SIX MEANINGLESS CLAIMS ON FOOD LABELS

I just read an article from NY Times titled "Six Meaningless Claims on Food Labels" and I must say it's pretty good.  You'll probably recognize at least one of the bullshit claims that I've gone over before HERE.

I'll list the six here, but I recommend you read the article for the reasoning behind the bullshit.

1. Lightly-sweetened
2. A good source of fiber
3. Strengthens your immune system
4. Made with real fruit
5. Made with whole grains
6. All natural

 I'd even argue that 6 isn't the correct number.  If there's a claim on a food label, it's probably meaningless, which would put the correct number closer to 10,000 or so.

SATURDAY IN THE SHOP

Yesterday was a great day in The SHOP.  It was about 35 degrees, and my space heater blew the breaker in my garage so I had no heat and I couldn't play any music.  No problem though, as I was forced to work even harder to keep my bodyheat up!

I actually did 2 sessions yesterday.  The first one in the morning was my strength session, and the second one later in the day was purely conditioning.  Here's what they looked like:

SESSION 1


POWER
MB Slams

STRENGTH
A1  Ring Pullups w/ weighted vest (50 lbs)
A2  Good Mornings (with band...great glute-hamstring exercise)

B1  One-Arm Chinups (assisted)


B2  Slideboard Hamstring Curls


C1  Cross-body Tricep Extensions
C2  T-Wheel Rollouts


That was it for the first session.  You've probably noticed by now that I'm a huge fan of bodyweight movements (pushups, pullups, one-leg squats, and all the variations of those).  I also love to make them as difficult as possible (one-arm, one-leg, weighted vest, etc.).  That's pretty much the point behind the one-arm chinups.  Although I can't perform a true one-arm chinup yet (but I will get it soon), using the towel to assist is a great progression.  The towel mainly provides stability and not much vertical assistance.  If I let go of the towel, my body actually starts to rotate around making it very awkward to try to pull.  But holding the towel I stay relatively stable and it makes it a better angle to pull from.

As for the tricep work that I've been adding in, that's more to aid with the lockout portion of any pressing exercise that I do (pushups, dips, bench press, whatever).  I haven't focused on lockout specifically, so by doing so I think I can get a pretty immediate boost to my performance.

SESSION 2

CONDITIONING
Minute Drills
3 rounds, 3 minutes each, 1 minute rest in between rounds

Each round looked like this:

Heavy bag - 30 seconds
Burpees (without the jump) - 30 seconds
Sledgehammer swings - 30 seconds
Heavy bag - 30 seconds
Burpees (without the jump) - 30 seconds
Sledgehammer swings - 30 seconds

9 total minutes of work, and I was pretty exhausted by the end of it.  My conditioning has definitely gone down since my surgery (simply because I haven't been able to do all the things I like to do), but it isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  It's coming back pretty quickly too!

FRIDAY IN THE SHOP

Lauren and I were up bright and early yesterday to get a little work done in The SHOP.  It's starting to get cold again here in Dallas after almost two weeks of temperatures in the 50's or 60's.  Yesterday morning was pretty cold, but this morning is even colder (mid-20's).

Anyway, back to the workout....  In keeping with my 4 week rotation, I have recently switched up a few of my exercises to keep the gains coming and stave off any plateaus.  Here's what my workout looked like yesterday:

POWER

MB Chest Pass

STRENGTH

A1  Handstand Pushups (off of cinder blocks for increased ROM)

A2  One-Leg Squats (pay close attention to my right leg)

B1  Weighted Dips (120 lbs.) this video is old, but you get the idea

B2  Slideboard Lunges

C1  Bodyweight Tricep Extensions

C2  T Wheel Rollouts

So, did you notice anything about my one-leg squats?  I have now progressed to full range-of-motion on my right leg (the one I had surgery on)!!  Yeah baby!

I'm about to do some work in the SHOP (it's now Saturday morning), so stay tuned for another workout update...

MORE MICHAEL POLLAN

I came across this video interview yesterday with Michael Pollan discussing a few things about his new book Food Rules and answering some questions submitted by readers.  It's quick and entertaining, so if you've got just a minute or two give it a look.

Additionally, Michael Pollan appeared on Oprah either yesterday or the day before.  I just found this video, but I haven't had a chance to watch it myself.  The segment is called Food 101, and I'd imagine it's good (because Mr. Pollan is the man).

RUNNING UPDATE

It's been about 10 days since I started running, so I thought an update was in order...

