters, can safely use a stationary bike, even at high speeds. You’re not gonna fall off or get hit by a car. You’re not pounding your joints. There’s a technique to it, but not so complicated as the technique required for proper track sprints. And they’re effective. They will increase your cardiovascular fitness quickly and reliably so that if you want to sweat it out in Zumba, you can.
The Versaclimber’s also a nice option. I love-hate that machine.
I have a desk job and drink a LOT of black, strong coffee. I start first thing, and drink 1/2 to 2/3 of a 12 cup pot. A good cup of hot coffee at my desk helps keep me focused doing work that I’d rather not be doing. In the afternoon or after dinner, I find that a cup of coffee helps me kill a craving for something sweet.
I know there’s a cortisol thing going on. When I don’t have coffee for a few days I don’t get any headaches, but I’m usually on vacation and am very busy doing non-work stuff. I don’t have trouble sleeping that I’m aware of, but at the moment I’m really focusing on eating primally and maintaining my physical activity. Right now coffee is a facilitator for that.
Should I focus on trying to reduce my coffee consumption now? or can I get to that later and still see success?
I’m not convinced you need to eliminate coffee at all. The evidence is pretty clear: coffee is consistently associated with health benefits.
And for you, it’s not just an association. You can reliably state that coffee improves your ability to work, focus, perform, and avoid eating junk food. It’s not affecting your sleep, as far as you can tell. The cortisol thing may be an issue, but you’ll usually feel that. A chronic cortisol issue from chronic coffee consumption usually manifests as stubborn belly fat, a “tired but wired” feeling, an inability to function without coffee, and an inability to get good sleep. If you’re feeling rested in the mornings, if you’re able reduce your coffee while on vacation and not get crippling headaches, you’re probably fine.
So yeah, focus on the stuff you’re not doing that you know you should, like eating vegetables and sprinting. These will provide measurable benefits.
After you’ve got everything else under control, you can always try cutting back. I sort of suspect 9 cups of coffee might be too much for most people, so it’s worth an experiment.
How do you know you are exercising too much?
Check out this post.
Mark, I have a few questions about carb sources and amounts as it relates to weight training. Most of the time I keep within the 100-150g a day for carbs. I lift 3 days a week, usually about an hour at a time. How many more carbs should I eat on those days? and is it a huge issue to use something like rice? I love sweet potatoes but at 25-30g per potato I’m afraid I’ll be full before topping off glycogen.
1. An hour of lifting is a good amount of exercise. Unless you’re lifting really intensively/heavily (CrossFit/powerlifting), the 150 grams should be plenty. Feel free to try another 50 grams or so just to see if it improves recovery and performance. But yeah, 100-150 grams should be enough for basic strength training.
2. Rice isn’t a big issue. Don’t consume bowls and bowls of it, and try to increase the nutrient density by cooking in bone broth instead of water.
I guess the real question is does the play requirement have to be physical in nature, or is it more for relaxation purposes? Would getting together for board games with friends be considered primal play time?
Absolutely. Play doesn’t have to be overtly physical to count. It’s whatever makes you happy and gets some part of you (brain, cardiovascular system, muscles) active. In this case, you’re using your mind.
Doing it with friends is a huge bonus.
Passive entertainment doesn’t qualify in my book, not that there’s anything wrong with watching a good movie from time to time.
I am on a swim team and practice everyday. I was wondering if the chlorine in the water causes health issues.
Maybe. Chlorine is a disinfectant. When chlorine comes into contact with foreign substances it’s designed to disinfect, disinfection byproducts (DBPs) are produced. Some of these DBPs appear to be toxic. For example, chlorinated pool water and urine or sweat beget nitrosamine carcinogens (the same type of compound that forms when we overcook bacon).
One study found over 100 chemical byproducts in swimming pools, many of them toxic. Before and after 40 minutes of swimming laps in such a pool, healthy subjects’ biomarkers were tracked and recorded. One marker that increased after swimming in the pool suggested increased lung permeability and inflammation, while another increased marker indicated DNA damage.
That said, a more recent study had swimmers swim 40 minutes in three different indoor pools, each with varying levels of DBPs. Swimming in pools with higher DBP content had no greater effect on oxidative stress indices. The one weakness is a lack of a true control group—swimmers in a saltwater pool.
Here’s what I’d suggest:
Rinse off before swimming. Most swim teams already do rinse off prior to practice, from what I gather, so this should mitigate some of the problem.
Find a salt water pool. A recent study showed that saltwater pools contain far fewer and safer (less genotoxic) DBPs than freshwater pools.
