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A New Year
December 31, 2005 07:45 PM
The blog, in spite of my low activity of late, went to just over 3.3 million hits. Visitors from 108 countries have been here. Like everything, its been a challenge and a pleasure and I am grateful for the response.
I face a year in which my wife will likely die. I do not worry or obsess over it. I have to face it for her sake, for I am the only chance she has for survival. My realism and Bayesian outlook is a great source of strength. I am totally grounded in the reality of her situation and her disease. I have read nearly everything there is to know about it and try to make the best choices for her health. It isn't easy, but I don't feel sorry or cheated. We were together for nearly 50 years and I have loved her since I first met her in Barnes Park at an evening concert. She was sitting on a blanket with her boyfriend and my heart and mind stopped. Even now, when she is stooped and mentally limited, I still love her like I did then.
I may outlive several wives and even children. Who knows? I hope not. But, chance and time determine these things, not my imaginings or hopes.
Both my mother and my wife told me today that they want to go home. An odd coincidence that speaks to their condition; they want to go back to a time and place when they were healthy and happy. I am caught between two women who were so important in my life who are dying. It should be hard, but it isn't if you are a realist. I see the reality and deal with it. No regrets. No pity. No depression. These are things that are not grounded in reality. They involve wishes and hope, not what is.
I spend a lot of time alone now...
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"Hard" Gainers
December 30, 2005 01:31 PM
Naturally, individuals will gain muscle in different ways. Some may achieve large mass while others may not.
But, there is often a common element for hard gainers who work out long and hard and take all the supplements and yet gain little. I think I have finally got an explanation.
In a word, they are sugarburners. The excess protein they take to try to gain releases insulin. Excess protein is converted to sugar in the body (gluconeogenesis). It is a double hit: high insulin release from excess protein and conversion of the excess to sugar which raises insulin further. The protein-derived sugar that cannot be burned or stored (and very little can be stored in the liver and muscle) becomes fat. This makes the excess protein have a triple hit because that fat makes one more insulin resistant.
I suspect hard gainers on high protein have insulin levels that are soaring and they are becoming insulin resistant (many body builders do). Excess protein intake is almost as sure a prescription for insulin resistance as excess carbohydrate intake.
As these individuals become insulin resistant, they become sugar burners. They cease to burn fat and end up carrying too much body fat (a large percentage of people in the gym do).
When they cease to be able to access their fat, their cells must have sugar. Where does it come from between meals and during sleep? From muscle and bone, the largest sources of protein in the body.
They are wasting their muscle to feed their sugar burning and it is the excess protein that created the problem. If you have a problem fat area around the middle and can't gain muscle like you would like, check your protein intake. It is probably too high. I am so insulin sensitive, with basal insulin of just 3.4, that I put on muscle just looking at a barbell. Low insulin is the most reliable marker of longevity too. Virtually all centenarians that have been studied have low insulin in common.
LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (9)
Hollywood's Simplistic Plots
December 29, 2005 12:09 PM
Victor Davis Hanson nails it with this comment on the movies Munich and Syriana.
LINK · The Movie Business · Comments (2)
Diabetes and Alzheimer's Disease
December 25, 2005 08:38 AM
Of course, like other tissues in the body, the brain becomes resistant to the action of insulin. A form now being called Type 3 Diabetes. (There are many types, now slowly being discovered and labelled.)
Excess weight, both a cause and consequence of diabetes (so-closely linked that it is often called Diabesity), is a known risk factor for Alzheimer's. Here is just one of many links one can find Obesity and Alzheimer's.
The most dramatic showing of the link between insulin signalling and Alzheimer's is found by researchers at Brown University. See Insulin Signalling and Alzheimer's.
The abstract of de la Monte's research and others is at Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
If this isn't enough to convince you of the need to return to the simple, low-glycemic foods of our ancestors and to work out and stay lean, then you aren't getting your new year off to a promising start.
LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (2)
Trail Mix
December 23, 2005 08:19 PM
Does anybody eat this stuff? Why?
I bought some trail mix, brand undisclosed, the other day. I have been a bit lacking in calories with caring for my wife so I picked a bag up at the last visit to the store. It happened to be over in the produce section.
What a joke. It isn't produce. It isn't food. When I bit into it my tooth began to hurt --- a sugar attack. This is for real. The sugar creates reactive oxygen species and glycoslylates the tooth, root, nerve, gum, enamel and all. The label was a bad dream of nutrition. Concentrated fruit sugar, rancid oils from nuts far too old to be eaten, hydrogenated oils that harden your cell membranes and foul up metabolism.
A labeling trick permits the manufacturer not to call hydrogenated oils saturated, but that is what hydrogenation does, it saturates the oil with hydrogen. So, hydrogenated oils are far worse than the saturated fats you get in feeding pen beef. The feeding pen, by the way, just hydrogenates the cattle on the hoof because the grains release excess hydrogen when the cattle eat it and it is trapped in fat through hydrogenation So, they are the same process; one on the hoof and the other in a vat. Same result too. Oils that the body cannot use and that mess up the membranes.
Your membranes are more important than you may realize. They enclose all the cells of the body and regulate the passage of hormones and other messengers. In the brain, stiff membranes decrease the plasticity of brain cells and interfere with learning. That is why fish are called brain food, the omega 3 oils increase the pliability, metabolic rates, and plasticity of brain cells. Fluid membranes work better and they form new synapses more readily.
So, the trail mix went into the trash. If you eat something like this sugar-saturated oil concentration, you shut down your access to body fat and quit burning fat. One of the best reasons to hike is to burn fat and you have just killed that process by eating this junk.
If I walk through the health food store, I find that most of the snacks and foods there are junk. Better go to See's candy store and get some honest chocolate with antioxidant content. Better yet, eat real food.
LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (7)
Diabetes: Hybrid Types 1.5 and 2.5
December 21, 2005 09:48 AM
The old classifications of diabetes are breaking down.
Type 1 used to be called juvenile onset diabetes, but is suffered by many later in life. It is more properly classified as an autoimmune disease in which the islet cells of the pancreas are attacked by the immune system.
Type 2 diabetes is the end result of the metabolic syndrome in which insulin resistance plays the central role. High abdominal obesity promotes resistance to the action of insulin and poor glucose management. This is part of a more complex cascade, but the end stage is extreme resistance to the action of insulin and eventual pancreatic insulin insufficiency. The pancreas may eventually collapse and cease to produce insulin in the "burn out" stage.
Type 1.5 diabetes is a way to describe the progression from type 1 diabetes to the conditions of type 2 diabetes. Poor insulin and glucose management lead to high insulin resistance in the type 1 diabetic. Thus, the apparent paradox that someone whose pancreas fails to produce insulin may become resistant to the action of insulin. Likely, this individual has become obese in the abdominal region from injecting too much insulin to control blood glucose. The fat produces hormones that make one insulin resistant. The progression is thus from insulin insufficiency to excess insulin (exogenously produced and injected) to insulin receptor burn out.
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Progress
December 12, 2005 07:57 PM
So how do you chart your progress and what do you do to make further progress or more rapid progress?
First, it is a journey. A five pound difference in weight lifted is notable, but it is only a small step in a lifetime of healthy living. Ten years down the road none of this will mean much.
Second, it isn't linear. But, you know that by now. You will have huge gains at times and set backs at others. Early on, your increases in strength or performance will be primarily neural. Later, strength and mass will come.
Third, focusing on progress can be counter productive. If it isn't fast enough, you may do too much or do things that get you hurt. Or, become frustrated and quit. Or, you will start taking various subtances that are pretty much worthless and just put on fat rather than athletic muscle.
Fourth, if you are getting stronger, you are progressing. And you know when you are stronger. I use my alactic sets as a guide; these are sets when I do 3 to 5 one rep sets at high weight. When I can do more, I can see that I am stronger.
Fifth, you will get stuck if you expect progress on a continual basis. The whole idea of sticking points is based on some naive notion of linear progress. They aren't sticking points, they are turning points in the adaptive process. Use them to make changes in keep the challenge going.
Sixth, keep track of your heart rate or blood pressure and when they rise, take a break. You will come back stronger and more eager.
There is so much time before you, don't worry about small details or slow progress. It is a way of life.
LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (9)
Thanks
December 10, 2005 05:28 PM
Thanks very much for your kind comments regarding my wife's health.
She is home today for the first full day and I have arranged for nursing and some other help. I know I have to get to the gym and play or this will be too hard for me.
You know, I really believe and practice what I say and it has helped to get us through this latest crisis and what we have faced many times before with her marginal health.
We are in the stochastic flow and can't set the outcomes. But, we can make good choices and increase the odds of getting onto good paths.
A brief point on ST/FT...
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Debate and Events
December 8, 2005 08:20 PM
Nice to see the discussion on FT/ST. Of course they do adapt. How far is hard to say. Also true that the staining method for determining fibers is crude. And there are more varieties than are presently catalogued. Then again, do what you want and don't try to optimize too much. Stay strong and healthy.
Long interview with the Wall Street Journal today on the movies. Look for a column in Saturday's edition or whenever the columnist is finished.
Busy buying some land in Moab for a studio/home high on a mesa. I will write there and do some sculpting and design there in my next life. Just happens to be the premiere dirt riding area in the US too.
My wife had a heart attack and has a devastating illness of an autoimmune type, so I have been busy and preoccupied researching the problem and talking with doctors. Designing the new, small Zen-like studio home will be our last project together. She loves interior design and we have always wanted to design and build our own home. So, this is our chance. I hope it helps her to fight to stay alive.
LINK · Everything · Comments (10)
Frozen Joints
December 6, 2005 09:22 AM
I am glad to see the comments are working again.
Connective tissue does not turn over at a very high rate, so when it becomes cross-linked it tends to stay that way. Cross linked collagen is what is holding the shoulder or other joint stuck in position.
What causes the cross-linking is a sugar and free radical reaction that oxydizes the collagen, making it hard and brittle. The same process turns an apple brown when it is cut open. The sugar and protein become fused when they are oxydized, it is called the Amadori reaction and is a major cause of stiffness for many. This is a sign that your blood glucose is out of control. And that your antioxidant defenses are down.
What to do?
1. Take a high quality antioxidant, like the one I use.
2. Take aminoguanadine to undo the cross-links.
3. Stretch to break the small adhesions.
4. Get your blood sugars down.
Got to go. More later.
LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (15)
Moving On
December 2, 2005 07:59 PM
I am moving the blog to another location and to another blogging software program. I cannot stand Movable Type and its many deficiencies. The archives and search do not work all that well, but they are servicable for new comers or those who have not looked at all the material on their topic of interest.
This blogging is weird anyway. I don't need any validation of my thinking or research. I do what I do and am satisfied with what little I have managed to know and do in my life. It is far beyond what I thought I might do and I am satisfied.
You can look for the site later on another server and software. It will appear at a theater near you sometime. Look for it or not. Your choice. I have a wife to care for and a grandson to be a friend and grandfather to.
And, I have a golf swing and riding style to perfect (not to mention a mind and body and softball swing). Not bad to have perfect health and do whatever I want to in this stage of life. I wish you all the same.
Enjoy the archives. I will leave them here for a while. Blogging is not all that hot, I doubt I will do much more of it.
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