Most people are at least cursorily familiar with the concept of the circadian rhythm. For those who aren’t, the circadian rhythm refers to our internal, approximately 24-hour cycle of biochemical, physiological, and behavioral processes. Every living thing, from fungus to bacteria to plant to animal, has a circadian rhythm. External cues called zeitgebers (what a great word, huh?) help synchronize or alter our rhythms; they include temperature, nutrition, meal timing, social interactions pharmacological interventions (medicines, drugs), and, most prominently, the light/dark cycle of the earth.

Yes, light, or the lack thereof, plays an enormous role in the regulation of our cycles, especially our sleep cycle. For millions of years, light was an objective, exogenous measure by which organisms established behavioral patterns, hormonal fluctuations, and sleep cycles. Depending on the seasons, the position of the global axes, and the weather, you could pretty much count on light, bright days and deep, dark [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

MidgettGray.com & KnuckleUp OBX – Bootcamp Biggest Loser Challenge

Spring is coming up, and along comes swimsuit season, and then…. Everybody rushes to the gym at the last minute.
This year, we’re NOT going to let you do that. We’re getting you off of your couch and exercising, and paying you for it!
The Biggest Loser Challenge
In partnership with top online designer fashion boutique MidgettGray.com, KnuckleUp Outer Banks is going to award 2 students for their fitness achievements in this pre-summer season.
Students may win by losing the most amount of weight overall or by a percentage of weight loss. For example, if a 160lb student comes down to 135lb, while a 250lb comes down to 220lb, the first student would win by % of weight loss even though the second lost more pounds.
This way, everybody’s got a fair shot at the prizes. And we’re sure you’re going to enjoy the prizes!
What You’re Getting
For [...]

Original post by knuckleup

Thank you and congratulations are due to loyal Mark’s Daily Apple readers, as you smashed viewership records in February, 2010. MarksDailyApple.com had hundreds of thousands of unique visitors and millions of page views! This level of volume ranks MarksDailyApple.com as one of the top-5 health and fitness blogs in the world. I am also excited to report that the first printing of The Primal Blueprint (16,500 copies) sold out in December, 2009, and I have recently received a second printing of 20,000 hardcover editions. The book continues to climb the rankings at Amazon.com, reaching the top-250 among all books and top-5 in the Exercise & Fitness category in recent days. (To help me push it to #1 check back on March 17. Read all the details here.)
While this is more than enough self-congratulation for one post, I do want to emphasize the collective power of the Mark’s Daily Apple community [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

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Original post by healthhabits

Here’s your second workout for week # 9
.
WORKOUT WARM-UP
1.  Circles – Starting with the ankles and moving all the way up to your neck, gently make circles with all of your joints – 10 revolutions each joint in each direction

.
2.  Dead Bug – Push your lower back into the floor and articulate your arms & legs as in the video. 1 set of as many reps as possible with your lower back pushed into the floor. When your back starts to arch…STOP

.
3.  1 Arm Swing Snatch – 25 reps per arm  – Dumbbell or kettlebell – choose a light weight – the goal is to warm-up

And now for the…WORKOUT
Superset # 1

3 exercises performed back to back

7 sets of each exercise
No rest between sets
2-5 minutes rest between supersets

Exercise #1

Vertical Wood Chops / Slams – (cable, band or medicine ball)

7 sets
5 reps per set…
Using a weight that would allow you to [...]

Original post by healthhabits

This is a joke….right?

A really, really, really bad joke….but still a joke.

How can a kid not know what a tomato looks like?

How can an “adult” think that pre-fab chicken is a healthy food choice?

.
If you like what you see here, click here for updates

.
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Original post by healthhabits

The thing about overtraining is that it exists on a spectrum, without clear-cut rules or boundaries. As I said last week, sufficient training volume is entirely subjective, and it’s constantly changing depending on an individual trainee’s goals, nutrition, sleep habits, stress levels, and injury status. What worked well for the last three months might prove to be excessive if your diet gets disrupted. A particularly stressful stretch at the office could undo a heretofore-steady strength progression. The human body is resilient, but there are limits – and the limits aren’t always clearly delineated. To divine them, it takes finesse and thoughtful tinkering at the edges. Sometimes you have to fall off the edge to know where it is. It’s more art than science. There are some solid, basically objective ways to deal with it, though, even if you’re not sure what constitutes overtraining for you.

Outright avoidance is the most prudent [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

While watching some of the healthcare debate stuff on the news, I started thinking about:

How the U.S. could save healthcare dollars by spending more on disease prevention / health promotion
How Canadians pay less for pharmaceuticals thanks to public health care

All this deep thinking happened while I was shopping for fish oils, etc at my favorite health food store.
It got me thinking, what if all of the customers in the store got together, pooled all of their purchases and asked for a volume discount?
What would happen?
As individuals, we don’t have the leverage needed to get better prices.
But, what if thousands of us joined together as a group (perhaps an online group) and demanded better prices for our:

Nutritional supplements – vitamins, etc…
Health club memberships
Workout equipment
Workout clothes
Personal training sessions

Would we get a better price?
.
So, as a little experiment, I have set up a little beta test.
Using a facebook Group, I am asking all [...]

Original post by healthhabits

Some ‘quick and dirty’ math today.
Here is a hypothetical situation for you…
Your basal metabolic rate is 1,500 calories (Remember, this is just an example I’m not saying that YOUR BMR is exactly 1,500).
If you include your daily exercise, and the costs of eating, your total daily energy Expenditure is 2,200 Calories per day.
So the total amount of calories that you burn in a day is 2,200.
Now in this hypothetical situation, you’ve decided that you want to lose some weight.
You read around on the internet and discover that if you eat 500 less calories per day, the over the course of a week you should lose 1 pound of fat.
So you give it a try.
You count your calories meticulously. With precision that would make NASA engineers jealous.
You know for an absolute FACT that you ate 500 less calories EVERY SINGLE DAY.
But you still didn’t lose weight.
What gives?
Did you slow down your [...]

Original post by Brad Pilon

Today, there are a lot of angry healthcare, health insurance and drug company executives.
They’re angry because America’s investment guru, Warren Buffet, the Oracle of Omaha himself, appeared on CNBC yesterday and eviscerated the current American healthcare system.
Without using any of the political rhetoric being thrown around Washington, Buffett noted that:

Out of control health care costs are like a tapeworm eating at our economic body
The current U.S. health care system eats up 17 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, at a time when many other countries pay only nine or 10 percent of GDP but have more doctors, nurses and hospital beds per capita.
While Mr. Buffett said he would support overhaul legislation proposed by the U.S. Senate, he would prefer existing proposals be scrapped in favour of a new one that attacks costs.
“If it was a choice today between Plan A, which is what we’ve got, or Plan B, which is [...]

Original post by healthhabits