I have run 6 times in 10 days, starting at just 5 minutes at a very slow pace.  I increased the time steadily to about 12 minutes over the course of 4 runs (while staying at about the same pace).  Last night I decided to keep the time at approximately 12 minutes, but I broke the run down into 4 800m runs (not full sprints, but definitely a faster pace than I was running).  I managed to run each 800m in about 3:18 with a 1 min rest in between, which translates into a 6:36 min/mile pace.  Not too shabby for taking 4 months off from running.

Today I am going to add in some easy work on the agility ladder.  There will be some change of direction and foot movement, but nothing drastic or that fast/quick.  I really just want to get my feet moving in various directions without stressing my hip too much.

HOUSTON HALF-MARATHON RACE RECAP

The following is a guest post from a friend of mine.  Steven Herce just competed in the Houston Half-Marathon last Sunday (January 17th, 2010).  Here is his race recap...

In the fall of 1995, upon entering high school, I stood 5’5” and tipped the scales at a whooping 145lbs. Mom and Dad would not let me play high school football so I went out for the cross country team. I’ve been running “long distance” ever since.

With 15 or so years of running under my belt I got it in my head that I should run the 2010 Houston Marathon. Given my athletic background and stubborn need to compete in all that I do, I started training early. By the time I registered for the race (within a few hours of registration opening over the summer of 2009) I had already run 10 miles twice.

My goal was to cover the 26.2 miles in 3hours and 30minutes, which is roughly 8:15 per mile. That’s a pretty serious time for a first time marathon runner and plenty of people were willing to tell me such.

But, alas, it was not meant to be. Readers of The Shop Blog: prepare yourselves for a familiar tale of joint failure. My hips! My Goddamn hips!

I began to notice prolonged hip fatigue following my long runs in August/September 2009. Interestingly, I called Drew about steps to take just days after he learned he would have hip surgery. Despite increased warm-up routines and incessant stretching – plus some SMR (foam rolling) – my hips just couldn’t take me to the promised land.

In training, I was never able to surpass 17 miles. Three times I setout to run 17-18 miles and didn’t complete the run. My final attempt came the day of the race-switching deadline (up until December 10, 2009 one could switch from full marathon to half marathon and vice versa). I left the house and ran 9 miles east, turned around and headed home. I was still 1.5 miles from home when my hips locked up. It took me well over an hour to walk that last 1.5 miles with locked hips.

I walked in the front door and switched to the half marathon.

I ran the Houston Half Marathon on Sunday, January 17, 2010 and I had a blast! I’m absolutely going to run another half marathon, if not before then definitely the 2011 Houston race. Despite having trained at a slower pace for a longer race (and battling those blasted hips) I did really well.

First, my one caveat before divulging the race statistics: because I switched from the full to the half at the last possible second I was stuck in the second wave (slower group). While my per mile pace for the entire race works out to ~8:17 my watch read 9:33 at mile 1! I just couldn’t work past the slower runners (and walkers). The first mile of the race is over the Elysian Viaduct (read: bridge). That makes for some tough maneuvering.

According to the race website:

·       9,988 runners finished the half marathon

·       1,539 men and women ages 25-29 finished the half marathon

o      44 of these men and women are considered “elite”

·       552 men ages 25-29 finished the half marathon

o      27 of these men are considered “elite”

I ran a 1:48:40 placing me 896^th overall. I was the 673rd fastest male and finished 101^st in my division (men ages 25-29). In terms of percentiles: I was faster than about 91% of all runners; 84% of male runners: and 82% of my division (men ages 25-29).

The Houston Marathon and Half Marathon provide all kinds of awesome race statistics. Check out this link:

http://www.runpix3.com/hou10/00/finord.php?LastName=34307&lan=&aset=0&dist=21

I don’t know how they make the calculation but I think it is very cool to see that I passed 333 runners over the last 4 miles while only being passed by 18 over the final 4 miles. That got me thinking: they record a chip time and a gun time for every participant. The chip time is electronically kept by wearing a tag on your shoe that is read by scanners at the start and finish lines as well as throughout the course. The gun time is simply from the starting gun to you crossing the line. In looking at my chip time versus my gun time I figure I passed 809 people from start to finish!

I’m looking forward to my next half marathon. Hopefully by training for that specific distance I will be able to improve my time tremendously. Maybe I’ll run a smaller race where I won’t get boxed in for the first mile.

Lord knows I have to do something because the Shop’s co-owner crushed me by about 21minutes!

[DREW] By the way, he's referring to this LINK when he talks about getting crushed by the SHOP's co-owner!

MONDAY MORNING SHOP WORK

I have the day off from work today, so what better to do than get some work done in the SHOP (I would've done work in the SHOP anyway even if I had to work).

I started a new 4 week cycle of my program today, which really just means that I'm switching up a few exercises in an effort to maintain progress and avoid plateaus.

