In the News

Britain's Daily Mail today had an article by Hannah Sutter titled 'The Big Fat Lies about Britain's obesity epidemic'. Putting aside the Daily Mail's intention to politically isolate the government at every possible turn, this nevertheless illustrates how the concept of 'eat less' do more' is being continually picked apart and attacked:

• For the past 30 years we've been told to eat less and exercise more, to cut back on calories and on saturated fat and, on the whole, we're doing it.

Sutter goes on to note,

• Our calorific intake between the years 1974 and 2004 decreased by 20 per cent. We are eating about 20 per cent more fruit and vegetables than in the Seventies. We are doing approximately 25 per cent more exercise than we were in 1997.
  
  But are our waist lines shrinking? No. In fact, a quick glance around most High Streets would suggest the opposite is happening - with even young girls displaying 'muffin tops'.

As with the BBC story I commented on the other day, what matters is that we are getting exposure to the problem of thinking we can 'out-exercise our eating, or under-eat our hunger'. We can't.

Sutter is a Lawyer by training but kind of nails the basics of the problem pretty well. In a word, insulin. (The article is extracted from her forthcoming book 'Big Fat Lies: Is Your Government Making You Fat?'.)

The comments section is littered with the usual half-arsed armchair-physicist style comments from those who only see half the problem - that you can increase calories out (exercise), or reduce calories in (eat less), without some compensation elsewhere in the complex biological system that is the human body.

This is the point where I should direct people to 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' but to some people 'they just KNOW' that you need to 'eat less and do more' - so what is the point of reading GT eh?

A guy on Art DeVany's forum picked up on this paper 'Combining fat and sugar in diets leads to increased weight'. Now I am always of animal models but this paper at least tackles the notions held by the armchair physicists above - so let's cut to the chase:

• “The results showed that the mice that ate sugar together with fat became significantly fatter than those that ate protein combined with fat. The mice that ate protein and fat had a lower increase in weight than a third group of mice fed a diet with less calories,”

It is almost as if a calorie simply is not a calorie.

Finally, a link pointing to the Iron Lady's low carb excursion.....

Four Minute Warning

Today I undertook the Four Minute O'Neill Test on a Concept 2 rower:

• The O'Neill Fitness Test is designed to give a simple and reliable test of aerobic fitness. Aerobic fitness is a good indicator of general condition as it underpins 95% of all forms of activity.
  
  After about 10 mins familiarisation with the Concept2 Indoor Rower, the test can be carried out to get an indication of baseline fitness by simply comparing the distance covered in four minutes on the chart.
  
  Further regular tests will indicate progress and are suitable for people of all ages and gender.

I understand that you should have the rower set to level three (I usually use level 8). I also tried an approximate SPM of 20, whereas I usually aim for 27+ on a 500m section.

Oh yeah - and I am neither a rower (I only row when it is too grim outside to sprint), and I don't really 'do' aerobic fitness. Certainly none of that steady state endurance work, but plenty of episodic high intensity stuff with periodic rests.

As this is the first time I have done this kind of distance, my pacing was well out and I could have pushed much harder over the middle 200m.

Damn good fun. The result: 1122m

This makes me 'Above Average' and I know I could get in to the 'Good' category, if not the 'Excellent' group. Watch this space!

Reverse Pyramid

Today's workout.

Warm Up (5 mins)
Main (25mins)
1) Rowing (O'Neill Test - L3:4':1122m)
2) Weighted Chins (6 reps + 5kg)
3) Deadlift (2-3x90%RM - 125kg)
4) Wall Walks (3)

5) Weighted Chins (6 reps with 10% less weight than in the last set)
6) Deadlift (4 reps with 10% less weight than in the last set)
7) Wall Walks (3)
8) Chin Ups ('just short of failure')
9) Leg Extension (BBS - 90s)

Low carb diets like Atkins 'better for blood pressure'

Ooooh check out the BBC with their crazy notion that there are other benefits to a LC diet along with (excellent) fat-loss:

• A low-carbohydrate diet like Atkins is better at cutting blood pressure than weight-loss pills, say US doctors.
  
  Twice as many people on the low-carb diet lowered their blood pressure compared to those taking the drug, orlistat.

This story has also been picked up by the usual suspects (Conditioning Research and John Briffa amongst others). But the reach of the BBC is what is crucial here.

Next to this story is another one that suggests low carb diets can damage arteries. Oh, silly me, I meant "Next to this story is another one that suggests low carb diets can damage arteries in MICE". Damaged mice.

So the message is clear. If you are a human and you are reading this blog - you might want to adopt a paleo diet to improve body composition and arterial health. If you are a mouse reading this story, low carb may not be appropriate for you.

Oh and if you are considering taking a pill to lose weight you might want to read this story. I am not questioning weight loss pills per se, simply the robustness of testing employed my pharmaceutical companies in the pursuit of profit in the very lucrative field of weight management.

There is such a thing as a free lunch. Boringly, it simply involves eating REAL food. No counting of calories, no branding, no gimmicks, no copyrights, no patents. No interest from business in this approach then!

Baise Moi

GTG Ladder 10x1

I am having a light week after last weeks efforts. Things are going well so it is time to reward my body with a bit of a rest.

This weeks GTG will be ten rungs on a ladder of one rep.

