GOMAD update 1

19 03 2012

Just a quick update.  Started GOMAD on 2-27-12, 3 full weeks ago.  Been hitting all my lifts (as long as I go today).  Probably missed about 2.5 gallons of milk so far, which you can see in the Ongoing – GOMAD page.

My body weight is actually a couple pounds higher than where I expected it to be after first week of Madcow.  During GOMAD/Madcow last year, I was around 172 pounds at this stage, so that’s good to hear.  I might try to get up to 185 or 190 pounds instead of just 180, but it depends on how I feel, if I get a job, etc.

Currently I would say lifting this heavy and drinking a gallon of milk a day is taking it’s toll.  Definitely have to use the toilet more often, but as long as I spread the milk throughout the day and eat plenty of solid food plus vegetables it’s all good.  My body is generally fatigued, but that may also be due to the fact that my sleep schedule is terrible.  Currently fixing that so I’ll see how I feel in a week or so.

Other than that there isn’t much to say.  Just gotta keep plugging away!





Would you…

17 03 2012

live 7 years of your life in complete bliss, but afterwards have no recollection of it, or not?

This is a question I remember from a book my friend Robbie bought for me when I was younger, maybe 12 years old.

Back then I said yes.  Now my answer would probably be no, since my youth is limited to the next 10 or so years.  However, sometime between then and now I realized that since I don’t believe in an afterlife, the question is actually: if at the end of your life you will be dead, not be reborn, nor have any recollection, how will you spend your life?





Experiment: One bowl of vegetables diet

15 03 2012

One of my buddies wants to lose weight after putting some on post college.  I convinced him to experiment with the simplest diet possible:  add one bowl of vegetables to what you eat per day.  Eat whatever you want, but just add one bowl of vegetables per day.  All you need to do is go to Walmart, buy a giant bag of frozen mixed vegetables, then microwave and eat a bowl every day.

Hypothesis:  Not much effect on body weight, but easier poops with less toilet paper used.

What this experiment will help me demonstrate (if my hypothesis is true), is that there is no such thing as “healthy” food.  My idea is that eating more “healthy” food will not help you lose weight.  The idea that I think most people have is that hey can eat “healthy food” to make up for the bad food they eat.  Instead, I believe that only by eliminating crappy food can you lose weight.  That’s my current idea anyway, we’ll see if my friend has any luck with the 1 bowl of vegetables diet.  If it does work, then I just found an awesome diet to hype up.

An analogy for my idea:  Eating healthy food to try to counteract the negative results of eating junk food is like putting jet fuel in your car to try to counteract the negative effects of putting really old fuel in your car  (old gasoline turns into varnish).  Simply put, that’s not going to work, you need to remove the negative element.

On a side note, my dad is on a diet right now, but still drinks plenty of diet soda (just as bad as regular soda IMO) and alcohol, so I predict no results for him.





The only core workout you’ll ever need

14 03 2012

Torture twists, and believe me the name is apt.

Torture twists are easiest to describe with a video:

You can see I’m shaking like crazy, that’s because it’s hard!  If you think it looks easy, try it!

The basics are:

  1. Set a bench up next to a solid bar you can hook your legs under
  2. Get a metronome and set it at 60 beats per minute (aka 1 beat per second)
  3. Sit down, hook your legs under the bar, and lean back  so your body is straight like a board, or as straight as you can get it
  4. Tilt from the midriff to your left.  Count 3 beats
  5. During the 4th beat, turn over to your right.
  6. Count 3 beats.  You’ve just completed 1 rep.  Repeat steps 4 through 6 until you’ve completed 3 reps.
  7. You’ve completed 1 set.  Take a 2 minute break, then repeat for 3 sets.
  8. Once you can do a whole workout, add 1 beat to your count.  So after you can do 3 beats for 3 sets of 3 reps completely, try to do 4 beats.  Once you can do that, do 5, then 6, etc.
If you can do 7 seconds like me, that’d be 7 seconds*6 per set=42 seconds per set, 126 seconds for the whole workout, add 2 2 minute breaks and the whole workout is 6 minutes and 6 seconds.  How’s that for 6 minute abs?
Why are they so torturous?  A couple of reasons.  One, all you can do is lay back and take it.  You’re not pushing or pulling, the pain is in your face and you just have to grit your teeth and finish it out.  Two, every time you finish the workout, you know the next time will be harder because you’re just going to add 1 second the next time you step up to the plate.