Find an outdoor pool. Indoor pools seem more problematic, since they concentrate chlorine fumes and introduce chlorine inhalation.
Don’t worry too much. The physical and mental benefits of training and competing on a swim team likely outweigh any potential problems from the chlorine.
Hi Mark! What is a reasonable tolerance level for the vegetable oils in condiments?
For example, at a work outing today I chose cucumber slices over free cookies ( YESSS!!!) but they came with a side of conventional Ranch dressing. Or my favorite garlic mustard dip from Trader Joes has soybean oil in it…I am not using it daily and do rely on organic butter and coconut oil and other primal fats most of the time.
Thanks!
Gina
If you’re truly eating them just occasionally—once, maybe twice a week at the most—and cooking with and eating good Primal fat the rest of the time, don’t freak out. Sure, you could do “better” but you’re way ahead of the game compared to everyone else playing.
If you find yourself starting to rely on these convenient foods more and more often, it may be time to optimize your choices. That’s actually why I created the Primal Kitchen line of condiments. I didn’t want to have to make mayo every time I wanted some tuna salad, or whip up a fresh batch of dressing every time I wanted a big bowl of greens. Convenient foods are, well, convenient and helpful. The reality of the world in which we live is that convenience matters. If you’re going to rely on that for a significant number of your meals, you gotta use the best.
I do have a question related to exercise. I have bad knees and have had bad knees my whole life. One has been replaced and the other needs to be replaced when I am ready. Sometimes I wonder how I will ever get in shape when I have these limits that do not allow for very much lower body exercise. What do you suggest, in the form of exercise, for people who might only be able to do upper body workouts?
Thanks,
Donna
Don’t give up. Maybe you’ll be stuck doing only upper body, but I doubt it. Stationary bikes, elliptical machines (for all the mocking they endure, they’re not the worst piece of low-impact exercise equipment), and the mighty Versaclimber can all give your lower body a workout that minimizes impact. Check with your doctor and physical therapist.
That’s it for this week, folks. Thanks for all the questions and be sure to leave your input down below!
How’s the Challenge going?
http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain
Beets are one of those divisive vegetables — either you love them or hate them. I happen to love them. I’m a sucker for that sweet flesh and gorgeous fuschia color, but I know plenty of people who play for the other team. Beet-haters, I ask that you suspend your disbelief for one moment. Try not to discount the chocolate-beet cupcake based on your feelings for the vegetable alone. Open your heart to beet cake because the final product is far better than the sum of its parts.
Originally posted at: http://www.nerdfitness.com/
Last week we shared a video on Facebook that created more excitement and controversy than anything we’ve ever posted: A video of Daisy Ridley (Rey from Star Wars Ep VII) deadlifting with great form, 176 lbs/80 kilos:
This post exploded, with 1000+ likes and a few hundred comments. What we saw as the most “Nerd + Fitness” ever, combining two of our favorite things (Star Wars and Deadlifts), soon became a fascinating look into the psyche of society.
The wide reach of the post pulled in people outside of the Nerd Fitness community, and we ended up with responses that fell into a few distinct categories:
Obviously a HUGE majority of people fell into the first category, but a number of responses fell into categories 2, 3, 4. And that’s okay – we all have gut-reactions to things and it doesn’t make us bad people.
I bet you instantly had a reaction that fit into one of the above categories, good or bad. Let’s talk about these reactions, and challenge ourselves to fight back against them when they are counterproductive.
Good or bad, it’s almost impossible not to instantly compare ourselves to the people around us: in line at Starbucks, at the gym, on the subway, at the office, and so on.
We are social creatures. Our brains excel at managing our reputation and navigating animal kingdom concepts like status and hierarchy.
In the case of the Daisy Ridley video, and other fitness media, this can lead to two unfortunate reactions:
Here’s the problem with the first one (aka any variation of “hey look I can deadlift more than Daisy Ridley, I’m awesome!”) – If we aren’t taking care of ourselves, it’s easy to find somebody else who is bigger, fatter, weaker, slower, or more unhealthy than us and say “at least I don’t look like that person! Phew!” That person you’re comparing yourself to in the gym? They might be there for their FIRST TIME.
Conversely, we can always find someone who is a level higher than us – faster, stronger, more healthy, etc. They might have professional chefs at their disposal, or a day job as a trainer.
Daisy Ridley who is only deadlifting 176 pounds? That might be her new personal best, and has been deadlifting for just a month. It might be a 6-month journey where she’s only going up 5 pounds a month, and will continue to do so for the next two years. She might only weigh 100 pounds, which would be the equivalent of a 200 pound male deadlifting 380 lbs. The truth is: we don’t know!