Here's what I did today:

POWER

A  Behind-the-Back Clap Pushups (clapping behind the back just means you have to explode higher off the ground)

STRENGTH

B1  Weighted Decline Pushups

B2  One-Legged Squats (I progressed to full ROM on my right leg!!)

C1  One-Arm DB Press

C2  Slideboard Lunges (technically I'm not using a slideboard, but it accomplishes the same thing.  These are great for my hip because there is no impact from landing on your foot to lunge and I get to go through a nice, long ROM)

FINISHER

D  Farmer's Walks (I just loaded up my DB's to 105 lbs and carried them back and forth in the alley.  I would go until I was just about to drop the weights, then rest for a minute and do another set.  Great exercise for grip strength since the best way to hold something heavy is to practice holding heavy things)

Later this afternoon I'm going to get some conditioning done on the Airdyne.  Since I still can't sprint or do burpees, there's nothing quite like some intervals on the Airdyne to make you tired as hell.

FOOD RULES CONT...

I posted a review of Michael Pollan's new book Food Rules in my last post HERE.

In this post, I'm just going to list a couple of his rules from each of the three sections.  This isn't an exhaustive list (for that, just buy the book for $5), but rather a couple of my favorites:

WHAT SHOULD I EAT?

• Avoid food products that make health claims.
• Eat only foods that will eventually rot.
• If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don't.

WHAT KIND OF FOOD SHOULD I EAT?

• Eat animals that have themselves eaten well.
• Eat more like the French.  Or the Japanese.  Or the Italians.  Or the Greeks.

HOW SHOULD I EAT?

• Pay more, eat less.
• Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.
• Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it.
• Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.
• Cook.

MORE MICHAEL POLLAN STUFF

So far I have read 4 books my Michael Pollan and they have all been great.  In no particular order, I recommend all of the following:

The Omnivore's Dilemma:  A Natural History of Four Meals

In Defense of Food:  An Eater's Manifesto

Food Rules:  An Eater's Manual

Second Nature:  A Gardener's Education

He also writes for the New York Times Magazine (and other newspapers and magazines I'm sure), but one of his better articles is the following:

Farmer in Chief

WHAT I'M READING

I just started (and finished) Michael Pollan's new book Food Rules: An Eater's Manual.  It's basically a follow-up to his previous book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.  In that book, he developed his stance on how and what humans should eat:

Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.

In his new book, he came up with 64 rules to help us adhere to those 7 words (you can also check out an interview he did with the New York Times HERE).

The beauty of Food Rules is that each one is based on science, culture, and tradition (he says he interviewed many grandmothers and great-grandmothers).  Despite this, each rule is easy to understand, memorable, and often funny (e.g. Don’t buy cereals that change the color of the milk).  In case you are thinking that 64 rules is quite a few to remember, he actually doesn't advocate adhering to all 64.  He suggests that you start with one or perhaps a few, and several of the rules overlap anyway and would accomplish basically the same thing.  There are three sections of rules, one to cover what someone should eat ("Eat food"), one to cover what kind of food someone should eat ("Mostly plants"), and finally one to cover how someone should eat ("Not too much").

This book can pretty much be read in one sitting, but there are quite a few important take-home messages despite its brevity (more than 64 in fact).  Here are a couple of my favorites:

Nutrition science, which after all only got started less than two hundred years ago, is today approximately where surgery was in the year 1650 - very promising, and very interesting to watch, but are you ready to let them operate on you?

Four of the top ten killers in America are chronic diseases linked to this diet. [He's referring to the "Western Diet"]

Populations eating a remarkably wide range of traditional diets generally don't suffer from these chronic diseases.

While it is true that we generally live longer than people used to, or than people in some traditional cultures do, most of our added years owe to gains in infant mortality and child health, not diet.

For a product to carry a health claim on its package, it must first have a package, so right off the bat it's more likely to be a processed rather than a whole food.  Don't take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health.

Since the low-fat campaign began in the late 1970's, Americans actually have been eating more than 500 additional calories per day, most of them in the form of refined carbohydrates like sugar.

I pretty much didn't even get into the rules with my review, but that's actually a testament to how valuable I think his (brief) introduction is.  I highly recommend buying this book, and it only costs $5 on amazon.com.

AN OPEN LETTER TO TACO BELL

You may remember my blog about Taco Bell's new "Drive-Thru Diet", but if not, you can read it HERE.

As a follow-up, one of the blogs that I frequently read (Mark's Daily Apple) just posted about the same thing.  Mark went in to much greater detail about the absurdity of the "diet" and he also framed it as a hilarious "Open Letter to Taco Bell."  Check it out HERE.