Just for fun, find someone at your gym that “works on their core” a lot and see how many seconds they can do of this.





If I could give only one health tip it would be…

13 03 2012

Go to your doctor and get tested for vitamin D deficiency and anemia (especially if you’re a woman).  If you’re even more bold, you can do what my brother did.  Walk in and say, “test me for everything,” and then get 7 vials of blood drawn.

Why?  Because in modern society these are easy to develop, difficult to notice, have long term repercussions, and are easily treatable.

Vitamin D Deficiency

First, why should you care?

I can’t find the original article I’m basing this off of, but basically vitamin D has been linked to cancer prevention.  The daily recommended intake of vitamin D is a pitiable 400-600 IU.  Many of the scientists on the committee that set that limit LEFT BECAUSE THEY DID NOT AGREE.  If I remember correctly,t he human body will produce no more than 10,000 IU per day (your body will stop producing more even if you’re sitting in the sun all day), and you need at least 30,000 IU before you overdose.  In other words, it’s safe to take 4000 to 6000 of vitamin D per day.

Second, why would vitamin D deficiency be common?

Humans evolved under the Sun.  There would be no reason to evolve a mechanism to store serious reserves of vitamin D.  Let’s imagine the life of a hunter gatherer:

  • Wake up, spend the whole day hunting and gathering outside in the sun.  Eat all natural, fresh food which would be a good source of vitamin D, even if there is no sun.

Compare this with working in an office where you probably aren’t getting much vitamin D from the sun.  If you eat like a typical american, you’re probably not getting much vitamin D from your diet.  Let’s look at a typical office worker Bob:

 

  • Bob wakes up, gets ready, then enters his car in his garage and drives to work completely protected from the sun, where he  parks outside and walks into the office spending maybe 15 seconds in the sun, while fully clothed in business casual clothes.
  • At work, Bob sits in a cube and never leaves the office.  He decides to eat lunch outside and gets 15 to 30 minutes of sun.
  • Bob drives home, again protected from the sun by his car windows.
  • Bob gets home and stays indoors watching tv, on his computer, cooking, etc.  Bob has kids and wants to play outside with them, but it’s already dark so he doesn’t.
Get the idea?  Bob is essentially a cave man, experiencing almost no actual sunlight 5 days a week.  Here’s an article  which lists 7 ways to block out the sun, and 1 paragraph on the possible importance of vitamin D.
You can see there is a huge disconnect between the environment humans were evolved in and the environment they currently occupy (at least office workers).

Some info from WebMD.  You can see they recommend a really small daily dosage of 600 IU.  It’s up to you to decide if you take as much as I recommend (2 to 3 2000 IU tablets a day), and since I can’t find the original article that convinced me I have nothing to really support those numbers.  This article points out that studies of vitamin D toxicity had subjects consuming over 40,000 IU per day.  This article points out that the human body will not produce more than 10,000 IU of vitamin D per day.  In other words, taking 6,000 IU per day should pose no risk.

Anemia

Two of my female friends suffered from basic iron deficiency anemia, and based on my reading, it’s something I think everyone should get tested for.  Anytime you lose blood, you lose a bit of iron that needs to be replaced.  Mild forms of anemia are more common in women because they bleed during their period.  There is a lot more written about anemia than vitamin D deficiency so I’m not going to say much else on the subject.  If you want to learn more, this is the book I read that got me interested: