Body Weight Workout Program - Week 5

I’m into week 5 of my “get out of the gym and enjoy the great outdoors” body weight workout program.

For those catching up, several weeks ago I decided that I was bored with my gym rat routine and decided to try a new approach to keeping in shape.  No more fancy machines, no more racks of dumbbells, and no more treadmills or stationary bikes.

So I’ve been focusing on body weight exercises and outdoor endurance activities to keep fit.

I will say that leaving the weights and machines behind took a leap of faith.  After all, we’re taught that to build and maintain muscle, you need to tailor a program to use weights and machines to focus on the individual muscles of the body.  Typical workout plans include performing a series of sets using a specific machine or free weight exercise to force the growth of a particular muscle.  Bicep curls for biceps, bench presses for chest, etc.

And it works.  You can develop a muscular body utilizing this muscle isolation approach.  You can get big biceps, ripped abs, and broad shoulders.  You can marvel at how much your bench press increases as you progress.  And you can look good in those jeans and t-shirts.

But what you aren’t doing is building real world strength.

As I get older, I’m less concerned about building big biceps, washboard abs, or pumped up pecs.  I’m more focused on building strength and endurance that will help with some of the more mundane activities I engage in on a day to day basis.  I want strength and endurance that will help me carry a three year old boy for a mile back to the house after he’s fallen asleep on a beach walk.  I want strength that will help me move that couch up and down the stairs while my wife makes up her mind on where it should go.  And I want the strength and endurance to keep up with my buddies on a basketball court.

The typical gym weight and machine routine isn’t going to help much in those areas because it focuses on working muscles in isolation.  Real world strength is developed by working core muscle groups together.

You develop strength, endurance, and coordination in performing exercises that work multiple muscle groups together.  Core strength.  Real world strength.

That’s where the body weight exercises come in.  I’m currently doing a “boot camp” program that really pushes me.  It mixes exercises such as push-ups (some variations I’d never seen before), dips, squats, and other body weight movements to work multiple muscle groups at once.  Really unique.  And some of the exercises push me harder than any weight routine ever did.

So, I’m in week 5 and can honestly report that I’m in far better shape than I’ve been in in awhile.  I’m working muscles I haven’t worked since the old calisthenic days back in college.  And I am definitely faster on the basketball court, less prone to collapse after 4 quarters, and even have developed a better shot.

Real world strength.

I’m ready to tackle that couch now.

If you’re interested in learning more about real world strength and how you can escape gym rut, here’s where I got all my information and routines.

Body Weight Workouts and Real World Strength

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Organic Food - Costs More - Better For You?

In our last post, we examined the declining nutritional value of the fruits and vegetables you find on the market shelves.  How a variety of factors, including the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, has led to modern produce that is anywhere from 5% to 40% less nutritious than the fruits and veggies grown thirty or so years ago.

What about fruits and veggies grown using organic farming techniques?  Are they more nutritious than the produce being grown using  conventional modern farming practices?  If so, is that difference worth the higher price tag typically attached to organic fruits and vegetables?

These days when you shop at your local grocer for produce, you have aisles of apples, carrots, broccoli, and other fruits and veggies.  Then you have that one section, typically small, labeled ‘Organic’ where you find carrots, broccoli, and tomatoes that look pretty much the same as their non-organic counterparts.

But they do cost more.

So, what’s the difference between organic and standard fruits and vegetables?

It all comes down to farming techniques.  The term ‘organic’ refers to the way farmers cultivate and process their agricultural products, including grains, meat, dairy, and fruits and vegetables.

Some key differences between conventional and organic farming include:

Fertilizers

Conventional farming utilizes chemical fertilizers to promote growth.  Organic is all about natural fertilization utilizing manure, compost, and other natural byproducts.

Pest Control

Conventional farmers use chemically based insecticides to control pests and disease.  Organic techniques avoid chemicals and rely on varmint traps and pest mating cycle disruption to manage destructive pests.

Weed Management

Conventional farming utilizes - you got it - chemical herbicides to control pesky weeds.  Organic farmers use crop rotation, mulch, and spending alot of time hand tilling the soil to control weeds.

Can you trust that organic label?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has established a certification program that requires all organic foods to meet strict standards.  These standards revolve around growing techniques, handling practices, and processing steps.  So, if you see the USDA organic label, you can be pretty sure that apple was grown and processed in a chemical free environment.

But don’t confuse the USDA organic label with other labels you might see, such as “free range”, “hormone-free”, or “all natural”.  These labels may be important to you in choosing the foods you buy, but they are not regulated, or even necessarily accurate.

Okay, chemical free is great, but are organic fruits and vegetables more nutritious than their conventional counterparts?

The use of all natural growing and processing practices may be enough for you to justify the extra cost associated with organic produce.  Why the extra cost?  Because, when you take pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and preservatives out of the process, you end up with plants that require more manual attention and lower crop yields due to disease.  Couple this with the costs associated with obtaining the USDA organic standard, and you begin to see why those identical looking apples and carrots are more expensive.

But more nutritious?  No.  There is currently no authoritative evidence that indicates that organic produce is any more nutritious than the produce grown and processed in conventional environments.  The USDA, while certifying food as organic, makes no claims as to that food being safer or more nutritious.

So, if you are concerned about the use of chemicals on your fruits and vegetables, buy organic.  Do remember that most experts agree that the quantity of pesticides found on produce grown via conventional methods is miniscule and poses little to no health risks.

If you’re concerned about the environment, buy organic.  The chemical free organic growing practices do cut down on the world’s pollution footprint and encourage the replenishment of our growing soil.

But if you’re looking to beef up your nutritional intake, save your money and buy conventional fruits and vegetables.  Just eat more of them.

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Grandpa Grew Better Vegetables

There is a common belief that modern farming practices have resulted in bigger and more nutritious fruits and vegetables. That science has progressed and made our good foods even better.

Nope.

For one, the “fresh” vegetables and fruits we get at our local Sprouts or Fresh Market don’t look or taste nearly as succulent as the produce I used to eat at my grandparent’s farm. The corn that we bring home today is not as yellow or as crunchy as the ears we picked right from the fields 35 years ago. The blackberries that we buy at our local farmer’s market aren’t nearly as full and firm as the ones I used to pluck right off the bush back in the day. And don’t get me started on the current state of store bought tomatoes.

Turns out the fresh fruit and veggies we find in the stores today not only don’t taste as good, but they are also less nutritious.

According to an article in the February issue of the Journal of Hortscience, the typical vegetables found in your local market are anywhere from 5% to 40% lower in vitamins and minerals than those that were harvested 30-35 years ago. The nutrients that have been depleted over the years include iron, calcium, zinc, magnesium, and other dietary goodies.   Studies have shown that at least six of the thirteen major nutrients typically found in most vegetables have shown these drastic declines.

In addition, much is made of how modern farming techniques have enabled growers to produce larger, more “robust” fruits and vegetables.  This results in the jumbo sized tomatoes, peppers, etc, that you find in “premium” produce markets.

Bigger fruits and vegetables means more nutritious fruits and vegetables, right? More food equals more content, including vitamins and minerals, doesn’t it?

Again, nope.

According to Donald R. Davis, a former researcher with the University of Texas’s Bichemical Institute and author of the Hortscience article, today’s fruits and vegetables suffer from the “dilution effect”. They may be larger, but today’s jumbo produce actually contains more filler, or “dry matter”, than anything else. This filler actually serves to dilute the vitamin and mineral content.

Turns out that this dry matter is actually made up of starchy carbohydrates, empty of vitamins and minerals. But, guess what?

It does increases the size and therefore the yield of the harvested produce.

And how do farmers get paid?  By the yield of the harvest. Bigger fruits and veggies means more money to the grower, more weight on the scale, and more cost to the consumer.

So, you’re actually paying more money for less nutrition.

Genetic dilution is largely to blame for this. Selective breeding for purposes of increasing crop yield (remember, more yield, more money) has led to substantial declines in the percentage content of vitamins, protein, and amino acids in today’s farm fresh produce.