He mentions some of the ridiculous aspects of this new ad campaign...for instance, the only difference between the "healthy" fresco items and the regular menu items is cheese.  To give you a little taste of his post, here's a quote:

"First, I am slightly confused by the math of calorie reduction. I understand that a Fresco taco is 20 calories less than a regular taco (kudos for that feat of engineering!). If I am trying to reduce my daily consumption by 500 calories by eating Fresco tacos rather than regular tacos, does that mean I need to eat 25 Fresco tacos a day? (20 calorie reduction x 25 = 500 calorie reduction). That means I need to eat roughly six tacos a meal, including, of course, fourthmeal. Speaking of which…"

He finishes by suggesting 8 ways in which Taco Bell could improve their "Drive-Thru Diet" and even offers to donate $10,000 to Taco Bell's charity of choice if they actually implement those 8 things.

Read it!  It's hilarious.

12 WEEKS POST-OP

As of today, it has been 12 weeks since my surgery.  That is actually a huge milestone in terms of my physical therapy prescription.  One very important thing happens today...I GET TO RUN!

I'm also able to progress my biking to a real bike instead of just a stationary bike (or Airdyne in my case) and I can add in "balanced squats"...whatever that means.  I have a PT appointment this afternoon at 3:40, so I can't wait to actually run and find out exactly what a "balanced squat" is.

I'm not so naive as to believe that I'll be doing a full-on track workout today, like the ones I posted about HERE and HERE, but I'll be running nonetheless!

WHAT I'M READING (IN THE NEWS)

I read 2 articles in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week:

The Hidden Benefits of Exercise

…And Why More May Even be Better

I really liked these articles.  The first article may seem a bit redundant…everyone knows exercise is good for you, right?  Also, there have probably been thousands of other articles in print or online telling us that exercise is good for us.  So why is it necessary?  Well it seems that the health and overall well-being of the American people isn’t getting any better (and is likely getting worse).  So even though the information may seem like nothing new, I think it was timed perfectly.  Right now is the time of year when everyone hits the gym (sometimes just for a week or two, others until Spring Break), so I think it is the perfect time to start feeding people the positive vibes.

As for the second article, I think the general message is awesome!  Some exercise is good, more exercise is better!  Everyone seems to be so concerned with the minimum in terms of health and fitness.

For example, “You should get at least 30 minutes a day of exercise.”

Yeah, but an hour is even better!  Think you’re too busy?  I think the following cartoon sums things up nicely:

There were some pretty good quotes from the articles, so I’ll share two of my favorites:

THE HIDDEN BENEFITS OF EXERCISE

“Exercise can be used like a vaccine to prevent disease and a medication to treat disease.”

…AND WHY MORE MAY EVEN BE BETTER

“...exceeding the federally recommended exercise guidelines can reduce the risk of stroke, heart attack, glaucoma, diabetes and other diseases by as much as 70% above the benefits of merely meeting the guidelines.” [emphasis mine]

GRIP TRAINING

I'm still playing around with my new Flip HD video camera, so below is my first attempt at making a movie complete with intro, credits, and music!

I recorded a grip training session I did this past Sunday (temperature in the SHOP = mid-30's).  I perform all kinds of grip exercises, such as farmer's walks with heavy DB's, Captains of Crush grippers, leveraging, etc.  This particular session was a bit different as I performed more traditional exercises (pushups and pullups) with a hand/grip strength focus.  For instance, instead of regular pushups, I did both knuckle and fingertip pushups.  Instead of regular pullups, I used my Eagle Loops from Ironmind.

So, here's what my sequence looked like:

CIRCUIT

Knuckle Pushups

Eagle Loop Pullups

Fingertip Pushups

Wrist Roller

Rice Bucket

For each exercise, I perform a "quality" set...meaning I don't go to complete failure but I get a good number of reps in.

Rest 30 seconds between each exercise, then 1 minute between circuits.  Complete 3 circuits.

For your viewing pleasure:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a successful and productive 2009, and I hope you have even bigger and better things planned for 2010!

2009 was an interesting one for me to say the least.  There were ups (5-year wedding anniversary, 30th birthday, and many accomplishments related to my training, nutrition, and education) and downs (Lauren's surgery, my hip surgery), but all-in-all I would call 2009 a success.  I learned a lot about myself and life (thanks in large part to the two aforementioned surgeries).  In fact, I would no longer consider those surgeries the "downs"...they both turned out very well and I think we are both better and stronger as a result.

I'm still working on my 2010 goals, but once they are finalized (or close enough), I'll start posting some of them.  I'd love to hear some of your goals.  Remember the acronym S.M.A.R.T:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-Bound

Not SMART:  Get stronger.
SMART:  Add 25 lbs. to my Squat by March 31st.

Here's to another great year!