1) Fingertip Pull Ups (one)
2) Tuck Planche (one second)
3) Horse Riding Stance (ten seconds)

(Repeat ten times - and finish well short of any kind of fatigue)

I really feel I am hitting the sweet spot on the Tuck Planche. I am now able to lift my hips higher when entering the planche which is significant progress. If I enter the planche with my hips too low, I am still unable to correct. But technique-wise, progress! I suspect the planche assists significantly on the deadlift.

Butter Stupidity

Today's Guardian has an great article titled 'I Can't Believe It's Not Healthy' by Felicity Lawrence. It picks apart the commercial inertia that drives the infomercial world of food manufacturing ever onwards towards profit. She looks at the history of the relationship between heart health and fat, noting,

• [early] in the decade, scientific evidence emerged suggesting that the trans fats produced by hydrogenation affected foetal and infant growth. Then in 1993 Professor Walter Willett, the principal investigator in the Harvard nurses study – on which much of the current advice for heart disease and cancer is based – published evidence that nurses in the study who ate significant amounts of trans fats were twice as likely to have a heart attack as those who consumed few trans fats. In 1997 he called hydrogenation "the biggest food processing disaster in US history". In 2004 he told an interviewer that the advice to switch from butter to vegetable oils hydrogenated into margarine had turned out to be "a disastrous mistake".

In 2006 Lawrence took Unilever's director of external affairs Anne Heughan to task about their use of trans-fats in their products long after evidence had emerged of the health implications to which Heughan replied,

• "As a responsible manufacturer we can only go with the evidence at the time. When Walter Willett's evidence in 1993 indicated that trans fatty acids were as bad as saturated fats we felt that the weight of evidence had moved and we set about removing them. It took about two years."

You can't help but get angry at the hand wringing and doe-eyed pleading from the margarine manufacturers upon finding evidence that their products were actually quite harmful, but JP Morgan seem to have found at least one answer,

• City analysts JP Morgan point out a further powerful commercial reason in their report on how the food industry is responding to the obesity crisis. According to their estimates, Flora pro.activ fat spread sells at a premium of more than 300% on standard products.

Follow the money! With that kind of profit, you'd imagine that there would be a LOT of machinery lined up to protect markets. Machinery to misinform and obfuscate. At the very least, to maintain the status quo for as long as possible.

For me I can't help thinking shouldn't it be incumbent upon manufacturers to prove that their product is safe? Hey, come to think of it, and given their strategy of making us scared of saturated fat, shouldn't it be incumbent upon them to actually back up this satfat phobia with some evidence?

Thankfully, Ron Krauss has done the job for them and guess what? There isn't any evidence that saturated fat is actually harmful. (This is also a fact that escapes Lawrence but I have found an email address for her, and will be sending her this link !)

In fact with all the research and brainpower at their disposal, why haven't Unilever done their own meta analysis and discovered this for themselves? At the least, you'd think they would be looking in to this (or in to The French Paradox).

Kind of makes you wonder what the point was of inventing margarine.....oh that's right, we get to blame French. You see according to Lawrence, French scientists developed margarine "[in] response to a call from the French government to invent a cheap, long-life butter substitute that could feed its armies on the march".

Jokes about French military prowess aside (I am not Franco-phobic - I am English with French lineage which, according to Ricky Gervais, means 'I have bad-breath and I'm shit in bed'), it is ironic that the nation that gave us 'The French Paradox' should also have given us such a substance.

Baise moi!

Lawrence also has a book out called 'Eat Your Heart Out' which has just made it on to my reading list on the strength of this article alone. The Amazon reviews are quite compelling:

• I can't remember when a book made me more angry. Lawrence's book should be compulsory reading . . . nothing is what it says on the packet (Evening Standard )
• Challenges each and every one of us to think again about what we eat. It's almost like uncovering a secret state within the state (Start the Week )

The fightback has truly begun.

Statics

Looks from the tag count that I have been slacking on the static work. The aim is two cycles through (plus and extra set where noted) - but adjust for the pain/strain on the last set (it should not actually hurt!)

Warm Up (5 mins)
Main (25 mins)
1a) Rows (500m:L8:1':40")

2a) Chair Sits (2x60s)
2b) Handstands - Wall Assisted (2x60s)
2c) Tuck Lever (2x30s)
2d) RLLs (1x8)/Deadlift (1x RM, 5xRM75%)
2e) Back Bridge (2x15s)
2f) Frog Planche (2x30s)

3) Leg Extension (BBS 90s x 55kg)

I tested my RM on the deadlift and it came in at about 140kg. I have only recently taken to it and only perform it once a week, so I am chuffed with my progress. I think planching might help as this strengthens the back.

The handstands were pretty solid, with fatigue and shaking only manifesting in the dying seconds. My shoulders do not seem to be getting any more flexible from the back bridges - another area that might need attention. I need to be mindful that this whole workout savages the shoulder complex. It is easy to lose sight of where you are loading.

The chair sits were pretty solid and after the first 'wave' of lactic acid I found I could still hold the position for time (it is important to keep driving through the heels throughout). The leg extension was just a finisher - nice and slow.

I am off climbing tonight so I avoided chins and pull ups. It will be interesting to see what I have left. Currently I have the 'lightly toasted throughout' feeling and could do more.

One final thought - I am currently about 82kg - up from 80kg at the beginning of the year. I think I look a bit bigger around the upper arms and shoulders and I am stronger. Now this might be something or nothing. Noticeable changes I have introduced are, GTG activity three times a week, more sleep (I aim for 9 hours a night), a tighter paleo diet (no cheats) and more goat's cheese. I am definitely eating more.