Another factor in the declining nutritional value of our fruits and veggies is agriculture industrialization. The increased use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers has led to crops that are being grown and harvested much faster than in the past.

Get them in. Get them out. Send them to market.

Great for the farmers, but the quick and early harvests mean that the plants spend less time in the ground. Less time in the ground means less time to absorb nutrients from the soil and less time to create them via growth processes, such as photosynthesis. In addition, many of the chemical fertilizers interfere with a plants ability to absorb particular nutrients from the soil.

Other modern farming processes, such as monoculture planting, where a single crop is grown in the same area year after year, have led to the severe depletion of nutrients in the soil.

So, we have genetic dilution that, via selective plant breeding, actually encourages the growth of produce that is larger in volume but less in nutritonal value. We have harvest cycles that rush the growing process and curtail the ability for plants to absorb nutrients from the soil and the sun. And we have modern farming practices that are not allowing our soils to replenish their supply of healthy minerals required for healthy produce.

And even though genetic dilution seems to be more severe in vegetables than fruits, the combination of all these factors means that we just aren’t getting the same quality of produce as what prior generations were consuming.

Now this certainly doesn’t mean you should give up on fruits and veggies in your diet.  Even with the reduction in healthy nutritional content, they are still the best source of the stuff that keeps us going.  Just means you may need to eat more of them.  Or maybe it just means being a little more selective in the quality of the produce you buy.

Which brings us to our next topic.

How does organically grown produce play into all this? Is it worth the extra cost at the market? That’s for our next column.  You can read it here.

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Eat Less, Live Longer

It’s fairly well accepted that a healthy diet will increase your chances of living a better life.  Even those people in line at the FatBurger drive-thru have a pretty good idea that what that kid is passing to them in the grease stained bag is not going to earn them any healthy living points.

It turns out that maybe that 3,000 calorie burger, stacked high with cheese, bacon, and mayonnaise, may be slowing you down.  AND speeding you up.

No need for us to rehash the effects of fat laden beef, blood thickening processed cheese, and chock full of cholesterol mayo on the human body.  Over time, this kind of diet will clog us up like a sludge filled crankcase.

But some new studies have shown that it’s not only the makeup of the meal that is unhealthy, but also the calorie count.

A 20 year study involving monkeys and other test animals has shown that if you cut the “normal” caloric intake by 30%, the animals live longer and fend off disease far more effectively than those that maintain a diet at the “recommended” caloric levels.

Scientists have long known that cutting the caloric intake of worms and mice will increase their lifespan, but this 20 years study out of the Wisconsin National Primate Center presents first conclusive evidence the same effects can be attained in primates.

Monkeys provided a nutritious diet at the normal recommended caloric levels were compared to monkeys provided healthy diets at caloric levels 30% below the recommended.  In other words, they ate the same foods but were given portions 30% smaller.  As the monkeys aged, the reduced calorie group showed conclusive evidence of looking healthier, avoiding disease, and maintaining high energy levels as compared to the healthy eating at normal levels group.

Does this carry over to humans?  Early testing says so.  But quite frankly, scientists are having trouble finding human test subjects that are willing to cut their daily caloric intake to 70% of the current daily recommended averages.  Think having to cut out all the fat burgers and other caloric heavy foods and replacing them with lean meat, fruits, grains, and vegetables to get to a normal caloric intake level.

Then cut it by 30% again.

Food for thought.  Or rather, less food for life.

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Resveratrol Supplement Web Scam

Oh, this is just too good. A few days ago I posted about the acai berry supplement scams that have hit the Internet.  But this new one I found just takes the cake.

I want you to click on this link to a site called News13 Direct.  If you don’t feel comfortable going to an unfamiliar site, I’ve also included a screen shot of the site’s front page here.  Or you can just click on the smaller version you see in this post.

Did you look at the site, or the screen capture?  News13 Direct.  Hmm, appears to be the news site for a New York television station.  Look just to the right and under the photos of the anchors.  Yep, says New York, NY.  And look at the menu items.

News. Weather. Sports. Entertainment.

Sure looks like a local television station’s site.  News on the front page.  Sports, business, weather, etc all available by menu.  Of course, I don’t live in New York, but it looks like News13 is one of the city’s local news affiliates.

Let’s check out the headline story on the front page:

“Health Specialist Cathy Diaz Reports On Her Experience Using Resveratrol”

A news report written by the station’s health “specialist”.

The first few lines:

I’m a 35-year-old news veteran, who’s been covering health and wellness news for more than a decade. I admit I can sometimes be jaded and skeptical with an ‘I’ve seen it all attitude.’

When the news director John Beamer asked me to do an investigative report on the nutritional supplement Resveratrol when combined with Dermapril, I had no idea that I would end up as the ’star’ of my own story. But I did!

Apparently this is a news investigation into the nutritional supplement resveratrol.  Resveratrol is the stuff found in red wine that provides healthy antioxidants.  It’s also in the current class of wonder supplements, along with the acai berry, that are supposed to provide “miraculous” anti-aging, weight loss, and cancer prevention benefits.

At first glance, this story appears to be a welcome change from all the hype we see around resveratrol on the Internet.  An actual news investigation by a health “specialist”.  Now maybe we can get some facts around whether resveratrol really works and whether I should be spending my hard earned money on buying it in pill or powder form.

The story goes on, citing multiple “authoritative” sources who rave about the benefits of resveratrol.  The story also includes multiple links to a site ResveratrolUltra.com, where lo and behold, you can get a free trial of this miracle supplement!  How convenient.

Okay, let’s look closer.

Take a look at the top of the News13Direct site (or screen capture).  See there just above the header in really tiny print?  It says “Advertisement“.  But it’s really small and blends into the brown background.

So, our television news site with it’s authentic look and feel, including the requisite airbrushed photos of the on-air personalities, is really a fake.

There is no News13.  There is no health “specialist” Cathy Diaz.  And most importantly, there is no objective or investigatory evidence around what resveratrol is or what, if any, benefits it provides.

Furthermore, the site links back to ResveratrolUltra.com via what is known an affiliate link.  That means someone is making a commission everytime someone clicks on one of those links and actually buys into the ResveratrolUltra free trial program.

Do your homework people.  These guys are getting really sneaky.

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RIP Michael Jackson & Farrah Fawcett And It’s Vacation Time!

Wow!

As much as I hate appearing to jump on the celebrity death bandwagon, it’s hard for me not to comment on the loss of two of the icons of my generation.  Icon.  Means alot of things.  The third definition according to Websters is:

“0ne who is the object of great attention and devotion; an idol”

Based on that definition, it’s clear that Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett were both pretty big icons in their time.  And the circumstances that led up to their deaths couldn’t have been more different.

Farrah was diagnosed with anal cancer some 2-3 years ago at roughly age 59.

‘Anal cancer’

Just typing it makes me shudder.  I mean could there be any other two words where you just don’t want to see them in the same sentence?

Farrah, by all accounts, was still active and living a full life until the disease really took hold.  Playing tennis, jogging, and taking care of herself.  Her early demise is a tragedy.

Then there’s Michael.  His tragedy started long before he collapsed from an apparent drug induced cardiac arrest.  And he died long before his heart gave out last week.  His decline over the last 15 or so years has been painted all over the tabloids, so I have no interest in rehashing his battles with injuries, self-mutilation, identity issues, and drugs.  He was an amazing talent.  Once upon a time.

Rest in peace Michael and Farrah.

_____________________

Vacation time is coming up.  Looking forward to the annual family vacation in Ponte Vidra.  Always fun to see Mom, my brothers, and the nephews and nieces.  Butkus Junior is getting old enough now to start having some real beach fun, so I expect he’ll be out there annoying his cousins while they’re trying to boogie board.

There is a really nice health club in Ponte Vidra that I usually try to get to while we’re down there.   This year though, I think I’m going to resist my addiction to the gym and try and focus on doing my workouts on the beach.  I’ve really gotten into body weight exercise.  The routine I’ve put together pushes me like no weight or machine based workout ever could.  I’m focusing on the whole real world strength aspect and doing exercises that work multiple muscle groups at a time.

Really really effective.

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