And here’s the problem with the second one (aka “Why can’t I do what that person is doing? I suck.”). We have NO IDEA how long somebody has been training, how hard they work, or what their genetics are. I find that I often compare myself to other people in my gym and wish I was looking like them or why it’s taking me “so long” to get stronger in certain lifts compared to others. But this is silly: we all play this game of life as different characters with different difficulty modes.
There’s a reason that the only comparison you should make is to yourself the day before; whether you look at a video like that and it makes you feel good or bad about yourself, it’s not a valid comparison.
We have no clue just how hard somebody has been training, how long they have been training, if they used to be a competitive athlete, what their genetics look like, or what other challenges or advantages they had. We also don’t know how miserable they might be for comparing themselves to somebody else.
When we see a video like this, we just see one moment. That’s it. Remember that we compare our behind-the-scenes journey with everyone else’s high reels.
Years ago when I started exercising, I wanted to look like somebody else because I wasn’t comfortable and confident in my own skin. I figured if I could train, bulk, and get stronger, I would look like the guys in the gym or the guys in movies, and my life would be complete.
I spent every day comparing myself to others and impatiently asking myself “when will I get there?”
It’s a losing battle. When you spend your time comparing your achievements to others, the comparison makes you feel either better or worse than them, but neither are productive:
“He might be able to squat that much, but I can do way more pull ups.”
“I bet she can’t even touch her toes.”
“Why is that person celebrating so much over a 5k? I ran a marathon last week!”
“I just hit a PR. And then the person next to me lifted 100 pounds more. I’m so weak!”
This comparison business is an exercise that will only drive us mad.
And the same can be said when we incorrectly compare ourselves to our past selves that existed under different circumstances. For example, if you get hurt, or need to have surgery, or you have a child and suddenly all of your free time is zapped from you, it’s really depressing when you think about where you are compared to where you used to be.
“I used to lift way more than this. Ugh.”
“How did I take a million steps back? This sucks.”
When we think this way, it’s easy to get derailed and depressed and give up because we ask: “What’s the point? I’m so far behind where I used to be and it’s going to take forever to get back there.”
Instead, I want you to embody a new philosophy. I’d like to think it’s one Master Yoda would teach if he were here:
Like Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, our biggest battle in this journey to a healthier life will be with ourselves. Our largest hurdle? The Dark Side that pulls our brain in a direction that keeps us from the goal:
To be better today than you were yesterday.
That’s it.
Not the “you” before you were injured. No the “you” when you were 18 and had all the time in the world. Not the girl who posted on Facebook or the guy who’s blowing up your Instagram with perfectly framed photos. Just the “you” from yesterday.
No matter what you are training or how you are trying to change yourself, there will be people behind you, and ahead of you. They live a completely different life, they have different goals, different genetics, different insecurities, different time constraints, different lives.
Instead, stay in the moment.
Can you be better today than you were yesterday in a way that lines up with your goals? Can you run a second faster than your personal best? Can you touch one inch further down your shins? Can you deadlift one single pound more?
I’d love to hear about the internal battle you struggle with, and be honest.
Here’s me: I compare myself unfavorably against guys 50-100 lbs heavier than me in the gym and what they can lift, and I compare myself a bit too favorably against people who haven’t been training as long as I have been. Conversely, I get jealous when I see people make rapid progress on their squats. My squat is my weakest lift for sure, so I have to constantly remind myself that every day I squat I’m stronger than I have EVER been before, and this has been true every week for the past six months.
The truth is, I’m stronger and more fit than I was yesterday. I’ll try to do the same tomorrow.
Your turn. May the Force, and the Gains, be with you.
-Steve
PS: THOUSANDS of people have already picked up Level Up Your Life! If you’ve gotten a chance to read through it, you’d be my hero if you took 2 minutes to leave an honest review over on Amazon.com.
photo: Pedro Venzini: Dark Side Legos, Kennie Louie: Ostritch
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
We’ve been running the Takano Weightlifting coaching internship program since July of 2014 and have had 23 interns graduate. I get inquiries and resumes all the time from prospective internship candidates. And whenever I present at courses or seminars, I end up discussing weightlifting with plenty of newcomers.
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
“Movement training” is a becoming popular buzz phrase within the fitness industry, especially as an increasing number of “average” people are becoming aware of the link between exercise and health. As a classically trained strength coach and former Division I athlete, I understand the effectiveness of traditional performance training and its direct link to physical health and well being.
For now classes are 6pm and 640pm at 2840 Wildwood st in the Boise Cloggers studio.
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